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HARPER'S 



NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



VOLUME XII 



DECEMBER, 1855, TO MAY, 1856. 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
185 6. 



CONTENTS OF VOLUME XII. 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA 315 

A NIGHTLY SCENE IN LONDON. By Charles Dickens G51 

BABY BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS 208 

BASKET OF THUNDERBOLTS 8G 

BELLOT 9G 

BIRCHKNOLL— A NEW GHOST STORY OF OLD VIRGINIA 33G 

CHARLES DICKENS 380 

CINDERELLA— NOT A FAIRY TALE 501 

COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN 441, 733 

CONQUEST OF MEXICO. By Joiin S. C. Abbott 1 

DISINTERESTED FRIENDSHIP 41 

DRAGON-FANG POSSESSED BY THE CONJUROR PIOU-LU 519 

EDITOR'S TABLE. 

Changes in the Direction or Talent.. 119 Domestic Society in our Country ... . 554 

Literature of Business 261 Socrates in Prison...-. G97 

Cowards and Brave Men 410 The American Pulpit 839 

EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 

Chair for December 123 Chair for March 558 

Chair for January 262 Chair for April G99 

Chair for February 413 Chair for May 844 

EDITOR'S DRAWER. 

Drawer for December 135 Drawer for March 563 

Drawer for January 270 Drawer for April 709 

Drawer for February 422 Drawer for May 854 

ENGLISH WIGS AND GOWNS 216 

EVERY INCH A KING 101 

FASHIONS FOR DECEMBER 143 

FASHIONS FOR JANUARY 287 

FASHIONS FOR FEBRUARY 431 

FASHIONS FOR MARCH 575 

FASHIONS FOR APRIL 719 

FASHIONS FOR MAY 863 

FOOLISH FOLKS.— ALL-FOOLS' DAY SKETCHES 717 

FUR-HUNTING IN OREGON 340 

GEORGE WASHINGTON. By John S. C. Abbott 289 

HALF A LIFETIME AGO 185 

HEARING (THE SENSES) 634 

HOME IN THE CINNAMON ISLE 611 

HON. MR. BLOEMUP'S CONGRESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 14! 

HOW I WAS DISCARDED 653 

HOW THE DESTRUCTION OF TREES AFFECTS THE RAIN GC>G 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF ORNITHOLOGY 286 

ISRAEL PUTNAM ,. 577 

JANUARY FIRST, A.D. 3000 145 

LITERARY NOTICES. 

Original Notices. — The Song of Hiawatha, 114. of Needlework; Miles' s Postal Reform, 260. Prescott's 
Lily; Wilson's Mexico and its Religion; Bonner's Philip the Second, 406. Ritchie's Mimic Life ; Flora's 
Child's History of the United States; Barton's Outlines Dictionary; The Irish Abroad and at Home; Arnold's 
of English Grammar; Fowler's English Grammar; Christian Life; Home Comforts; Village and Farm 
Life and Works of Charles Lamb, 115. Harper's Clas- Cottages; Barton's English Grammar; The Russian 
sical Library, 115, 40T. The Works of John C. Cal- Empire; Allen's India, 407. Man-of-War Life; My 
houn ; Lossing and Williams's National History of the First Season ; The Heart of Mabel Ware; Child's New 
United States; American Odd Fellow's Museum; Bax- Flower for Children; Hampton Heights; Our Cousin 
ter's Select Works; Hackett's Illustrations of Scrip- Veronica; Thackeray's Ballads, 408. Meister Karl's 
ture; Cone's Funeral Sermon; Campbell's Pleasures of Sketch-Book, 409. Macaulay's Histoiy of England, 
Hope; The Tattler; Eliot's Early Religious Education ; 549. Wilson's Logic; Cousin's Psychology; Abbott's 
Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes, 116. Wins- Cortez; Harper's Story Books, 552. Motley's Rise of 
low's Glory of the Redeemer; Jackson's Letters to a the Dutch Republic, 693. Schwegler's History of Phi- 
Young Physician; Andrews and Batchelor's French losophy, 695. Tappan's History of Logic; J arves's Pa- 
Instructor; Dixon's Scenes in the Practice of a New risian Sights; Maginn's Miscellanies; Mayhew'sWon- 
York Surgeon; Frothingham's Metrical Pieces; Cow- ders of Science ; James's Old Dominion ; Shoepac Rec- 
pei*'s Task, 117. Keble's Christian Year; Meek's Red ollections; Julius, 696. March's Madeira, Portugal, and 
Eagle; Carlton's New Purchase; Gibson's Prison of the Andalusias; Mackie's Life of Schamyl; Ida Pfeif- 
Weltevredin; Lawrence's Lives of the British Histo- fer's Second Journey, 835. Abbott's Teacher; Beech- 
rians; Squier's Notes on Central America; Reed's Lee- er's Physiology and Calisthenics; Osbon's Daniel Ver- 
tures on Histoiy and Poetry, 257. Hale's Library of ified in History; Gilman's Contributions to Literature, 
Standard Letters ; Post's Skeptical Era in Modern His- 887. Margaret Fuller's At Home and Abroad ; Huni- 
tory ; Abbott's Napoleon at St. Helena ; Taylor's' Poems boldt's Cuba; Memoirs of Cumberland; Whittier's 
of Home and Travel; Bailey's Mystic, 258. Courte- Panorama, 83b. — Foreign Intelligence. — New English 
nay's Calculus; Bunkley's Escaped Novice, 259. Gris- Works, 118, 409, 553, 838. New Freuch Books, 409, 
wold's Poets and Poetry of America; Rose Clark; Elm- 553,838. Death of Montgomery, 409. Death of Rogers, 
Tree Tales; Friedel; Winnie and I; Leslie's Portfolio 553, 838. 

LIFE INSURANCE— A DREAM 284 

LITTLE DORRIT. By Charles Dickens 234, 383, 526, 669, 813 

MADEIRA, PORT, AND SHERRY G01 

MAY DAY IN NEW YORK 861 

MAY DAY IN THE COUNTRY 862 

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 

United States. — Elections in New York, Massa- ada by Walker, 112. Treaty with Corral, 112. Attack 
chusetts, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, on California Steamer, 112. The Kinney Colony, 112, 
Georgia, Kansas, 111; in Washington t Territory, 112; 691. Difficulty at Panama, 112. Scarcity on the Pa- 
New York, Maryland, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, cine Coast, 113. Census of Chili, 113. Revolution in 
California, 254 ; New Hampshire, 833. Free Soil Con- Bolivia, 113. Convention in Peru, 113. Cholera in 
vention in Kansas, 111, 254. Passmore Williamson, Brazil, 113. Resignation of Alvarez, and Election of 
111. Agricultural Fair at Boston, 111. Mr. Crampton, Comonfort as President of Mexico, 405, Insurrection 

111. General Scott, 111. Free Love Club, 111. Acci- of Uraga, 405. Law against the Press, 547. Haro y 
dent on Pacific Railway, 111. Indian Hostilities, 111, Tamariz at Puebla, 548, 691, 884. Resignation of Min- 

112, 254, 404, 547, 691, 833. Cholera on Pacific Steam- isters in Nicaragua, 548. Revolutionary Movements in 
ers, 112. Relations with Japan, 112. Neutrality Laws, Buenos Ayres and Peru, 548. Relations of Brazil and 

111, 112, 253. Relations with Great Britain, 253, 689, Paraguay, 54S. Chilian Congress, 548. Pronuncia- 
834. Brig Maury, 253. Message of Governors of Geor- miento at Vera Cruz, 691. The Walker Government in 
gia, Texas, South Carolina, 253; New York, Massachu- Nicaragua, 691. Banishment of Kinney, 691. Seizure 
setts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Wis- of Transit Steamers, 834. War with Costa Rica, 834. 
consin, Nebraska, 547 ; Louisiana, 690. Law and Order Government Successes in Mexico, 834. 
Convention in Kansas, 254. Speaker of House of Re- Europe. — Rate of Discount, 114. Concordat be- 
presentatives. 402, 546. Message of the President, 403. tween Rome and Austria, 114. Hostile Demonstrations 
Irish Emigrant Aid Society, 403. The Northern Light, against the United States, 255. Expulsion of French 
403. The Baker Trial, 404. Sir John Franklin, 404. Exiles from Jersey, 255. Republican Manifesto, 255. 
The Bark Resolute, 404. Disturbances in Kansas, 404, Bank Forgers, 256. Lord Mayor's Banquet, 250. Sub- 
689, 833. President's Message on Kansas, 546. Reply marine Tunnel, 256. Close of French Exhibition, 256. 
of Governor Reeder, 546. Meeting of Legislatures of Emperor's Speech, 256. Mission of Canrobert to Swe- 
New York, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Penn- den, 256, 405, 54S. New Russian Levy, 256. Changes 
sylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Min- in British Cabinet, 405. Speech of King of Prussia, 
nesota, 547. Free State Nominations in Kansas, 547 ; 405. Russian Loan, 405. War Council at Paris, 548. 
Committees in Congress, 689. British Enlistments, 689. Parisian Peace Pamphlet, 548. Treaty between Sweden 
State Action in Relation to Kansas, 689, 882. Presi- and the Allies, 548. Danish Circular, 548. Peace Ne- 
dent's Proclamation, 6S9. Southern Commercial Con- gotiations, 549, 691, 834. Emperor of Austria to the 
vention, 690. American Conventions at Philadelphia; German Confederation, 692. Queen's Speech in Par- 
Adoption of Platform, and Nomination of Fillmore and liament, 692. Debate on Relations with America, 692. 
Donelson, 690. Republican Convention at Pittsburg ; Lord Clarendon on the Peace Negotiations, 692. New 
Statement of Mr. Blair, and Address of Convention, 690. Regiments sent -to Canada, 692. New Order of Merit, 
The Steamer Pacific, 691, 834. Slave Tragedy at Cin- 692. Annexation of the Kingdom of Oude, 692. Par- 
cinnati, 691. Mr. Dallas as Minister to England, 691, liamentary Items, 834. Dinner to Mr. Buchanan, 834. 
834. Burning of Towns in the Feejee Islands, 691. Birth of King of Algeria, 834. Emperor's Speech, 884. 
Debates in the House on Kansas, and Appointment of The War. — After the Fall of Sebastopol, 113. Cap- 
Committee of Investigation, 832. Reports in the Senate, ture of Kinburn, 118. Hostile Demonstrations, 118. 

832. Mr. Cass on Relations with Great Britain, 832. Russian Repulse before Kars, 114. Escape of the Rus- 
New Tariff Bill, 832. Measures before Congress, 832. sian Pacific Fleet, 114. Recall of General Simpson, 
State Legislature of Kansas, 832. Seizure of Arms, 833. 256. Fall of Kars, 405. Accident at Inkermann, 405. 
Utah as a State, 833. The Governorship of Wisconsin, Victory of the Turks at Ingour, 405. Austrian Proposi- 

833. Virginia Law against the Abduction of Slaves, tions, 405, 549. Text of the Propositions, 549. Russian 
833. Indian Hostilities, 833. Disasters, S33. Earth- Acceptance, 549. The Peace Conference at Paris, 6S9. 
quake in California, 833. Names of the Negotiators, 689. Armistice in the Crim- 

Sotjtiieen America. — Alvarez President of Mexico, ea, 834. State of the Troops, 834. The Sultan's decree 

112. Surrender of Matamoras, 112. Capture of Gran- in Favor of Toleration, S34. 



CONTENTS. 



MARTHA WYATT'S LIFE 7G3 

MY NEIGHBOR'S STORY 491 

PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL 224, 371, 482 

PAUL ALLEN'S WIFE, AND HOW HE FOUND HER 641 

PAUPERTOWN e 620 

PISTOL SHOT AT THE DUELISTS 500 

RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL ROGERS 808 

REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. By T. B. Thorpe 25 

RESURRECTION FLOWER 619 

RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC 769 

SEAT OF WAR 281 

SENTIMENT AND ACTION 346 

SEVEN AGES OF VIRTUE AND VICE 282 

SIGHT (The Senses) 801 

SISTER ANNE 91 

SMELL (The Senses) 494 

SNAKE CHARMING. By A. M. Henderson, M.D 647 

STORY OF EMILE ROQUE 625 

STORY OF KARS 795 

STORY OF THE WHALE 466 

TASTE (The Senses) 73 

THE DOPPELGANGER 662 

THE 'GEES 507 

THE GNAWERS 756 

THE JUNIATA. By T. Addison Richards 433 

THE KNOCKER 57 

THE SENSES 73, 179, 494, 634, 801 

THE TERRIBLE TREE 515 

TOUCH (The Senses) 179 

TRIP TO NEWFOUNDLAND 45 

TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS 779 

VALENTINES DELIVERED IN OUR STREET 429 

VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED 158 

VISIT TO THE SILVER MINES OF CENTRAL AMERICA 721 

WAY TO GET BLOWN UP 202 

WINDOLOGY 573 

WINIFRED'S VOW ■ 81 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 

12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 
16. 
17. 
18. 
19. 
20. 
21. 
22. 
23. 
24. 
25. 
26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 
30. 
31. 
32. 
33. 
34. 
35. 
3,6. 
37. 
38. 
39. 
40. 
41. 
42. 
43. 
44. 
45. 
46. 
47. 
48. 
49. 
50. 
51. 
.v> 



56. 

~>7. 
58. 
59. 
60. 
61. 



Discovery of America 1 

Cortez taking Leave of the Governor... 4 

Map of Cuba 5 

The First Mass in Yucatan 6 

First Cavalry Charge of Cortez 7 

Map of th e Route of Cortez 8 

Cortez and the Embassadors 10 

Destruction of the Idols at Zempoalla.. 12 

Massacre at Cholula 16 

First View of the Mexican Capital 17 

Map of City of Mexico 18 

Meeting of Cortez and Montezuma 19 

Fall of Montezuma 21 

Battle upon the Causeway 22 

The Capture of Guatemozin 24 

Burial of De Soto 26 

The Mississippi at Low Water 27 

The Mississippi at High Water 27 

Snags in the Mississippi 28 

Sawyers in the Mississippi 28 

Mississippi Keel-Boat 29 

Scene at a Landing 34 

The Unexpected Encounter 35 

Bob Lawton in his Glory 36 

The Man of the Free Fight 37 

Virginia Hoe-Down 38 

Zephyr Sam loaded up 38 

Captain Scott 39 

Mississippi Raft 39 

The Wood-Chopper 40 

A Freshet 40 

Squire Blaze's Picture 41 

Sambro' Light, Halifax Harbor 45 

Halifax, from the Citadel 46 

Entrance to the Harbor of St. John's... 47 

Ascent to a Flake 48 

Government Houses, St. John's 48 

St. John's, from Signal Hill 49 

Cleaning Fish 50 

Portugal Cove, near St. John's 51 

Cape Ray — Telegraph House 52 

Preparing to tow the Bark 53 

The Gale before losing Cable 54 

Sectional and Side A 7 iew of Cable 55 

Micmac Indians 56 

Mr. Bloemup at Washington 141 

A Glance at the House 141 

Congress Water 141 

Poor Stuff Ul 

Mr. Bloemup in his Seat 141 

Following the Fashion 141 

Promises his Influence 141 

A Petitioner 141 

Mr. Bloemup begins his Speech 142 

Half through his Speech 1 42 

Aspect of the House 142 

A Reply to Mr. B.'s Speech 1 42 

Mr. B. reads the Report 142 

A Few Franks 142 

Mr. Bloemup a Lion 142 

Th e Speech Manufactory 142 



62. Sortie du Bal— Child's Costume 143 

63. Suit of Furs 144 

64. Cardinal 144 

65. FurCollar 144 

66. Muff. 144 

67. Talma 144 

68. Citizen of the United Interests 145 

69. Paris, a.d. 3000 146 

70. The Bomb Ferry 146 

71. The Public Highway 147 

72. Selinghuysen's Pupils 148 

73. Would you like a Roman ? 149 

74. Great Circle of Peerless 149 

75. Legal Celebrities 150 

76. A Naturalist 150 

77. The Infantine Ward 151 

78. Vocation Decided 152 

79. The Hot-House Academv 152 

80. A Man of Fashion, a.d. 3000 153 

81. Painting the Clouds 154 

82. Mr. and Mrs. Cornosco 155 

83. Chairwoman of Committee 155 

84. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity 156 

85. Lady of Fashion, a.i>. 3000 .....:. 157 

86. The Great Valley of Virginia 158 

87. The Emigrant's Halt 159 

88. Running a Risk 160 

89. Shutting up Shop 162 

90. In a Strange Cornfield 162 

91. The Mountain Brook 163 

92. The Impromptu 164 

93. South Peak of Otter, from Hotel 165 

94. Ascent of the Peak 167 

95. Crown of Otter 168 

96. The Encampment 169 

97. The Victim 169 

98. South Peak of Otter, from Spring 170 

99. Peaks of Otter, Distant View 170 

100. Railroad Accident 171 

101. Uncle Peter 172 

102. Not a Match 172 

103. Lynchburg Team 173 

] 04. Banks of James River 1 74 

105. Night on the River 176 

106. The Cook 177 

107. A Conservative Philosopher 178 

1 08. Fire-Breathing Monster 203 

109. A Cyclop 204 

1 1 0. Prester John's Artillery 205 

111. Gothic Fire Horses ....". 205 

112. Torpedo Exploding 206 

113. Landing-Place at Alexandria 230 

114. Tomb in the Catacombs 232 

115. Alabaster Vase 232 

116. Funereal Vase 233 

117. The Birds in the Cage 236 

118. Under the Microscope 248 

119. The Seven Ages of Virtue 282 

120. The Seven Ages of Vice 283 

121. Mr. Smythe dreams 284 

122. The Insurance Office 284 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Vll 



123. The Examination 284 

124. Accident Number One 284 

125. An Escape 284 

126. A Fall 284 

127. An Explosion 284 

128. A Mistake 284 

129. Consolation 285 

130. A Shot in the Rear 285 

131. Fished Up 285 

132. On the Camden and Amboy R. R 285 

133. A Trip by Steam 285 

134. Mr. Smythe Awakes 285 

135. Self-Examination 285 

13G. The Result 285 

137. Master Jim Crow 286 

138. Miss Dinah Crow 286 

139. Home Dress.— Boy's Costume 287 

140. Under-Sleeves 288 

141. Nursery Basket 288 

142. Portrait of Washington 289 

143. Mount Vernon 289 

144. Birth-Place of Washington 291 

145. The Untamed Horse • 292 

146. Washington a Surveyor 294 

147. Braddoek's Defeat 298 

148. Washington taking the Command 301 

149. Crossing the Delaware 305 

150. Winter Quarters at Valley Forge 307 

151. News of Capture of Cornwallis 311 

152. Washington resigning Commission.... 312 

153. Inauguration of Washington 313 

154. Washington on his Death-Bed 314 

155. Plaza of Tegucigalpa 316 

156. Bridge of Jutecalpa 317 

157. Limestone Hill 318 

158. City of Tegucigalpa 318 

159. Justerigue Hill 319 

160. Sandstone Rocks, Rio Abajo 319 

161. San Diego de Yalanga 320 

162. Chichicasta Trees 321 

163. Village of Campamcnto 322 

1 64. Plowing at Lepaguare 322 

165. Indian Farm Laborers 323 

1 66. Bull-Fight in Jutecalpa 324 

167. Hacienda de Galera 324 

168. Spanish Dance 325 

169. Murcielego Bar, Rio Guayape 326 

170. Guayape River, near Lepaguare 327 

171. Map of Honduras 329 

172. Women of Lepaguare 331 

173. View of Jutecalpa 332 

174. Street in Jutecalpa 333 

175. Silver-Mining Town 334 

176. Travelers Nooning 335 

177. Street in Cairo 374 

178. Bazaar at Cairo 376 

179. Ferry at Old Cairo 378 

180. Whirling Dervise 379 

181. Portrait of Dickens 381 

182. Mr. Flintwinch Mediates 386 

183. The Room with the Portrait 388 

184. Miss Seraphina Poppy's Valentine 429 

185. Tom Lightfoot's Valentine 429 

186. Widow Sparkle's Valentine 429 

187. Peter Squeezum's Valentine 429 

188. Doctor Purgeum's Valentine 429 

189. Rev. Narcissus Violet's Valentine 429 

190. Singleton Jink's Valentine 429 

191. Miss Wigsby's Valentine 429 

192. Mr. Done Brown's Valentine 430 

193. Lionel Lavender's Valentine 430 

194. Bridget Malony's Valentine 430 



195. Caesar Washington's Valentine 430 

196. Hans. Schwillanpuff's Valentine 430 

197. Mr. Nervous Tremble's Valentine 430 

198. Young America's Valentine 430 

199. Marv Noble's Valentine 430 

200. Children's Dresses 431 

201. Coiffure 432 

202. Head-Dress 432 

203. Emblematic Coiffure 432 

204. Junction of Juniata and Susquehanna 433 

205. Up the .Juniata, at Newport 434 

206. Looking North at Newport 435 

207. The Juniata near Lewistown 436 

208. The Juniata at Huntingdon 437 

209. The Juniata at Water Street 438 

210. The Little Juniata 440 

211. Portrait of Commodore Perry 441 

212. Shanghae 443 

213. Tombs at Napa 444 

214. First Visit of Dignitaries 445 

215. Regent of Loo-Choo and Attendants . 446 

216. Street in Napa, Loo-Choo 447 

217. Loo-Choo Merchant 448 

218. Peasant of Loo-Choo 449 

219. Loo-Choans of Middle Class 450 

220. Bridge and Causewav, Loo-Choo 451 

221. Temple at Tumai 452 

222. Castle of Na-ga-gus-ko 455 

223. Dinner at the Regent's, Loo-Choo.... 457 

224. The Bonin Islands 458 

225. Natural Cave, Bonin Islands 459 

226. Mouth of Bay of Yedo 461 

227. Japanese Government Boat 461 

228. Landing at Gorahama 464 

229. Japanese Mackintosh 465 

230. The Whale Signal 466 

231. Whaling Implements 467 

232. The Dolphin 468 

233. The Porpoise 468 

234. The Sperm Whale 469 

235. The Narwhal 469 

236. Pursuit of the Sperm Whale 470 

237. The Greenland Whale 470 

238. Whalebone 471 

239. Jaw of Greenland Wh ale 471 

240. Flipper of the Whale 471 

241. Strength of the Whale 473 

242. Scene in Delcgo Bay 474 

243. Seals at Play 475 

244. Fancy Scene in the North Sea 476 

245. Pursuit of Greenland Whale 477 

246. Whale Breaching 478 

247. A Case of Nightmare 479 

248. Whale Ship Homeward bound 480 

249. Whale of Captain Deblois 481 

250. The Shadoof 483 

251. Mosque of Tooloon 485 

252. BalZooayleh 491 

253. Little Mother 531 

254. Making off 540 

255. Raising the Wind 573 

256. A Fair Wind 573 

257. A Head Wind 573 

258. A Spanking Breeze 573 

259. A White Squall 573 

260. An 111 Wind 573 

261. Running before the Wind 573 

262. A Blast of Wind Instruments 573 

263. A March Wind 574 

264. A Heavy Blow 574 

265. Blowing Great Guns 574 

266. Scudding under Bare Poles 574 



V1H 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



267. Laving to for Change of Wind 574 

268. A Whirlwind 574 

269. A Hurricane 574 

270. A Calm 574 

271. Promenade Costumes 575 

272. Head-Dress 576 

273. Chemisette 576 

274. Under-Sleeve 576 

275. Cap 576 

276. Portrait of Israel Putnam 577 

277. Putnam's Tomb 577 

278. Putnam's Birth-Place 578 

279. Room in which Putnam was born 579 

280. Putnam and the Wolf 580 

281. Putnam at Fort Edward 584 

282. Putnam's Escape down the Rapids ... 586 

283. Putnam Rescued by Molang 587 

284. Pursuit of Mrs. Howe 589 

285. Putnam Starting for Cambridge 591 

286. Putnam on Bunker's Hill 593 

287. Putnam's Escape at Horseneck 598 

288. Putnam and Colonel Humphreys 600 

289. Bringing Wine in Skins 601 

290. Funchal, from the Bay 602 

291. Hauling Wine on Sledges 602 

292. Sao Jorge 603 

293. Dolores 606 

294. Majo of Seville 607 

295. Ronda 608 

296. Jose the retired Bandit 608 

297. TheAlhambra 609 

298. Cuchares Striking the Bull 609 

299. Spanish Smuggler 610 

300. Spanish Beggar 610 

301. Ruins at Pollanarua 611 

302. Tank Scene at Evening 613 

303. Close Quarters 614 

304. The Elk Hunt 615 

305. The Elk's Leap 616 

306. The Last Plunge 617 

307. Resurrection Flower, closed 619 

308. Resurrection Flower, opening 619 

309. Resurrection Flower, opened 619 

310. Resurrection Flower, expanded 619 

311. Mr. F.'s Aunt going into Retirement. 680 

312. Little Dorrit's Party 684 

313. The Musical Fool 715 

314. The Literary Fool 715 

315. The Stage-Struck Fool 715 

316. The Fast Fool 715 

317. The Aristocratic Fool 715 

318. The Political Fool 715 

319. The Military Fool 715 

320. The Inquisitive Fool 715 

321. The Pedestrian Fool 718 

322. The Visionary Fool 718 

323. The Moneyed Fool 718 

324. The Bashful Fool 718 



325. The April Fool 718 

326. The Verdant Fool 718 

327. The Matrimonial Fool 718 

328. Not a Bit of a Fool. . 718 

329. Promenade and Dinner Toilet 719 

330. Mantilla 720 

331. Infant's Robe 720 

332. Hacienda of Lepaguare 721 

333. Map of Honduras 722 

334. Primitive Mill 723 

335. The Cone of Comayagua 724 

336. Section of a Silver Mine 725 

337. Campana, or Caving in 725 

338. Map of Mining Region 726 

339. Entrance to a Mine 727 

340. Taladro, or Drain 728 

341. Tanatero, or Ore-Carrier 728 

342. Indian Silver Miner 729 

343. Breaking Ore 730 

344. Caverns in Guayavilla Mine 732 

345. The Bay of Jedo, Japan 734 

346. View of Yokuhama 736 

347. Commissioners' Barge 737 

348. Japanese Nobles 738 

349. Japanese Wrestlers 740 

350. Japanese Ladies 744 

351. Village of Yokuhama 745 

352. Japanese Household Utensils 747 

353. Boiling the Pot 747 

354. Shrines and Candlesticks 748 

355. Buddhist Temples 749 

356. Musical Instruments 750 

357. View of Hakodadi 750 

358. Fishing at Hakodadi 752 

359. Weaving in Japan 753 

360. Blacksmith's Bellows 754 

361. Praying Machine 754 

362. American Burial Place 755 

363. TheCapabara 756 

364. The Agouti 756 

365. The Jerboa 757 

366. The Chinchilla 757 

367. The Hamster 757 

368. The Porcupine 758 

369. The Hare 758 

370. The Rabbit 758 

371. Overgrown Rabbit's Teeth 759 

372. The Flying Squirrel 759 

373. The Squirrel 759 

374. The Beaver 760 

375. Mr. and Mrs. Flintwinch 816 

376. The Ferry 824 

377. May Day in New York 861 

378. May Day in the Country 862 

379. Promenade Costumes 863 

380. Mantilla 864 

381. Bonnet Shape 864 

382. Bonnet 864 



HARPER'S 

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



No. LXVII -DECEMBER, 1855.— Vol. XII. 







AMERICA DISCOVERED, OCTOHER 12, 1492. 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HER- 
NANDO CORTEZ. 

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. 

THREE hundred and fifty years ago the ocean 
which washes the shores of America was one 
vast and silent solitude. No ship plowed its 
waves; no sail whitened its surface. On the 
] 1th of October, 1492, three small vessels might 
have been seen invading, for the first time, these 
hitherto unknown waters. They were as specks 
on the bosom of infinity. The sky above, the 
ocean beneath, gave no promise of any land. 
Three hundred adventurers were in those ships. 
Ten weeks had already passed since they saw 
the hills of the Old World sink beneath the 
horizon. For weary days and weeks they had 
strained their eyes looking toward the west, 
hoping to see the mountains of a new world 
rising in the distance. But the blue sky still 
overarched them, and the heaving ocean still 
extended in all directions its unbroken and in- 
terminable expanse. Discouragement and alarm 
now pervaded nearly all hearts, and there was a 
general clamor for return to the shores of Eu- 
rope. Christopher Columbus, who heroically 
guided this little squadron, sublime in the con- 
fidence which science and faith gave, was still 
firm and undaunted in his purpose. 



The night of the 11th of October, 1492, dark- 
ened over these lonely adventurers. The stars- 
came out in all the brilliance of tropical splen- 
dor. A fresh breeze drove the ships with in- 
creasing speed over the billows, and cooled, a.s 
with balmy zephyrs, brows heated through the 
day by the blaze of a meridian sun. Christo- 
pher Columbus could not sleep. He stood upon 
the deck of his ship silent and sad, yet indom- 
itable in energy, gazing with intense and unin- 
termitted watch into the dusky distance. Sud- 
denly he saw a light as of a torch far off in the 
horizon. His heart throbbed with irrepressible- 
tumult of excitement. Was it a meteor, or was 
it a light from the long-wished-for land? It 
disappeared, and all again was dark. But sud- 
denly again it gleamed forth, feeble and dim in 
the distance, yet distinct. Soon again the ex- 
citing ray was quenched, and nothing disturbed 
the dark and sombre outline of the sea. The 
long hours of the night to Columbus seemed in- 
terminable, as he waited impatiently for the 
dawn. But even before any light appeared in 
the east the mountains of the New World rose 
towering to the clouds before the eyes of the 
entranced, the now immortalized navigator. A 
cannon, the signal of the discovery, rolled its 
peal over the ocean, announcing to the two ves- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S55. by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of ke 
District Court for the Southern District of New Yoik. 

Vol. XII.— No. 67.— A 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



sels in the rear the joyful tidings. A shout, 
excited by the heart's intensest emotions, rose 
over the waves, and with tears, with prayers, 
and embraces, these enthusiastic men accepted 
the discovery of the New World. 

The bright autumnal morning dawned in 
richest glory, presenting to them the scene as 
of a celestial paradise. The luxuriance of trop- 
ical vegetation waved and bloomed enchanting- 
ly around them. The inhabitants, in the simple 
and innocent costume of Eden before the fall, 
crowded the shore, gazing with attitude and ges- 
ture of astonishment upon the strange phenom- 
ena of the ships. The adventurers landed, and 
were received as angels from heaven by the 
peaceful and friendly natives. Bitterly has the 
hospitality been requited. After cruising around 
for some time among the beautiful islands of the 
New World, Columbus returned to Spain, to as- 
tonish Europe with the tidings of his discovery. 
He had been absent but seven months. 

A quarter of a century passed away, during 
which all the adventurers of Europe were busy 
exploring the waters which washed those newly- 
discovered islands and continents. Various 
colonies were established in the fertile valleys 
a,nd upon the hillsides which emerged, in the 
utmost magnificence of vegetation, from the bo- 
som of the Caribbean Sea. The eastern coast 
of North America had been, during this time, 
surveyed from Labrador to Florida. The bark 
of the navigator had crept along the winding 
shores of the Isthmus of Darien and of the 
South American continent, as far as the river 
La Plata. Bold explorers, guided by intelli- 
gence from the Indians, had even penetrated 
the interior of the Isthmus, and from the sum- 
mit of the central mountain barrier, had gazed 
with delight upon the placid waves of the Pa- 
cific. But the vast indentation of the Mexican 
Gulf, sweeping far away in an apparently in- 
terminable circuit to the west, had not yet been 
penetrated. The field for romantic adventure 
which these unexplored realms presented, could 
not, however, long escape the eye of that chiv- 
alrous age. 

Some exploring expeditions were soon fitted 
out from Cuba, and the shores of the Gulf were 
discovered, and the wonderful empire of Mexico 
was opened to European cupidity. Here every 
thing exhibited the traces of a far higher civil- 
ization than had hitherto been witnessed in the 
New World. There were villages, and even 
large cities, thickly planted throughout the coun- 
try. Temples and other buildings, imposing in 
massive architecture, were reared of stone and 
lime. Armies, laws, and a symbolical form of 
writing, indicated a civilization far superior to 
any thing which had yet been found on this side 
of the Atlantic. Many of the arts were culti- 
vated. Cloth was made of cotton and of skins 
nicely prepared. Astronomy was sufficiently 
understood for the accurate measurement of 
time in the divisions of the solar year. It is 
indeed a wonder, as yet unexplained, where 
these children of the New World acquired such 



an accurate acquaintance with the movements 
of the heavenly bodies. Agriculture was prac- 
ticed with much scientific skill, and a system of 
irrigation introduced, from which many a New 
England farmer might learn a profitable lesson. 
Mines of gold, silver, lead, and copper, were 
worked. Many articles of utility and of exqui- 
site beauty were fabricated from these metals. 
Iron, the ore of which must pass through so 
many processes before it is prepared for use, 
was unknown to them. The Spanish gold- 
smiths, admiring the exquisite workmanship of 
the gold and silver ornaments of the Mexicans, 
bowed to their superiority. 

Fairs Avere held in the great market-places of 
the principal cities every fifth day, where buy- 
ers and sellers in vast numbers thronged. They 
had public schools, courts of justice, a class of 
nobles, and a powerful monarch. The territory 
embraced by this wonderful kingdom was twice 
as large as the whole of New England. The 
population of the empire is not known ; it must 
have consisted, however, of several millions. 
The city of Mexico, situated on islands in the 
bosom of a lake in the centre of a vast and 
magnificent valley in the interior, was the me- 
tropolis of this realm. 

Montezuma was king; an aristocratic king, 
surrounded by nobles upon whom he conferred 
all the honors and emoluments of the state. 
His palace was very magnificent. He was served 
from plates and goblets of silver and gold. Six 
hundred feudatory nobles composed his daily 
retinue, paying him the most obsequious hom- 
age, and exacting the same from those beneath 
themselves. Montezuma claimed to be lord of 
the whole world, and exacted tribute from all 
whom his arm could reach. His triumphant 
legions had invaded and subjugated many ad- 
jacent states, as this Roman Empire of the New 
World extended in all directions its powerful 
sway. 

It will thus be seen that the kingdom of 
Mexico, in point of civilization, was about on 
an equality with the Chinese empire of the pres- 
ent day. Its inhabitants were very decidedly 
elevated above the wandering hordes of North 
America. Montezuma had heard of the arri- 
val, in the islands of the Caribbean Sea, of the 
strangers from another hemisphere. He had 
heard of their appalling power, their aggres- 
sions, and their pitiless cruelty. Wisely he re- 
solved to exclude these dangerous visitors from 
his shores. As exploring expeditions entered 
his bays and rivers they were fiercely attacked 
and driven away. These expeditions, however, 
brought back to Cuba most alluring accounts of 
the rich empire of Mexico and of its golden 
opulence. 

The Governor of Cuba now resolved to fi: 
out an expedition sufficiently powerful to sub- 
jugate this country, and make it one of the vas- 
sals of Spain. It was a dark period of the world. 
Human rights were but feebly discerned. Su- 
perstition reigned over hearts and consciences 
with a fearfully despotic sway. Acts upon which 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 



3 



would now fall the reproach of unmitigated vil- 
lainy, were then performed with prayers and 
thanksgivings honestly offered. "We shall but 
tell the impartial story. God, the searcher of all 
hearts, can alone unravel the mazes of consci- 
entiousness and depravity, and award the just 
meed of approval and condemnation. 

The Governor looked around for a suitable 
agent to head this arduous expedition. He 
found exactly the man he wanted in Hernando 
Cortez. This man was a Spaniard, thirty-three 
years of age. He was of good birth, and had 
enjoyed more than ordinary advantages of edu- 
cation. From his earliest years he had mani- 
fested a great fondness for wild and perilous 
adventure. He wrote poetry, was an accom- 
plished gallant, enjoyed an exuberant flow of 
spirits, and detested utterly all the ordinary 
routines of human industry. 

Eor such a spirit this New "World — so fresh, so 
strange, so Eden-like — presented irresistible at- 
tractions. When twenty-one years of age Cortez 
landed in Cuba. He immediately repaired to 
the house of the Governor, to whom he was per- 
sonally known. The Governor chanced to be 
absent, but his secretary received the young cav- 
alier kindly, and assured him that there was no 
doubt that he would obtain from the Governor 
a liberal grant of land to cultivate. 

" I came to get gold," Cortez haughtily re- 
plied, " not to till the soil like a peasant." 

He was, however, induced to accept from the 
Governor a plantation, to be cultivated by slaves. 
With his purse thus easily filled, he loitered 
through several years of an idle and voluptuous 
life, during which time he was involved in many 
disgraceful amours, and many quarrels. In one 
of these'affairs of gallantry the Governor re- 
buked him. The hot blood of the young Cas- 
tilian boiled over, and Cortez entered into a 
conspiracy to obtain the removal of the Gov- 
ernor. But the imprudent and reckless adven- 
turer was arrested, manacled, and thrown into 
prison. He succeeded in breaking his fetters, 
forced open a window, dropped himself to the 
pavement, and sought refuge in the sanctuary 
of a neighboring church. Such a sanctuary, in 
that day, could not be violated. 

A. guard was secreted to watch him. He re- 
mained in the church for several days. As he 
then attempted to escape he was again seized, 
more strongly chained, and placed on board a 
ship to be sent to Hispaniola for trial. With 
extraordinary fortitude he endured the pain of 
drawing his feet through the irons which shack- 
led them ; cautiously, in the darkness of the 
night, crept upon deck, let himself down into 
the water, swam to the shore, -and, half dead 
with pain and exhaustion, obtained again the 
sanctuary of the church. 

He now consented to many a young lady 
with whose affections he had cruelly trifled. 
Her powerful family espoused his cause. The 
Governor relented, and Cortez suddenly emerged 
from the storm into sunshine and calm. He re- 
turned to his estates a wiser, perhaps a better 



man, and by devotion to agriculture, and by 
working a gold mine in which he was interest- 
ed, soon acquired quite ample wealth. His wife, 
though not of high birth, was an amiable and 
beautiful woman. She won the love of her way- 
ward and fickle husband. 

"I lived as happily with her," said Cortez, 
" as if she had been the daughter of a duchess." 

Such was the situation of Cortez when the 
tidings of the discovery of the wonderful king- 
dom of Mexico spread, with electric speed, 
through the island of Cuba. The adventurous 
spirit of Cortez was roused. His blood was fired. 
It was rumored that the Governor was about to 
fit out an expedition to invade, to conquer, to 
annex. Cortez applied earnestly to be intrust- 
ed with the expedition. He offered to con- 
tribute largely of his own wealth to fit out the 
naval armament, and liberally to disburse its 
proceeds of exaction and plunder to the govern- 
ment officials. The Governor was well instruct- 
ed in the energy, capacity, and courage of the 
applicant, and without hesitation appointed him 
to the important post. 

As Cortez received the commission of Cap- 
tain General of the expedition, all the glowing 
enthusiasm and tremendous energy of his na- 
ture were roused and concentrated upon this 
one magnificent object. His whole character 
seemed suddenly to experience a total change. 
He became serious, earnest, thoughtful, enthu- 
siastic. Mighty destinies were in his hands. 
Deeds were to be accomplished at which the 
world was to marvel. Nay, strange as it may 
seem — for the heart of man is an inexplicable 
enigma — religion, perhaps we should say relig- 
ious superstition, mingled the elements of her 
majestic power in the motives which inspired 
the soul of this strange man. He was to march 
— the apostle of Christianity — to overthrow the 
idols in the halls of Montezuma, and there to 
rear the cross of Christ. It was his heavenly 
mission to convert the benighted Indians to the 
religion of Jesus. With the energies of fire and 
sword, misery and blood, trampling horses and 
death-dealing artillery, he was to lead back these 
wandering victims of darkness and sin to those 
paths of piety which guide to heaven. Such 
was Hernando Cortez. Let philosophy explain 
the enigma as she may, no intelligent man will 
venture the assertion that Cortez was a hypo- 
crite. He was a frank, fearless, deluded en- 
thusiast. 

The energy with which Cortez moved alarm- 
ed the Governor. He feared that the bold ad- 
venturer, with his commanding genius, having 
acquired wealth and fame, would become a for- 
midable rival. He therefore despotically re- 
solved to deprive Cortez of the command. The 
Captain General was informed of his peril. With 
the decision which marked his character, though 
the vessels were not prepared for sea, and the 
complement of men was not yet mustered, ho 
resolved secretly to weigh anchor that very night . 
The moment the sun went down he called upon 
his officers and informed them of his purpose. 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




OOKTEZ TAKING LEAVE OF THE GOVERNOR. 



Every man was instantly, and silently in motion. 
At midnight the little squadron, with all on 
hoard, dropped down the bay. Intelligence was 
promptly cofiveyed to the Governor, informing 
him of this sudden and unexpected departure. 
Mounting his horse he galloped to a point of the 
shore which commanded the fleet at anchor in 
the roads. Cortez, from the deck, saw the Gov- 
ernor surrounded by his retinue. He entered a 
boat and was rowed near to the shore. The Gov- 
ernor reproached him bitterly for his conduct. 
"Pardon me," said Cortez, courteously. 
"Time presses, and there are some things 
which should be done before they are even 
thought of." 

Then, with Castilian grace, waving an adieu 
to the Governor, he returned to his ship. The an- 
chors were immediately raised, the sails spread, 
and the little fleet was wafted from the harbor 
©f St. Jago, and ere long disappeared in the dis- 
tant horizon of the sea. 

Cortez directed his course from St. Jago, 
which was then the capital of Cuba, to the port of 
Macaca, about thirty miles distant. Collecting 
hastily such additional stores as the place would 
afford, he again weighed anchor, and proceeded 
to Trinidad. This was an important town on 
the southern shore of the island, where he would 
be able to obtain those reinforcements and sup- 
plies without which it would be madness to un- 
dertake the expedition. Volunteers crowded 
to the standard. All were animated by the en- 
thusiasm which glowed in his own bosom, and 
he immediately acquired over all his followers 
that wonderful ascendency which is so instinct- 
ively conceded to genius of a high order. 

His men were generally armed with cross- 
bows, though he had several small cannon and 
some muskets. Jackets thicklv wadded with 



cotton, impervious to the javelins and arrows of 
the Mexicans, were provided as coats of mail for 
the soldiers. A black-velvet banner, embroider- 
ed with gold, and emblazoned with a cross, bore 
the characteristic device — " Let us follow the 
cross. Under this sign, with faith, we conquer." 

A trading vessel appeared off the coast laden 
with provisions. Cortez seized both cargo and 
ship, and, by the combined energies of persua- 
sion and compulsion, induced the captain to join 
the expedition. Another ship made fts appear- 
ance. It was a gift from God to these fanat- 
ical enthusiasts. It was promptly seized with 
religions praises and thanksgivings. 

Cortez now sailed around the western point 
of the island to Havana. While he was con- 
tinuing his preparations here, Barba, the com- 
mander of the place, received dispatches from 
the Governor of St. Jago, ordering him to ap- 
prehend Cortez, and seize the vessels. But 
Cortez was now too strong to be approached by 
any power which Barba had at his command. 
Barba, accordingly, informed the Governor of 
the impracticability of the attempt, and also in- 
formed Cortez of the orders he had received. 
Cortez wrote an exceedingly courteous letter to 
the Governor, informing him that, with the 
blessing of God, the fleet would sail the next 
morning. As there was some danger that the 
Governor might send a force which would em- 
barrass the expedition, the little squadron the 
next morning weighed anchor, and proceeded to 
Cape Antonio, an appointed place of rendezvous 
at the extreme western termination of the island. 

Here Cortez completed his preparations, and 
collected all the force he desired. He had now 
eleven vessels, the largest of which was of but 
one hundred tons. His force consisted of one 
hundred and ten seamen, five hundred and fifty- 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 



three soldiers, two hundred Indians, 
and a few Indian women for meni- 
al service. He had fourteen pieces 
of artillery, a good supply of ammu- 
nition, and, more than all, sixteen 
horses. This noble animal had 
never yet been seen on the con- 
tinent of America. With great dif- 
ficulty a few had been transported 
across the ocean from Spain. With 
such a force this bold fanatic un- 
dertook the conquest of the vast and 
powerful empire of Montezuma. 

Cortez was now thirty-three years 
of age. He was a handsome, well- 
formed man, of medium stature, of 
pale intellectual features, a pierc- 
ing dark eye, and of frank and win- 
ning manners. He was temperate, 
indifferent respecting food, hard- 
ships, and peril, and possessed not a 
little of that peculiar influence over 
human hearts which gave Napoleon 
an ascendency almost supernatural. 
Assembling his men around him, 
lie thus harangued them : 

"I present before you a glorious 
prize; lands more vast and opulent 
than European eyes have yet seen. 
This prize can only be won by hard- 
ship and toil. Great deeds are only 
achieved by great exertions. Glory 
is never the reward of sloth. I 
have labored hard, and staked my 
all on this undertakings for I love 
that renown which is the noblest 
recompense of man. 

** Do you covet riches more ? Be 
true to me, and I will make you 
masters of wealth of which you have 
never dreamed- You are few in 
numbers; but be strong in resolu- 
tion, and doubt not that the Al- 
mighty, who has never deserted 
the Spaniard in his contest with the Infidel, 
will shield you, though encompassed by enemies. 
Your cause is just. You are to fight under the 
banner of the cross. Onward, then, with alac- 
rity. Gloriously terminate the work so auspi- 
ciously begun." 

This speech was received with tumultuous 
cheers. The enthusiasts then partook of the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and with relig- 
ious ceremonies placed the piratic fleet under 
the protection of St. Peter. The anchors were 
raised, the sails spread, and a favoring breeze 
pressed them rapidly over the waves of the 
Mexican Gulf. It was the 18th of February, 
1519. 

Proceeding in a southwesterly direction about 
two hundred miles, they arrived, in the course 
of a week, at the island of Cozumel, which was 
separated from the main-land of Yucatan by a 
channel from twelve to thirty miles in width. 
The natives fled in terror. Cortez, however, 
by means of an interpreter, soon disarmed their 




fears, and secured friendly intercourse, and a 
mutually profitable traffic. The island was bar- 
ren, and but thinly inhabited. But the natives 
had large and comfortable houses, built of stone, 
cemented with mortar. There were several 
spacious temples of stone, with lofty towers, 
constructed of the same durable material. The 
adventurers were also exceedingly surprised to 
find in the court-yard of one of the temples an 
idol in the form of a massive stone c?-oss. 

Cortez remained upon the island about a fort- 
night, during which time all his energies were 
engrossed in accomplishing the great purposes 
of his mission. He sent two vessels to the 
main-land to make inquiries about some Span- 
iards who, it was reported, had been shipwreck- 
ed upon the coast, and* were still lingering in 
captivity. Ordaz, who commanded this expedi- 
tion, was instructed to return in eight days. 
Several parties were sent in different directions 
to explore the island thoroughly, and ascertain 
its resources. 



« 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



But the great object, in the estimation of Cor- 
tez, to be accomplished, was the conversion of 
the natives. Pie had with him several ecclesi- 
astics, men whose sincerity and piety no candid 
man can doubt. The Indians were assembled, 
and urged, through an interpreter, to abandon 
their idols and turn to the living Gocl. The sim- 
ple natives were horror-stricken at the thought. 
They assured Cortez that were they to injure 
their gods, destruction, in every awful form, 
would immediately overwhelm them. 

The bold warrior wielded bold arguments. 
"With his mailed cavaliers he made a prompt 
onslaught upon the idols ; hewed them down, 
smashed them to pieces, and tumbled the dis- 
honored and mutilated fragments into the 
streets. He then constructed a Christian altar, 
reared a cross, and an image of the Virgin and 
Holy Child ; and Mass, with all its pomp of 
robes, and chants, and incense, was for the first 
time performed in the temples of Yucatan. 

The natives were, at first, overwhelmed with 
grief and terror, as they gazed upon their pros- 
trate deities. But no earthquake shook the isl- 
and. No lightning sped its angry bolt. No 
thunders broke down the skies. The sun still 
shone tranquilly; and ocean, earth, and sky 
smiled untroubled. The natives ceased to fear 
gods who could not protect themselves, and, 
without farther argument, consented to ex- 
change their idols for the far prettier idols of 
the strangers. The heart of Cortez throbbed 
with enthusiasm and pride in contemplating his 
great and glorious achievement ; an achieve- 
ment far surpassing the miracles of Peter or of 
Paul. In one short week he had converted all 
these islanders from the service of Satan, a'nd 
had secured their eternal salvation. The fana- 
tic sincerity with which this feat was accomplish- 
ed, does not, however, redeem it from the sub- 



limity of absurdity. It is time that man is saved 
by faith ; but it is that faith which works by 
love. 

One of the ecclesiastics, Father Olmedo, a 
man of humble, unfeigned piety, recognizing in 
the religion of Christ the only poAver which can 
transform human character and prepare fallen 
man for heaven, was far from being satisfied 
with this purely external conversion. He did 
what he could to instruct and to purify. But 
it was a dark age, and the most honest minds' 
groped in gloom. 

In the mean time the parties returned from 
the exploration of the island, and Ordaz brought 
back his two ships from the main-land, having 
been unsuccessful in his attempts to find the 
shipwrecked Spaniards. Cortez had now been 
at Cozumel a fortnight. As he Avas on the 
point of taking his departure, a frail canoe was 
seen crossing the strait Avith three men in it, 
apparently Indians, and entirely naked. As 
soon as the canoe landed, one of the men ran 
franticly to the Spaniards, and informed them 
that he Avas a Christian and a countryman. His 
name A\ r as Aguilar. He had been Avrecked upon 
the shores of Yucatan, and had passed seven 
years in captivity, encountering adventures more 
marvelous than the genius of romance can create. 
He was sincerely a good man, an ecclesiastic. 
He had acquired a perfect acquaintance with 
the language, and the manners and customs of 
the natives, and Cortez received him as a Heav- 
en-sent acquisition to his enterprise. 

On the 4th of March Cortez again set sail, 
and crossing the narrow strait, approached the 
shores of the continent. Sailing directly north 
some hundred miles, hugging the coast of Yu- 
catan, he doubled Cape Catoche, and turning 
his prows to the west, boldly pressed forward 
into those unknoAvn waters, which seemed to 




THE FIRST MASS IN THE TEMPLES OF YUCATAJS, 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 




FIRST CAVALRY CHARGE, HEADED BY CORTEZ. 



extend interminably before him. The shores 
were densely covered with the luxuriant foliage 
of the tropics, and in many a bay, and on many 
a headland, could be discerned the thronged 
dwellings of the natives. After sailing west 
about two hundred miles the coast again turned 
abruptly to the south. Following the line of the 
land some three hundred miles farther, he came 
to the broad mouth of the river Tabasco, of 
which he had heard from previous explorers, 
and which he was seeking. A sand-bar at the 
mouth of the river prevented his vessels from en- 
tering. He therefore cast anchor, and taking a 
strong and well-armed party in the boats, as- 
cended the shallow stream. 

A forest of majestic trees, with underbrush, 
dense and impervious, lined the banks. The 
naked forms of the natives were seen gliding 
among the trees, following, in rapidly-accumu- 
lating numbers, the advance of the boats, and 
evincing, by tone and gesture, any thing but a 
friendly spirit. At last, arriving at an opening 
in the forest, where a smooth and grassy mead- 
ow extended from the stream, the boats drew 
near the shore, and Cortez, through his inter- 
preter, Aguilar, asked permission to land, avow- 
ing his friendly intentions. The prompt answer 
was the clash of weapons and shouts of defiance. 
Cortez, deciding to postpone a forcible landing 
till the morning, retired to a small island in the 
river, which was uninhabited. Here, establish- 
ing vigilant sentinels, he passed the night. 

In the early dawn of the next morning his 
party were in their boats, prepared for the as- 
sault. But the natives had been busy gathering 
force during the night. War-canoes lined the 
shore, and the banks were covered with native 
warriors in martial array. The battle soon com- 
menced. It was fierce and bloody, but short. 



The spears, stones, and arrows of the natives 
fell almost harmless upon the helmets and 
shields of the Spaniards. But the bullets from 
the guns of the invaders swept like hailstone* 
through the crowded ranks of the natives. Ap- 
palled by the thunder and the lightning of these 
terrific discharges, they broke and fled, leaving 
the ground covered with their slain. The blood- 
stained adventurers, under the banner of the 
cross which they had so signally dishonored, 
now marched triumphantly to Tabasco, a large 
town upon the river, but a few miles above their 
place of landing. The inhabitants fled from it 
in dismay. 

Cortez took formal possession of the town in 
the name of the sovereigns of Spain. But the 
whole surrounding country was now aroused. 
The natives, in numbers which could not be 
counted, gathered in the vicinity of Tabasco, to 
repel, if possible, the terrible foe. Cortez sent 
immediately to the ships for six cannon, his 
whole cavalry of sixteen horses, and every avail- 
able man. Thus strengthened, he, with all his 
men, partook of the sacrament of the Lord'b 
Supper, earnestly implored the Divine blessing 
in extending the triumphs of the cross over the 
kingdom of Satan, and marched forth to the 
merciless slaughter of those valiant but power- 
less men, who were fighting only for their coun- 
try and their homes. 

A few miles from the city, on a level plain, 
the Spanish invaders encountered the Indians. 
The lines of their encampment were so extend- 
ed and yet so crowded, that the Spaniards esti- 
mated their numbers at over forty thousand. 
Cortez had about six hundred men. The na- 
tives fought bravely. But the cannon, appalling 
their hearts with its terrific thunders, swept 
death and awful mutilation through their ranks. 



8 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



The ground was covered with the dying and the 
dead. Still they remained firm, with an intre- 
pidity which merited victory, as they discharged 
their javelins, arrows, and other powerless mis- 
siles, upon the impenetrable coats of mail which 
protected their foes. 

At last the whole body of cavalry, sixteen 
strong, headed by Cortez, having taken a circuit- 
ous route, fell suddenly upon their rear. The 
Indians had never seen a horse before. They 
thought the rider and the steed one animal. 
As this terrific apparition came bounding over 
the plain, the horsemen, cased in steel, and ut- 
tering loud outcries, cutting down the naked na- 
tives on the right and on the left with their keen 
blades, while, at the same moment, the artillery 
and infantry made a charge with their thunder- 
ing and death-dealing roar, the scene became 
too awful for mortal courage to endure. The 
natives, in utter dismay, fled from foes of such de- 
moniac aspect and energy. The slaughter had 
been so aAvful before their flight, that the Span- 




iards extravagantly estimated the number of the 
dead left upon the ground at thirty thousand. 

Cortez immediately assembled his soldiers 
around him, and, like Nelson at Aboukir, or- 
dered prayers. He then sent a message to the 
natives that he would forgive them if they Avould 
send in their entire submission. But he threat- 
ened, if they refused, " that he would ride over 
the land, and put every living thing in it, man, 
woman, and child, to the sword." The spirit of 
resistance was utterly crushed. The natives 
were reduced to abject helplessness. They were 
now in a suitable frame of mind for conversion. 
Cortez recommended that they should exchange 
their idols for the gods of Papal Rome. They 
made no objections. Their images were dashed 
in pieces, and, with very imposing religious cere- 
monies, the Christianity of Cortez — a pitiful 
burlesque upon the religion of Jesus Christ — 
was instituted in the temples of Yucatan. 

In all this tremendous crime there was ap- 
parently no hypocrisy. It requires Infinite wis- 
dom to award judgment to mortals. 
The two Catholic priests, Olmedo 
and Diaz, were probably sincere 
Christians, truly desiring the spir- 
itual renovation of the Indians. 
They felt deeply the worth of the 
soul, and did all they could, rightly 
to instruct these unhappy and deep- 
ly-wronged natives. They sincere- 
ly pitied their sufferings ; but deem- 
ed it wise that the right eye should 
be plucked out, and that the right 
arm should be cut off, rather than 
that the soul should perish. "He 
knoweth our frame ; He remem- 
bereth that we are but dust." 

Cortez having thus, in the cam- 
paign of a week, annexed the whole 
of these new provinces, of unknown 
extent, to Spain, and having con- 
verted the natives to the Christian- 
ity of Rome, prepared for his de- 
parture. Decorating his war-boats 
with palm-leaves — the symbols of 
peace — he descended the river to 
his ships, which were anchored at 
the mouth. Again spreading his 
sails and catching a favorable 
breeze, he passed rejoicingly on 
toward the shores of Mexico. The 
newly-converted natives were left 
to bury their dead, to heal, as they 
could, their splintered bones and 
gory wounds, and to wail the dirge 
of the widow and the orphan. How 
long they continued to prize a re- 
ligion forced upon them by such 
arguments of blood and woe we are 
not informed. 

The sun shone brightly on the 
broad Mexican Gulf, and zephyrs, 
laden with fragrance from the lux- 
uriant shores, swelled the flowing 
sheets. The temples and housee 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 







of the natives, and their waving fields of Indian 
corn, were distinctly visible from the decks. 
Many of the promontories and headlands were 
covered with multitudes of tawny figures, dec- 
orated with all the attractions of barbaric splen- 
dor, gazing upon the fearful phenomenon of 
the passing ships. Cortez continued his course 
several hundred miles, sweeping around the 
shores of this magnificent gulf, until he arrived 
at the island of San Juan de Ulua. A pre- 
vious explorer had touched at this spot. 

It was the afternoon of a lovely day. Earth, 
nea, and sky smiled serenely, and all the ele- 
ments of trouble were lulled to repose. As the 
ships entered the spacious bay, a scene as of 
enchantment opened around the voyagers. In 
the distance, on grassy slopes and in the midst 
of luxuriant^groves, the villages and rural dwell- 
ings of the natives were thickly scattered. The 
shores were covered with an eager multitude, 
contemplating with wonder and awe the sublime 
spectacle of the fleet. Cortez selected a shel- 
tered spot, dropped his anchors, and furled his 
sails. Soon a light canoe, filled with natives, 
shot from the shore. The ship which conveyed 
Cortez was more imposing than the rest, and 
the banner of Spain floated proudly from its 
topmast. The Mexicans steered for this vessel, 
and with the most confiding frankness ascended 
its sides. They were Government officials, and 
brought presents of fruits, flowers, and golden 
ornaments. Cortez, to his great chagrin, found 
that his interpreter, Aguilar, though perfectly 
familiar with the language of Yucatan, did not 
understand the language of Mexico. But from 
this dilemma he was singularly extricated. 

After the terrible battle of Tabasco, Cortez 
had received, as a propitiatory offering, twenty 
beautiful native females. Cortez guiltily al- 
lowed himself to take one of the most beauti- 
ful of these, Marina, for his wife. It is true 
that Cortez had a worthy spouse upon his plan- 
tation at Cuba — it is true that no civil or re- 
ligious rites sanctioned this unhallowed union — 
it is true that Cortez was sufficiently enlight- 
ened to know that he was sinning against the 
law of God ; but the conscience of this ex- 
traordinary man was strangely seared. Intense 
devotion and unblushing sin were marvelously 
blended in his character. It must be admitted 
that the Romish faith he cherished favored 
these inconsistencies. For the Church he toiled, 
and the Church could forgive sin. 

But Marina was a noble woman. The rela- 
tion which she sustained to Cortez did no vio- 
lence to her conscience or to her instincts. She 
had never been instructed in the school of Christ. 
Polygamy was the religion of her land. She 
deemed herself the honored wife of Cortez, and 
dreamed not of wrong. She was the daughter 
of a rich and powerful cazique, who had died 
when she was young. Her career had been ro- 
mantic in the extreme. Like Joseph, she had 
been sold, and had passed many years in Mex- 
ico. She was thus familiar with the language 
and customs of the Mexicans. 



Marina was in all respects an extraordinary 
woman, and she figures largely in the scenes 
which we are about to relate. Nature had done 
much for her. In person she was exceedingly 
beautiful. She had winning manners, and a 
warm and loving heart. Her mind was of a 
superior order. She very quickly mastered the 
difficulties of the Castilian tongue, and thus 
spoke three languages with native fluency — that 
of Mexico, of Yucatan, and of Spain. She was 
bound to Cortez by the tenderest ties, and soon 
became the mother of his son. 

Through her interpretation, Cortez ascer- 
tained the most important facts respecting the 
great Empire of Mexico. He learned that two 
hundred miles in the interior was situated the 
capital of the empire ; and that a monarch, 
named Montezuma, beloved and revered by his 
subjects, reigned over the extended realm. The 
country was divided into provinces, over each of 
which a governor presided. The province in 
which Cortez had landed was under the sway 
of Teuhtlile, who resided about twenty miles in 
the interior. 

Cortez immediately and boldly landed his 
whole force upon the beach, and constructed a 
fortified camp, which was protected by his heavy 
cannon planted upon the hillocks. The kind 
natives aided the strangers in rearing their huts, 
brought them food and presents, and entered 
into the most friendly traffic. Thus they warmed 
the vipers which were to sting them. It was, 
indeed, a novel scene, worthy of the pencil of 
the painter, which that beach presented day 
after day. Men, women, and children, boys 
and girls, in every variety of barbaric costume, 
thronged the encampment, presenting the peace- 
ful and joyful confusion of a fair. The rumor of 
the strange arrival spread far and wide, and each 
day accumulating multitudes were gathered. 
Governor Teuhtlile heard the astounding tid- 
ings, and, with an imposing retinue, set out from 
his palace to visit his uninvited guests. The in- 
terview was conducted with all the splendor of 
Castilian etiquette and Mexican pomp. The 
pageant was concluded by a military display of 
the Spaniards, drawn out upon the beach, cav- 
alry, artillery, and infantry, in battle array. No 
words can describe the amazement of the awe- 
stricken Mexicans, as they witnessed the rapid 
evolutions of the troops, their burnished armor 
gleaming in the rays of the sun, and the terrible 
war-horses, animals which they had never before 
seen, with their mounted riders, careering over 
the sands. But when the cannons uttered their 
tremendous roar, and the balls were sent crash- 
ing through the trees of the forest, their wonder 
was lost in unspeakable terror. 

Cortez informed the governor that he was 
the subject of a powerful monarch beyond the 
seas, and that he brought valuable presents for 
the Emperor of Mexico, which he must deliver 
in person. Teuhtlile promised to send imme- 
diate word to the capital of the arrival of the 
Spaniards, and to communicate to Cortez Mon- 
tezuma's will as soon as it should be ascertained. 



10 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



1111111 




INTERVIEW BETWEEN COUTEZ AND THE EMBASSADORS OF MONTEZUMA. 



A week passed while Cortez remained in his 
encampment awaiting the return of the courier. 
The friendly natives supplied the Spaniards 
abundantly with every thing they could need. 
By the command of the Governor more than a 
thousand huts, of branches and matting, were 
reared in the vicinity for the accommodation 
of the Mexicans, who, without recompense, were 
supplying the table of Cortez and his men. 

At the expiration of eight days an embassy 
arrived at the camp from the Mexican capital. 
Two nobles of the court, accompanied by a 
retinue of a hundred soldiers, bearing magnifi- 
cent gifts from Montezuma, presented them- 
selves before the pavilion of Cortez. The em- 
bassadors saluted the Spanish chieftain with the 
greatest reverence, bowing before him, and en- 
veloping him in clouds of incense which arose 
from waving censers borne by their attendants. 
The presents which they brought — in silver, in 
gold, in works of art, of beauty, and of utility — 
excited the rapture and the amazement of the 
Spaniards. There were specimens of workman- 
ship in the precious metals which no artists in 
Europe could rival. A Spanish helmet, which 
had been sent to the capital, was returned filled 
with grains of pure gold. These costly gifts 
were opened before Cortez in lavish abundance, 
and they gave indications of opulence hitherto 
undreamed of. After they had been sufficiently 
examined and admired, one of the embassadors 
very courteously said : 

" Our master is happy to send these tokens 
of his respect to the King of Spain. He regrets 
that he can not enjoy an interview with the 
Spaniards. But the distance of his capital is 
too great, and the perils of the journey are too 
imminent, to allow of this pleasure. The stran- 
gers are therefore requested to return to their 



own homes with these proofs of the friendly 
feelings of Montezuma." 

Cortez was much chagrined. He earnestly, 
however, renewed his application for permission 
to visit the Emperor. But the embassadors, as 
they retired, assured him that another applica- 
tion would be unavailing. They, however, took 
a few meagre presents of shirts and toys, which 
alone remained to Cortez, and departed on their 
journey of two hundred miles with the reiterated 
application to the Emperor. It was now evi- 
dent that the Mexicans had received instruc- 
tions from the court, and that all were anxious 
that the Spaniards should leave the country. 
Though the natives manifested no hostility, they 
were cold and reserved, and ceased to supply 
the camp with food. The charm of novelty 
was over. Insects annoyed the Spaniards. 
They were blistered by the rays of a meridian 
sun reflected from the sands of the beach. 
Sickness entered the camp, and thirty died. 

But the treasures which had been received 
from Montezuma, so rich and so abundant, in- 
spired Cortez and his gold-loving companions 
with the most intense desire to penetrate an 
empire of so much opulence. They, however, 
waited patiently ten days, when the embassadors 
again returned. As before, they came laden 
with truly imperial gifts. The gold alone of 
the ornaments which they brought was valued 
by the Spaniards at more than fifty thousand 
dollars. The message from Montezuma was, 
however, still more peremptory than the first. 
He declared that he could not permit the Span- 
iards to approach his capital. Cortez, though 
excessively vexed, endeavored to smother the 
outward expression of his irritation. He gave 
the embassadors a courteous response, but turn- 
ing to his officers, he said : 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 



11 



" This is truly a rich and a powerful prince. 
Yet it shall go hard but we will one day pay 
him a visit in his capital." 

The embassadors again retired, with dignity 
and with courtesy. That night every hut of the 
natives was abandoned. Cortez and his com- 
panions were left to themselves in entire soli- 
tude. No more supplies were brought to their 
camp. After a few days of perplexity, and 
when murmurs of discontent began to arise, 
Cortez decided to establish a colony upon the 
coast. A city was founded, called the Rich 
City of the True Cross ; Villa Rica de la Vera 
Cruz. 

A government was organized, and Cortez 
accepted the appointment of chief magistrate. 
He thus assumed the high position of the gov- 
ernor of a new colony, responsible only to the 
• monarch in Spain. By this bold act he re- 
nounced all subjection to the Governor of Cuba. 
He immediately dispatched a strong party into 
the interior to forage for provisions. Just then 
five Indians came to the camp, as delegates 
from a neighboring rebellious province, to solicit 
the alliance of the Spaniards to aid them in 
breaking from the yoke of Montezuma. They 
belonged to the powerful nation of the Totonacs, 
which had been conquered by the Mexican em- 
pire. The capital of their country, Zempoalla, 
was an important city of thirty thousand inhab- 
itants, but -a few days' march from Vera Cruz. 
Cortez listened eagerly to this statement. It 
presented just the opportunity he desired, as it 
opened the way for a quarrel with Montezuma. 
He immediately put his heavy guns on board 
the fleet, and ordered it to coast along the shore 
to an appointed rendezvous at Chiahuitzla. 
Then heading his troops, he set out on a bold 
march across the country to the capital of his 
new-found allies, which was near the spot to 
which he had sent his fleet. 

The beauty of the country through which 
they passed entranced the hearts even of these 
stern warriors. They were never weary of 
expressing their delight in view of the terrestrial 
paradise which they had discovered. A dele- 
gation soon met them from the Indian city, 
large parties of men and women with courteous 
words, and winning smiles, and gifts of gold, and 
food, and flowers. The natives had many at- 
tractions of person and manners ; and a peculiar 
degree of mental refinement was to be seen in 
their passionate love of flowers, which adorned 
their persons, and which bloomed in the utmost 
profusion around all their dwellings. Cortez 
and his steed were almost covered with wreaths 
of roses woven by the fair hands of his new- 
found friends. 

The narrow streets of Zempoalla were throng- 
ed with admiring and applauding thousands as 
the stern soldiers of Cortez, headed by the 
cavalry of sixteen horses, and followed by the 
lumbering artillery, instruments which with 
thunder roar sped lightning bolts, marched, 
with floating banners and pealing music, to the 
spacious court-yard of the temple appointed for 



their accommodation. The adventurers were 
amazed in meeting such indications of wealth, 
of civilization, and of refinement, as they en- 
countered on every side. The Cazique, with 
much barbaric pomp, received his formidable 
guest and ally. 

The next morning Cortez, with an imposing 
retinue of fifty men and with all the accom- 
paniments of Castilian pomp, paid a return 
visit to the Cazique of Zempoalla in his own 
palace. He there learned, to his almost un- 
utterable delight, that it would not be difficult 
to excite one half of the Mexican nation against 
the other; and that he, by joining either part 
with his terrible artillery and cavalry, could 
easily turn the scale of victory. 

Cortez now continued his march some sixteen 
miles farther to the bay of Chiahuitzla, where 
his ileet had already cast anchor. The Cazique 
supplied his troops with abundant food, and 
with four hundred men to carry their baggage. 
They found a pleasant town, on an abrupt head- 
land, which commanded the Gulf, and they were 
received with great kindness. They were still 
within the ancient limits of the Totonacs, and 
the Cazique of Zempoalla had followed the 
Spaniards, borne on a gorgeous palanquin. 
Many other chiefs were now assembled, and 
very important deliberations began to arise. 

In the midst of this state of tilings a singular 
commotion was witnessed in the crowd, and 
both people and chiefs gave indications of great 
terror. Five strangers appeared, tall, imposing 
men, with bouquets of flowers in their hands, and 
followed by obsequious attendants. Haughtily 
these strangers passed through the place, look- 
ing sternly upon the Spaniards, without deign- 
ing to address them either by a word or a ges- 
ture. They were lords from the court of Mon- 
tezuma. Their power was invincible and terri- 
ble. They had witnessed, with their own eyes, 
these rebellious indications. The chiefs of the 
Totonacs turned pale with consternation. All 
this was fully explained by Marina to the aston- 
ished Spanish chieftain. 

The Totonac chiefs were summoned to appear 
immediately before the lords of Montezuma. 
Like terrified children they obeyed. Soon they 
returned trembling to Cortez, and informed him 
that the lords were indignant at the support 
which they had afforded the Spaniards, contrary 
to the express will of their Emperor, and that 
they demanded, as the penalty, twenty young 
men and twenty young women of the Totonacs 
to be offered in sacrifice to their gods. Cortez 
assumed an air of indignation and of authority. 
He declared that he should never permit any 
such abominable practices of heathenism. And 
he imperiously ordered the Totonacs immedi- 
ately to arrest the lords of Montezuma and put 
them in prison. The poor Totonacs were ap- 
palled at the very idea. Montezuma swayed 
the sceptre of a Caesar, and bold indeed must 
he be who would dare thus to brave his wrath. 
But Cortez was inexorable. The chiefs were 
in his power. Should he abandon them now, 



12 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



they were ruined hopelessly. It was possible 
that, with the thunder and the lightning at his 
command, he might protect them even from 
the wrath of Montezuma. Thus compelled, the 
chiefs tremblingly arrested the lords. 

Cortez then condescended to perform a deed 
of indelible dishonor. In the night he promoted 
the escape of two of the Mexican lords ; had 
them brought before him, and expressed his 
sincere regret at the insult and the outrage 
which they had received from the Totonacs. 
He assured them that he would do every thing 
in his power to aid in the escape of the others, 
and requested them to return to the court of 
their monarch, and assure him of the friendly 
spirit of the Spaniards, of which this act of their 
liberation was to be a conspicuous proof. The 
next morning the rest were liberated in the 
same way. With a. similar message they were 
sent to the capital of Mexico. Such was the 
treachery with which Cortez rewarded his friend- 
ly allies. History has no language sufficiently 
severe to condemn an action so revolting to the 
instincts of honor. 

Cortez now informed the Totonacs that mat- 
ters had gone so far that no possible mercy could 
be expected from Montezuma. He told them, 
and with truth which was undeniable, that their 
only possible hope consisted now in uniting 
cordially with him. This was manifest. The 
terrified chiefs took the oath of allegiance to 
Cortez, and with all their people became his 
obsequious vassals. 

Here the spot was selected for the new city, 
the capital of the Spanish colony. A fort was 
constructed, public buildings raised, and, all 
hands being eagerly employed, with the cordial 
co-operation of the natives, a town rose as by 
magic. This was the citadel of the Spaniards, 



where they could form their plans, and from 
whence they could move forward in their enter- 
prises. While thus busily employed a new 
embassy from the court of Montezuma appeared 
in the unfinished streets of Vera Cruz. Monte- 
zuma, alarmed by the tidings he received of the 
appalling and supernatural power of the Span- 
iards, deemed it wise to accept the courtesy 
which had been offered in the liberation of his 
imprisoned lords, and to adopt a conciliatory 
policy. The Totonacs were amazed that the 
power of the Spaniards was such as thus to 
intimidate even the mighty Montezuma. This 
greatly increased the veneration of the Totonacs 
for their European allies. 

Cortez now made very strenuous efforts to 
induce the Cazique of Zempoalla to abandon 
his idols and the cruel rites of heathenism, 
among which Avere human sacrifices, and to ac- 
cept in their stead the symbols of the true faith. 
But upon frhis point the Cazique was inflexible. 
He declared that his gods were good enough for 
him, and that inevitable destruction would over- 
whelm him and his people were he to incur 
their displeasure. Cortez finding argument ut- 
terly in vain, then assembled his warriors, and 
thus addressed them : 

" Heaven will never smile on our enterprise 
if we countenance the atrocities of heathenism. 
Eor my part, I am resolved that the idols of the 
Indians shall be destroyed this very hour, even 
if it cost me my life." 

The fanatic warriors now marched for one of 
the most imposing of the Totonac temples. The 
alarm spread widely through the thronged streets 
of Zempoalla. The whole population seized 
their arms to defend their gods, and a scene of 
fearful confusion ensued. Sternly the inflexi- 
ble Spaniard strode on. Fifty men climbed to 




CORTEZ DESTROYING THE IDOLS AT ZEMI>OALLA. 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 



13 



the summit of the pyramidal temple, tore down 
the massive wooden idols, and tumbled them 
into the streets. They then collected the muti- 
lated fragments and burned them to ashes. The 
heathen temple was then emptied, swept, and 
garnished. The Totonac chiefs, passively yield- 
ing, were dressed in the white robes of the Cath- 
olic priesthood, and, with lighted candles in 
their hands, aided in installing an image of the 
Virgin in this shrine which had been polluted 
by all the horrid orgies of pagan abominations. 
It was a blessed change. The very lowest and 
most corrupt form of Christianity is infinitely 
above the most refined creations of paganism. 
Mass, with all its pomp, was then performed. 
The Indians were pleased. It is said that their 
emotions were so much excited that they wept. 
They made no farther resistance, and cheerfully 
exchanged the hideous idols of Mexico for the 
more attractive and the more merciful idols of 
Rome. Let no one here accuse us of want of 
candor ; for no one can deny that, to these poor 
natives, it was merely an exchange of idols. 

Cortez having accomplished this all-important 
work of converting his allies into fellow-Chris- 
tians, returned to Vera Cruz. Some of the 
companions of Cortez were alarmed by the bold 
movements of their leader, and a conspiracy was 
formed to seize one of the vessels and escape to 
Cuba. The conspiracy was detected. The of- 
fenders were punished inexorably ; and Cortez 
resolved to prevent the possible repetition of 
such an attempt by destroying his fleet ! Most 
of the troops were in Zempoalla. All the ships 
but one, after having been dismantled of every 
movable article, were scuttled and sunk. 

When the soldiers heard of the deed they 
were struck with consternation. Escape was 
now impossible. Murmurs of indignation, loud 
and deep, began to rise against Cortez. He im- 
mediately assembled the troops around him, 
and by his peculiar tact soothed their anger, 
and won them to his cause. They could not be 
blind to the fact that their destiny was now de- 
pending entirely upon their obedience to their 
leader. The least insubordination would lead 
to inevitable ruin. Cortez closed his speech 
with the following forcible words : 

"As for me, I have chosen my part. I will 
remain here while there is one to bear me com- 
pany. If there be any so craven as to shrink 
from sharing the danger of our glorious enter- 
prise, let them go home. There is still one ves- 
sel left. Let them take that and return to Cuba. 
They can tell there how they have deserted their 
commander, and can patiently wait till we re- 
turn loaded with the spoils of the Mexicans." 

Universal enthusiasm was excited by this ap- 
peal, and one general shout arose — "To Mexi- 
co ! to Mexico !" Cortez now made vigorous 
preparations for his march uninvited, and even 
forbidden, to the capital of Montezuma. He 
took with him four hundred Spaniards, fifteen 
horses, and seven pieces of artillery. His al- 
lies, the Totonacs, also furnished him with two 
thousand three hundred men. His whole armv 



of invasion amounted to but twenty-eight hun- 
dred. Cortez made a very devout speech to his 
companions at the moment of his departure. 

"The blessed Saviour," said he, "will give 
us victory. We have now no other refuge than 
the kind providence of God and our own stout 
hearts." x 

It was a bright and beautiful morning in Au- 
gust, 1519, when this merciless army of fanatics 
commenced their march of piracy and blood. 
For two days they moved gayly along through 
an enchanting country of luxuriance, flowers, 
and perfume, encountering no opposition. In- 
dian villages were thickly scattered around, and 
scenery of surpassing magnificence and loveli- 
ness was continually opening before their eyes. 
On the evening of the second day they arrived 
at the beautiful town of Xalapa, which was filled 
with the country residences of the wealthy na- 
tives, and which commanded a prospect in 
which the beautiful and the sublime were lav- 
ishly blended. Still continuing their march 
through a well-settled country, as they ascend- 
ed the gradual slope of the Cordilleras, on the 
fourth day they arrived at Naulinco. This was 
a large and populous town. The adventurers 
were received with great kindness. Cortez was 
very zealous, as in all cases, to convert the na- 
tives to Christianity. He succeeded so far as to 
raise a cross in the market-place, which it was 
hoped would excite the adoration of the untu- 
tored spectators. 

They now entered into the defiles of the 
mountains, where they encountered rugged 
paths and fierce storms of wind and sleet. A 
weary march of three days brought them to 
the high table-lands of the Cordilleras, seven 
thousand feet above the level of the sea, and ex- 
tending, a fertile and flowery savanna, before 
them for many leagues. It was a temperate re- 
gion beneath a tropical sun. The country was 
highly cultivated, and luxuriantly adorned with 
hedges, with groves, with waving fields of maize, 
and with picturesque towns and villages. God 
did indeed seem to smile upon these reckless 
adventurers. Thus far their march had been 
as a delightful holiday excursion. 

They soon entered a large city, Tlatlanquite- 
pec. It was even more populous and more im- 
posing in its architecture than Zempoalla. But 
here they witnessed appalling indications of the 
horrid atrocities of pagan idolatry. They found, 
it is stated, piled in order, a hundred thousand 
skulls of human victims who had been offered in 
sacrifice to their gods. There was a Mexican 
garrison stationed in this place, but not suffi- 
ciently strong to resist the invaders. They, 
however, gave Cortez a very cold reception, and 
incited rather than discouraged his zeal by 
glowing descriptions of the wealth and the 
power of the monarch whose court he was ap- 
proaching. Cortez again made a vigorous but 
an unavailing effort to introduce among these 
benighted pagans, in exchange for their cruel 
superstitions, the infinitely more harmless and 
mild idolatry of Rome. In his zeal he was just 



H 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



about ordering an onslaught upon the hideous 
idols with sword and hatchet, when the sincere- 
ly pious Father Olmedo dissuaded him. 

" By thus violently introducing our religion," 
said this good man, "we shall but expose the 
sacred symbol of the cross and the image of the 
sacred Virgin to insult as soon as we shall have 
departed. We must wait till we can instruct 
their dark minds." 

The Roman Catholic Church has sent out 
into the world as self-denying and as devoted 
Christians as the world has ever seen. Let the 
truth be fully and cordially admitted. 

After a rest of five days the route was again 
commenced. Their road wound along the banks 
of a broad and tranquil stream, fringed with an 
unbroken line of Indian villages. Some twenty 
leagues of travel brought them to the large town 
of Xalacingo. Here they met with friendly 
treatment, and made another halt of several 
days. Again resuming their march, they soon 
entered the country of a powerful people called 
the Tlascalans. This nation had successfully 
resisted for many years the assailing legions of 
Montezuma. The adventurers here met with 
fortifications of stone of immense strength and 
magnitude, constructed with much scientific 
skill. After pressing along some dozen miles in 
this new country they met a large hostile force 
of Indians, who attacked them with the fiercest 
fury. Cortez and his band were nearly over- 
powered, when the artillery came up and open- 
ed a dreadful fire. The thunder of the guns, 
which the Indians had never heard before, and 
the horrid carnage of the grape-shot sweeping 
through their ranks, compelled the warlike na- 
tives at last, though slowly and sullenly, to re- 
tire. Two of the horses were killed in this con- 
flict, a loss which Cortez deeply deplored. 

It was noAv the 2d of September. Cortez had 
added some recruits from the natives to his 
army, so that he now numbered about three 
thousand men. Prayers and thanksgiving were 
here offered for the success of the enterprise 
thus far, and this whole band of blood-stained 
warriors partook of the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper in accordance with the rites of the Ro- 
man Catholic Church. The army now advanced 
firmly, but with the utmost possible vigilance. 
They were drilled to the most perfect discipline, 
and inspired with the highest fanatic zeal. 

As they were emerging from a valley into a 
wide-spread plain they again encountered the 
enemy, drawn up in battle array, in numbers 
apparently overwhelming. With plumes and 
banners, and gilded helmets glittering in the 
morning sun, the Indian host presented an as- 
pect truly appalling. Cortez estimated their 
numbers at one hundred thousand. The battle 
was fierce in the extreme. Cortez arranged his 
men in a square. The natives came pouring 
upon them like ocean billows, rending the heav- 
ens with their shouts, and deafening the ear 
with the clangor of gongs and drums. But 
soon the terrific cannon uttered its roar. Ball 
and grape-shot swept through the dense ranks, 



mowing down, in hideous mutilation, whole 
platoons at a discharge. Immense multitudes 
of the dead now covered the plain, and eight of 
the chiefs had fallen. The commander of the 
native army finding it in vain to contend against 
these new and apparently unearthly weapons, 
ordered a retreat. The natives retired in as 
highly disciplined order as would have been 
displayed by French or Austrian troops. The 
exhausted victors, many of them wounded and 
bleeding, encamped upon the ground. The 
darkness and the silence of the night again 
overshadowed them. Cortez devoted the next 
day to the repose and the refreshment of his 
army, and sent an embassy to the camp of the 
Tlascalans proposing an armistice, and stating 
that he wished to visit their capital, Tlascala, as 
a friend. But in the mean time, to intimidate 
the natives, he headed a party of cavalry and 
infantry, and set out on a foraging expedition. 
Wherever he encountered any resistance he in- 
flicted condign punishment with fire and SAVord. 
The embassy soon returned from the camp of 
the natives with the following defiant re- 
sponse : 

"The Spaniards may pass on, as soon as they 
choose, to Tlascala. When they reach it, their 
flesh will be hewn from their bones for sacrifice 
to the gods. If they prefer to remain where 
they are, we shall visit them to-morrow." 

It was a terrible hour. The Tlascalans had 
recruited their forces, and were prepared for a 
decisive battle. The stoutest hearts in the 
Spanish army felt and admitted the magnitude 
of the peril. Their only hope was in the ener- 
gies of despair. Every man confessed himself 
that night to good Father Olmedo, and obtained 
absolution. Then, lulled to peace of spirit by 
the delusion that they were the accepted sol- 
diers of the cross of Christ, they fell asleep. 

The morning of the 5th of September, 1519, 
dawned cloudless and brilliant upon the adven- 
turers encamped upon these high table-lands of 
the Cordilleras. Cortez made energetic ar- 
rangements for the conflict, addressed a few 
glowing words to his troops, and advanced to 
meet the foe. They had marched about a mile 
and a half when they met the Tlascalan army, 
filling a vast plain, six miles square, with their 
thronging multitudes. They were decorated 
with the highest appliances of barbaric taste. 
Their weapons were slings, arrows, javelins, 
clubs, and rude swords. The moment the Span- 
iards appeared the Tlascalans, uttering hideous 
yells, and with all the inconceivable clangor of 
their military bands, rushed upon them. For 
four hours the dreadful battle raged. Again 
and again it appeared as if the Spaniards would 
be overwhelmed and utterly destroyed by over- 
powering numbers. Every horse was wound- 
ed. The sky was actually darkened with the 
shower of arrows and javelins. Nearly every 
man in the Spanish ranks was bleeding, and 
several were killed. But at last the terrific en- 
ergies of gunpowder triumphed. The Indians, 
leaving the hard-fought field covered with their 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 



15 



dead, in confusion retired. The cavalry plunged 
into the retreating ranks, and cut down the poor 
natives until weary with slaughter. 

Cortez now sent an imperious command to 
the chief of the Tlascalan army, demanding 
peace and friendship. 

"If this. proposition is rejected," said he, "I 
will enter the capital as a conqueror. I will 
raze every house to the ground. I will put every 
inhabitant to the sword." 

To inspire the natives with more terror, Cor- 
tez placed himself at the head of a detachment 
of cavalry and light troops, and scoured the ad- 
jacent country, taking fearful vengeance upon 
all who manifested any spirit of resistance. The 
Tlascalans, alarmed, sent an embassy to the Span- 
ish camp, proposing terms of peace. More than 
fifty persons, bearing rich presents, composed 
the embassage. Cortez suspected them, per- 
haps with good reason, of merely acting the 
part of spies. He immediately ordered their 
hands to be cut off. The cruel deed was prompt- 
ly executed ; and the sufferers, thus awfully mu- 
tilated, were sent to their countrymen with the 
defiant message : 

" The Tlascalans may come by day or by 
night; the Spaniards are ready«for them." 

This atrocious act seemed to appall and crush 
the spirit of the Indians. All further idea of 
resistance was abandoned. The commander- 
in-chief of the Tlascalan army, with a numer- 
ous retinue, entered the Spanish camp with 
proffers of submission. The brave and proud 
chieftain, subdued by the terrors of the thunder 
and the lightning of their strange assailants, 
addressed Cortez in language which will com- 
mand universal respect and sympathy : 

"I loved my country," said he, "and wished 
to preserve its independence. We have been 
beaten. I hope you will use your victory with 
moderation, and not trample upon our liberties. 
In the name of the nation I now tender obedi- 
ence to the Spaniards. We will be as faithful 
in peace as we have been bold in war." 

Cortez, who was aware of the great peril from 
which he had just escaped, with stern words, 
but with secret joy in his heart, accepted this 
submission, and entered into a cordial alliance 
w r ith this bold and powerful nation. While 
these affairs were transpiring in the Spanish 
camp, an embassy arrived from Montezuma. 
It consisted of five of the most conspicuous 
nobles of the empire, accompanied by a retinue 
,of two hundred attendants. Montezuma was 
alarmed by the terrible victories, and the resist- 
less march of the invaders. He sent many most 
costly gifts of Mexican manufacture, and the 
value of about fifty thousand dollars in gold. 
The Emperor also urgently requested that Cor- 
tez would not attempt to approach the Mexican 
capital, since, as he alleged, the unruly disposi- 
tion of the people on the route would greatly 
endanger his safety. Cortez returned an an- 
swer filled with expressions of Castilian court- 
esy, but declared that he must obey the com- 
mands of his sovereign, which required him to 



visit the metropolis of the great empire. Cor- 
tez ever acted upon the principle that truth was 
too precious a commodity to be wasted upon the 
heathen. 

After an encampment of three weeks upon 
the bloody and hard-earned field of Tzompach, 
Cortez again struck his tents and resumed his 
march. He no longer encountered any opposi- 
tion. The route led over fertile hills and valleys, 
and through the villages and towns of a populous, 
and apparently a contented and happy people. 
The invading army was every where received 
with cordiality, and provisions in great abund- 
ance flowed into their camp. The march of a 
few days brought them to Tlascala, the capital 
of this strong nation. 

It was, indeed, a magnificent city; larger, 
more populous, and of more imposing architect- 
ure, Cortez asserts, than the celebrated Moor- 
ish capital Granada, in old Spain. An im- 
mense throng flocked from the gates of the city 
to meet the troops, and the roofs of the houses 
were covered with spectators. Wild music, 
from semi-barbarian bands and voices, filled the 
air ; banners floated in the breeze ; plumed 
warriors hurried too and fro, and shouts of 
welcome seemed to rend the skies, as these 
hardy adventurers slowly defiled through the 
crowded gates and streets of the city. The po- 
lice regulations of the city were extraordinarily 
effective, repressing all disorder. The Span- 
iards were surprised to find barbers' shops, and 
baths both for vapor and hot water. The river 
Zahuatel flowed through the heart of the city. 

Cortez remained here several days, refresh- 
ing his troops, but maintaining the utmost vigi- 
lance of military discipline to guard against the 
possibility of any hostile attack. Promptly and 
earnestly he entered upon his favorite effort to 
convert the natives to Christianity. With his 
own voice he argued and exhorted, and he also 
called into requisition all the eloquence of Fa- 
ther Olmedo. 

" The God of the Christians," they replied, 
must be great and good. We will give him a 
place with our gods, who are also great and 
good." 

Cortez could admit of no such compromise. 
Their obduracy excited his impatience. He 
was upon the point of ordering the soldiers to 
make an onslaught upon the gods of the Tlas- 
calans, which would probably have led to the 
entire destruction of his army in the narrow 
streets of the thronged capital, when the judi- 
ious and kind-hearted Olmedo dissuaded him 
from the rash enterprise. With true Christian 
philosophy he plead that forced conversion was 
no conversion at all ; that God's reign was only 
over willing minds and in the heart. 

Cortez yielded to the pressure of circum- 
stances rather than to the force of argument. 
" We can not," he said, " change the heart ; 
but we can demolish these abominable idols, 
clamoring for their hecatombs of human vic- 
tims ; and Ave can introduce in their stead the 
blessed Virgin" and her blessed Child. Shall 



16 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



we not. do a part because we can not do the 
whole ?" 

Though Cortez reluctantly yielded to argu- 
ment enforced by apparent necessity, he insist- 
ed upon emptying the prisons of the victims 
destined to sacrifice. The Tlascalans consent- 
ed to this. But as soon as the tramp of the 
Spaniards ceased to echo through their streets, 
the prisons were again filled, and human blood, 
in new torrents, crimsoned their altars. 

The Indians, accustomed to polygamy, select- 
ed a number of their most beautiful young girls 
to be presented to the Spanish officers for wives. 

" We can not marry heathen," said Cortez. 

They were all immediately baptized, and re- 
ceived Christian names. Louisa, the daughter 
of Xicotencatl, the highest chief of the Tlascal- 
ans, was given by her father to the Spanish gen- 
eral Alvarado. Many of the descendants from 
this beautiful Indian maiden may now be found 
among the grandees of Spain. 

Montezuma, finding that he could not dis- 
suade Cortez from his march bywords, and fear- 
ing to provoke the hostility of an enemy wield- 
ing such supernatural thunders, now endeavor- 
ed to win his friendship. He accordingly sent 
another embassy with still richer presents, in- 
\iting Cortez to his capital, and assuring him 
of a warm welcome. He entreated him, how- 
ever, not to enter into any alliance with his 
fierce foes the Tlascalans. 

After spending three weeks in the city of 
Tlascala, Cortez again took up his march to- 
ward the capital of Mexico, by the way of the 
great city of Cholula. A hundred thousand 
soldiers, according to the representation of Cor- 
tez, volunteered to accompany him. He, how- 
ever, considered this force as too unwieldy, and 
took but six thousand. The whole population 
of the city escorted the army some distance 







mmM. 



from the gates. For several days they contin- 
ued their march through a beautiful country, 
densely populated, and cultivated like a garden. 

At length they arrived at Cholula. They 
were received with the warmest tokens of cor- 
diality, in a beautiful city, containing one hun- 
dred thousand inhabitants, with wide, neatly ar- 
ranged streets, and spacious stone houses. The 
more wealthy inhabitants were very gracefully 
dressed in garments richly embroidered. The 
aspect of luxury, of refinement, of high attain- 
ments in the arts of beauty and of utility, great- 
ly surprised the Spaniards In a few days, how- 
ever, very striking indications of coldness, sus- 
picion, and hostility were perceived. The faith- 
ful Marina, ever on the watch, detected, as was 
supposed, a terrible conspiracy for the destruc- 
tion of the Spaniards. Cortez, with demoniac- 
energy, crushed the attempt. 

He contrived to assemble an enormous multi- 
tude of the Cholulans, with their high dignita- 
ries, in the public square. At an appointed signal 
every musket and every cannon was discharged 
into their midst, and a shower of arrows and 
javelins pierced their thinly-clad bodies. A 
storm of destruction was swept through the help- 
less throng, whjch instantly covered the pave- 
ments with the dying and the dead. They were 
taken by surprise, unarmed, without leaders. 
They were surrounded, hemmed in ; there was 
no escape. Helpless and frantic, they turned 
in terror and distraction this way and that, but 
the terrible missiles of lead and iron met them 
in every direction, and the slaughter was indis, 
criminate and awful. No quarter was given. 

The mailed cavaliers on horseback rushed 
through the streets, cutting down with their 
dripping sabres, on the right hand and on the 
left, the unarmed and distracted fugitives. The 
Tlascalans, lapping their tongues in blood, re- 











MASSACRE AT CUOLfT.A 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 







a: 







■■■/(- J.'.'-f/y ■>" 



FIRST VIEW OF THE iMEXICAN CAPITAL. 



joiced in the most horrid atrocities perpetrated 
over their ancient foes. The dwellings were 
sacked pitilessly, and the city every where kin- 
dled into flame. The women and children were 
seized by the semi-barbarian Tlascalans as pris- 
oners, to grace their triumph, and to bleed upon 
their altars of human sacrifice. At last, from 
exhaustion, the carnage ceased. The city was re- 
duced to smouldering ruins, and pools of blood 
and mutilated carcasses polluted the streets. 
The wail of the wretched survivors, homeless 
and friendless, rose to the ear of Heaven more 
dismal than the shriek and the moan of death. 
The defense of Cortez is very laconic : 

" Had I not done this to them, they would 
have done the same to me." 

Tis true. Such is war. Accursed be the 
man who unleashes its hell-hounds ! 

This terrible retribution accomplished its end. 
City after city, appalled by the tidings of the mer- 
ciless vengeance of those foes who wielded the 
thunder and the lightning of heaven, and who, 
with the dreadful war-horse, could overtake the 
swiftest foe, sent in to the Spanish camp the 
most humble messages of submission, with ac- 
companying presents to propitiate favor. Mon- 
tezuma trembled in every fibre. Cortez thought 
that the natives were now in a very suitable 
frame of mind for conversion. Public thanks- 
givings were offered to God for the victory he 
had vouchsafed, and mass was celebrated by the 
whole army. The natives were very pliant. They 
offered no resistance while the Spanish soldiers 
tumbled the idols out of their temples, and reared 
in their stead the cross and images of the Virgin. 

A fortnight had now elapsed, and Cortez re- 
sumed his march. The country through which 
they passed still continued populous, luxuriant, 
and beautiful. They were continually met by 
Vol. XIL— No. 67.— B 



embassies from different places, endeavoring to 
propitiate their favor by gifts of gold. Day 
after day they toiled resolutely along, until from 
the height of land they looked down upon the 
majestic, the enchanting valley of Mexico. A 
more perfectly lovely scene has rarely greeted 
human eyes. In the far distance the dim blue 
outline of mountains encircled the almost bound- 
less plain. Forests and rivers, orchards and 
lakes, cultivated fields and beautiful villages, 
adorned the landscape. The magnificent city 
of Mexico was seated, in queenly splendor, 
upon islands in the bosom of a series of lakes, 
more than a hundred miles in length. Innumer- 
able towns, with their white pictureque dwell- 
ings, studded the blue outline of the water. The 
Spaniards all gazed upon the enchanting scene 
with amazement, and many with alarm. They 
saw indications of civilization and power far 
above what they had anticipated. 

Cortez, however, relying upon the efficiency 
of gunpowder and the cross, marched boldly on. 
The love of plunder was a latent motive om- 
nipotent in his soul ; and he saw undreamed of 
wealth lavishly spread before him. At even- 
step vast crowds met him, and gazed with won- 
der and awe upon his army. The spirit of Mon- 
tezuma was now so crushed, that he sent an 
embassy to Cortez, offering four loads of gold 
for himself, and one for each of his captains, 
and a yearly tribute to the King of Spain, if he 
would turn back. With delight Cortez listened 
to this message. It was an indication of the 
weakness and fear of Montezuma. With more 
eagerness he pressed on his way. 

" Of what avail," the unhappy monarch is re- 
ported to have said, "is resistance, when the 
gods have declared themselves against us. Yet 
I mourn most for the old and infirm, the women 



18 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



and children, too feeble to fight or to fly. For 
myself, and the brave men around me, we must 
bare our breasts to the storm, and meet it as 
we may." 

The Spaniards were now at Amaquemecan. 
They were lodged in large, commodious stone 
buildings, with the hospitality which terror ex- 
torted. After a rest of two days, they resumed 
their march through smiling villages, and wav- 
ing fields of maize, and innumerable flowers, 
which the natives cultivated with almost pas- 
sionate devotion. At last they arrived at Ayot- 
zingo — the Venice of the New World — an im- 
portant town, Miilt on piles in the waters of 
Lake Chalco. Gondolas of very tasteful struct- 
ure glided through the liquid streets. After a 
rest of two days, in which the Spaniards re- 
quited the hospitality they had received by 
shooting down in their camp fifteen or twenty 
of the harmless natives, whom they suspected 
as spies, the march was continued along the 
southern shores of Lake Chalco. Clusters of 
towns, embowered in luxuriant foliage, and 
crimson with flowers, fringed the lake. The 
waters were covered with the light boats of the 
inhabitants gliding in every direction. At last 
they came to a dike, five miles long, and where 
but two or three horsemen could ride abreast. 
In the middle of this causeway, which separa- 
ted Lake Chalco from Lake Xochicalco, they 
arrived at the town of Cuitlahuac, which Cortez 
described as the most beautiful he had yet seen. 

As the Spaniards advanced, the throng be- 
came so immense that Cortez was compelled to 
resort to threats of violence to force his way. 
They arrived at Iztapalapan, a city of fifteen 
thousand houses, and embellished with public 
gardens of vast magnitude, blooming with flow- 
ers of every variety of splendor. An aviary 
was filled with birds of gorgeous plumage and 
sweet song. A vast reservoir of stone contained 




I'rtll?' '■'■'■HI.' 1 . 









y^:^ ! % 



v JSncAimilco (V 



THE CITY OF MEXICO AND ENVIRONS. 



water to irrigate the grounds, and was stored 
with fish. Many of the chiefs of the neighbor- 
ing cities had assembled here to meet Cortez. 
They received him with courtesy, with hospi- 
tality, but with reserve. He was now but a few 
miles from the renowned metropolis of Monte- 
zuma, and the turrets of the lofty temples of 
idolatry glittered in the sunlight before him. 

Another night passed away and another 
morning dawned. It was the 8th of Novem- 
ber, 1519. As Cortez approached the city, 
several hundred Aztec chiefs announced that 
Montezuma was advancing to welcome him. 
The glittering train of the Emperor soon ap- 
peared. Crowds, which could not be number- 
ed, thronged the long causeway which led to the 
island city, and the lake was darkened with 
boats. Montezuma was accompanied by the 
highest possible pomp of semi-barbarian eti- 
quette and splendor. He was borne on a pal- 
anquin waving with plumes and glittering with 
gold. As he alighted, obsequious attendants 
spread carpets for his feet. The monarch was 
dressed in imperial robes. The soles of his 
shoes were of gold. Embroidered garments 
gracefully draped his person, decorated with 
pearls and precious stones. A rich head-dress 
of plumes rested upon his ample brow. His 
countenance was serious and pensive in its ex- 
pression. He was tall, well formed, and moved 
with grace and dignity. The Mexican mon- 
arch and the proud Spanish marauder met in 
the studied interchange of all Mexican and 
Castilian courtesies. 

Cortez and his companions Avere conducted to 
their provided quarters in the imperial city. Cor- 
tez found himself and his army abundantly sup- 
plied with all comforts in a range of large stone 
buildings. With vigilance which never slept 
he immediately fortified his quarters, and plant- 
ed his cannon to sweep every avenue by which 
they could be approached. In the 
evening he decided to let the as- 
tounded and appalled capital hear 
his voice. Several volleys of ar- 
tillery roared like thunder-peals 
through the streets of the capital, 
while dense volumes of suffocat- 
ing smoke, scarcely moved by the 
tranquil air, settled down over the 
city. All hearts in Tenochtitlan — 
for that was then the name of the 
Mexican capital — were filled with 
dismay. Few slept that night. 
Supernatural beings, with demo- 
niac energies, were in the bosom 
of the proud metropolis of the an- 
cient Aztecs, and the fate of the 
empire was doomed. 

The population of this city was 
probably about five hundred thou- 
sand. The houses of the common 
people were small but comfortable 
cottages, built of reeds or of bricks 
baked in the sun. The dwellings 
of the nobles, lining long, spa- 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 



19 




SMs 



TUE MEETING OF COKTEZ AND MONTEZUMA. 



cious, and well-paved streets, were of stone. 
They were extensive on the ground-floor, gen- 
erally but one story high, and surrounded by 
gardens blooming with flowers. Fountains of 
cool water, brought through aqueducts of earth- 
en pipe, played in the court-yards. The police 
regulations were admirable. A thousand per- 
sons were continually employed in sweeping 
nnd watering the streets. So clean were the 
well-cemented pavements kept, upon which no 
hoof had trod until the cavalry of Cortez clat- 
tered into the city, that " a man could walk," 
<ays one of the Spaniards, " through the streets 
with as little danger of soiling his feet as his 
hands." 

Day after day was passed in the interchange 
of visits, and in the careful examination, by 
Cortez, of the strength and the resources of the 
city. He, however, never for one moment for- 
got his great object of converting the heathen. 
He was truly instant, in season and out of sea- 
son, in urging his cause. No hour was deemed 
inappropriate. But Montezuma manifested no 
disposition to abandon the cruel idolatry of his 
fathers. One day the idolatrous monarch led 
the war-girt, blood-stained propagandist into the 
shrine of the great god of Mexico. Three hu- 
man hearts, just cut from their victims, were 
smoking and almost palpitating upon the altar. 
The chapel was stained with human gore. The 
soul of Cortez was roused. Turning to Monte- 
zuma, he exclaimed, 

" How can you, wise and powerful as you are, 
put trust in such a representative of the Devil. 
Let me place here the cross, and the image of 
the blessed Virgin and her Son, and these de- 
testable gods will vanish. 

Montezuma was shocked, and hurried his ir- 
reverent guest away. The zeal of the Spaniards 



was roused by the horrid spectacle of pagan 
idols polluted with blood, and they immediately 
converted one of the halls of their residence 
into a Christian chapel. Here the rites of the 
Roman Catholic Church were introduced, and 
the whole army of Cortez, with soldierly devo- 
tion, attended mass every day. Good Father 
Olmedo, with a clouded mind, but with a sin- 
cere and devout heart, prayed fervently for 
God's blessing upon his frail creatures of every 
name and nation. Notwithstanding all delu- 
sions and all counterfeits, there is such a thing 
as spiritual Christianity. So far as man can 
judge, Father Olmedo was a Christian. 

Cortez had now been a week in the capital. 
He was perplexed what step next to take. He 
was treated with such hospitality that there was 
no possible ground for war. To remain inact- 
ive, merely receiving hospitality, was accom- 
plishing nothing. It was also to be apprehend- 
ed that the Mexicans would gradually lose their 
fears, and fall upon the invaders with resistless 
numbers. In this dilemma the bold Spaniard 
resolved to seize the person of Montezuma, who 
was regarded by his subjects with almost re- 
ligious adoration, and hold him as a hostage. 
By the commingling of treachery and force he 
succeeded, and the unhappy monarch found 
himself a captive in his own capital, in the in- 
trenched camp of the Spaniards. 

He was magnificently imprisoned. A body- 
guard of stern veterans, with all external indica- 
tions of obsequiousness and homage, watched 
him by day and by night. The heart sickens at 
the recital of the outrages inflicted upon this ami- 
able and hospitable prince. Cortez had alleged, 
as a reason for arresting Montezuma, the sense- 
less pretext that two soldiers of the company left 
at Vera Cruz had been waylaid by the natives and 



20 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



slain. The Indian governor in whose province 
the violence had occurred, was sent for by the 
humiliated and powerless monarch. Obedient- 
ly he came, with fifteen chiefs. Cortez doomed 
them all to be burnt alive in the great court of 
the city. He gathered from the public arsenals 
the arrows, javelins, and other martial weapons, 
to form the immense funeral piles. Thus the 
city was disarmed. While these atrocities were 
in progress, Cortez entered the presence of his 
captive, Montezuma, accused him of being an 
accomplice in the death of the Spaniards, and 
pitilessly ordered the manacles of a felon to be 
fastened on his hands and his feet. The cruel 
fires were then kindled. Thousands gazed with 
awe upon the appalling spectacle, and the In- 
dian chieftains, without a remonstrance or a 
groan, were burned to ashes. 

Step after step of violence succeeded, until 
Montezuma was humiliated to the dust. The 
helpless and bewildered monarch was thus com- 
pelled, with tears of anguish rolling down his 
cheeks, to take the oath of allegiance to the 
King of Spain. Cortez then extorted from him, 
as presents to the Spanish monarch, more than 
six millions of dollars in silver and gold. The 
conquest of Mexico seemed achieved. 

Six months had now passed since Cortez had 
landed on the coast. The Governor of Cuba, 
indignant in view of the haughty assumptions 
of Cortez, fitted out a strong expedition to take 
possession of Mexico and bring Cortez home a 
prisoner for punishment. Cortez was informed 
that these, his formidable enemies, had landed 
in the vicinity of Vera Cruz. The indomitable 
Spaniard, leaving Alvarado in command of the 
strongly intrenched camp in the heart of the me- 
tropolis, took seventy picked men and marched 
rapidly and secretly to meet his Spanish foes. 
The journey was long and perilous. He moved 
with great celerity, gathered some recruits by 
the way, fell upon the Spaniards by surprise in 
a midnight attack, in the midst of a black 
careering tempest, took their commander, Nar- 
vaez, sorely wounded, a prisoner; and having 
compelled the whole body to surrender, induced 
them all, by munificent presents and persuasive 
speech, to enlist under his alluring banner. 

But in the flush of this wonderful victory, 
the alarming news reached Cortez that a ter- 
rible insurrection had broken out in the capital ; 
that his troops were besieged and assailed by 
almost resistless numbers, and that several of 
his men were already killed and many wounded. 
Collecting his whole force, now greatly aug- 
mented by the accession of the conquered 
Spaniards with their cavalry and artillery, he 
hastened back from Zempoalla to the rescue 
of his beleaguered camp. He had now, with 
this strangely-acquired reinforcement, about a 
thousand infantry and a hundred cavalry, be- 
sides several thousands of the native allies. 
By forced marches they pressed along. The 
natives, however, in the region through which 
they passed, no longer greeted them with cour- 
tesy, but turned coldly and silently away. 



The Spaniards arrived at length at the cause- 
way which led to the city. It was a solitude. 
No one was there to welcome or to oppose. 
Fiercely these stern men strode on through the 
now deserted streets, till they entered into the 
encampment of their comrades. 

The insurrection had been excited by a most 
atrocious massacre on the part of Alvarado. He 
suspected, but had no proof, that a conspiracv 
was formed by the Mexican nobles for the ex- 
termination of the invaders. He took occasion, 
while six hundred of the flower of the Mexican 
nobility were assembled in the performance of 
some religious rites, in a totally defenseless 
state, to fall upon them with sword and musket. 
The massacre was horrible. Not one escaped. 
This infamous butchery was too much even for 
the crushed spirit of the natives to endure. 
Notwithstanding all the terror of horses, steel, 
and gunpowder, the city rose to arms. 

Even Cortez was indignant when he heard 
this story from his lieutenant. 

"Your conduct," he exclaimed, "has been 
that of a madman." 

Cortez had now, with the efficiency of his 
European weapons of war, truly a formidable 
force. In the stone buildings which protected 
and encircled his encampment he could mar- 
shal in battle array twelve hundred Spaniards 
and eight thousand Tlascalans. But all were 
in danger of perishing from starvation. A 
terrible battle soon ensued. The Mexicans, 
roused by despair, came rushing upon the in- 
vaders in numbers which could not be counted. 
Never did mortal men display more bravery than 
these exasperated Mexicans exhibited strug- 
gling for their homes and their rights. But 
the batteries of the Spaniards mowed them 
down like grass before the scythe. The con- 
flict was continued late into the hours of the 
night. The ground was covered with the dead, 
when darkness and exhaustion for a time 
stopped the carnage. 

In the early dawn of the morning the contest 
was renewed, and was continued with the most 
demoniac fury by both parties through the whole 
of another day. The Spaniards fired the city 
wherever they could. And though the walls 
of the houses were mostly of stone, the inflam- 
mable interior and roofs caught the flame, and 
the horrors of conflagration were added to the 
misery and the blood of the conflict. All the 
day long the dreadful battle raged. The streets 
ran red with blood. The natives cheerfully 
sacrificed a. hundred of their own lives to take 
that of one of their foes. 

Another night darkened over the blood-stained 
and smouldering city. The Spaniards were 
driven back into their fortress, while the na- 
tives, in continually increasing numbers, sur- 
rounded them, filling the night air with shrieks 
of defiance and rage. Cortez had displayed 
the most extraordinary heroism during the pro- 
tracted strife. His situation now seemed des- 
perate. Though many thousands of the Mexi- 
cans had been slaughtered during the day, re» 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 



21 




THE FALL OF MONTEZUMA. 



emits flocked in so rapidly that their numbers 
remained undiminished. Cortez was suffering 
anguish from a sorely wounded hand. His men 
were utterly exhausted. Large numbers were 
wounded and many slain. The maddened roar 
of countless thousands of the fiercest warriors 
almost deafened the ear. Every moment it 
was feared that the walls would be scaled, and 
the inundation of maddened foes pour in resist- 
lessly upon them. 

In this extremity Cortez appealed to In's 
captive, Montezuma. Cortez was a fearless 
soldier. He could also stoop to any measures 
of fraud and perfidy. Assuming the tone of 
humanity, deploring the awful carnage which 
had taken place, and affirming his wish to save 
the nation from utter destruction, he, by such 
representations, influenced Montezuma to inter- 
pose. Reluctantly the amiable, beloved, per- 
plexed monarch at last consented. He was 
adored 037- his people. The morning had again 
dawned. The battle was again renewed with 
increasing fury. No pen can describe the tu- 
mult of this wild war. The yell of countless 
thousands of assailants, the clang of their trum- 
pets and drums, the clash of arms, the rattle of 
musketry, and the roar of artillery presented a 
scene which had never before found a parallel 
in the New World. 

Suddenly all was hushed as the venerated 
Emperor, dressed in his imperial robes, ap- 
peared upon the wall, and waved his hand to 
command the attention of his people. For a 
few moments they listened patiently to his ap- 
peal. But as he plead for the detested Span- 
iards their indignation burst all bounds. One 
ventured to assail him with an exclamation of 
reproach and contempt. It was the signal for 
a universal outbreak of vituperation against the 



stone struck his 
senseless to the 
pierced his flesh. 



pusillanimity of the captive King. A shower 
of stones and arrows fell upon him. Notwith- 
standing the efforts of his body-guard of Span- 
iards to protect him with their bucklers, a 
temple which brought him 
ground, and three javelins 
The wounded monarch was 
conveyed to his apartment, crushed in spirit, 
and utterly broken-hearted. He firmly refused 
to live. He tore the bandages from his wounds 
and would take no nourishment. Silent, and 
brooding over his terrible calamities, he sat the 
picture of dejection and woe for a few days, 
until he died. 

In the mean time the battle was resumed with 
all its fury. All the day long it continued with- 
out intermission. The wretched city was the 
crater of a volcano where a demoniac strife was 
raging. The energies of both parties seemed 
to redouble with despair. At last another night 
spread its vail over the infuriated combatants. 
In the darkest watches of midnight the Span- 
iards made a sortie and set three hundred build- 
ings in flames. The lurid fire, crackling to the 
skies, illumined the tranquil lake, and gleamed 
upon the most distant villages in the vast 
mountain-girdled valley. The tumult of the 
midnight assault, the shrieks of women and 
children, and the groans of the wounded and 
the dying, blended with the roar of the confla- 
gration. 

Cortez now summoned the chiefs to a parley. 
He stood upon the wall. The beautiful Marina, 
as interpreter, stood at his side. The Mexican 
chiefs were upon the ground before him. The 
inflexible and merciless Spaniard endeavored 
to intimidate them by threats. 

" If you do not immediately submit," said 
he, "I will lay the whole city in ashes, and 



22 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



every man, woman, and child shall be put to the 
sword." 

They answered defiantly: "The bridges are 
broken down, and you can not escape. You 
have better weapons of war, but we have great- 
er numbers. If* we must offer a thousand lives 
for one, we will continue the battle till you are 
destroyed." 

Saying this, they gave the signal for attack, 
and a storm of arrows and javelins darkened 
the sky and fell into the beleaguered fortress. 
Notwithstanding the bold tone assumed by 
Cortez the Spaniards were in great dismay. 
A mutiny now broke out in the camp. They 
murmured bitterly, and demanded permission 
to cut their way through their foes and escape 
from the city. The extraordinary energies of this 
iron fanatic still remained unshaken. Calmly 
he reflected upon his position, examined his 
resources, and formed his plans. 

He immediately constructed moving forts or 
towers to be pushed through the streets on 
wheels, under the protection of which his sol- 
diers could make every bullet accomplish its 
mission. A platform on the top could be let 
down, affording a bridge to the roofs of the 
houses. The army thus commenced its peril- 
ous march through the smoking, gory streets. 
Every inch of the way was contested. The 
advance was slow but resistless, the cannon and 
the musketry sweeping down all obstacles. At 
last they arrived at one of the numerous canals 
which every where intersected the city. The 
bridge was destroyed, and the deep waters of 
the canal cut off all retreat. Planting the can- 
non so as to keep the natives at bay, every 
available hand was employed in filling the 
chasm with stones and timber torn from the 
ruined city. Still stones, arrows, and javelins 
foil thickly among the workmen. 



For two days this terrific strife raged. Sev- 
en canals the Spaniards were thus compelled 
to bridge. But the natives could present no 
effectual resistance. The Spaniards advance 
sternly over the mutilated bodies of the dying 
and of the dead. Still, at the close of this day 
the condition of the Spaniards was more des- 
perate than ever. 

As the gloom of night again descended, a 
deeper, heavier gloom rested upon the hearts 
of all in the Spanish camp. A wailing storm 
arose of wind and rain, and nature moaned and 
wept as if in sympathy with the woes of man. 
An immediate retreat was decided upon. At 
midnight all were on the march. In the dark- 
ness and the storm they passed through the war- 
scathed streets of the city without opposition. 
But when they reached one of the long cause- 
ways, two miles in length and but twenty feet 
wide, which connected the island city with the 
main-land, they found the lake alive with the 
fleets of the natives, and the Spaniards were 
assailed on both sides by swarming multitudes 
who, in the fierce and maddened strife, set all 
danger at defiance. War never exhibited a 
more demoniac aspect. There were three 
chasms in the causeway, broken by the Mexi- 
cans, which the Spaniards, in the darkness 
and assailed by innumerable foes, were com- 
pelled to bridge. The imagination can not 
compass the horrors of that night. When the 
first gray of the lurid morning dawned, the 
whole length of the causeway was covered with 
the bodies of the slain. The chasms were 
clogged up with the fragments of artillery, bag- 
gage wagons, dead horses, and the corpses of 
Spaniards and natives with features distorted 
by all the hateful passions of the strife. 

A few only had escaped. Nearly all the 
horses, all the plundered gold, all the baggage 




TI1K BATTLE UPON THE CAUSEWAY. 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HERNANDO CORTEZ. 



23 



wagons, all the cannon, were either sunk in the 
lake or floating upon its surface, which was 
blackened with the canoes of the Mexicans. 
Not even a musket remained. As Cortez gazed 
upon the feeble band of exhausted, torn, and 
bleeding soldiers which now alone remained to 
him, even his stern heart was moved, and he 
sat down and wept bitterly. Is it revenge which 
leads us to rejoice that some drops of retributive 
woe were wrung from the heart of that guilty 
conqueror? He had overwhelmed a benighted 
nation with misery. Such a crime must not go 
unpunished. There is a day of final judgment. 

But this was no time for tears. By night 
and by day the discomfited and imperiled Span- 
iards continued their long and precipitate re- 
treat toward the sea-shore. They were often 
assailed ; but with their few remaining horses, 
their steel swords, and the mental energies 
which European civilization confers, they beat 
off their assailants, and continued their flight. 
Cortez, who promptly recovered from his mo- 
mentary weakness, manifested the utmost se- 
reneness and imperturbability of spirit, shared 
every hardship of the soldiers, and maintained 
their confidence in him by surpassing all in the 
gallantry and the magnanimity of his courage. 
Exhausted and wounded as they were, it re- 
quired the toilsome march of a week to reach 
the mountain summits which encircle the great 
ralley of Mexico. 

Upon the other side of the ridge innumerable 
warriors had gathered from all the provinces to 
cut off the retreat. From an eminence the ap- 
palling spectacle suddenly burst upon the re- 
treating Spaniards of a boundless, living ocean 
of armed men, with its crested billows of gleam- 
ing helmets and wav i ng plumes. Even the heart 
of Cortez sank within him. It seemed certain 
that his last hour was now tolled. There was 
no possible hope but in the energies of utter de- 
spair. Cortez harangued his troops as angels 
of mercy, who might surely depend, in their 
holy mission against the heathen, on Divine 
protection. He succeeded, as usual, in rousing 
all their religious enthusiasm. Plunging upon 
the enemy in solid column, they cut their way 
through the dense, tumultuous, extended mass, 
as the steamer plows through opposing billows. 
The marvelous incidents of the fight would occu- 
py pages. The Spanish historians record that the 
native army was two hundred thousand strong, 
and that twenty thousand fell on that bloody 
field. Though this is, of course, an exaggera- 
tion, it gives one an idea of the appearance of 
the multitude and of the carnage. At last 
Cortez arrived in the territory of his friendly 
allies, the Tlascalans. He was received with 
the utmost kindness, and was now safe from 
pursuit. 

His followers were extremely anxious to re- 
turn to Vera Cruz, send a vessel to Cuba for 
some transports, and abandon the enterprise. 
But this indomitable warrior, while lying upon 
the bed in a raging fever, while a surgeon was 
cutting off three of his mutilated and inflamed 



fingers, and raising a portion of the bone of his 
skull, which had been splintered by the club of 
a native, was forming his plans to return to 
Mexico and reconquer what he had lost. 

"I can not believe," he wrote to the Emper- 
or, Charles V., "that the good and merciful 
God will thus suffer his cause to perish among 
the heathen." 

Upon the death of Montezuma the crown of 
Mexico passed to his more warlike brother. 
Cuitlahua. He immediately, with great vigor, 
fortified the city anew, and recruited and drill- 
ed his armies, now familiar with the weapons of 
European warfare. He sent an embassy to the 
Tlascalans to incite them to rise against the de- 
feated Spaniards, the common enemy of the 
whole Indian race. Cortez succeeded in in- 
ducing them to reject the proffered alliance of 
their ancient foes. He also succeeded in fo- 
menting war among some of the rival provinces, 
and in thus turning the arms of the natives 
against each other. 

He established his head-quarters at Tepeaca. 
The Spaniards, among other woes, had intro- 
duced the small-pox into Mexico. The terrible 
scourge now swept like a blast of destruction 
through the land. The natives perished by 
thousands. Many cities and villages were al- 
most depopulated. It reached the Mexican 
capital, and the Emperor Cuitlahua fell a vic- 
tim. Recruits soon arrived at the Spanish camp 
from Vera Cruz, with twenty horses and an. 
abundant supply of arms and ammunition. With 
indefatigable diligence Cortez prepared for a 
new campaign. Five months had passed since 
the disasters of the Jjismal Night, as the Span- 
iards ever called the midnight strife upon the 
causeway of the city of Mexico. 

It was now December. Cortez, with a new 
army, well appointed and disciplined, with the- 
hardy valor of the natives, guided by the skill of 
the Spaniards, commenced again his march for 
the conquest of Mexico. Guatemozin was now 
the monarch, a bold, energetic young man, of 
twenty-five years of age. The army of Cortez 
consisted of six hundred Spaniards, many of 
whom had recently arrived from Cuba. He 
had also nine cannon. The allied army of the 
natives marching under his banner was esti- 
mated at over one hundred thousand. In an 
address to the army, Cortez exhorted the Span- 
iards to punish the i*ebels. He also declared that 
it was his great object to promote the glory of 
God by converting the heathen to the cross of 
Christ. Prayer was offered, mass was cele- 
brated,, and the army recommenced its crusade. 
Day after day they pressed unimpeded on, till 
again they surmounted the heights which com- 
manded the magnificent valley. Like an ava- 
lanche the combined host of Europeans and 
Tlascalans poured down upon the valley where 
the doomed city reposed. 

A series of scenes of horror ensued, at the 
recital of which the heart sickens. Battle suc- 
ceeded battle. Cities and villages were sacked 
and burned, and the soil and the rivers were redi 



24 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




THE CAPTURE OF GUATEMOZIN. 



with blood. But no valor on the part of the 
natives could resist the demoniac energy of the 
invaders. They arrived upon the shores of the 
lake before the capital. Cortez soon obtained 
possession of Tezcuco, the second city of the 
empire, about twenty miles from the metropo- 
lis. Here he fortified himself, and commenced 
the construction of boats to transport his troops 
to the island city. Three months were spent 
in this work and in ravaging pitilessly the ad- 
jacent country. His arms were every where 
triumphant, and city after city became obse- 
quious to his will. The siege of the capital en- 
sued, with daily sanguinary assaults. The valor 
which the Mexicans displayed extorted the 
praise even of their foes. 

Eor more than a month this incessant war- 
fare was* continued, and the Spaniards were 
every where thwarted by the devoted defenders 
of their own firesides. Cortez at last resolved 
upon a general assault. It was fiercely urged, 
but entirely unsuccessful. The Spaniards were 
driven back with great slaughter, and forty of 
their number were made prisoners, to be offered 
in bloody sacrifice to the heathen gods. This 
victory was celebrated at midnight in the city 
by the natives, with all the accompaniments of 
barbaric clangor. 

The army of Cortez was now augmented to a 
.hundred and fifty thousand, as the conquered 
cities had been compelled to furnish him with 
droops. Sternly he pressed the siege. Day 
after day. he drew nearer. One obstacle after 
another was surmounted by military science 
and the terrible energy of his batteries. Gua- 
temozin nobly rejected every overture for peace, 
resolved to perish, if perish he must, be- 
neath the ruins of the monarchy. Famine be- 
gan to consume the city. Gradually Cortez 



forced his advance along the causeways. He 
got possession of a portion of the city, and lev- 
eled it with the ground. Every inch was dis- 
puted, and an incessant battle raged. At length 
Cortez had three-fourths of the city reduced to 
ashes. The Mexicans now decided that their 
revered Emperor Guatemozin should endeavor 
to escape in a boat and rouse the distant prov- 
inces. The unfortunate monarch was captured 
in the attempt. When led into the presence 
of Cortez he said, proudly, 

U I have fought as became a king. I have 
defended my people to the last. Nothing re- 
mains but to die. Plunge this dagger into my 
bosom, and end a life which is henceforth use- 
less." 

The Emperor being a captive, the resistance 
of the Mexicans instantly ceased. Thus term- 
inated this memorable and atrocious siege of 
seventy-five days of incessant battle. But the 
avarice of the Spaniards encountered a sad dis- 
appointment. Guatemozin had cast all the treas- 
ures of the capital into the lake. Cortez cele- 
brated his awful victory with thanksgivings and 
masses. The terrible tidings of the fall of the 
capital and of the captivity of the monarch 
spread rapidly through the empire, and all the 
provinces hastened to give in their submission 
to the conqueror. To the eternal disgrace of 
Cortez, he allowed the monarch who had so 
nobly defended his people, and also his chief 
favorite, to be put to the torture, that he might 
wring from them the confession of hidden treas- 
ures. With invincible fortitude Guatemozin en- 
dured the torment; and when the chief who was 
suffering at his side groaned in agony, and turn- 
ed an imploring look to his sovereign, Guate- 
mozin replied, "Am I, then, reposing upon a 
bed of flowers ?" 



REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



25 



By such deeds of infamy the inhabitants of 
Mexico were robbed of their independence and 
of their country. For three hundred years the 
enslaved natives continued under the yoke of 
their conquerors. The idols of Mexico gave 
place to the idols of Rome. Three hundred 
years have passed away. The government of 
Spain and the religion of Spain have cursed the 
land. Mexico has made no progress. From 
all these dark storms of war and misery we can 
as yet see but little good which the providence 
of God has evolved. It is true that human sac- 
rifices have ceased, but Mexico is still a land of 
darkness, ignorance, and crime. The curse has 
also fallen upon Spain and upon all her posses- 
sions. Is it thus that national sins are pun- 
ished? 

REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 
BY T. B. THORPE. 

THE excitement that prevailed in Europe as 
the first-fruits of the discovery of America 
manifested themselves, can at this day be but 
dimly realized. The riches that seemed inex- 
haustible, the grandeur, the mystery, the strange 
people of the new continent inhabiting it, affect- 
ed the imaginations of every class of society — 
the mind of the civilized world was suddenly 
startled into wild wakefulness at the prospect 
of a future which had no apparent limits in its 
promises of wealth, and in the traditions of the 
past no precedents for its unfolding magnifi- 
cence. The man, however, who led the way 
sprung from obscurity ; he had no patent of no- 
bility from the existing sovereigns, and imperial 
as were admitted to be his triumphs, they were 
but grudgingly acknowledged, and were finally 
repaid by neglect and disgrace. Cortez and 
Pizarro, who followed Columbus in the path of 
glory, were also " adventurers," and depended 
upon their genius alone for their success. When 
De Soto, therefore, announced his proposed ex- 
pedition to Florida, his enormous wealth, his 
known valor and prudence, his high standing 
with Charles the Fifth, and his acknowledged 
connection with the aristocracy of the country, 
gave a personal interest to his expedition in 
circles not before affected. 

Armed with vice-regal power, De Soto estab- 
lished a court at Seville, which, for splendor and 
the number of its attendants, rivaled that of the 
Emperor. Men of all conditions of life — many 
of noble birth and good estate — enrolled them- 
selves as his followers. Houses and vineyards, 
gardens of olive-trees, and land devoted to till- 
age, were sacrificed in order to obtain military 
equipments. Portuguese hidalgoes, famed for 
brilliant exploits in the wars Avith the Moors, 
volunteered their services. The port of San 
Lucca of Barrameda was crowded by those who 
wished to embark in the enterprise. A whole 
year being consumed in preparations for depart- 
ure, each day was distinguished by a tourna- 
ment, or some costly celebration, such as had 
never before been witnessed in the land. Spain, 
with the prolonged entertainment, became 



" Florida mad," and, forgetting what had already 
been accomplished, indulged in dreams of new 
discoveries under the lead of the " munificent 
Adelantado" that would sink into insignificance 
the already realized glories of Mexico and Peru. 

De Soto remained some months in Cuba, 
where he' assumed the reins of government, and 
indulged his followers in enacting over again 
the showy spectacles which had preceded his 
departure from Seville. At last, amidst salvoes 
of artillery, the waving of plumes, and a lavish 
display of the gorgeous ceremonies of his church, 
he departed for the "promised land." From 
this time forward his history becomes one of 
melancholy interest, his life a display of fruit- 
less bravery, joined with a courage that met 
with no adequate reward. 

In his wanderings De Soto finally reached 
the banks of the Mississippi, and this seem- 
to have been his last appearance surrounded 
by the peaceful possession of the pomp and 
circumstance of a Spanish cavalier. Unsuc- 
cessful as had been his enterprise, up to this 
moment he had never indulged the idea of 
failure. Stories of the existence of great cities 
and of untold treasures, somewhere in the wil- 
derness, still allured him on, and these reports 
were always confirmed by the natives imme- 
diately around him, in order to hasten his de- 
parture from their midst. As the broad, un- 
broken river, " more than a mile wide, and fill- 
ed with floating trees," rolled in silent grandeur 
before his astonished eyes, he seemed to feel 
the mysterious influence of an important cul- 
minating era in his history. In the presence of 
thousands of gayly-dressed natives, attracted by 
curiosity, and for the time inspired by fear, he 
commemorated the event by the firing of can- 
non, the rejoicing of his followers, the erection 
of a gigantic cross, and the celebration of high 
mass by the attendant priests — a proper hallow- 
ing by Christianity of the flood-tides that drain 
the most remarkable and richest valley of the 
world. The exploration of the country west- 
ward of the Mississippi only increased De Soto's 
misfortunes. After wandering for more than a 
year among interminable swamps, his followers 
thinned by disease and the weapons of an unre- 
lenting foe, when again he reached the shores of 
the river his body was weakened by fever, and his 
great soul overcome with hopeless melancholy. 

Some rude brigantines were constructed, in 
which De Soto and the remnant of his follow- 
ers launched themselves on their way to the 
South. The deep mists of the river enveloped 
them as in a shroud, the overhanging moss of 
the trees waved as funeral palls, and the genial 
sunshine only lighted the way for the missiles 
of an exasperated and now triumphant foe. The 
hero despaired and died ; and where the dark 
Red River mingles its "bloody-looking" waters 
with those of the Mississippi — where all was 
desolation and death — his body, amidst silence 
and tears, was consigned to its last resting- 
place, and the mighty river became at once his 
glory and his grave. 



26 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




BUKIAI. OF DE KOTO. 



One hundred and thirty years elapsed be- 
fore any farther attempt was made by Euro- 
peans to explore the river. Under the auspices 
of France, Father Marquette, a missionary 
among the Indians, and M. Joliet, an intelli- 
gent fur-trader residing at Quebec, accomplish- 
ed, to some extent, the important undertaking. 
When these adventurous travelers arrived at the 
high ridge of land which separated the waters 
of the north from those which flow toward the 
tropics, their Indian guides refused to go any 
farther, and endeavored to dissuade the party 
"from presuming on a perilous voyage among 
unknown and cruel nations, where they would 
encounter the hideous monsters which inhabit- 
ed the great river, and which, rising from the 
boiling waves, swallowed all who ventured upon 
the treacherous surface." The party proceed- 
ed, however, eleven hundred miles below the 
mouth of the Wisconsin without meeting with 
any startling incident. Then it was that the 
difficulties of the voyage increased ; the weather 
became intensely hot, and the insects which 
filled the air made life almost insupportable. 
Deciding to go no farther, and deeming their 
mission accomplished, the voyagers retraced 
their way homeward, and after many weeks of 
hard labor against the strong current, they 
reached the mouth of the Illinois River in 
safety. Finding that this gentle stream afford- 
ed a direct and easy route to the great lakes, 
the travelers soon reached their homes. The 
information gained by the self-sacrificing cour- 
age of these men filled New France with re- 
joicing. It was believed that the long-desired 
route to China had been discovered. 

Five years later, Monsieur La Salle, a native 
of Normandy, and one of the most remarkable 
and most unfortunate men of his age, by de- 
scending the Mississippi from the Falls of St. 
Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico, completed the 
imperfect discoveries of De Soto and Marquette. 
The river, at its mouth,* instead of possessing 



a channel proportionate to its extent and mag- 
nitude, pours its contributions to the ocean 
through three principal outlets and a great 
number of natural canals, all of which are, to 
the inexperienced eye, lost in the vast expanse 
of the Mexican Gulf. Approaching them from 
the sea, you first become aware of their vicinity 
by the appearance of floating trees, or the more 
strange phenomenon of vast bodies of fresh but 
turbid water, rolling unmingled with the green 
salt waves. La Salle, after a fruitless search 
of several weeks, missed these outlets altogeth- 
er; and his colony, intended for Louisiana, es- 
tablished itself in Texas. 

De Iberville was the first white man who ever 
entered "these passes" from the sea, and he 
was loth to believe that the almost indistin- 
guishable lines of coast were all that indicated 
that he was on the bosom of the mighty river 
of the West. Ascending, however, the firmer 
banks began to develop themselves ; gigantic 
trees cast their dark and impenetrable shades 
over the landscape, and the native inhabitants 
appeared to greet his arrival among their sol- 
itary abodes. A new era of civilization on this 
continent was now inaugurated, and the inci- 
dents following, though stripped of the charms 
of mystery, receive the higher interest arising 
from witnessing, in forest wastes, the rapid de- 
velopment of the highest civilization. 

The details of the struggles between the 
French and English for the possession of the 
country drained by the Mississippi, are among 
the most thrilling chapters of our early history. 
" Braddock's defeat" was the last of the many 
signal victories which the French obtained in 
the contest ; a series of triumphs then ensued to 
the British arms, which resulted in the military 
possession of the head-waters of the Ohio, a 
precursor of other victories which ended by the 
official acknowledgment by France of her loss 
of empire in America. Then followed the War 
of "Independence ;" and, lastly, a complete tri- 



REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



27 




THE MISSISSIPPI AT LOW WATER. 



umph over the hostile aboriginal population of 
the North and West, and for the first time were 
the pioneers from the Atlantic States ena- 
bled to quietly establish themselves in the rich 
valley of the Ohio and her tributary streams. 
From this time forward the Mississippi River be- 
came a subject of constantly-increasing inter- 
est. The vast country it drains, the rapid in- 
flux of population into its fertile valleys, the 
wonderful enterprise of the people, the devel- 
opment of wealth, the triumphs of steam, the 
progress of empire, have had no precedents in 
the past, and there can be nothing to equal it 
in the future. 

The interest excited by the Mississippi con- 
sists not in attractive scenery visible to the eye 
at any given point, but in the thoughts it sug- 
gests : for the most stolid mind is impressed, if 
it but even dimly comprehends the extent of 
this great aorta of a mighty continent, affording 
internal navigation for thirteen States and Terri- 
tories — a more extensive line of coast to our 
empire than the Atlantic itself, and far surpass- 
ing that ocean in the number of its ports and 
the value of its commerce. It has been esti- 



mated that the commerce of the Mississippi out- 
let, both ways, is equal to three hundred millions; 
and the commerce of the lakes, west of Buffalo, 
is two hundred millions. The value of the com- 
merce carried on in Western steamboats can not 
be less than five hundred millions! This in- 
cludes more than one thousand steamers, trav- 
ersing a distance of fully thirty thousand mile^ 
upon the waters of Our great rivers and inland 
lakes. 

In natural objects the Mississippi differs from 
other rivers, more particularly in the extent of its 
spring floods, its friable banks, primitive forests, 
its floating trees, its "snags," and its "sawyers." 
At low water, the voyager perceives the stream 
comparatively narrow and confined within high 
banks. If inexperienced, he can scarcely real- 
ize that possibly in a few weeks or days, the en- 
tire appearance of the country will be changed, 
that the bed of the river will be full and over- 
flowing, and that houses and plantations, in- 
stead of being upon a high bluff, are literally 
below the usual level of the river, and but for the 
artificial protection of levees, would be entire- 
ly submerged. Untold acres of rich land, form- 




8AME SCENE AT HIGH W ATEIi. 



28 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




"SNAGS." 



tug the banks, annually cave into the stream, 
unloosing thousands of forest trees, which pre, 
by this means, drifted from the cold regions of 
the north, to decay prematurely beneath a trop- 
ical sun. 

The majority of these forest giants, however, 
accumulate on sand-bars, and in the "short 
bends," fasten by their roots and limbs to shal- 
low places, and are soon wholly, or in part, 
covered by the constant deposit — creating in a 
single year new-born islands, and turning swamp 
into high land. Others, again, will firmly fasten 
themselves in the deep channel, with their trunks 
pointing up-stream, and then shedding their 
more delicate limbs, they present the long, for- 
midable shafts, known as "snags" in Mississippi 
navigation. Other trees, again, will fasten them- 
selves in the current with their trunks down 
stream. The ever-rolling tide will force them 
under, until the tension of the bending roots 
overcomes the pressure, and they will slowly ap- 
pear in sight, shake their drifting limbs, and 
then disappear for awhile in the depths below — 
such is the dreaded " sawyer." These last-de- 
scribed obstructions were the terror of the early 
boatmen of the Mississippi — the Scylla and 
Charybdis of its early navigation. 



Among other physical peculiarities is pre- 
sented the singular phenomenon of a mighty 
river, as you approach its termination, gradual- 
ly narrowing within its banks. Soon after you 
pass New Orleans, the soil begins to grow less 
firm, and the depth of the river continues to 
diminish all the way to the sea; in the progress 
of a hundred miles it becomes lost in the low 
marshes, and all vegetation, except long rank 
grass, disappears. Here the current, without 
any visible reason, divides into three " passes" — 
almost undistinguishable channels, which cut 
through the accumulated deposit, the half-form- 
ed soil, and reach out into the Gulf. The depth 
of water in these outlets, unfortunately for the 
purposes of commerce, is never great, and con- 
stantly varies under the influence of wind and 
storm. 

A vessel, many years ago, was built at Pitts- 
burg, and from that town cleared for Leghorn. 
When she arrived at her place of destination, 
the captain produced his papers before the cus- 
tom-house officer, who would not credit them, 
observing, that he was well acquainted with the 
name of every shipping port — that no such 
place as Pittsburg existed, and that the vessel 
must be confiscated. The American, not at all 




SAWYERS." 



REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



20 



abashed, laid before the unbelieving receiver 
of customs a map of the United States, and 
directing the attention of the functionary to the 
Gulf of Mexico, pointed out the Belize, and 
then carried his finger a thousand miles up the 
Mississippi to the mouth of the Ohio — then pro- 
ceeding up the last-named river another thou- 
sand miles, he reached the port whence his vessel 
cleared. The astonished Italian, in his amaze- 
ment, devoutly crossed himself, and could have 
been but little less surprised had the skipper 
kept on with his "inland navigation" until he 
reached the north pole itself. He did not know 
that his fellow-countryman, Columbus, "had 
discovered so much." 

Two classes of people originally crowded into 
the virgin fields of the West. Marietta, the first 
permanent settlement on the Ohio, was — char- 
acteristically of those times — made up entirely 
of renowned men of the Revolution : officers 
and soldiers, who, at the close of seven years' 
privation and suffering, found themselves turned 
loose upon the world, their private fortunes 
ruined, themselves estranged from their early 
and perhaps desolate homes, and to them all 
profitable occupation gone. Such men pro- 
jected cities, opened farms, and laid wide and 
strong the foundation of future empire. 

There was another class to whom the excite- 
ment of the " war-path" was a necessity, as it 
was difficult for these rude yet brave men to 
control themselves so as to perform their allot- 
ment of the rough and confining labors of a 
frontier life. A place, however, was unexpect- 
edly prepared for them, which required all their 
energy of character to fill, and which blended 
most happily the labors of civilization with those 
of the scout and hunter. 

The surplus of the rich lands of the West 
found an active demand, not only at the head- 
waters of the Ohio, but also among the rich set- 
tlements of Florida and Louisiana. A race of 
gigantic men was required to guide in safety, 
against a swift-running current, the rude craft 



I 



'-r-s 



laden with rich stores through a perilous voy- 
age of fifteen hundred miles, avoiding whirl- 
pools, " snags," and " sawyers," and exposed to 
hostile conflict with the savage foe. The de- 
mand was supplied by the wild spirits we have 
alluded to,- and thus originated the keel -boat- 
men of the Mississippi — men more remarkable 
than any other that ever lived, and whose ex- 
aggerations, physical and mental, have given 
rise to the most genuine originality we can 
claim as American character. 

The keel-boat was long and narrow, sharp at 
the bow and stern, and of light draft. From 
fifteen to twenty "hands" were required to 
propel it along. The crew, divided equally on 
each side, took their places upon the "walking- 
boards," extending along the whole length of 
the craft, and, setting one end of their pole in 
the bottom of the river, the other was brought 
to the shoulder, and with body bent forward, 
they walked the boat against the formidable 
current. 

It is not strange that the keel-boatmen, al- 
ways exercising in the open air, without an 
idea of the dependence of the laborer in their 
minds, armed constantly with the deadly rifle, 
and feeling assured that their strong arms and 
sure aim would any where gain them a liveli- 
hood, should have become, physically, the most 
powerful of men, and that their minds, often 
naturally of the highest order, should have elab- 
orated ideas singularly characteristic of the ex- 
traordinary scenes and associations with which 
they were surrounded. Their professional pride 
was in ascending "rapids." This effort of hu- 
man strength to overcome natural obstacles was 
considered by them worthy of their steel. The 
slightest error exposed the craft to be thrown 
across the current, or to be brought sideAvays in 
contact with rocks or other obstructions, which 
would inevitably destroy it. The hero vaunted 
" that his boat never swung in the swift current, 
and never backed from a " shute !" 

Their chief amusements were " rough frolics," 



-J""*-*. 







s 4w 







TUB KKfiL-UOAT. 



30 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



dancing, fiddling, and fist-fights. The incredi- 
ble strength of their pectoral muscles, growing 
out of their peculiar labor and manner of life, 
made fights with them a direful necessity — it was 
an appetite, and, like pressing hunger, had to be 
appeased. The keel-boatman who boasted that 
he had never been whipped, stood upon a dan- 
gerous eminence, for every aspirant for fame 
was bound to dispute his claim to such distinc- 
tion. Occasionally, at some temporary landing- 
place, a number accidentally came together for 
a night. From the extreme labors of the day, 
possibly quietness reigned in "the camp," when, 
unexpectedly, the repose would be disturbed by 
.some restless fellow crowing forth a defiance 
in the manner of a game-cock ; then, spring- 
ing into some conspicuous place, and rolling up 
Ids sleeves, he would utter his challenge as fol- 
lows : 

"I'm from the Lightning Forks of Roaring 
River. I'm oil man, save what is wild cat and 
extra lightning. I'm as hard to run against as 
a cypress snag — I never back water. Look at 
me — a small specimen — harmless as an angle- 
worm — a remote circumstance — a mere year- 
ling. Cock-a-doodle-doo ! I did hold down a 
bufferlo bull, and tar off his scalp with my teeth, 
but I can't do it now — I'm too powerful weak, 
/am." 

By this time those within hearing would 
spring to their feet, and, like the war-horse 
that smells the battle afar off, inflate their nos- 
trils with expectation. The challenger goes 
on : 

" I'm the man that, single-handed, towed the 
broadhorn over a sand-bar — the identical infant 
who girdled a hickory by smiling at the bark, 
and if any one denies it, let him make his will 
and pay the expenses of a funeral. I'm the 
genuine article, tough as bull's hide, keen as a 
rifle. I can out-swim, out-swar, out-jump, out- 
drink, and keep soberer than any man at Cat- 
fish Bend. I'm painfully ferochus — I'm spiling 
for some one to whip me — if there's a creeter 
in this diggin' that wants to be disappointed in 
trying to do it, let him yell — whoop-hurra !" 

Rifle-shooting they brought to perfection — 
their deadly aim told terribly at the battle of 
New Orleans. As hunters, the weapon had 
been their companion, and they never parted 
with it in their new vocation. While working 
at the oar or pole, it was always within reach, 
and if a deer unexpectedly appeared on the 
banks, or a migratory bear breasted the waves, 
it was stricken down with unerring aim. 

By an imperative law among themselves, 
they were idlers on shore, where their chief amuse- 
ment was shooting at a mark, or playing severe 
practical jokes upon each other. They would, 
with the rifle-ball, and at long distances, cut the 
pipe out of the hat-band of a fellow-boatman, 
or unexpectedly upset a cup of whisky that 
might, at " lunch-time," be for the moment rest- 
ing on some one's knee. A negro, exciting the 
ire of one of these men, he at the distance of a 
hundred yards, with a rifle-ball, cut off the 



offender's heel, and did this without a thought 
that the object of his indignation could be more 
seriously damaged by an unsteady aim. 

Cutting off a wild turkey's head with a rifle- 
ball at a hundred yards' distance, while the bird 
was in full flight, was not looked upon as an ex- 
traordinary feat. At nightfall, they would snuff 
candles at fifty paces, and do it without extin- 
guishing the light. Many of these extraordi- 
nary men became so expert and cool, that in the 
heat of battle they would announce the place 
on their enemy they intended to hit, and sub- 
sequent examination would prove the certainty 
of their aim. " Driving the nail," however, was 
their most favorite amusement. This consisted 
in sinking a nail two-thirds of its length in the 
centre of a target, and then at forty paces, with 
a rifle-ball, driving it home to the head. 

If they quarreled among themselves, and 
then made friends, their test that they bore no 
malice, was to shoot some small object from 
each other's heads. Mike Fink, the best shot 
of all keel-boatmen, lost his life in one of these 
strange trials of friendship. He had a difficulty 
with one of his companions, made friends, and 
agreed to the usual ceremony to show that he 
bore no ill-will. The man put an apple upon 
his head, placed himself at the proper distance — 
Mike fired, and hit, not the inanimate object, 
but the man, who fell to the ground, apparently 
dead. Standing by was a brother of this vic- 
tim either of treachery or hazard, and in an 
instant of anger he shot Mike through the 
heart. In a few moments the supposed dead 
man, without a wound, recovered his feet. Mike 
had, evidently from mere wantoness, displaced 
the apple by shooting between it and the skull, 
in the same way that he would have barked a 
squirrel from the limb of a tree. The joke, un- 
fortunately, cost the renowned Mike Fink his 
life. 

The glorious point upon the Mississippi for 
the gathering of the boatmen was "Natchez- 
under-the-Hill." It was at this landing that 
the best market was found for the products of 
the " upper country," and oftentimes there ac- 
cumulated a mass of richly-laden boats, ex- 
tending for miles along the shore. The peace- 
able inhabitants residing on "the bluff" ofttimes 
looked down with terror upon the wild bands of 
powerful men, who, having reached the termin- 
us of their journey, were "paid off," and left 
without restraint to indulge their caprices in 
every form of reckless " rowdyism." Generally, 
they expended their animal prowess among 
themselves, but they would occasionally break 
through the acknowledged boundaries of their 
own district, and carry the devoted city, so 
beautifully situated, by storm. Taking posses- 
sion of the streets, with equal impunity they 
rode over the law and every physical obstruc- 
tion ; rare, indeed, was it that the police could 
make any headway against these mighty men. 
Having gratified their humors, drank up, or 
otherwise destroyed, all the whisky in their 
reach, with yells and war-whoops, that fairly 



REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



31 



wakened the aborigines sleeping beneath the 
walls of Fort Rosalie, they would retreat down 
the winding road that leads to the plateau 
"under the hill," most likely to meet with a 
number of their own set and engage in a pitched 
battle, the Herculean force of which finds no 
parallel, except in Homer's descriptions of the 
fabulous collisions between the gods. 

False, indeed, would be the supposition that 
these men, lawless as they were, possessed a 
single trait of character in common with the 
law-defying wretches of our crowded cities. 
They committed, it is true, great excesses in 
villages where their voyages terminated, and 
when large numbers of them were assembled 
together. If they defied the law it was not be- 
cause it was irksome, but because 'they never 
felt its restraints. They had their own laws, 
which they implicitly obeyed. "With them "fair 
play was a jewel." If the crew of a rival boat 
was to be attacked, only an equal number was 
detached for the service ; if the intruders were 
worsted, no one interfered for their relief. 
Whatever was placed in their care for trans- 
portation was sacred, and would be defended 
from harm, if necessary, at the sacrifice of life. 
They would, from mere recklessness, pilfer the 
outbuildings of a farm-house, yet they could be 
intrusted with uncounted sums of money, and 
if any thing in their possession became dam- 
aged or lost, they made restitution to the last 
farthing. In difficulties between persons, they 
invariably espoused the cause of the weaker 
party, and took up the quarrels of the aged, 
whether in the right or wrong. 

As an illustration of their rude code of honor, 
is remembered the story of " Bill M'Coy." He 
was a master-spirit, and had successfully dis- 
puted for championship upon almost every fa- 
mous sand-bar visible at low-water. In a terrible 
row, where blood had been spilled and a dark 
crime committed, Bill w r as involved. Moment- 
arily off his guard, he fell into the clutches of the 
law. The community was excited — a victim was 
demanded to appease the oft-insulted majesty of 
justice. Brought before one of the courts hold- 
ing at Natchez, then just closing its session for 
the summer vacation, he was fully committed, 
and nothing but the procurement of enormous 
bail would keep him from sweltering through 
the long months of summer in durance vile. It 
was apparently useless for him to expect any 
one to go upon his bond ; he appealed, however, 
to those present, dwelt upon the horrors, to him 
more especially, of a long imprisonment, and 
solemnly asseverated that he would present him- 
self at the time appointed for trial. At the last 

moment, Colonel W , a wealthy, and on the 

whole rather a cautious citizen, came to the 
rescue, and agreed to pay ten thousand dollars 
if M'Coy did not present himself to stand his 
trial. It was in vain that the Colonel's friends 
tried to persuade him not to take the responsi- 
bility, even "the Court's" suggestion to let the 
matter alone was unheeded. M'Coy was re- 
leased — shouldering his rifle, and threading his 



way through the Indian nation, in due time he 
reached his home in "Old Kaintuck." 

Months rolled on, and the time of trial ap- 
proached. As a matter of course, the proba- 
bilities of M'Coy's return were discussed. The 
public had doubts — the Colonel had not heard 
from him since his departure. The morning 
of the appointed day arrived, but the prisoner 
did not present himself. The attending crowd 
and the people of the town became excited — 
all except the Colonel despaired — evening was 
moving on apace — the court was on the point 
of adjourning, when a distant huzza was heard ; 
it was borne on the wings of the wind, and 
echoed along, each moment growing louder and 
louder. Finally the exulting cry was caught 
up by the hangers-on about the seat of justice. 
Another moment and M'Coy — his beard long 
and matted, his hands torn to pieces, his eyes 
haggard, and sun-burnt to a degree that was 
painful to behold — rushed into the court-room, 
and from sheer exhaustion fell prostrate upon 
the floor. 

Old Colonel W embraced him as he would 

have done a long-lost brother, and eyes unused 
to tears filled to overflowing when M'Coy re- 
lated his simple tale. Starting from Louisville 
as "a hand on a boat," he found in a few days 
that, owing to the low stage of water in the 
river and other unexpected delays, it was im- 
possible for him to reach Natchez at the ap- 
pointed time by such a mode of conveyance. 
No other ordinary conveyance, in those early 
days, presented itself. Not to be thwarted, he 
abandoned "the fiat," and, with his own hands, 
shaped a canoe out of the trunk of a fallen 
tree. He had rowed and paddled, almost with- 
out cessation, thirteen hundred miles, and had 
thus redeemed his promise almost at the ex- 
pense of his life. His trial in its progress be- 
came a mere form ; his chivalrous conduct and 
the want of any positive testimony won for him 
a verdict of not guilty, even before it was an- 
nounced by the jury or affirmed by the judge. 

An old resident upon the banks of the lower 
Mississippi relates an incident strikingly char- 
acteristic of the early times. On one occasion, 
when quite a young man, he was sitting upon 
the gallery of his house looking out upon the 
wide expanse of the river. In the far distance 
was seen, lazily moving with the current, a boat, 
upon the deck of which was dimly discernible 
two or three men and a number of women and 
children, evidently a family of emigrants. While 
he was mechanically gazing, he observed a rude 
fellow, just in front of him on the shore, en- 
deavoring, by a series of ridiculous and indecent 
antics, to attract the attention of the persons on 
the boat. The effort was quite successful, as 
one of the men shook his fist threateningly, as 
an evidence of disapprobation. The landsman 
continued his performances until he showed a 
desire to insult the party in the boat. When 
this was clearly perceived and comprehended, 
" the man at the sweep" seized his rifle ; but the 
distance from its proposed victim seemed to 



32 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



render it harmless, and the offensive conduct 
was persisted in. A light cloud of smoke and 
a dull sound followed, when the planter, to his 
astonishment, saw the reckless landsman press 
his hand to his side, stagger a pace or two, and 
fall heavily upon the ground. Hastening to his 
assistance, he arrived only in time to hear the 
last sigh of a dying man. The fatal rifle had 
done its work. The flat, meanwhile, disappear- 
ed behind a projecting point, and probably its 
occupants ever remained ignorant of the ex- 
tent of the terrible revenge taken upon the 
thoughtless wretch ashore. 

One of the most noted desperadoes of those 
early times was a man by the name of Mason. 
He first established himself at the " Cave in 
Rock" — a remarkable limestone formation about 
one hundred miles above the mouth of the Ohio 
— where, under the guise of keeping a store for 
the accommodation of boatmen and emigrants, 
he enticed them into his power. After mur- 
dering these victims of treachery, he would, by 
the hands of his confederates, send their boats 
to New Orleans for sale. He finally disappeared 
from his old quarters, and established himself 
on the great " trace" made through the wilder- 
ness of Mississippi and Tennessee by the flat- 
boatmen and traders while returning, by land, 
from New Orleans to their homes in the West. 
Mason increased in power, and, with his organ- 
ized band, became so celebrated for his rob- 
beries and murders that he was dreaded from 
the banks of the Mississippi to the high lands 
of Tennessee. Over all this vast extent of coun- 
try, if the buzzards were seen high in the air, 
circling over any particular spot, the remark 
was made, "Another murder has been com- 
mitted by Mason and his gang." 

Numerous attempts were made to arrest him, 
but he always managed to escape. A romantic 
incident is related of one of these unsuccessful 
forays into his domain : A party of gentlemen, 
mostly wealthy planters from about the vicinity 
of Natchez, organized themselves into a party, 
and went in pursuit of the bold robber. Com- 
ing to the banks of Pearl River, " signs" were 
manifest that his camp was in the vicinity. Be- 
fore attempting to make the proposed seizure, it 
was determined to rest the horses and partake 
of refreshments. These things having been ac- 
complished, two of the party, seduced by the 
beauty and coolness of the stream, went in to 
bathe. In the course of their recreation they 
crossed to the opposite bank, and found them- 
selves in the hands of Mason. The outlaw, 
aware that he was pursued, determined to effect 
by stratagem what he did not deem policy to ef- 
fect by force. It was therefore that he rushed 
down and seized the two prisoners. The party on 
the opposite shore saw the manoeuvre, and in- 
stantly seized their arms. Mason, who had a 
commanding figure, admirably set off by a hunt- 
er's dress, presented a bold front, and announced 
that any further hostile demonstrations would 
result in instant death of his helpless captives. 
He then ordered his pursuers, if they desired to 



save the lives of their friends, to obey him 
implicitly and at once — that for the time being 
he was willing to negotiate for the safety of 
himself and men. He then ordered the party 
to stack their arms and deposit their ammuni- 
tion on the beach, stating that he would send 
for them, but that any violence offered to his 
messenger or upon any visible hesitation to 
obey, he should destroy his prisoners ; if oth- 
erwise, they were to be set at liberty — Mason 
pledging his honor that he would not take any 
advantage of his victory. 

There was no choice. The weapons were 
duly deposited as directed, and two of Mason'* 
gang, out of a number who had arrived, dashed 
into the stream to take possession of them, the 
prisoners meanwhile standing in full sight with 
rifles pointing at their heads. The desired prop- 
erty was finally placed in the outlaw's posses- 
sion, whereupon he released his prisoners, and 
waving a good-humored farewell, he disappeared 
in the deep shadows of the surrounding wilder- 
ness. 

Treachery, however, at last effected what 
courage and enterprise could not accomplish. 
A citizen of great respectability, passing with 
his two sons through the forest, was plundered 
by the bandits ; their lives, however, were spared. 
The public was aroused. Governor Claiborne, 
of the Mississippi Territory, offered a large re- 
ward for the outlaw, dead or alive. The procla- 
mation was widely distributed — a copy reached 
Mason, and was to him a source of intense 
merriment. Two of his band, however, were 
determined to obtain the reward ; and while 
they were engaged with Mason in counting some 
money, one of them drove a tomahawk into his 
brain. His head was severed from the body, 
and, placed in a sack, borne in triumph to Wash- 
ington, then the seat of the Territorial Govern- 
ment. 

The head of the robber was recognized by many 
of the citizens who saw it. Large crowds from 
the surrounding country assembled to assure 
themselves that their enemy was really dead, 
and curious to see the individuals whose daring 
prowess had relieved the country of a scourge. 
Among the spectators were the two young men, 
who, unfortunately for the hero-traitors, recog- 
nized them as the robbers of their father and 
themselves. The wretches were seized, tried 
for their crimes, and hung. And thus ended 
the last and most noted gang of robbers that in- 
fested the " Natchez and Nashville trace." 

At the close of the year 1811, the Valley of 
the Mississippi was agitated by repeated shocks 
of earthquakes, which continued, with more or 
less violence, for nearly three months. The 
country seventy miles below the mouth of the 
Ohio River seems to have been near the centre 
of the convulsions, and the locality, for many 
miles, was seamed with wide chasms, and dis- 
figured with immense subterranean holes, the re- 
mains of which are still pointed out. The scenes 
which occurred during the several days that 
the shocks continued, are represented as being 



REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



3. f> , 



terrible beyond description, and many weeks 
elapsed before nature resumed her usual quiet 
sway. During the commotion, sulphureted 
gases tainted the air, and, for more than a hun- 
dred and fifty miles, perceptibly impregnated 
the rolling floods. The river banks, the sand- 
bars, and islands dissolved away, engulfing vast 
tracts of forest. Out of the seething waters rose 
huge snags and* the remains of gigantic trees, 
which, after resting for ages in the accumula- 
tions of the bed of the river, were again born 
into daylight to become merciless enemies of 
navigation. 

Every shock of. the earthquake was accom- 
panied with what seemed to be the discharges 
of heavy artillery, while every few moments the 
surface of the river rose and fell many feet. 
"Finally," records a witness of these strange 
phenomena, " after escaping many dangers, my 
boat suddenly swung around in the conflicting 
currents, and rapidly shot up the river. Look- 
ing ahead, I beheld the mighty Mississippi cut 
in ticain, and pouring down a vast opening into 
the bowels of the earth. A moment more and 
the chasm filled ; but the strong sides of the 
flat-boat were crumbled to pieces in the con- 
vulsive efforts of the flood to obtain its wonted 
level." 

New Madrid, at that time a flourishing town, 
was completely ruined, and the bluff on which 
it was situated sunk down to the level of the 
river, and was afterward submerged. Most of 
the inhabitants would have met with the fate 
of those of Caracas, a city destroyed at the 
same time with New Madrid, had their houses 
been of similar material — heavy stones. 

Among the incidents remembered is that 
of a poor Indian, who, completely bewildered 
by what he saw, stoically gave himself up to 
what he deemed to be inevitable destruction. 
Upon being asked what was the matter, he sig- 
nificantly and solemnly pointed to the heavens, 
and replied, " Great Spirit — whisky too much." 
It was on this occasion that a keel-boatman, 
after escaping a thousand dangers, finally strad- 
dled the trunk of a huge tree that had fallen 
across one of the chasms made by the earths 
quake, and holding on with commendable per- 
tinacity, looked into the profound depths be- 
low. Gaining courage, he advised his com- 
panions to take a place at his side, "for he did 
not think the earthquake was any great shakes 
after all !" 

A few years ago, the Mississippi, from an un- 
usual drought, shrunk within its banks to a com- 
paratively small stream, and, as a consequence, 
under the protection of a high bank nearly op- 
posite the town of Baton Rouge, there was ex- 
posed the wreck of a small boat, the timbers of 
which, as far as could be ascertained, were in a 
good state of preservation. No one particular- 
ly noticed the object, because such evidences of 
destruction form one of the most familiar feat- 
ures of the passing sceneiy ; yet there was really 
an intense interest connected with those black- 
ened but still enduring ribs, for they were the 
Vol. XII.— No. 67.— C 



remains of the first steamer that ever dashed its 
wheels into the waters of the Great West, and 
awakened new echoes along the then silent 
shores of the "Father of Waters." This boat 
was built at Pittsburg by Messrs. Fulton and 
Livingston. It was launched in the month of 
March, 1812, and landed at Natchez the follow- 
ing year, where she "loaded with passengers,*' 
and proceeded to New Orleans. After run- 
ning some time in this newly-established trade, 
and meeting with a variety of misfortunes, she 
finally " snagged," and sunk in the half-exposed 
grave we have designated. 

The two succeeding years produced the boat? 
named Comet and Vesuvius, and also the En- 
terprise. This last-named vessel, after making 
two very successful trips from Pittsburg to 
Louisville, took in a cargo of ordnance stores, 
and, on the 1st of December, 1814, under com- 
mand of Captain H. M. Shreeve, started from 
New Orleans, and was the first steamer that 
made the entire passage from that city to Pitts- 
burg. This was considered a great triumph, 
for it was doubted whether this new power 
could displace the strong arms of the keel-boat- 
men in stemming the powerful tide. 

On this "return trip" from New Orleans the 
Enterprise, starting for Pittsburg, reached Louis- 
ville in twenty -five days. The excitement occa- 
sioned by this event can not now be imagine' 1 . 
Captain Shreeve was greeted by a public demon- 
stration. Triumphal arches were thrown across 
the streets, and his appearance every where call- 
ed forth bursts of enthusiasm. At the public dem- 
onstration given in his honor patriotic speechc s 
were made, and it was formally announced th:;i 
the Enterprise had accomplished all that was 
possible in inland navigation. Nothing tended 
to dampen the hilarity of the hour but a sugges- 
tion of the gallant Captain, " that, under more 
favorable circumstances, he could make the-, 
same trip in twenty days !" This was deemed 
an impossibility, and his boart was looked upon 
as the pardonable weakness of a man already 
intoxicated with unprecedented success. 

Thus the dreams of Fulton became realities : 
as a prophet, he foretold the future glory of the 
valley of the Mississippi ; as more than a seer, 
his genius provided the means for its realiza- 
tion. 

After that time boats continued to increase, 
their usefulness was acknowledged, and the 
means for the glorious triumph of Western com- 
merce was complete. As the pioneer of com- 
merce steam aided in opening all the rivers of 
the West, and its benefits in this respect can not 
be appreciated. The ascent of the river in keel- 
boats occupied one hundred and twenty days, 
and during the dry season and the time of floods 
it could not be ascended at all. The same jour- 
ney, by the means of steam, is now accomplish- 
ed in ten or fifteen days, and at all seasons of 
the year. The strong arm of muscle has given 
way to unfeeling and never-tiring machinery— 
the rude craft is displaced by floating palaces. 
Who can correctly estimate the mighty tri- 



34 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



umphs of steam in the Valley of the Missis- 
sippi ? 

The crowd of passengers ordinarily witnessed 
on our Mississippi steamers present more than 
is any where else observable in a small space, 
the cosmopolitanism of our extraordinary pop- 
ulation. Upon their decks are to be seen im- 
migrants from every nationality in Europe ; in 
the cabin are strangely mingled every phase of 
social life — the aristocratic English lord is in- 
truded upon by the ultra-socialist ; the conserva- 
tive bishop accepts a favor from the graceless 
gambler ; the wealthy planter is heartily amused 
at the simplicities of a " Northern fanatic ;" the 
farmer from about the arctic regions of Lake 
Superior exchanges ideas, and discovers con- 
sanguinity, with a heretofore unknown person 
from the everglades of Florida ; the frank, open- 
handed men of the West are charmed with the 
business-thrift of a party from " down East ;" 
politicians of every stripe, and religionists of 
all creeds, for the time drop their wranglings 
in the admiration of lovely women, or find a 
neutral ground of sympathy in the attractions 
of a gorgeous sunset. 

Upon an examination of the baggage you 
meet with strange incongruities — a large box 
of playing-cards supports a very small package 
of Bibles ; a bowie-knife is tied to a life-pre- 
server ; and a package of garden seeds rejoices 
in the same address as a neighboring keg of 
powder. There is an old black trunk, soiled 
with the mud of the Lower Nile, and a new 
carpet-bag direct from Upper California ; a col- 
lapsed valise of new shirts and antique sermons 
is jostled by another plethoric with bilious pills 
and cholera medicines ; an elaborate dress, di- 
rect from Paris, is in contact with a trapper's 




SCENE AT TJIE LANDING. 



Rocky Mountain costume; a gun-case reposes 
upon a bandbox; and a well-preserved rifle is 
half-concealed by the folds of an umbrella. The 
volume of a strange, eventful, and ever-chang- 
ing life is before you,' on the pages of which are 
impressed phases of original character such as 
are nowhere else exhibited, nowhere seen, but 
on the Mississippi. 

The passengers being usually together from 
five to seven days, there is, from necessity, en- 
couraged a desire to be pleased, and many of 
the happiest reminiscences of well-spent lives 
are connected with the enjoyments, novelties, 
and intellectual pleasures of such prolonged 
trips. 

After the " first day out" genial minds nat- 
urally gather into sympathetic circles ; conver- 
sation is relieved by contimied change of scene : 
every "landing-place" suggests a reminiscence 
of " early times," and varies, without interrupt- 
ing, the flow of conversation. Groups of per- 
sons snugly dispose of themselves under the 
shady side of the "guards;" among which are 
often found ladies and gentlemen but recently 
from the worn-out fields and ruined cities of 
Central Europe, and they find something par- 
ticularly inspiring in the surrounding evidences 
of vitality as exhibited in the rich soil and hope- 
ful " settlements." There are also present per- 
sons who have for many years been in some 
way connected with the river, who have learned 
its traditions, and love to repeat over the thou- 
sand reminiscences that are constantly revived 
by the moving panorama. 

The "social hall" of a Western steamer is 
the lounging-place, and "the bar" the centre 
of attraction. However much we may be op- 
posed to the abuse of alcoholic beverages, the 
opposition is, in intellectual minds, here 
often neutralized by the professional man- 
ner displayed in their indulgence, and is 
charmed by the entire ignorance that 
many evince of any possible moral or 
physical wrong in their use. To make 
the consumption of intoxicating liquors a 
business, and its most minute phenome- 
na, as exhibited by personal experience, 
a close, scientific speculation ; and, above 
all, to devote the entire intellectual facul- 
ties and muscular energy to the one sin- 
gle ambition of consuming the largest 
amount of alcohol while displaying the 
least possible physical evidence of its ef- 
fects, is entirely characteristic of no ordi- 
nary specimens of the human race ; it is 
in keeping with the highest display of 
genius, the most brilliant success in con- 
cealing art. 

One of these specimens was a tall, 
gaunt, wiry looking man, who could flour- 
ish in the malaria of the swamps, and be 
perfectly insensible to attacks of inter- 
mittent fever. He was unmistakably one 
of those persons who consider "a bar- 
rel of whisky a week but a small allow- 
ance for a large family without any 



REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



35 



"wmBt* 




THE UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER. 



cow." He took his place beside the bar when 
" somewhere about the mouth of the Ohio," and 
maintained his position and his legs, though 
"'constantly liquoring," "all the way down to 
Orleans." With him alcohol was not an in- 
toxicating liquor ; his mind, to be sure, floated 
about in its mortality like a slice of lemon in a 
bowl of punch, but the muscles, the hard ten- 
dons of the man, were never weakened, never 
gave way at the joints. 

Just before " the end of frhe trip" there came 
on the boat an individual physically the very op- 
posite of the hero we have described, for he was 
short, phlegmatic, and disposed to puff up ; his 
business, however, had been, and was, simply to 
drink. The two worthies met : it was Napoleon 
and Wellington for the first time face to face. 
The social glass now flew fast and furious : 
genial sympathetic souls had met — the passen- 
gers became interested in the joust — it was a 
sublime exhibition of what outrages the human 
frame could bear up against. The tall man 
throughout was "unphased" — the dewy and 
least compact one surrendered ! The defeated 
one, with regret stamped upon his face, and 
deep, heart-rending disappointment in his tones, 
acknowledged himself " at his own game fairly 



conquered ;" and as he sank into unconscious- 
ness, he seized his opponent by the hand and 
murmured, 

"My friend, the boat is coming to the end of 
its trip and we must part, but don't think, if I 
had a fair chance, that you can outdrink me. 
No, sir-ee ! Take a six days' trip, and see 
what would become of it ; under such circum- 
stances you'd be a mere teetotaller compared 
with me. In all that pertains to getting tight. 
I'd pass you under weigh." 

Quite different, but equally original in his 
character, was Bob Lawton. His face was 
round, and would have been considered rather 
red, were it not for the violent scarlet tint on the 
end of his nose, which, by contrast, gave the rest 
of his countenance a delicate roseate hue. He 
was rotund in form, and with a place to lean 
against, was graceful to the last degree. It was 
Bob's theory that there was no poetry in the 
Western country, and he gave his reasons after 
this novel fashion : 

"Gentlemen, what is poetry but the truth 
exaggerated ? Here it can never arrive at any 
perfection. What chance is there for exag- 
geration in the Great West, where the reality is 
incomprehensible ? A territory as large as clas- 



36 



HAIiTEli'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



sic Greece annually caves into the Mississippi, 
and who notices it ? Things to be poetical 
must be got up on a small scale. The Tiber, 
the Seine, the Thames, appear well in poetry, 
but such streams are overlooked in the West ; 
they don't afford water enough to keep up an 
expansive duck pond — would be mere drains to 
a squatter's pre-emption. I have heard of 
frontiersmen who were poetical, because their 
minds expanded beyond the surrounding phys- 
ical grandeur. Books are not yet large enough to 
contain their ideas — steam is not strong enough 
to impress them on the historic page. These men 
have no definite sense of limitation, know of no 
locality — they sleep not upon a couch, but upon 
the ' Government lands' — they live upon the 
spontaneous productions of the earth, and make 
a duinking-cup of the mighty Mississippi. Set- 
tlements within fifty miles of them occasion the 
feeling of overcrowded population, and they are 
obliged, if they would exist at all, to penetrate 
more deeply into the forests — they have an in- 
stinctive dread of crowds — with them, civiliza- 
tion means law and calomel." 

No one ever saw Bob out of humor — an ache 
or a pain never visited his body — he is as un- 
impressive to disease as an alligator's hide is to 
water. The malaria of the swamps, and the 
bracing airs of the high lands of Tennessee, 




HOC LAWTON IN HIS Gl.OBY. 



equally agree with his constitution ; his laugh is 
catching, his voice exhilarating; the man, gener- 
ally and particularly, is genial as sunshine. His 
appearance at all times is glorious, but we onci 
saw him in a moment of particular effulgence. 
He was, on the occasion alluded to, reclin- 
ing with Phidian grace against the shelf of 
the steamboat bar. In his right hand was a 
fragrant Havana ; his left was occupied with a 
delicate bouquet of mint, confined in a crystal 
goblet, and nourished by some Boston ice, re- 
fined sugar, and most excellent dark-colored 
brandy. From among the vernal leaves pro- 
truded a golden-tinted straw, which proceeded 
upward, reposing its extremity upon his undei 
lip. Thus disposed of, he looked out upon the 
world with a happy, fraternal, patronizing eye, 
such as might be supposed to peep from under 
the lids of contentment itself. 

While thus poised, a number of " hoosiers." 
sallow and thin from " agee," came to the bar, 
and Bob, with his innate hospitality, requested 
them all to "smile" at his expense. The in- 
vitation was accepted, and the ceremony was 
cordially performed. A variety of small talk 
ensued, when one of the enraptured "up coun- 
trymen" suggested — 

" I suppose, stranger, you hail from old Kain- 
tuck ?" 

"Not a bit of it !" returned 
Bob, who was full of Stale 
pride. "I'm from Louisi- 
ana." 

"Wal, I reckon I am sort 
o' taken back," said the querist. 
" for I thought people who live 
so far down the Massissip wa. 
thin and yaller." 

" No !" — returned Bob, with 
considerable animation, and at 
the same time mechanically 
renewing his "bouquet," ami 
getting his "constituents" t< 
follow his example — " the peo- 
ple in my country are neither 
thin nor ' yaller,' except" and 
he put great emphasis on the 
word, " except they get the yal- 
ler fever." 

" The yaller fever !" exclaim- 
ed the crowd in one breath, 
drawing back, and swallow- 
ing the contents of their tum- 
blers as if to prevent conta- 
gion. 

"The yaller fever," slowly 
repeated Bob, his face wreath- 
ed in smiles, as if the word." 
suggested the pleasantest of 
ideas. 

" You don't mean to say that 
it is raging, do you ?" alarmed- 
ly asked a dozen persons at 
once. 

" I say nothing about it, but 
it is well to be cautious," re- 



REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



87 



turned Rob; and perfectly unconscious of the 
effect he was producing, he went on : 

"It don't take the acclimated nor the 'old 
uns;' none of you need be afraid of it ; but let 
it catch hold of a crowd of 'Johnny come late- 
lvs,' and it plants them at once. Them's the 
hoys that turn saffron-colored about the gills, 
and go off as easy as 'sazarac' in an election 
crowd. It's 1iard on them that's subject to the 
' buck agee,' for you see then the constitution 
doesn't withstand the miasma — even the quaran- 
tine can't save 'em." 

Bob having thus delivered himself, and most 
summarily dissipated his audience, he next pro- 
ceeded to " do something else," and by close at- 
tention to it, managed to pleasantly pass away 
his " valuable time." 

The story is familiar of the man who took 
passage in a flat-boat from Pittsburg bound for 
New Orleans. He passed many dreary, listless 
days on his way down the Ohio and Mississippi, 
and seemed to be desponding for want of ex- 
citement. Superficially, he was quiet and inof- 
fensive ; practically, he was perfectly good-na- 
tured and kindly disposed. In course of time 
the craft upon which he was a passenger put 
mto Napoleon, in the State of Arkansas, " for 
groceries." At the moment there was a gen- 
eral fight extending all along the " front of the 
town," which at that time consisted of a single 
f;ouse. 

The unhappy passenger, after fidgeting about, 
.-uid jerking his feet up and down, as if he were 
walking on hot bricks, turned to a " used-up 
spectator" and observed : 

" Stranger, is this a free fight ?" 

The reply was prompt and to the point : 
'• It ar; and if you wish to go in, don't stand on 
ceremony." 

The wayfarer did "go in," and in less time 
£han we can relate the circumstance he was 




THE MAN OF THE FfiEE FIGHT. 



literally "chawed up." Groping his way down 
to the flat, his hair gone, his eye closed, his lips 
swollen, and his face generally " mapped out," 
he sat himself down on a chicken coop, and 
soliloquized thus : 

" So this is Na-po-le-on, is it? — upon my word 
it's a lively place, and the only one at which I 
have had any fun since I left home." 

Insensible as this man was to wounds and 
bruises, we think that we once met with a more 
striking example in a " half-horse, half-alligator" 
fellow, who by some accident was cut up with 
twenty dirk-knife wounds at least, some of which, 
according to his own statement, " reached into 
the hollow." On our sympathizing with his de- 
plorable condition, he cut us short by remark- 
ing: 

" Stranger, don't be alarmed about these 
scratches — I've mighty healing flesh." 

The negroes of the Mississippi are happy 
specimens of God's image done up in ebony, 
and in many lighter colors, and they have fre- 
quently a deserved reputation as "deck-hands.'' 
It is astonishing what an amount of hard work 
they will perforin, and yet retain their vivacity 
and spirits. If they have the good fortune to 
be employed on a " bully boat," they take a live- 
ly personal interest in its success, and become 
as much a part of the propelling machinery as 
the engines. Their custom of singing at all im- 
portant landings, has a pleasing and novel ef- 
fect, and if stimulated by an appreciative audi- 
ence, they will roll forth a volume of vocal 
sounds that, for harmony and pathos, sink into 
obscurity the best performances of "imitative 
Ethiopians." 

With professional flat-boatmen they are al- 
ways favorites, and at night, when the "old ark" 
is tied up, their acme of human felicity is a 
game of " old sledge," enlivened by a fiddle. On 
such occasions the master of the instrument will 
touch off the "Arkansas traveler," and then 
gradually sliding into a " Virginia hoe-down," 
he will be accompanied by a genuine darkie 
keeping time, on the light fantastic heel-and- 
toe tap. It is a curious and exciting struggle 
between cat-gut and human muscle. It af- 
fects not only the performers, but the con- 
tagion spreads to the spectators, who display 
their delight by words of rough encourage- 
ment, and exclamations of laughter, which 
fairly echo along the otherwise silent shores. 
But" the glory of the darkie deck-hand is 
in "wooding up." On a first-class steamer 
i here may be sixty hands engaged in this 
exciting physical contest. The passengers 
extend themselves along the guards as spec- 
tators, and present a brilliant array. The 
performance consists in piling on the boat 
one hundred cords of wood in the shortest 
possible space of time. The steam-boilers 
seem to sympathize at the sight of the fuel, 
and occasionally breathe forth immense 
sighs of admiration — the pilot increases the 
noise by unearthly screams on the "alarm 
whistle." The mate of the boat, for want of 



3S 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




"VIRGINIA IIOE-DOWN. 



something better to do, divides his time be- 
tween exhortations of "Oh, bring them shavings 
along !" " Don't go to sleep at this frolic," and 
by swearing of such monstrous proportions, that 
even very good men are puzzled to decide wheth- 
er he is really profane or simply ridiculous. The 




ZEPHYR SAM "LOADED UP." 



laborers pursue their calling with the precision 
of clock-work. Upon the shoulders of each are 
piled up innumerable sticks of wood, which are 
thus carried from the land into the capacious 
bowels of the steamer. The "last loads" are 
shouldered — the last effort to carry " the largest 
pile" is indulged in. " Zephyr Sam," amidst 
the united cheers of the admiring spectators, 
propels his load, and, for the thousandth time, 
wins the palm of being a "model darkie," "the 
prince of deck hands." 

Old Captain Scott, before steamboats were 
invented, had been a flat-boatman and pilot, and 
his innumerable trips down the Ohio and Mis- 
sissippi gave him a perfect knowledge of the 
dangers of the navigation. He was once heard 
to say, " that he could look in his hand and 
imagine that he saw every 'snag,' 'sawyer,' 
sand bar, and ' cut-off,' from Pittsburg to New 
Orleans." He never lost his presence of mind 
but once, and the circumstance is related as 
follows : One dark night, conceiving that his 
boat (which was one of the very largest size), 
was running with unusual risk, he descended 
from his wonted look-out on the hurricane deck 
and seated himself on the capstan. From great 
fatigue he finally fell asleep, when some wags 
perceiving it, quietly turned the capstan, bring- 
ing the captain's face from the bow around to 
the stern of the boat. On waking, he was 
greeted, of course, with a view of the fires and 
boilers of his own steamer. Raising his hands 
in consternation, he sang out, 



REMEMBRANCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



39 




CAl'TAIN SCOTT. 



"Pilot, for God's sake give the engine a lick 
back — here's a first-class boat coming right down 
upon us, and if she, with all her steam on, 
hits the Emperor in the bows, it will smash up 
every insurance office between h — 1 and Saint 
Louis !" 

The rafts on the Mississippi are crude masses 
of cypress timber, which find ready sale at the 
numerous saw-mills in the vicinity of New 
Orleans. By an accepted law of the river, 
every thing is obliged to get out of the way of 
a raft. We don't know of any persons more 
independent than the first officers of these prim- 
itive flotillas. Their chief unhappiness is occa- 
sioned by the sneering remarks made by spec- 
tators, relative to the speed of rafts, and allusions 
to their propensity to leak, and of the necessity 
of having the bottom pumped dry. The men- 



tion of any of these subjects always excites the 
ire of the raftsmen, and for the ten thousandth 
time, and for the same cause, they get in a pas- 
sion and hurl back abuse. They also have their 
seasons of real trouble ; the sand-bars check their 
onward course, and the swift running "shutes" 
" suck them" into unknown and impossible-to- 
get-out-of waters. Their time of triumph, how- 
ever, arrives when some brisk wind drives them 
crashing against the sides of a flat-boat, and if 
they can "put a scare" on a first-class steamer, 
their joy is complete. 

The wood-yards on the Mississippi are some- 
times of a size corresponding with the magni- 
tude of their surroundings. We have seen 
twenty thousand cords of wood in one "pile/" 
the value of which as it lay upon the ground 
was seventy thousand dollars. We can hardly 
comprehend what must be the aggregate amount 
of all the fuel consumed in one year upon the 
Western waters. These large yards, however, 
result from a combination of capital and enter- 
prise, and are exceptions rather than charac- 
teristic. 

It is quite a relief to the traveler, after many 
days' confinement, to get out at one of these 
temporary landing-places, and if the chief wood- 
chopper be at leisure, much valuable informa- 
tion is often obtained. It is a singular fact, 
that when a steamer hails a wood-yard no 
direct answer to any question is ever obtained. 
We believe there has been no exception to this 
rule even in the memory of the oldest steam- 
boat captain on the river. The steamer is 
desirous of getting "ash wood," provided it is 
"seasoned." The captain, as his boat ap- 
proaches the shore, places his hands to his 
mouth, and forming them into a tube, calls out, 

" What kind of wood is that ?" The reply 
comes back, 

" Cord wood." 

The captain, still in pursuit of information 




MISSISSIPPI KA1<T. 



40 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




TiiE WOOD-CUOPPEK. 

under difficulties, and desirous of learning if 
the fuel be dry and fit for his purpose, bawls out, 

" How long has it been cut ?" 

"Four feet," is the prompt response. 

The captain, exceedingly vexed, next inquires, 
"What do you sell it for?" 

" Cash," returns the chopper, replacing the 
corn-cob pipe in his mouth, and smiling benign- 
ly " on his pile." 

"Wood-yards are apparently infested with 
mosquitoes — we say apparently infest- 
ed. Such is the impression of all ac- 
cidental sojourners; but it is a strange 
delusion, for though one may think 
that they fill the air, inflame the face 
and hands, and if of the Arkansas 
species, penetrate the flesh through the 
thickest boots, still upon inquiring of 
any permanent resident if mosquitoes 
are numerous, the invariable answer is, 

" Mosquitoes — no ! not about here : 
but a little way down the river they are 
awful — thar they torment alligators to 
death, and sting mules right through 
rheir hoofs," 

Squire Blaze was a model wood- 
chopper. He settled at "low water" 
at a place so infested with "snags" 
rhat the flat-boatmen christened it the 
"Devil's Promenade." It lies at the 
mouth of "Dead Man's Bend," just at 
the foot of " Gouge-your-eye-out Isl- 



and." Here he "prospect- 
ed" a wood-yard, and soon 
after, exchanged some 
„of his "dry goods" for 
whisky and tin cups; and 
then, for the accommoda- 
tion of travelers, he con- 
nected " a grocery" to his 
other occupation. His 
early life had been "di- 
varsified," and he gave 
some of the principal in- 
cidents with great zest. 

Having served for a 
long time as first mate 
on a raft, he grew ambi- 
tious for higher distinc- 
tion. By one of those 
magical elevations so pe- 
culiar to a new country, 
he got possession of a 
"starn-wheeler," and en- 
tered the " pine-knot bus- 
iness," the pursuit of 
which took him so high 
up Red River, that he 
says " he got sometimes 
clean out of the way of 
taxes." His pride was 
to be called " captain ;" 
his ambition, to run a 
race. Circumstances oc- 
curred that brought about 
the wished-for consum- 
mation. We give the particulars in his own 
words : 

"I was coming down 'Little Crooked' with a 
full head of steam on, when I overtuck the 
Squatter Belle, loaded, like myself, with pine- 
knots, and bound for the Massissipp. The race 
was excitin', a parfect scrouger — the steam yell- 
ed and the hands swore ; you'd a- thought all the 
univarse was poundin' sheet-iron. 'Twas no 
use — I was always a misfortunate man : the 




A FRESHET. 



DISINTERESTED FRIENDSHIP. 



41 



Fairy Queen's ingin (that was my boat) bad 
light weights on the safety-valve, and the fur- 
naces got choked with rosin. The Squatter 
Belle was getting ahead ; twice I raised my rifle 
to shoot her pilot — for you see I didn't like to 
be beat, when I smelt something warm, and the 
next I knew I was lodged in the limbs of a 
dead cypress, thirty-two feet six inches from 
the ground. This was the proudest moment of 
my life, I arterward got a limner to draw the 
scene, and when the picter was finished, I 
chopped out a frame for it myself. What 
grieves me," continued Squire Blaze, with un- 
usual feeling, "what grieves me is, that my title 
of 'captain' didn't stick, and I've been called 
' squire' ever since." 




6QUIKE ULAZE S PICTURE. 

Sadness overspread Squire Blaze's counte- 
nance for a moment, as he referred to the un- 
pleasant circumstance of losing his well-earned 
title of "Captain," but lighting his pipe, with 
resignation visible upon his intelligent features, 
he concluded : 

" But the wood-choppin' business ain't so bad 
though ; and if it wasn't for the ' freshes' over- 
flowing the ' dryest location' and the ' best land- 
ing on the river,' and the low water keeping 
the steamboats off, I'd have nothing, bless God, 
to complain of, so long as hog meat is plentiful, 
and whisky keeps at a price whar a poor man 
has a chance." 

DISINTERESTED FRIENDSHIP. 

BY A BACHELOR. 

IT is the fashion to marry. It is the fashion 
to abuse those who do not. It is the fashion 
with many who do, to regret that they ever 
did what can not be undone. But this fashion 
belongs to the occult mysteries of an institution 
which was the first of the "Know Nothing" 
order ever established. Those of the uniniti- 
ated are the wiser who mitigate their curiosity, 
and choose rather 



" To bear the ills they have, 
Than fly to others which they know not of." 

I am a bachelor, and, of course, am not in 
the fashion. I am an old bachelor, and my 
habits are fixed — fixed as fate, for, of course, 1 
shall never marry now. Since I did not marry 
when such an act could be carried to the credit 
of juvenile indiscretion, I shall not verify the 
coarse proverb, that "There is no fool like an 
old fool." My experience has been ample and 
various enough. I am too old to turn over a 
new leaf. 

The common destiny of the race seems to 
sweep all, or nearly all, into the hymeneal vor- 
tex. If I have escaped, is it the wrong I did 
in escaping that encourages bitterness and cal- 
umny against me? Or is it envy that incites 
the married multitude to speak with affected 
pity of the unmarried ? Do they really despise 
my loneliness, or, under assumed contempt, do 
they conceal covetousness of my negative fe- 
licity? It is commanded, "Thou shalt not 
covet thy neighbor's wife." I don't. But do 
not they covet my no wife? They talk of the 
delights of mutual confidence. But can there 
be no mutual confidence unless one of the par- 
ties wears flowing drapery, and the other is en- 
cased in bifurcated continuations? Can not 
there be friendship — can not there be even love 
under broadcloth — love of a man for a man, 1 
mean ? To deny it is preposterous. There is 
my old friend James Hay den. I am sure he 
loves me. I am sure I love him. I am sure 
he is disinterested, I am disinterested, we arc 
disinterested. There is none of the pounds- 
shillings-and-pence selfishness of housekeeping 
between us. There is none of the selfish man- 
agement and jealousy of the loves of the sexee, 
We were schooled together. When I was puz- 
zled he telegraphed relief. When he was pauled 
I signaled the word that unlocked him. We 
transacted business together. If I lost, his win- 
nings made it up, and vice versa. He never be- 
trayed or took any advantage or preference of 
me. He never deceived me, and he never will. 
What husband can say that of his wife ? What 
wife can say it of her husband ? There is only 
one venture in which we have not shared. He 
took a wife. Here could be no joint-stock in- 
terest ; and I wanted none. I pitied his weak- 
ness, and resolved to make allowance for it, 
though with some misgivings. It is safer t<> 
trust one than two. Yet never has my conf - 
dence been betrayed ; and I am not jealous of 
James's wife, though she is of me. My friend's 
misfortune has put his virtues in a stronger 
light. He can be true to friendship in spite 
of matrimony. My house has always offered 
him a daily refuge from the storms, which, 
though they clear the atmosphere of the house- 
hold, demand a shelter ; even as the most wel- 
come " growing rains" are best appreciated un- 
der an umbrella. 

I am an uncle. All bachelors are uncles. 
It is their destiny and vocation. Perhaps— I 
say perhaps — for with my friend James's mel- 



42 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ancholy experience before me, I can not say 
what might have been my weakness — perhaps 
had I not been an uncle, I might have been a 
husband. Here is an old letter — tear-stained, 
and worn in the folds from frequent opening. 
It was written by an early love — a true love — 
an unselfish love — my sister. Read it : 

" My dear Brother — I think there is more 
than a half reproach in the tone in which you 
answer my invitation. If you only knew what 
a struggle it cost me to write it ! But I would 
not suffer you to be invited to my wedding with 
the polite formality in which gilt-edged notes 
were sent to mere acquaintances. I can not 
endure that you should think, as you seem to 
think, that there can be no room in a sister's 
heart for an only brother, because she has open- 
ed it to receive a husband. We are orphans. 
We have been lonely. Why should Ave persist 
in keeping ourselves apart from all the rest of 
the world ? I am sure that when you will per- 
mit yourself to know the gentleman for whom 
you seem to have now no feeling but suspicious 
distrust, you will love him as a brother should ; 
for, will you not be brothers ?" 

There is more of it. But though I can not 
read it without tears, it is not to be expected 
that others will feel the same interest in it. So 
I spare the rest. My sister was half grieved, 
half angry, because I would not be pleased when 
she was about to surrender her whole life, hopes, 
happiness to a stranger. How could I be pleased ? 
/ had never thought of marrying ; why should 
she ? But she did. I submitted. I witnessed 
the ceremony. I even gave away the bride. 
And I felt, while I did so, that I was giving 
away — losing — my only sister. And so it 
proved. Her husband was no better or worse 
than most men. He died, and left her no wealth 
save five children. 

She was not endued with physical strength 
to manage such a bequest. The sister whom I 
had given away I took home again. Heaven 
forgive me! But I thought less of his death 
and of her sorrow than of my gain ; for my sis- 
ter was once more under the same roof with 
me. But my sad pleasure was brief. She fol- 
lowed her husband, and her children became 
mine entirely. 

James Hayden said they were well provided 
for. So they are. "But," he said, "if I had 
only a wife, now, to be their mother." I came 
as near quarreling with him as I could for say- 
ing such a thing. With such a charge on my 
hands, what time have I to think of marrying? 
And how can I be sure that my wife would be 
their mother ? The fact seems to be, that some 
of us must keep our senses to repair the dam- 
age done by the loss of their wits in others. I 
am determined to be a father to my sister's lit- 
tle ones, now my own ; and not to risk the dis- 
traction of being husband to somebody who 
might cause me to become recreant to my trust, 
by making me a father on my own account. I 
am too old a business man for that, and James 
Hayden knows it. Haven't we discharged more 



than one cashier for doing paper in his own be- 
half? The cases are parallel. 

The little rogues have wound themselves 
round me. They could not be more my own 
if they wore my name. But all love in this 
world is troublesome comfort. Such perils as 
they have exposed me to ! Yes, perils ; but I 
have survived them. I am myself still, and 
will keep so. Such an upsetting of my bache- 
lor menage! Such encounters with teachers, 
and governesses, and housekeepers ! Such mis- 
takes as tradespeople are constantly making ! I 
am continually " fathered" in spite of myself; 
but that I care nothing about. There is one 
thing I can not stand. I have sent away six 
housekeepers, because each was mistaken for 
the mother of the children, and each wa,s no- 
thing loth, for they all understood what that im- 
plied. And so did I. There was but one guess 
where such mistakes could end — if not correct- 
ed. That end I have guarded against by in- 
stalling Madame Pickle in the housekeeper's 
room. Nobody could mistake her for the wife 
of any thing except the kitchen range. 

But such a housekeeper is no companion for 
the children. I asked James Hayden what I 
should do. He said, engage a governess, and I 
did. She came highly recommended, and has 
not belied her good character. The children 
have improved under her instruction and exam- 
ple. Their manners are subdued and polite. 
Their progress in the branches they have stud- 
ied is notable. Their respectful attention to me 
is most remarkable. Come, now, thought I, aft- 
er a few months' experience, this being at the 
head of a family is not so bad a thing after all ! 

Such pleasant thrice-daily meetings as were 
our repasts ! There was no keeping the chil- 
dren away in the nursery, to feed them like lit- 
tle pensioners, and let their manners form as it 
pleased fate and the cook. They were brought 
square to the table, and taught how to demean 
themselves. And after tea they had always 
something so pleasant to say to Uncle-pa, as 
they called me, that their stay was protracted 
till I gave certain understood signals that I had 
had enough of them. When I unfolded the 
paper, or looked at my watch, or put away my 
tooth-pick, with the air of one who has trifled 
long enough, and now intends to do something 
to the purpose, our governess took the hand of 
the youngest. The rest followed — not without 
some little rehearsal of Romeo. Parting is such 
sweet sorrow, that they would have continued 
it till midnight at least — 

" Still signing to go, and still loth to depart." 

Miss Amity was sometimes obliged to return 
for some little matter which the children had 
forgotten in their prolonged hurry of departure. 
Politeness would not suffer me to see her enter 
and depart without a word. The dear children 
were a never-tiring topic for me ; and Miss Am- 
ity, while as sensible as I was to their remark- 
able perfection, never failed to remember to 
whom they owed it — their kind and paternal 
uncle. What she said upon this head — rather 



DISINTERESTED FRIENDSHIP. 



43 



by implication and innuendo than indirect words 
—I could not but feel the justice of. I feebly 
parried her praises, and thus gave a pleasant 
little piquancy and prolongation to the door- 
knob-in-hand conversation. 

And it came to pass that these conversations 
—at first held occasionally with Miss Amity as 
a standing interlocutor — became of daily repeti- 
tion. And then, at my request, Miss Amity 
ventured to sit a moment, though always in the 
chair nearest the door. And then, being at- 
tracted by something over the fire-place, she 
advanced to that point to continue her remarks. 
And then it became natural to her always to 
stand, with some waif belonging to the dismissed 
children (it was wonderful how invariably some- 
thing was left behind when they went out), di- 
rectly opposite my chair, on the other side of 
the grate. And then she would unconsciously 
rest in unrest on the outer edge of a chair, like 
one ready to flit from a forbidden perch. And 
then she learned to sit a few moments, grace- 
fully and at ease, as if there were no harm in 
it. And then — 

One night the nurse asked, peeping in at the 
door, w Please, Miss Amity, mayn't I put the 
children to bed before you come up ? I should 
like to go out, if you please, miss." 

" Oh, yes — no matter — I'll go up now." But 
the nurse went, and Miss Amity did not make 
haste to follow. And so, by nice degrees, the 
nurse was taught to come to the parlor and take 
away the children herself, and Miss Amity wait- 
ed till her own hour for retiring — except when 
the door-bell rang, when she disappeared before 
the caller was ushered in. And at length some 
particular friends, like James Hayden, for in- 
stance, calling very often, Miss Amity became 
familiar with their approach, and lost her terror 
of it. By-and-by another advance was made. 
Miss Amity paused to bid her patron's friends 
good-evening before she withdrew. The next 
amelioration in her condition was to wait and 
talk with them a moment about education in 
general and the dear children in particular. 
When this topic became exhausted we found 
others, which took up more time ; and Miss 
Amity certainly made a very pleasant impres- 
sion on all my friends — on James Hayden in 
particular. He would even inquire for her if 
she happened not to be present — which inquiry 
would be a very great liberty in any one else ; 
but he is my most intimate friend, and stands 
not on conventional etiquette. 

Every thing went on delightfully. Never was 
a better ordered and more quiet house and fam- 
ily. Never had I been so placidly content with 
bachelorhood ; so fixed in my determination 
that nothing should ever induce me to forego 
my independence and change my state. Here 
was perfect comfort. The presence of Miss 
Amity was sunshine in the house. A perfect 
being in her manners — delicacy and refinement 
in her thoughts — virtue incarnate — the best pos- 
sible guardian for the dear orphans — and so 
charmingly unsophisticated, childlike, and un- 



obtrusive. And I had to thank James Hayden 
for it all. Poor fellow — it's a pity he's married ! 
We might make a joint establishment of it ; for 
I have satisfied myself that entire happiness can 
be secured without matrimonial chains. 

The children sallied out for their daily walks 
or rides so delightfully happy that I once caught 
myself wishing that they were mine indeed, and 
that I were father instead of uncle. But I 
checked my foolish thought at once. Were 
they not mine ? And was not I myself mine, 
my own, besides, with nobody to claim pro- 
prietorship in me, or assert over me any right 
to domination on the plea of being the mother 
of my children ? Had I not all the comforts 
of home without any of its disadvantages? 

I put the question one day to my old friend 
James Hayden, who had dined with me. Miss 
Amity and the children had left us, and we 
were taking the second cigar. There might 
have been something of triumph in my tone, 
for his wife is a little acid, and the subject is a 
tender one. 

"You are very comfortable, my dear fellow," 
he said ; and pausing to puff, added, "of course 
you will soon make permanent arrangements." 

"Per-ma-nent ar-range-ments !" 

"Don't repeat after me, nor look so wonder- 
struck. Don't deny to an old friend that you 
intend to marry Carry — ah — Miss Amity !" 

" I never dreamed of such a thing !" 

"Then your sleep must be very sound in- 
deed," said my friend, laughing. " Every body 
is full of it, and we only wonder that you have 
waited so long. It is a very embarrassing 
situation to keep the young lady in." 

"Embarrassing! Why she is only the chil- 
dren's governess. She was educated precisely 
to that expectation, and I venture to say enter- 
tains no other." 

My friend whistled, and took his hat. What 
plague was in it ? What had I done ? Wliat 
should I do ? After tea came the old comedy. 
Children dismissed. Me with evening news- 
paper. Miss Amity opposite. And now be- 
hold a new thing under the gas-light! I, so 
calm the night before, nay, at dinner that day, 
so free from care or vexation, now perturbed, 
and with nobody to tell it to. There was no 
speaking to Miss Amity on that subject, for 
there \v as no telling w here to begin it, or where 
it would end. And I could talk of nothing 
else. And I must speak — or burst. The silent 
tete-a-tete w r as very aw r kward — to me. Miss 
Amity worked away at embroidery or crochet, 
as unconscious and unconcerned as the spoiled 
cat on the hearth-rug. As I peeped over my 
paper at her, I could not help regretting that 
such a fine vis-a-vis as we presented must soon, 
in all human probability, be spoiled forever. 

A caller relieved my perplexity. It was my 
pertinacious friend, James Hayden. I was al- 
ways glad to see him — never more so than this 
very evening. Miss Amity had seemed unusu- 
ally disposed to stay, and there is no knowing 
what felly I might have been guilty of. I trem- 



44 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



blc now when I think of it ; but, thank fortune ! 
the danger is over. I breathe freer and deeper ! 

Miss Amity soon withdrew after Hayden 
entered. Though, as I said just now, there was 
only one thing of which I could think, I was 
determined not to talk of that. I tried Sebas- 
topol. It was stale. I said it never would be 
taken. James said "Pie didn't know. Quite 
as obstinate resistance had been conquered by 
regular approaches." What did the man mean ? 
I would not see any equivoque, and turned the 
theme to Kansas. But it was of no use. We 
gabbled commonplaces for a while, till at last our 
heads drew nearer together, and we talked long 
and earnestly in an undertone. What we talked 
of may be inferred from Hayden's parting re- 
marks : " If it is really as you say, and you have 
no intention of proposing ; or if it is not really 
as you say, though you think it is, but don't 
know that you do really mean — " I rose, for I 
was becoming excited. James Hayden abrupt- 
ly concluded, "In any case, it will not answer 
for Miss Amity to retain her present position." 

" But what is to become of the children ?" 

"That is a difficulty. But there are abund- 
ance of good schools in which you can place 
them, and your house will resume its old com- 
fort and quiet." 

Old comfort and quiet ! I winced under it. 
Why did he not tell me to board up the win- 
dows, and shut out the day? What is a house 
good for without children ? 

" Grant all you say," I replied at length, 
" grant all you say, and how am I to manage it ? 
How shall I tell that contented and unsuspect- 
ing young woman that she must go ? What rea- 
son shall I give for dismissing her? It will not 
do to put it upon the ground you state." 

" Oh ! well," said my friend, " trust to fortune, 
and wait. You will not need to wait long, I 
fancy, for female delicacy and tact will get you 
out of the difficulty, and that soon, or I am mis- 
taken." 

"Out of the difficulty!" thought I, as the door 
closed after him. A plague of these disinter- 
ested advisers, who can prescribe with such per- 
fect composure when the blister does not touch 
their own epidermis ! The first disturbed rest 
which I had endured for years was mine that 
night. The more I studied my quandary, the 
more of a quandary it seemed to me, and the 
less appearance of solution presented itself. 

Even the mirth of the children at breakfast 
did not relieve or inspirit me. They were in 
delightful spirits — tip-top! Philosophic little 
rogues — they can enjoy the present, undisturbed 
either by gloomy retrospections or melancholy 
forebodings. But Miss Amity : there was an air 
of constraint over her manner which I had never 
observed before. It quite spoiled my breakfast. 
Her charming naivcttwas gone entirely. 

When she rose to leave the table she put in 
my hands a note. I read the superscription — 
looked up — and she was gone, children and all. 
It was a politely-couched notice, advising me 
that she found herself obliged to desire me to 



fill her place in a house which she must leave 
with the deepest regret, and should ever re- 
member with pleasure, etc., etc., etc. 

Ubiquitous James Hayden ! Why did he drop 
in just then ? Simply to walk down in the city 
with me, as he has done daily for — no matter 
how many years. It is well he is not a woman. 
Had he been female, one of the best old bach- 
elors who ever lived — your humble servant, to 
wit — would have been nipped in his twenties, if 
not in his teens. "Now, James," said I, hand- 
ing him the note, " what's to be done next ?" 

" What's to be done ? Why, it is done ! The 
very thing you were punishing your foolish head 
about last night is completed to your hand. It's 
only to inclose her salary, with a remembrance 
from the children in a tangible form, regret, etc., 
and there's an end of it. But after dinner will 
do. Come ; we're late." 

As we walked through the hall I heard a dole- 
ful noise up stairs. The change had been an- 
nounced, and the children were howling over it. 
Perhaps they will be best at school. 

Now, Mr. Harper, I know you don't adver- 
tise ; but can't you let me say here, that if any 
lady — fit for nobody's wife, and above the sus- 
picion of fitness — but still fit to teach any body's 
children, as well in manners and morals as in 
mind — an attractive piece of feminine repulsive- 
ness, and a repulsive specimen of female loveli- 
ness — if such an one wants a situation, in the 
family of a single gentleman of large family — 
she may address " Charles," at your office. 

[Note ey the Editor. — After the foregoing was in type, 
we received the following. But it is absurd to think our 
"forms" can he delayed by any whim of our correspond- 
ent's, lie must settle matters with his disinterested. 
friend in the best manner that he can. Instead of sup- 
pressing his first communication we print both.] 

Please don't print my nonsense about our 

late governess, now the recognized head of the 

household. Marriage is not so very dreadful, 

after all : 

" A ring's put on, a prayer or two is said, 
And — notbing more." 

My friend, James Hayden, gave away the bride, 
and I received her. The children could not d<» 
without her, and I married merely to please 
them. It would not do for her to hear that, I 
suppose ; "but I am new to matrimonial etiquette, 
and bachelors are proverbially free-spoken. J 
suppose I must say, with Benedick : " When 1 
said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I 
should live to be married !" 

Our late governess and present lady is of 
good family. She is James Hayden's niece. It's 
very remarkable that he never mentioned it 
while she was a dependent. I did not think so 
noble a fellow had among his weak points so 
much foolish pride. Heigho ! The vis-a-vis is 
resumed. I can't discharge her now, if I would. 
Well, I suppose it's destiny, and we must all 
submit. Perhaps it is better to yield while you 
are young, with a good grace, than to fight fate 
till you can't any longer. I am now in the 
fashion ! 



A TKIP TO NEWFOUNDLAND. 



45 




iitfiisr 



8AMBKO' LIGIIT. -ENTRANCE TO 1IALIFAX I1AREOE. 



A TRIP TO NEWFOUNDLAND. 

A BRIGHTER sun never shone upon a hap- 
pier party than that which beamed upon 
those who, on board the steamer James Adger, 
left Pier No. 4, North River, on the morning 
of the seventh of Avigust, 1855. A crowd, com- 
posed of the curious, the idle, and the friends 
of those who were leaving, had gathered on the 
wharf, and as the moorings were cast loose and 
the enormous paddle-wheels began to revolve, 
shout after shout went up from those on shore, 
lustily returned by the outward-bound, and many 
a " God-speed !" was sent after us, and many 
a prayer went up for our success. 

We were going to carry out a great enter- 
prise ; not to carry hostile messages, nor batter 
down walls, but to lay the first link of a chain 
which should eventually bind the nations of the 
earth together in bonds of amity, and hasten 
that " good time coming," 

" When every transfer 
Of earth's natural gifts shall be a commerce 
Of good words and works." 

In a word, we were going to lay the cable of 
the Submarine Telegraph, which is destined to 
unite the Old World with the New, and by 
means of which Gothamites and Cockneys shall 
be placed within speaking-distance of each oth- 
er. The wire we were about to consign to the 
bottom of " old ocean" was intended to reach 
from Port au Basque, Newfoundland, to Cape 
North, the extremest point of Cape Breton Isl- 
and — a distance of between sixty and seventy 
miles — and had been brought from England in 
the bark Sarah L. Bryant, then, as we expect- 
ed, waiting for us at Port au Basque. We num- 
bered in all sixty passengers, including the offi- 
cers of the Company whose guests we were, and 
all on board seemed to have made up their 
minds not only "to be happy themselves, but 
to be the cause that happiness should be in 
others." 

As we steamed down our beautiful bay, a 
light southeast wind greeted us wooingly, and 
the green shores of Long Island and Staten 
Island seemed to have put on their holiday 
looks, as though, by their beauty and freshness, 
they would make us long, when away over " the 
deep, deep sea," to return to them once more. 
The sea, outside Sandy Hook, wore an unruf- 
Vol, Xri.— No. 67.— D 



fled surface, and night overtook us off Moriches, 
where the hull of the Franklin, like a huge skel- 
eton, lies a monument of Neptune's might. After 
admiring a grand display of Nature's pyrotech- 
nics, in the shape of " heat-lightning," all sought 
the cabin, where an impromptu concert whiled 
away the hours till midnight. We passed Mon- 
tauk Point — a locality ever-memorable to many 
who have yielded compulsory tribute to Nep- 
tune there — about 11 p.m. We rounded it, 
however, without a qualm ; and many, who had 
been rather suspicious of themselves before, find- 
ing that they were still "all right," began to 
think themselves "good sailors," and to talk 
about " a life on the ocean wave" as something 
very delightful. 

On the eighth we took our last look at the 
Yankee coast, and were soon off soundings and 
making our course direct for Cape Sable. Soon 
after leaving Nantucket shoals, however, the 
ocean, before so smooth, began to assume a 
rougher look, and a cross sea soon tried the 
nerves of our more confident passengers. Its 
effects were shortly visible in pale faces, while 
many sought below a relief from strange emo- 
tions "entirely beyond their control." The 
ladies won much credit by the manner in which 
they bore themselves ; and though their lips 
paled, and the rosy hue departed from their 
cheeks, they still manfully kept their places 
upon the paddle-boxes, and with light songs 
and merry words strove to drive off their " pe- 
culiar sensations." During the next day we 
saw some whales, whose spoutings caused many 
exclamations of wpnder and delight from those 
who had never before seen these monsters of 
the deep; and about sunset we came in sight of 
Seal Island off the southern coast of Nova Sco- 
tia. Every telescope through which a more 
definite view of the low, barren, rock-bound 
coast could be obtained, was brought into requi- 
sition ; but nothing of interest was discernible. 
We soon found ourselves on the fishing-ground, 
covered with French and Colonial fishing-craft, 
which, by their picturesque appearance, relieved 
the dull monotony of the sky and sea. 

Threatenings of a coming storm with a strong 
head*wind destroyed our hopes of making Hal- 
ifax that night, and when off Sambro' Head at 
dusk the weather was so thick that it was de- 






46 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 



cided to stand off and on till morning. The 
sea rose high, the wind blew a gale, and our 
gallant steamer rolled so heavily that all were 
forced to retire to their berths. In the morn- 
ing, which broke clear and beautiful, we found 
ourselves about twenty-five miles to the south 
of Sambro' Light, and taking a pilot on board, 
were soon steaming up the harbor of Halifax, of 
which the Nova Scotians are so justly proud. 
The entrance is protected by a fort and mar- 
tello tower, built on a small island about two 
miles in circumference, about half a mile from 
the city, which stands on the side of a hill com- 
manding a splendid view of the harbor. On 
the summit of the hill a large and apparently 
impregnable fort is in process of construction. 
Some six hundred soldiers are already quar- 
tered in it. 

As soon as our ship touched the wharf, nearly 
the whole of our party rushed on shore, and 
immediately spread themselves about the town, 
bent on seeing all the lions of the place at once, 
to the no little astonishment of the natives, 
who regarded our Yankee peculiarities with 
much curiosity. We soon ransacked the city, 
visited every public building or place worthy of 
notice, and by engaging every carriage we could 
press into our service, obtained in a few hours 
a pretty clear idea of the place, the people, and 
their character and condition. Some of our 
party visited a French frigate lying in the har- 
bor, and were received very kindly by the offi- 
cers on board. We left Halifax about half past 
seven in the evening, amidst loud cheering from 
the people who had gathered on the wharf, 
which Avas returned by the party on board the 
James Adger with three times three and a " tiger," 
which rather astonished them. Before leaving 
we took on board a pilot thoroughly acquainted 
with the coast of Cape Breton and Newfound- 



land, as far as St. John's, the place of our ulti- 
mate destination. 

We stood directly for Port au Basque, where 
we expected to find the Sarah L. Bryant, with the 
cable on board; but on reaching that place, on 
Sunday morning, our anxious gaze was not re- 
warded by the sight of the bark. She had not 
yet arrived, although two weeks over-due. This 
was a great disappointment to all, as the weather 
was propitious for laying the cable, and it was 
the intention to commence the task early on 
Monday morning. 

It was for some time a question whether, un- 
der the circumstances, we should wait at Port 
au Basque for the arrival of the Sarah L. Bryant, 
or proceed to St. John's. As we intended to 
visit the latter place before returning, in order 
to pay our respects to the authorities of New- 
foundland, it was decided to go there at once, 
and after a short stay return for the Sarah L. 
Bryant at Port au Basque. During the three 
or four hours we lay outside the harbor, about 
a dozen of us went on shore, with a view of find- 
ing out what manner of men and things the 
place produced. It is little more than a village, 
containing some forty or fifty houses, built of 
wood, most of them two stories high. About a 
dozen of them are grouped together, while the 
rest are scattered over an area of over half a 
mile, giving one an idea that the houses are on 
bad terms with each other. The site on which 
this unsociable-looking place is built commands 
a very fine view of the surrounding country to 
the distance of six or seven miles. On the 
north rises the high promontory of Cape Ray, 
to the height of fifteen hundred feet. The 
country seems to be almost entirely destitute 
of vegetation, though a little turf here and there 
forms a pleasant relief to the general barren as- 
pect, while a few low stunted bushes, bearing a 




HALITAX. FROM TI1K CITADEL. 



A TRIP TO NEWFOUNDLAND. 



47 



IN 







ENTRANCE TO THE IIARI50R OF ST. JOHN 8. 



brown berry, are scattered in small clusters at 
distant intervals. However, what the place 
lacks in vegetation it makes up in fish. The 
people fish for a living, and live on fish. Fish 
for breakfast, fish for dinner, tovjours fish. 
There are fish every where, in-doors and out, 
where they arc piled up in immense stacks, 
looking like ricks of hay, but smelling like any 
thing but "the perfume of Araby the blest." 
The people seem neither to know nor care about 
any thing else than fish, and twist the conver- 
sation how you will, it is sure to come back to 
fish. All is fish that comes to their net, and so 
long as plenty come, they bother themselves 
very little about other matters. 

After a consultation with Mr. Canning, one 
of the best engineers in England, who had been 
engaged by the Telegraph Company to superin- 
tend the laying down of the wires, we left Fort 
au Basque for St. John's, where we arrived, 
without any incident transpiring worthy of note, 
on the morning of the 14th. 

The entrance to the harbor of St. John's and 
the surrounding scenery are remarkable for 
their beauty and sublimity. The island is pro- 
tected on its eastern side b} r the same bold, 
mountainous line of coast that characterize the 
whole southern extremity of it. The rocks 
rise precipitously to the height of seven or 
eight hundred feet directly from the water, 
which is sufficiently deep to enable even the 
largest ships to pass in safety within a few feet 
of their rugged and deeply-seamed sides, which 
are perforated at their base with large caves ; 
and a romantic imagination might find amuse- 
ment in peopling them with bold smugglers and 
wild buccaneers. 

The entrance to the harbor is so concealed 
from the view, when but a short distance out at 
3ea, that it was not observable till we had ap- 
proached within half a mile of it. Signal Hill 
rises to the right, on the summit of which stands 
a fortification, while another frowns at its base. 



Neither of these defenses, however, looked as 
though they were capable of offering a ven 
strong resistance, but the narrow entrance is 
amply protected by other works. During the 
last war a heavy iron chain was stretched across 
this entrance to prevent the passage of hostile 
ships, the remains of which, and an old cannon 
or two, called to our minds the fact that an 
American ship would not always have been al- 
lowed to pass so quietly. Opposite Signal Hill 
rises another elevation, to the height of about 
six hundred feet, which bears upon its side a 
formidable-looking fort, while still another forti- 
fication has been erected at its base, from the 
centre of which rises a light-house. These nar- 
rows are less than half a mile broad at their 
widest part, and about a mile long. When 
about the middle of this narrow gorge we noti- 
fied the good people of St. John's of our ap- 
proach by a salute, which was echoed and re- 
echoed a hundred times among the hills, mak- 
ing " an awful pother o'er our heads" for some 
time. 

The city of St. John's presents a very pic- 
turesque appearance, being built on the side 
of a hill with a gradual ascent of about two 
hundred and fifty feet, overlooking the beau- 
tiful harbor, which has the appearance of a 
lake after you have passed the narrow en- 
trance. Large hills rise on every side, upon 
which the fishermen's huts, each surrounded by a 
green garden spot, are scattered here and there, 
taking from the natural wildness of the scene. 
At the base of these hills are erected the stages, 
or "flakes," where the codfish are cleaned and 
cured, preparatory to being packed for market. 
These stages are made of light poles, and some- 
times stand on the sides of steep rocks overlook- 
ing the water. 

We were most hospitably received by the au- 
thorities and citizens of St. John's, who are very 
anxious to extend their present limited com- 
mercial intercourse with us, and regard the 



is 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




ASCENT TO A "FLAKE." 



Transatlantic Telegraphic enterprise as a power- 
ful means of bringing about such a result. Dur- 
ing our stay among them they seemed to vie 
with each other in paying us attention ; every 
vehicle was put out at our disposal, and press- 
ing invitations poured in upon us from all sides 
to accept the hospitality of their houses. Our 
limited stay, however, prevented us from ac- 
cepting half of them. 

There are no public buildings in St. John's 
that are remarkable, either for their size or 
architectural beauty, if we except the Catholic 
Cathedral, which is a magnificent building of 
fine proportions, and capable of containing at 
least ten thousand persons. Its cost was over 
half a million of dollars. 

The Colonial Building is a square structure 
of granite, two stories high. It contains the 
chambers of the two Legislative branches, the 
House of Assembly, and the Legislative Coun- 
cil. A short distance from this building stands 
the Governor's house, where the recently ap- 
pointed Governor, Mr, Charles H. Darling, re- 
sides. 

On the evening of the 15th a grand banquet 
was given on board the steamer to the public 



authorities of St. John's. The military band 
from the garrison was in attendance, and about 
one hundred persons, including the party on 
board the James Adger, participated in the fes- 
tivities of the occasion. Peter Cooper, Esq., 
the President of the Telegraph Company, pre- 
sided, supported by Mr. Eield as Vice-Presi- 
dent. On this occasion Professor Morse, in re- 
ply to a toast in his honor, entered into a brief 
history of the telegraph, and the many obstacles 
which were thrown in his way on his first ap- 
plication to Congress for an appropriation to 
enable him to construct an experimental line 
between Washington and Baltimore. Other 
speeches were made and listened to, and then 
we joined the ladies in the saloon, where the 
song and the dance wound up the evening in 
the most delightful manner. On the following 
evening the authorities of St. John's returned 
the compliment by a splendid ball in our honor 
in the Colonial Buildings. It was a delightful 
occasion, and the bright eyes of the fair maids 
of St. John's left an impression upon the hearts 
of more than one of the bachelors of our party 
that will not soon be obliterated. We were to 
have left for Port au Basque the next morning, 




GOVERNMENT HOUSES, ST. JOHN'S. 



A TRIP TO NEWFOUNDLAND. 



4S* 




but the Telegraph Company, wishing to make 
some return for the generous hospitality which 
had been extended to us, postponed our de- 
parture till Saturday, and invited two hundred 
of the principal inhabitants to participate in an 
excursion on board the James Adger. Accord- 
ingly, with our guests on board, we proceeded 
about ten miles outside the harbor. After a 
delightful day, which will ever be remembered 
by all who participated in its varied enjoyments, 
we returned to the harbor, where we bade fare- 
well to our guests, and the hospitable city of 
St. John's, and steered our course for Port au 
Basque to join the Sarah L. Bryant. 



About a mile and a half from St. John's is 
the small fishing village of Quidi Vidi, where 
reside those hardy sons of toil whose labors sup- 
ply the city of St. John's with its great staple. 
Codfish. The Newfoundland fisheries first grew 
into importance about the year 1596, and in 
1615 England had at Newfoundland 250 ships, 
and the French, Biscayans, and Portuguese 
400 ships. The French always viewed the 
participation of the English in these fisheries 
with great jealousy. It was a maxim of the 
French Government, that the North American 
fisheries were of more natural value, in regard 
to navigation and power, than the gold mines 



50 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




CLEANING FISli. 



of Mexico could have been, if the latter had 
been possessed by France. The French pur- 
sue what is known as the bultow system of 
fishing, and annually 360 vessels are on the 
Banks, each with 8 to 10,000 fathoms of bultow s 
spreading over 500 miles of ground, and bait- 
ing over one million of hooks. The annual 
catch of all the fisheries — the American, French, 
and Colonial — amounts, in the aggregate, to a 
total of 4,400,000 quintals of codfish, valued at 
£3,038,675, or about $15,000,000. 

The fishermen are an honest, frank, and gen- 
erous class of men, for whom the elements seem 
to have no terrors. Their life is a continuous 
succession of perils and hardships, yet it has a 
strong fascination for them, and they rarely 
voluntarily retire from it till old age or prema- 
ture decrepitude, arising from its exposure, com- 
pel them to do so. 

They are, as a general thing, extremely im- 
provident in the disposition of their limited 
means; which fact destroys, in a great meas- 
ure, any thing like independence on their 
part in their dealings with the merchants of 
St. John's, who are the only purchasers of 
their fish. A considerable degree of ill feel- 
ing grows out of this state of things, and the 
fishermen would gladly find competitors with 
the merchants of St. John's for the purchase 
of their commodity. 

After leaving St. John's, we discovered that 
many additions had been made to the live-stock 
on board our vessel, in the shape of numerous 
specimens of the Newfoundland dog. These 
animals abound in St. John's. You meet them 
at every step. They are at the door of every 
house, the entrance to every store, and in every 
room. Dogs are ever before, beside, and be- 
hind you ; and though they are not at all fierce 
or belligerent in their character, still they evi- 
dently recognize a stranger in you, and seem 
to ask, by their looks, what you are about, how 



you came there, and where you are going. 
Though there is no question about their being 
dogs of Newfoundland, it is very questionable 
whether they are all genuine thorough-bred 
Newfoundland dogs. 

While in St. John's, nearly every one of our 
party seemed seized with an uncontrollable dis- 
position to possess at least one of these dogs, 
while others, still more covetous of canine prop- 
erty, purchased whole families, including large 
litters of pups. The consequence was, that the 
good steamer, James Adger, became, in one sense 
at least, a regular " doggery." There were dogs 
on the quarter-deck, dogs forward, and dogs 
aft. Dogs in every coil of rope, and dogs bask- 
ing in the heat of the smoke-stacks. Pups in 
boxes and baskets, pups in berths, puppies in 
ladies' arms and on ladies' laps. Go where you 
would, en board the steamer, dogs met you at 
every turn ; and if we had climbed to the main- 
truck, we should not have been much surprised 
to have found one of our canine friends there, 
in the shape of a dog-vane ! They yelped, and 
howled, and whined, and barked, through even- 
note of the gamut ; but, as an insane individual 
on board, given to the despicable practice of 
making bad jokes, observed, their "bark was 
on the C," as a general thing. Standing on the 
quarter-deck, and looking down the length of 
the vessel, the eye wandered through long vistas 
of dogs, the wagging of whose tails was enough 
to make a nervous man uneasy, and affected 
one like the monotonous ticking of a clock in a 
still room. Every body, too, that had a dog. 
imagined his dog better than the dog of any 
body else, and once, during our return voyage, 
when about half-way home, the excitement all 
over, and time hanging rather heavily on our 
hands, one of the reverend gentlemen on board 
worked himself into such a state of excitement 
on the merits of his own peculiar dog, that he 
proposed to the Captain a general dog fight, in 



A TRIP TO NEWFOUNDLAND. 



51 



which his dog should take the field against all 
comers. 

It is a remarkable fact, that though our ca- 
nine cargo indulged in their propensity for 
howling almost continuously, they never so 
thoroughly exhibited their powers in this way 
as during the performance of divine service in 
the cabin. The moment prayers commenced, 
or a psalm was sung, the rascals began, and 
kept up one unceasing howl until the act of 
devotion was over. This roused the supersti- 
tious fears of the sailors, who protested that we 
should never make port, and insisted that the 
presence of so many dogs and ministers on 
board would insure our finding our way to 
Davy Jones's Locker, and that we should all go 
to the dogs together. From the numerous adver- 
tisements which have appeared in the daily 
papers, announcing dogs for sale, since our re- 
turn, we are of the opinion that many of those 
who made extensive purchases have grown sick 
of their bargains. 

As we neared Port au Basque, the greatest 
anxiety prevailed on board to know whether the 
Sarah L. Bryant had arrived. We came in sight 
of Cape Ray about five o'clock on the morning 
of the 20th, and when we were sufficiently near 
to the place of our destination, every telescope 
was brought to bear upon the place, all be- 
ing anxious to make the first announcement 
of the pleasing intelligence that the object of 
our search was within the harbor. Some of our 
company went aloft, and discovered a large ves- 
sel lying behind the high rocks at the mouth of 
the harbor; but, remembering our former dis- 
appointment, we did not like to be too sanguine. 
While we were thus in doubt and fear, a small 
boat put off from the shore. As soon as it came 
within hailing distance, the momentous ques- 
tion was asked : 

" Has the bark arrived ?" 

The reply came over the waters amidst a 
breathless silence : 



" She has !" 

"When?" 

" On Wednesday !" 

The enthusiasm of all on board now broke 
out in such a volley of cheers as the hills on 
shore never echoed back since the creation. 
Every face beamed with joy, and every bod} 
shook hands with every body else. The very 
dogs wagged their tails more energetically than 
ever, as if they sympathized in our joy. Our 
faith in the success of our enterprise was re- 
store'd. We should yet be able to lay the first 
link of the great electric chain, which should 
make the boasting gasconade of Puck practi- 
cable, and enable us "to put a girdle round the 
earth in forty minutes." 

As we neared the entrance to the harbor, the 
masts of the long-expected vessel hove in sight. 
On our approach the stars and stripes were run 
up, and flouted the breeze from the mizzen peak, 
while a salute from our cannon roused the slum- 
bering echoes of the hills. The little Victoria 
responded again and again, till a cloud of dense 
smoke almost hid her from our sight. The 
fisher folks of Port au Basque, the quiet of whose 
little village had never before been so boister- 
ously intruded upon, hardly knew what to make 
of all this fuss. 

In a short time Ave were alongside the bark — 
broadside to broadside — and all was excitement 
and curiosity. It was soon ascertained that, to 
give time for necessary preparations, the task 
of laying the cable could not be commenced for 
three or four days, so that there would be ample 
opportunity for us all to gratify our desire to go 
on shore. The fishing-boats soon put off from 
the land in great numbers, and in these we left 
the James Adger, and landing, once more stood 
on terra fir ma. The company divided itself into 
detached parties ; the one to which I attached 
myself proceeding to the residence of one of the 
"codfish aristocracy." We were received with 
great courtesy and hospitality, and were treated 




PORTUGAL COVE, FISHING VILLAGE NEAK ST. JOHN S. 



52 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




CAPE BAY. TELEGRAPH HOUSE. 



to codfish cooked in every conceivable style. It 
was exceedingly palatable ; and when we had 
dined heartily from it we did not feel half the 
sympathy we had formerly conceived for those 
who lived on it exclusively. 

As we were desirous of making the most of 
our time, and of seeing and enjoying every thing 
to be seen or enjoyed, all at once set about 
making preparations for the gratification of 
their various tastes. Some went fishing, some 
started for the hills, or paid unsolicited visits to 
the fishermen's huts, with the view of increasing 
their stock of knowledge of human nature in 
general, and the idiosyncrasies of the fishermen 
of Port au Basque in particular. Others again, 
inspired thereto most probably by the spirit of 
the mighty Nimrod, and by their credulity in 
believing the yarns which were related to them 
by the natives concerning the abundance of 
game " a little way back," started on a hunting 
expedition ten miles into the interior. The fish- 
ing parties were remarkably successful ; to use 
the usual expression on such occasions, they 
caught them "as fast as they could throw in." 
Large cod, small cod, and codlings, fell an 
easy prey even to the most inexpert, and one 
of the party returned with a trophy of his skill — 
or good fortune — in the shape of a gigantic cod 
measuring four feet in length, and weighing 
over thirty-five pounds. Like the man w T ho 
was the fortunate winner of an elephant at 
a raffle, however, he was somewhat puzzled to 
know what to do with his prize, so he hired a 
young piscator of the village to carry it, while 
he turned showman and exhibited it to the ad- 
miring gaze of the party on board the ship, and 
the villagers, who rather cooled his enthusiasm 
and took the edge oft of his self-conceit, by 
looking at it askance, as though "such cod" 
were taken every day. The hunting party, 
however, which started off with such high hopes 
and such glorious visions of fat elk, moose, and 
deer, and whose greatest difficulty on setting 
out was to know how they should bring back 
their game, were not so successful. The waters 



swarmed with cod, and the merest tyro could 
take them, but the woods did not swarm with 
deer, for they could find none, and they came 
back as unincumbered as they went, and quite 
chop-fallen at their want of success. Their 
hearts were heavy but their stomachs were 
light ; for, depending upon the assurances of 
those who so sadly misled them, they had in- 
dulged in pleasing anticipations of a supper of 
game of their own killing, and neglected to 
supply themselves with a sufficient quantity of 
provisions. After a walk of ten miles over 
rugged rocks and barren beach, during which 
they saw nothing to shoot, night and hunger 
overtook them together. There was no fat 
buck from which to cut a roasting piece or 
cutlet, not even a rabbit had crossed their path ; 
so, after building a fire, they proceeded to inves- 
tigate the commissariat department, and found 
that all their " stores" consisted of a dried cod- 
fish of homoeopathic proportions, a paper of to- 
bacco, and one ship's biscuit, which a dyspeptie 
youth of the party had slipped into his pocker 
before leaving the ship. In this predicament a 
council of ways and means was held to decide 
the momentous question, whether the sole cod- 
fish should be devoured then and there, and they 
should start for the ship in the morning breakfast- 
less, or whether they should go supperless that 
night and eat the codfish in the morning. Opin- 
ion was equally divided, so the question had to 
be decided by chance. A penny was tossed in 
the air, and the codfish winning, " the innings'" 
were devoured on the spot. 

The party spent a cheerless night, protected 
from the bleak winds by the side of a friendly 
hill, and the next morning the disappointed hunt- 
ers started for the village, where they arrived 
about noon almost famished, to make a general 
onslaught upon the nearest grocery. All the 
crackers and cheese which the establishment 
afforded, hardly served to stay their appetites 
till dinner time, when it was observed that all 
the viands in their immediate vicinity disap- 
peared with marvelous celerity. 



A TRIP TO NEWFOUNDLAND. 



53 



As the arrangements on board the bark for 
laying the cable were not completed, it was 
thought advisable that the steamer should pro- 
ceed to Cape North, and select the best and 
nearest point to Cape Ray to make the connec- 
tion. Mr. Cooper and some twenty or thirty 
of the passengers accordingly departed in the 
steamer, while the rest of our party remained 
at Port au Basque, on board the Sarah L. Bry- 
ant. We took advantage of the opportunity 
thus afforded to inspect the cable and the me- 
chanical arrangements for paying it out. The 
cable weighed four hundred tons, and was sev- 
enty-four miles in length — thus allowing nine 
miles for the inequalities of the bottom of the 
sea, the distance between the points of connec- 
tion being but sixty-five miles. The cable was 
stowed in the hold of the vessel, in gigantic 
coils. The machinery was of a simple kind, 
but seemed extremely well adapted for its pur- 
pose, and was the same as used in laying the 
Mediterranean cable. The cable passes from 
the hold over iron rollers, and thence between 
vertical guide rollers, from which it passes over 
two other rollers eight feet in diameter. As 
these revolve, it passes on to a cast iron saddle, 
and so over the stern of the vessel. The wheels 
are controlled by four breaks worked by long 
levers, and two compressors, which are employed 
to prevent the cable from surging as it passes 
round the wheels, as well as to prevent its be- 
ing carried off by its own weight. This plan 
was found to work most successfully. 

It was found that Cape Ray Cove, ten miles 
distant from Port au Basque, offered more facili- 
ties as a point of connection, besides being over 
five miles nearer to Cape North. The James Ad- 
ger therefore returned on Tuesday evening, and 



on Wednesday the Sarah L. Bryant was towed 
to that point, where a frame telegraph house 
was put up, the telegraph instruments conveyed, 
and a battery of one hundred cups erected. 

Every thing being thus prepared, the opera- 
tion of laying the cable was commenced on 
Friday, the 24th of August. 

A sufficient length of cable was taken from 
the hold, and placed on board a boat to be con- 
veyed to the beach. As soon as the boat ap- 
proached near enough, the Avorkmen stationed 
there rushed into the surf, and seizing the end 
of the cable, bore it to the place fixed upon as 
the point of connection — the Telegraph House — 
where it was firmly secured around the capstan 
under the floor, the three copper wires being 
placed in connection with the machine. Owing 
to a kink formed in the cable, while passing over 
the stern of the bark, it was found, on making 
the test, that the insulation was not perfect, so a 
buoy was attached to it at the w r eak point, in order 
that at some future time it might be repaired. 
So much time was thus occupied, that it was 
thought better not to commence paying out 
until the next day, on account of the foggy 
weather. In the morning, a strong breeze from 
the northwest was blowing, but Mr. Canning, 
whose experience in laying the Mediterranean 
cable gave authority to his opinion, decided 
that the cable could be laid with safety in 
even a higher sea than that then running, so 
the order was given to commence operations. 
The bark was taken in tow by the James Adger. 
with the assistance of the Victoria, and after 
some difficulty in getting under weigh on the 
part of the bark, we attempted to start. But 
by this time the sea ran so high, and the wind 
blew so furiously, that both bark and steamer 




PREPARING TO TOW THE BARK. 



54 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



were at the mercy of the elements. In a few 
moments it was found that the bark was drift- 
ing rapidly down upon us, making a collision 
inevitable. It was a fearful moment, for no one 
could tell the result of the shock ; the bark was 
coming down upon us stern foremost, and the 
moment when we should be in contact was 
looked for with the greatest anxiety. In vain the 
wheels of the James Adgcr were put in motion ; 
some strange fatality seemed to be hanging over 
us, and in a moment after the order to "back 
her!" was given, the two ships struck. The 
violence of the shock was not so great as we 
anticipated, and both vessels escaped with very 
slight injury, which, under the circumstances, 
seemed almost a miracle. The excitement soon 



died away, and the ladies, who at the request 
of our Captain had retired to the cabin, were 
ignorant of our danger until it was all over. 
Though out of immediate peril, we were not 
yet clear of the bark, and it was found neces- 
sary to sever the hawser which attached her to 
us. She then let go her anchor, we doing the 
same ; but shortly after, she hoisted signals of 
distress, and immediately shaking out her sails, 
put out to sea, having lost her anchor, and been 
obliged to cut the submarine cable in order to 
prevent drifting upon the rocks. "We imme- 
diately put to sea after her, and in about an hour 
succeeded, by means of a hawser from our stern, 
in getting her safely in tow. 

The following day being Sunday, we did not 




llli 



A TRIP TO NEWFOUNDLAND. 



55 



leave the cove, but spent most of the time in 
repairing damages to the cable, which broke 
acrain in a short time, so that there was no other 
course left but to re-land it and commence all 
our work over again. Accordingly, on Monday 
morning, the bark was again towed near the 
shore, and the end of the cable taken to the Tele- 
graph House by means of boats, and made fast 
as before. The wind, however, continued to 
blow with such violence, that we remained at 
anchor all night, in the hope that the weather 
would prove more propitious the following morn- 
ing. 

The next morning broke clear and calm ; 
hardly a ripple played upon the surface of the 
ocean, and our hopes brightened with the sun, 
which rose without a cloud to mar its splendor. 
The bark was soon placed en rapport by means 
of a hawser; and the steamer getting under 
weigh, the work of paying out the cable began 
in earnest, and with every prospect of suc- 
cess ; for, with fair weather, success seemed 
certain. 

For two miles all went well ; the machinery 
worked admirably, and the cable slipped over 
the rollers without " let or hindrance ;" but when 
that length of cable had been laid, a kink oc- 
curred, and it was found necessary to stop the 
steamer to repair the damage. This occupied 
only an hour, and then we went on again ; but 
the white flag, which had been agreed upon as 
a signal for stopping the steamer, soon made 
its appearance on board the bark, and notice 
was given that even the slowest speed of the 
steamer was too fast to allow the workmen on 
board the Sarah L. Bryant to pay out the cable 
with safety to it and to themselves. We again 
proceeded as slowly as possible, no accident oc- 
curring, though a report reached us at midnight 
that the cable had parted. This report was al- 
together without foundation, as we afterward 
learned that it was only a kink that had oc- 
curred, which it was necessary to take entirely 
out, and splice the cable, which was success- 
fully done. On starting again, all went on fa- 
vorably till about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, 
when the wind, which since 2 o'clock had 
been gradually increasing, rose to a gale, and 
it was found impossible to continue the work 
on board the bark, and another kink occur- 
ring in the cable, both vessels were compelled 
to lay to. The storm now raged with great 
violence; the sky was wild and threatening, 



and the ocean was covered with a dense mist, 
that completely hid from our view the island of 
St. Paul's, fourteen miles distant. Some forty 
miles of the cable had already been laid, though 
the distance in a straight line was several 
miles less. Under these circumstances, Mr. 
Canning was forced to abandon the original 
plan of making Cape North the place of con- 
nection, and endeavor to land the cable at the 
island of St. Paul's, which was considerably 
nearer. Had the weather continued moderate, 
our task would have been completed in a few 
hours ; but the fates willed it otherwise, and we 
were obliged to cease our exertions, and devote 
all our energies to maintaining our position un- 
til the storm should abate. 

An attempt was now made to take the kink 
out of the cable, but the bark pitched so much 
that it was with the utmost difficulty that the 
workmen could keep their feet, and to work was 
impossible. Every one now turned to Mr. Can- 
ning, expecting momentarily to hear him give 
the word to cut the cable, as for some time ev- 
ery hope of saving it had been abandoned, and 
fears were entertained for the safety of the ves- 
sel. But Mr. Canning was loth to give the 
word which should stamp the enterprise a fail- 
ure, while there was the slightest possibility of 
carrying it out successfully. The strength of 
the cable was severely tested ; for, during the 
height of the storm, both vessels held by it, and 
it would undoubtedly have held to the end had 
it been deemed prudent to have tried it so se- 
verely. The gale, instead of abating, continued 
to increase ; still the cable held ; but, at 6i 
o'clock, the captain of the bark informed Mr. 
Canning that the safety of his vessel required 
that the cable should be cut, and that he should 
himself be obliged to give the fatal word in case 
Mr. Canning still refused to do so. Under such 
circumstances, Mr. Canning was forced to sub- 
mit. A few blows of the ax accomplished the 
sad work, the vessel pitched forward as though 
she would bury herself in the waves, and forty 
miles of the cable lay at the bottom of the ocean. 
Thus did the war of elements set at naught the 
energy, enterprise, industry, and ambition so 
creditably displayed by the projectors of this 
great work. Thus man proposes, thus God 
disposes ! 

The cable, of which we give a sectional view. 
was manufactured by Messrs. W. Kuper and 
Co., at their Submarine Cable manufactory. 




SECTIONAL ANI> BIDE VIKW OK CABLE, FULL SIZE. 



56 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



London. The copper wire was insulated in 
gutta percha by the Gutta Percha Company, of 
City Road, London, under the immediate su- 
perintendence of S. Statham, Esq. The pro- 
cess of manufacturing the cable is as follows : 
The insulated copper wires are first laid round 
a centre core of hemp, the exterior and spaces 
between each wire being wormed with hemp 
yarn so as to form a perfect circular rope or 
cable. It is then provided with another cover- 
ing of hemp yarn, the whole of the yarn used 
being soaked in a preparation of Stockholm 
tar, pitch, oil, and tallow. It then receives its 
outside covering of twelve No. 4 guage iron. 
The whole of this process, except the insulation 
of the wires, is carried on at one time by exten- 
sive and ingenious machinery erected for the 
purpose, and cables can thus be manufactured 
of any combined length that can ever be re- 
quired. 

After the cable parted we headed for Sydney, 
with the bark in tow, where we arrived safely on 
Thursday afternoon. Here we spent two days 
and a half in taking in coal and provisions. It 
is a flourishing place of about five thousand in- 
habitants. It is the great coal depot of Cape 
Breton, and carries on considerable trade with 
Boston. The principal mine is situated three 
miles from the port, and employs about two hun- 
dred men and one-fourth as many horses. The 
coal is raised through a perpendicular shaft 
three hundred and six feet in depth. The 
daily product of the mines is about seven hun- 
dred tons. A railroad conveys the coal to 
Sydney. 

After being tossed about in the merciless 
manner we had for so long, the prospect of 
standing firmly upon our feet again was too 
alluring not to be at once enjoyed, and the 
steamer had barely dropped her anchor before 
every body rushed for the boats. The town 
itself presented no particular objects of inter- 
est; but on the hill which rises above it stood 
an encampment of the Micmac Indians, and 
thither the whole of the party soon made their 
way. The encampment or village consisted of 
about twenty lodges made of white birch bark, 
and the Indians numbered, including children, 



about one hundred. The children formed more 
than half the population, which, for filthiness 
and wretchedness, we should think, was with- 
out a rival in the civilized or uncivilized world. 
The men were lounging about, devoting all their 
energies to doing as little as they could, and 
yet continue to breathe ; while the women, near- 
ly every one of whom was strapped to a pap- 
poose, which in its turn was strapped to a board, 
were engaged in making baskets, bows and ar- 
rows, and little birch canoes, specimens of which 
were eagerly purchased by their visitors. Every 
body bought a basket, most of us were provided 
with an impracticable canoe, and bows and ar- 
rows enough were carried off to put out the 
eyes of the officers, passengers, and creAv. In 
one of the lodges more cleanly than the rest, 
and showing some slight indications of care 
and neatness, was seated a young Indian maid- 
en about eighteen years of age. She Avas very 
beautiful, both in form and features, and soon 
became the centre of attraction to all the young 
men of the party. The baskets and other traps 
made by her fair hands met with a ready sale. 
Every one of our Benedics seemed desirous of 
carrying off with him some token of remem- 
brance of her; and so great was the competi- 
tion, that the price of her wares soon rose in 
the market three hundred per cent. Her stock 
was quickly exhausted ; but as she promised to 
have a fresh supply ready in the morning, the 
disappointed ones comforted themselves with 
this assurance. She must have been the most 
industrious Indian maiden on record, for early 
in the morning, when the disappointed of the 
night before visited her lodge, they found the 
supply even greater than at first. In a single 
night she had woven dozens of baskets, made 
a score or two of canoes, and bows and arrows 
enough to equip her whole tribe for the "war 
path." This would have been enough to have 
redeemed her from the charge of idleness Avhich 
lies against the whole Indian breed, but for the 
fact that the other lodges were destitute of the 
Avares Ave had observed in them the night be- 
fore. The conclusion was forced upon us, that 
the members of the tribe, seeing Avhat good 
prices her articles commanded, had consigned 




MICMAC INDIANS. 



THE KNOCKER. 



57 



their whole stock of baskets to her, " for sales 
and returns," and that she was doing business 
on commission, and not on her own account. 
A few miles from Sydney there is another In- 
dian village, where the remainder of the tribe, 
to the number of three hundred, reside. 

Having replenished our stock of coal, we left 
Sydney on Sunday morning, homeward bound; 
and though a general feeling of sadness pre- 
vailed, on account of the unavoidable failure of 
our expedition, every heart beat lighter at the 
thought of home. Our gallant captain partici- 
pated in this feeling, to some extent at least, as 
he showed by the manner in which he gave the 
order to " start her." During the operation of 
laying the cable his voice was continually heard 
giving directions to the engineer. We were 
obliged to proceed at a snail's pace for the rea- 
sons before mentioned, and our stoppages were 
frequent. Whenever we started again, the cap- 
tain would call out from his place on deck, 
" Hook her on, Mr. Scott, and let her go slow !" 
but as soon as we were clear of the wharf at 
Sydney, and the bows of the steamer were point- 
ed homeward, his clear voice rung in our ears, 
" Hook her on, Mr. Scott, and let her go fast !" 
And fast we went! the paddle-wheels fairly 
spun in the water, and the spray flew from the 
steamer in a Niagara of foam. While at the 
top of our speed, the mate was observed looking 
over the bows with a thoughtful gaze. Thinking 
something was wrong, a young gentleman with 
an inquiring mind asked what the matter was. 
The mate, with a quizzical look, which plainly 
informed the young gentleman in search of 
knowledge that he was "sold," answered that he 
was afraid the friction of the water would set 
the boAvs on fire. 

Our homeward voyage was marked by no par- 
ticular incident, if we except a grand fancy- 
dress ball which took place during the time. It 
was to a great extent an extempore affair, but 
none the less delightful on that account. The 
dresses were varied, none of them particularly 
splendid, but a more outre or grotesque assem- 
blage was never collected. Every thing that 
could give oddity to expression of face or cos- 
tume was brought into requisition, and even the 
waiters' dusters, composed of peacocks' feathers, 
were pressed into the scene, and served to set 
off the charms of one of our most beautiful lady 
passengers to great advantage. Indians, Nuns, 
Apollos, Cupids, Sultanas, Jim Baggs — all ap- 
peared in the saloon, dancing and flirting to- 
gether in the most amiable manner possible. 
Jim Baggs found a capital representative in the 
person of a distinguished artist, and won thun- 
ders of applause by his vocal efforts, which were 
so successful that no one could be tempted to 
offer him the "shilling," without which he re- 
fused to " move on." 

We had fair weather during nearly the whole 
of our return trip, and as the green shores of 
Staten Island hove in sight, and we passed 
Sandy Hook, every body commenced their pre- 
parations for going on shore. As we were gone 



longer than we anticipated, many of the passen- 
gers had been obliged from necessity to neglect 
their toilets, and some of the party had present- 
ed a very faded appearance for some days ; but 
as we passed the Narrows every body made his 
or her appearance looking trim and neat. The 
gentlemen, even those who had during the 
greater part of the voyage affected red shirts, a 
la " ilfose," displayed spotless fronts and collars, 
so that a general feeling of surprise was elicited 
at the sudden respectable appearance of one 
another. It seemed that all had saved at least 
one of those articles of apparel without which 
no gentleman's wardrobe can be considered 
complete as a corps de reserve, with an idea of 
" astonishing the Browns," but the general co- 
incidence of a prudential feeling destroyed the 
singularity of the effect expected to be pro- 
duced. 

We arrived safely at the pier from whence we 
started on the 5th of September, having been 
absent just twenty-nine days. 

The excursion, though unsuccessful in its 
principal object, was still rich in delightful in- 
cidents, and will be remembered with gratifica- 
tion by all who participated in it. Another at- 
tempt to lay the cable will be made next year. 
which will undoubtedly be successful, as it will 
be payed out directly from a steamer. 

THE KNOCKER. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF *' LOSS AND GAIN : 
A TALE OP LYNN." 
"Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou 
couldst. " — Macbeth. 

I PAUSE at the threshold of my story to re- 
member that in the life of every human be- 
ing there is an experience which seems to be 
detached from it; an awful and soul-thrilling 
episode of some unearthly epoch, which was in 
the world, and yet not of it. Phantom-like and 
strange, it is shadowed upon the memory. Such 
an episode is this in my own. 

Several years ago I renewed my intimacy 
with a gentleman and his wife who were then 
residing in Boston. The gentleman — his name 
was Paul Barry — had been a schoolmate of 
mine, and at a later day my friend and compan- 
ion at college. He left before me, and, con- 
trary to all expectations, entered upon mer- 
cantile pursuits. Our friendship was always 
somewhat anomalous in its character. When 
we were in each other's society, there could be 
no friendship more devoted, confiding, and in- 
timate than ours. At separation, it seemed to 
fail, and reserve its warmth for our next meet- 
ing. We never corresponded, and were con- 
tinually losing sight of each other. For my 
own part, I believe that I never felt any con- 
siderable degree of interest or anxiety for him 
in his absence. I think his feeling for me was 
much the same. I do not pretend to explain 
this. Perhaps it was the result of an idiosyn- 
crasy — a twin peculiarity in our natures ; or of 
mutual habits of concentration, or absorption 
into our individual pursuits. His life was an 



58 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



active one, mine nomadic. Our friendship al- 
ways renewed itself naturally upon meeting, and 
in our long intercourse was always frank and 
earnest, and never marred by any disagree- 
ment. 

Barry's wife was a singularly beautiful wo- 
man. I had known her, too, in my boyhood. 
We were all, in our young days, residents of the 
same country village. She was then, as re- 
membrance pictures her, a gentle girl, with a 
countenance as clear as the light of the morn- 
ing, and eyes as softly blue as the summer sky. 
As such she passed into my boyish heart — its 
graceful image of First Love — the pure seraph 
that changed with maturer years into a quiet 
and tender memory, and hallowed its object 
forever. Our love had never been confessed ; 
it had never thought of confession. It had 
never dreamed of consummation. It was the 
highest form of an unimpassioned devotion ; it 
was spiritual, pure, and adoring. The old tale 
of the sculptor inspired with a divine passion 
for the holy beauty of the statue, was a symbol 
of my love for her. But no ; mine was even 
more shadowy. 

I am inclined to think that Barry's attach- 
ment for her was formed suddenly, within a few 
months after his departure from college. If it 
was otherwise, then I knew nothing of it. She 
never seemed to be an object of peculiar inter- 
est to him when we both dwelt in the same vil- 
lage with her, and he "was never more than an 
acquaintance of the relations with whom she 
resided. They were both orphans, dwelling at 
opposite extremes of the small hamlet, in the 
families of their guardians. I heard nothing 
of his love when we were both at college, though 
I was then on terms of the closest intimacy with 
him. After his departure, and during the time 
that I remained there, I heard nothing of him, 
except that he was about to engage in business. 
Immediately after my own emancipation I vis- 
ited him in Boston, and met with a double sur- 
prise ; first, in finding him married ; and sec- 
ond, in meeting, as his wife, the half-forgotten 
maiden of my boyish devotion, now lovely in 
the full bloom of her womanhood. My meet- 
ing with her, under the circumstances, was very 
pleasant. My affection for her, touched with 
a deeper reverence, was as true as ever. It had 
been pure and innocent ; it could pass into a 
high and gentle friendship without a pang. The 
tender beauty that I had once loved as a sweet 
spring blossom was as dear to me when gather- 
ed in its summer loveliness to the bosom of my 
friend. 

It was a very happy reunion. A triad of ex- 
planations took place amidst much laughter. 
Barry was momentarily surprised to hear of my 
attachment for his wife — only momentarily. He 
seemed to comprehend, with a fine instinct pe- 
culiar to him, the relations we now bore to each 
other, and subsequently, and in many ways, gave 
every possible encouragement to our intimacy. 
He loved me well. I can not better explain the 
nature of his regard, as I now understand it, 



than by supposing that when I was absent he 
gave it all to her, and when I was present shared 
it between us. 

I spent much time with them, at frequent in- 
tervals, for many years! My own life was rather 
vagrant, and passed for a long period unmarked 
by any unusual event. A man of leisure, with 
a moderate income, I spent my years with the 
restless happiness of a butterfly, wandering from 
place to place as the insect might fly from flower 
to flower, as carelessly as if the golden summer 
of existence were eternal, and time were to bring 
no other season. Yet there was one spot where 
my nomad wings rested often and longest — 
where the flowers were sweeter for the one little 
bud that had grown among them. Our three- 
fold love became four-fold. Barry (when I was 
present) must needs have divided his regard 
between myself, his wife, and his child. There 
was enough for all, for the years brought in- 
crease of love to us for each other. The affec- 
tion that I bore for my friends' baby-girl was as 
tender as their own. The little being loved me. 
too, with familiar interest. When I first bent 
down to look into her tiny face, I saw the soft- 
ened likeness of her father's dark eves in hers. 
As years passed, and she could stand by me, her 
face revealed itself into a living memory of her 
mother's gentle beauty, and the mother's soul 
shone strangely from her soft, dark eyes. So — 
I used to think — as time takes away the bloom 
of her youthful loveliness, it will be but to be- 
stow it, with added graces, on her child. 

Gradually— I know not why — my affection 
for the parents seemed to centre in the little 
girl. A strange and mystic tenderness toward 
her took possession of me. Tims it continued 
for a long period. At last, an event occurred 
which, for a time, seemed to have utterly di- 
vorced this mysterious feeling from me. The 
circumstances of that event led me to another 
city, and terminated in my marriage. 

My wife died a year after our union. A 
slight cold that she had contracted resulted in 
a virulent scarlet fever, attended with inflam- 
mation ; and although every medical attention 
was paid her, she died, and died in the night, 
suddenly. All the circumstances of her death 
were tragical. I can not recall them now with- 
out horror. From the moment she died until 
the body was removed, the house was filled 
with an overpowering odor of camphor. I do 
not know what it meant. I was too much 
stricken to direct any details; but from thar 
moment the smell of camphor became intoler- 
able to me, so closely and terribly was it asso- 
ciated with my fearful calamity. 

It was an appalling blow. I shut myself up 
for weeks, and saw no one. I was stunned 
with grief. But I recovered soon, for my hour 
of sorrow had not yet come. The wound closed: 
it was to open again, in anguish, hereafter. The 
quick stroke had paralyzed me. Consciousness 
was to come slowly with other years, and agony 
and the blackness of spiritual darkness were to 
follow. \ 



THE KNOCKER. 



59 



Before two months had elapsed my bewilder- 
ment, my stolid sorrow, passed into a feeling 
of restlessness. I gave up my house and went 
from Philadelphia, where all this had happened, 
to New York city, where I had relatives. As 
I began to resume a cheerfulness, which was 
but the pallid ghost of my former tone of mind, 
a desire to see my friends again stirred within 
me. The same mysterious feeling for the child, 
the weird attraction to her, returned with ten- 
fold force. I obeyed it. I went to Boston. 

This was the period mentioned in the com- 
mencement of my narrative as that in which I 
renewed my intimacy with the Barrys. It is 
marked by the incident which I am now to re- 
cord, and which is impressed on my mind with 
mournful distinctness. I remember it as one 
might remember the shadow of a cloud which 
passed over him at noonday, before some ter- 
rible calamity befell him, and which remains in 
his memory forever as the precursor of his dis- 
aster. 

One summer day I was at Barry's house. It 
was the little girl's seventh birthday. She was 
sitting on my knee, with her dark tresses lying 
loosely on my arm, and her soft, earnest eyes 
looking into mine. Mrs. Barry sat at the piano, 
playing, as she conversed, a lively tune that 
rippled and tinkled airily from the keys. Her 
husband was carelessly reclining in a cushioned 
chair near her, beating time with his fingers on 
the cover of a book. We had been chatting 
gayly for some time — the pleasant tune, and 
the singing of a canary bird in a gilded cage by 
the window, trilling brilliantly in our light and 
mirthful talk' — when our conversation paused, 
and a sudden silence, so common and so strange, 
succeeded. As if that silence was ordained 
that it might flash upon my brain — clear and 
strange as if an unearthly voice had spoken it 
— a singular thought, lighting up a wide range 
of recollections, revealed them to me, bathed in 
the wild colors of fatality. I can not determ- 
ine how these instantaneous mental transitions, 
which seem to know no intermediate process, 
are effected. Some bold metaphysicians have 
thought that there are ideas which are resolved 
in the mind by mental processes so subtle that 
they escape cognizance. It may be that this 
thought, which burst up like a colorless flame, 
irradiating things long known to me with the 
pallid tints of supernaturalism, was the residi- 
um left by such mental chemistry. I happened 
to think that my friends had been each only 
children, and orphans from their infancy ! And 
then the darkness was lifted from the long waste 
of memory — I remembered more! 

Let me endeavor to present the details of a re- 
collection which was seen by me at one glance — 
whose every relation was comprehended at one 
view. Barry and his wife were both only chil- 
dren — orphans from their infancy — and brought 
up under guardianship. Their parents had been 
also only children, and were also orphans from 
their infancy ! How much further this peculiari- 
ty reverted to their ancestry, I did not know. I 



fancied that it indicated a hereditary fatality. 1 
knew of no living relations remaining to my 
friends. They were then, to me, the sole repre- 
sentatives of their respective families. If there 
was a hereditary destiny, it centered in the race 
of Barrys ; for the children born to that house 
had been males for two generations, to my knowl- 
edge, and had therefore kept their individuality, 
whereas the orphan brides whom they had wed- 
ded were of different families, and had merged 
their nominal identity in theirs by marriage — 
only resembling them in the peculiarity of soli- 
tary orphanage and decease at childbirth. It 
is strange, though common, how things known 
in youth, and even of peculiar interest to us 
then, will become blurred or obliterated as we 
grow to manhood. We strive to trace the im- 
ages — the effaced inscriptions — the dim dates — 
upon its surface, and fill the smooth gaps with 
conjectures; and then — we are uncertain. 1 
remembered, or thought I did, having heard 
some gossip's tale in my youth, which averred 
that the Barrys were an old family, whose an- 
cestor — a fugitive Huguenot — had, by some wild 
sin, entailed the curse of male descent and per- 
petual orphanage on the line until the offense 
was expiated. The memory was half-effaced in 
my mind. I was doubtful whether it was a re- 
membrance or a fancy. Yet it now took plausi- 
ble form and vague likelihood when I thought of 
what I knew. Was it accidental coincidence that- 
had for two generations — it might be for more — 
brought to the solitary children of an ancestral 
line such a fate as this ? Accident ! As if, in the 
majestic order of the universe, there can be ac- 
cident ! as if what we call accident, is not really 
the certain effect of a certain cause proceeding 
from a certain occasion, which is governed by, 
and proceeds from, Law ! Here was coinci- 
dence, declaring the existence of a fatal and 
impassable destiny which hung over the chil- 
dren of an ancient house in obedience to some 
stern ordinance, which brought to them orphan 
brides, and then, at every lonely birth, the final 
shadow, the coffin, and the sepulchre, and guid- 
ed their solitary scions to unions forever fraught 
with the same results, and overshadowed by the 
same doom ! How long had this been ? Was 
it hereditary retribution for some original evil — 
some ancient blot on an ancestral scutcheon — a 
doom involved in the great mystery of some un- 
expiated sin ? 

The time had died away — I knew not when. 
The bird was quiet in his gilded cage. No sound 
came from the street without. A single ray of 
yellow sunlight streamed through the curtains, 
and floated like a golden shadow on the Avail. 
The little girl sat quietly with her head resting 
on my arm, and her eyes closed. The doom 
had been revoked — a female child had been born 
to the house of Barry : she had outlived her in- 
fancy and was not an orphan : the mystic judg- 
ment had not been repeated on her parents. 
Looking down into her face, as the thoughts 
crossed my mind, I was conscious of a vague 
sense of dread to see her eyes unclose, and, for 



60 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



an instant, look into mine with a strange bright- 
ness, and a startled, supernatural expression 
that I had never seen in them before. It van- 
ished instantly, and I almost thought at the 
rime that I had fancied it. A breath of air 
coming, like a sigh, through the open casement, 
and the motion of a light curtain which waved 
toward me with a phantom grace, seemed to 
disenchant the spell of silence. A moment 
after we were conversing gayly, as though we 
were unconscious of our pause, and the bird's 
song, and the silvery music, rippled through 
our playful talk as before. But for a long time 
I felt as if I had been in a trance, and dreamed 
a dream. 

The incident made some impression on my 
mind. At another time I might have regarded 
it as a premonition, and endeavored to establish 
its connection. But at that period I was in a 
state of comparative mental stupefaction. I 
rather indulged in vague reverie than thought. 
My intellect was purblind. 

Two days afterward I was called away on 
business to the South. I took leave of my 
friends for some time, as I did not know how 
soon I should see them again. It proved that 
I was absent for seven months. At the expi- 
ration of that time I again found myself in 
Boston. 

It was in the mid-winter of the year 1840 
that I again visited that city. There was snow 
on the ground. On the day of my arrival there 
had been another fall, the last flakes of which 
were floating in the chill, gray air. The severe 
cold which had characterized the season had 
in consequence abated, but at that time was 
again increasing. My spirits, however, rose as 
the mercury in the thermometer fell. The 
pleasure I felt in the anticipation of soon meet- 
ing my friends was heightened into exhilaration 
by the wintry atmosphere. After an hour's 
rest, I left my hotel and went to the wharf on 
which Barry's counting-room was located. I 
remember that I bounded up his stairs — threw 
open his door, and, entering, closed it behind 
me — expecting, of course, to see him and grasp 
his hand. The furniture was unfamiliar ; the 
room, too, had an altered look; a young clerk 
— a stranger — was at the desk! I uttered an 
exclamation, apologetic in its character, for I 
thought, at first, I had blundered into the wrong 
office. Yet, in a moment, I saw it was the 
same. I managed to extricate one stammer- 
ing question from my embarrassment. It was 
to ask if Mr. Barry was in. When I made the 
young man comprehend me, I was told that for 
the preceding three months the office had had 
another tenant ; of its former occupant he knew 
nothing. I descended the stairs, and entering 
the basement store, with whose owner I was ac- 
quainted, renewed my interrogations. To my 
utter astonishment, I learned that, within a few 
months, Barry had met with heavy reverses, 
and had retired from business ! I sank into a 
chair, and, for a moment, looked at my inform- 
ant speechless. It was some relief to hear that 



his losses, although considerable, were far from 
being total ; yet they had been sufficient to place 
him in comparatively reduced circumstances. 
Let me say, in a word, all I afterward learned 
on this subject ; namely, that his retirement 
from business was a voluntary, and not a com- 
pulsory act, occasioned by the intense disgust, 
with which he had been inspired by the perpe- 
tration of one of those legal frauds, which the 
law can neither prevent nor remedy, practiced, 
in this instance, by a mercantile firm with whom 
he had been connected in trade, and which had 
clutched away one half his fortune. 

I now resolved to waste no time in seeking 
for further information until I saw him person- 
ally. I was about taking leave of my inform- 
ant, when he asked me if I was aware that Barry 
had left no clew to his present place of residence ? 
What ? Yes ; his present place of abode was 
not known. It was surmised that he still re- 
sided in the city, or more probably in some one 
of the suburban towns ; for he had been fre- 
quently seen, at the usual hours, on 'Change, 
and at various haunts familiar to merchants. 
My informant had not seen him, however, for 
three days past. He judged that his dwelling- 
place was unknown, from the fact that Barry 
had evaded answering a question to that effect, 
and also from having heard some speculations 
from different persons on the same topic. The 
reason for his seclusion was not apprehended. 
This was the substance and most definite extent 
of the information I received. Bewildered and 
saddened, I regained my hotel. What to do I 
knew not. How to find him in the great laby- 
rinth of a city ! I spent the rest of the day at 
the street-windows of the house, wishing — hop- 
ing — that he might pass by. Several times, de- 
ceived by some resemblance to him in distant 
pedestrians, I ran into the street, only to return 
disappointed. The dull day thickened into 
night, with a northeast storm of driving snow 
and hail; and I, fatigued and dispirited, went 
to rest. 

I arose the next day with a vigorous resolu- 
tion to find him, if any effort of mine could 
avail. " But where shall I find him ?" I murmured 
to myself as I went into the street. The snow 
had fallen heavily during the night. " Where 
shall I find him ?" I repeated to myself at inter- 
vals. I could hear the scraping of shovels clear- 
ing off the sidewalks — the jingling sleigh-bells 
— the occasional shouts of derisive mirth, as 
some passenger received an avalanche from the 
house-tops. All the bustle of the busy city was 
loud under a still, gray sky. I was reminded 
of an interval between my school and college 
years, when, during a visit to this city, I had 
passed just such winter days in the dusky studio 
of an artist-friend of mine, where we had heard 
the same sounds reaching us in dreamy noises 
as we lounged on cushions in the warm gloom. 
In my sadness, and in contrast with the tumult 
whirling around me, the memory floated out in 
the past like a perfume. It changed into a de- 
sire that impelled me to wander to the building 



THE KNOCKER. 



61 



within whose cloistral quiet we had once eaten 
the lotus, and forgotten in the present the fu- 
ture. My artist-friend had since attained ce- 
lebrity ; he was .in Rome- — I knew I should not 
find him there. I walked, stepping over rest- 
less shovels, to the altered street. The old 
building still remained. Standing on the curb- 
stone of the sidewalk, near the doorway, where 
I could look up the stairs into the dim interior, 
I sank into a mood of reverie whose essence was 
memory. I remembered the road over which, 
many nights, I had walked in the artist's com- 
pany to our home in the adjacent town of Rox- 
bury. There are two avenues to that town, 
both running parallel with each other. Ours 
was Washington Street, which, as any person 
familiar with the locality will recollect, lies 
through what was then a half-redeemed waste 
of meadows and marshes, commonly known as 
the Neck. It is in fact a neck, or strip of land, 
between .Boston and Roxbury. It has been 
much improved of late years ; but, at the time 
I allude to, it was a barren and desolate place. 
I had seen it most frequently in the stormy 
gloaming of winter evenings. Hence it was 
never associated in my mind with the day or 
the milder seasons, but only with night, and 
storm, and winter. Memory kept no picture 
of the region in any of its other aspects ; only 
those were retained which were tinged with the 
gloomy hues that made them kindred with the 
imaginary pictures of haunted moors — enchant- 
ed lands — tracts blasted by wizards' curses — the 
cloudy suffusions of romance which filled the 
reveries of my youth. 

The mile-long walk when the giant city was 
behind us ; the vast rack of stormy clouds drift- 
ing over a dreary waste that stretched away into 
blacker darkness on either side ; the few houses 
edging our solitary way by sullen fields where pi- 
rates were once hung; the lurid brand of wintry 
sunset on the western sky, above the undulated 
line of the dark hills ; these were the features 
of the place in my mind. Remembrance, jour- 
neying by them all, paused before the phantasm 
of an old, weather-stained, brick mansion, situ- 
ated near the town of Roxbury, hard by the 
town line of division, which had acquired, from 
the reclusive character of its inmates, an air of 
mystery that had often made it the theme of 
our speculations, and caused it to be woven 
round with all the wizard meshes of my fancy. 
As I dreamily dwelt upon the recollection, I 
was suddently startled out of my abstraction by 
a slide of snow from the roof above, which came 
full upon me, prostrating me with a force that 
shook my reveries into nothing. Regaining my 
physical and moral equilibrium — the latter with 
some difficulty, owing to the laughter of the pass- 
ers-by, and a few unnecessary snowballs from 
the boys — I walked away, fancying that the good 
genius of my past had, not unkindly, warned me 
to the duties of the present. 

I was somewhat impressed by the occurrence. 
At least I looked out warily for snow-slides in 
the course of my perambulations from place to 
Vol. XII.— No. 67.— E 



place, seeking some one who might chance to 
know the whereabouts of Barry. I had con- 
cluded that some person must know, and follow- 
ed my idea resolutely. My diligence was not 
rewarded with even a gleam of hope until late 
in the afternoon, when, meeting a person with 
whom we had both been acquainted, I heard 
from him, to my great joy, that Mr. Wadleigh, 
a commission merchant on India Street, who 
had had intimate business relations with my 
friend, could probably inform me. I immedi- 
ately went to his counting-room, and found him 
alone. Introducing myself, I frankly mention- 
ed my friendship for Barry, and the circum- 
stances Avhich had caused me to lose traces of 
him, and requested some clew to his abode. I 
fairly gasped with delight when he said he could 
direct me. He was a very methodical man — 
I saw that while I was addressing him — hence I 
was not much surprised to see him slowly un- 
fold a city map and lay it before me. He knew 
I was a stranger to the city — or thought so, at 
least — and it was considerate. But when point- 
ing with his finger along "Washington Street — • 
along the Neck, the scene of my morning's 
memory — and indicating a street running west- 
ward from the main street, he mentioned its 
name, and told me that my friend's residence 
was the first corner-house — then I looked at him ! 
For a moment I forgot every thing in a mental 
effort to establish the connection between my 
morning's reverie and this disclosure. 

Singular — I leave my hotel asking myself 
audibly, " Where shall I find my friend ?" Com- 
mon sounds apparently divert my mind from its 
one anxiety, and call up a foreign remembrance. 
This impels me to wander in my indecision to 
an old building ; there my memory dwells on 
former travels along the street on which this 
gentleman has his finger. Before it wanders 
to aught else, an accident happens to me, and' 
closes the record ; and here I am directed, ih' 
answer to the same question, along the very 
route on which, a few hours since, the feet of 
my remembrance trod ! The occurrence of the 
recollection, then, was a presentiment ! As 
these reflections rapidly crossed my mind, I be- 
came aware that I was staring vacantly in Mr. 
Wadleigh's face, with an intensity which he 
must have thought, at least, singular. Apolo- 
gizing, on the plea of abstraction, I observed — 
in obedience to a sudden query that arose in 
my mind — that I had formerly been familiar 
with the locality, but, referring to the map, I 
saw that streets had been laid out since the date 
of my recollections and the position of that 
which he had designated, and its name being 
unfamiliar to me, it was probably one of these? 
To this he replied that my observation was un- 
doubtedly correct in these particulars, but that 
the house referred to was an old one, which im- 
provements had spared. As he proceeded to 
describe its position and appearance, I recog- 
nized in his description the mansion that had 
been curious to me in my youth, and, more 
than all, the last object in my reverie ! The 



62 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



final link of coincidence was added to the chain. 
Without another question I rose, thanked my 
informant, and left the office. Strange that 
Barry should have chosen his residence in that 
house of all others ; but oh ! how much more 
strange was all this ! The occurrence of my 
recollection was not only a presentiment, but 
an index to the object of my search. The topo- 
graphical map that the merchant had opened 
before me was no clearer to my sight than that 
which had been previously presented to my 
mind's eye. My soul had, in her own way, 
answered the enigma I had pronounced to 
her. She had said, bringing before me a pan- 
orama of memory, " Here shalt thou find him 
whom thou seekest !" But, with all my world- 
ly wisdom, I had not spiritual understanding. 
Completely enervated in mind, I reached my 
hotel. 

I resolved to visit Barry that evening. I 
would have gone immediately, but I was fa- 
tigued and prostrated by the travel and occur- 
rences of the day, and needed a few hours' rest. 
As the afternoon waned the snow began to fall 
again. It was weather that made me think of 
New England as the Nova Zembla of an un- 
traveled man. It was very bitter weather even 
for the North. 

Night came, and, muffling myself well, I 
prepared for my visit. My mercurial temper, 
which, in the alternate exaltation and depres- 
sion of the last few days, had emulated the 
changes of the thermometer, again rose to the 
height of exhilaration in the glow of my antici- 
pated pleasure. I dispatched a servant for a 
carriage. There was some delay — it seemed to 
me, in my impatience, half an hour — before it 
came. Then the driver hesitated when I gave 
him the direction : it was a long distance for 
his horses on such a night, and the snow was 
falling fast. I had to remove his scruples by 
the magic promise of a double fare. This done, 
I entered the hack, which was redolent of the 
damp straw that thickly covered its floor, and 
was soon gliding along the phantasmal streets. 

The conveyance moved rather slowly through 
the confused double procession of vehicles that 
continually passed each other ; and I was ab- 
sorbed in the contemplation of the strange and 
unreal spectacle which a crowded street, with 
its silent multitude of muffled figures passing 
like dark phantoms before the brilliant win- 
dows, its looming buildings, and its confused 
penumbras of flickering lights and shadows pre- 
sents through the falling snow of a winter night, 
when there was a shock — a crash — loud cries — 
a convulsion, and the carriage was overthrown, 
and I — hurled violently back on the side cush- 
ions, from whence I rolled upon the prostrate 
door, breaking its glass pane — was immediate- 
ly submerged in the damp straw, which the con- 
cussion threw over me. Fortunately I was not 
hurt ; and I could not restrain my hearty laugh- 
ter when (forgetting that the width of the car- 
riage would not allow me to stand upright), 
scrambling, springing to my feet, I thrust my 



head and shoulders through the other pane, 
shattering it instantly. It was doubly well that 
the glass was thin, and that my head was pro- 
tected by a thick fur cap, or the feat might have 
been less ludicrous for me ; much less had my 
head chanced to have come in contact with the 
panel of the door instead of the pane ! 

It will be understood that the carriage lay 
upon its side, and I was looking out from the 
broken window. In this position I at once 
comprehended the state of affairs. The vehicle 
had been overturned by a lumbering omnibus, 
whose driver was looking down from his emi- 
nence on the accident ; having, with a curious 
exception to his class, even condescended to 
stop his horses. I put out my hand, and, throw- 
ing back the door, clambered out, amidst the 
laughter of the crowd, before the coachman 
came round to me. He was in a high rage, 
only abated by my mirth into a truculent surli- 
ness, which spirted out in broken jets of oaths 
against the omnibus driver. That person listen- 
ed in silence, with a stolid and equable com- 
posure, and evidently coming to the conclusion 
that nothing further could be done on his part, 
drove off. The overthrow of the carriage had 
been much facilitated by the sinking of the off- 
runner into a deep rut at the moment of collis- 
ion. The by-standers aided the driver in right- 
ing it ; but the shaft was splintered in such a 
manner as to render further progress impossible. 
I paid the unwilling driver liberally for his 
trouble, and proceeded up the street on foot. 
Before I had gone far an omnibus overtook me, 
and I stepped in ; but wearied before many 
minutes by its spasmodic plunges over the ruts 
and snow-drifts, I alighted again, and resolved 
to walk. It was a wild night for a pedestrian, 
but I was now just in the mood to have braved 
any weather, even had I been less securely pro- 
tected from the storm. If omens meant any 
thing, I had had enough in one evening to have 
dissuaded me from my visit. But Roxbury 
Neck was my Rubicon, and defying auguries, I 
was resolved to cross it. 

The wind had veered from northeast to north- 
west — a fact of which I was reminded as I reach- 
ed the first open space below the level of the 
street, upon which a great, fantastic, circular 
gas-house still stands — and felt a cold blast 
sweep by, driving the snow in my face. The 
gust instantly died away, and yielding to an in- 
voluntary feeling of interest at again beholding 
one of the familiar places of my boyhood, I 
stood still, resting my arms on the 'wooden fence 
that bordered the street, and gazed on the dusky 
waste, whose confines blended with a dim streak 
of gray sky which faintly defined the western 
horizon. I can not, even now, think of the 
omnious incident which followed my halt with- 
out a shudder. The shawl in which the lower 
part of my face had been enveloped, became 
loosened and disarranged, and I took it off again 
to adjust it. I was much heated by my rapid 
walk, which was, perhaps, the reason that I did 
not immediately reassume it, bat holding it in 



THE KNOCKER. 



63 



my hand, continued to gaze on the scene before 
me. I do not know what I was thinking of ; 
my mind was certainly in a pleasant and quies- 
cent mood, when I became sensible that the air 
around me was impregnated with the strong, 
stifling scent of camphor! I have said before, 
that the circumstances which followed the death 
of my wife had inspired me Avith a deadly, an 
insuperable disgust, amounting to an absolute 
hatred for the drug. But now it was more than 
revolting. A sense of dreadful horror swept 
down upon me like a shadow ; a sickening chill 
stole through my blood, as if I had touched a 
putrid corpse. The air was silently stricken 
with an unnatural, palsy ; the hideous odor alone 
had motion ; it seemed to crawl around me with 
the writhing and puckering movement of a gi- 
gantic grave-worm. I held my breath. There 
was no one near me ; the street was deserted. 
Some strange meaning haunted the solitude. 
I felt as if I was verging slowly to some new, 
some unfathomable abyss of fright. I listened. 
There was no sound but the audible throbbing 
of my heart. The snow was dropping silently. 
Far away in the murky west, a row of sullen 
lights burned dimly, like funeral lamps upon 
some dusky road to death. As I listened in 
the dead hush, the sound of a bell, muffled in 
the storm, sank upon my ear like a knell. I 
shuddered. The scent failed, and the wind 
rushed by me, whirling the snow-flakes wildly 
in the air. Then a breath — a long sigh arose 
within me, and my fantastic terrors died. The 
bell had sounded from a remote steeple ; I now 
heard another, and a nearer, striking the hour 
of seven. Wrapping my face again in the shawl, 
I rushed on to my destination. 

The occurrence I, of course, conceived to be 
entirely accidental. It had impressed me vivid- 
ly for the time ; but as I strode on, the observ- 
ation of the manifest changes which had al- 
tered the aspect of the neighborhood since my 
youth, diverted my mind from dwelling upon it; 
and when at last I stopped before the old house, 
with my heart beating joyously, it had faded en- 
tirely from my thoughts. I paused for a mo- 
ment, and surveyed the mansion. The side 
windows looked on the main street ; the back 
windows were parallel with the new street run- 
ning westward. It stood alone, for there was 
no other house on that side of the new street, 
and but two or three, at unequal distances, on 
the opposite side. Its western windows, conse- 
quently, commanded an uninterrupted view of 
the marshes beyond, in which the street termin- 
ated. The front of the building faced its own 
precincts — an inclosed court-yard. This was 
an elevation above the ground-level of the 
street. A spectral elm, with its giant branches 
laden with snow, stood within the court-yard, 
before the hall door. There were two or three 
leafless elms and poplars at the inner extremity 
of the inclosure. The house, so far as I could 
judge in the darkness, was much the same as 
heretofore. Its side shutters, which faced me 
as I looked, were closed. The old air of mys- 



tery and secrecy still hung about it. "Entering 
the yard I ran quickly up the steps to the front 
door, grasped the knocker, and gave a double 
rap. There was a light in the lower room of 
the right wing, as I saw — for the outer blinds 
were unshut, and the upper half of the inner 
shutters was unclosed, leaving a portion of the 
cornice and ceiling of the chamber visible 
through the white muslin curtains. As I knock- 
ed I saw a shadow that I had noticed on the 
ceiling suddenly start, and thought I heard a 
slight cry. I waited a few minutes, and was 
about to knock again, when I heard a footstep 
behind me, and turning, saw a woman ascend- 
ing the steps — an Irish servant-girl, with a small 
parcel in her hand. I immediately asked if 
Mr. Barry resided in the house ? Yes ; but he 
was not at home. Not at home ! oh — not come 
in. from the city ? No ; he was out of town. 
Out of town ! I felt disappointed. I had felt so 
sure of seeing him, that I had not calculated 
on his possible absence. Well, no matter, Mrs. 
Barry was in ? Yes. Then I would like to 
see her. The girl opened the door with a latch- 
key, and admitted me. I produced my card, 
and handed it to her for her mistress. She 
waited until I had hung my coat and mufflers on 
the clothes-tree in the entry, and then ushered 
me into a parlor on the left side of the passage. 

I was too much excited with the anticipation 
of soon seeing Mrs. Barry and her child to no- 
tice any thing about the room, save that it was 
Avell lighted, and, to me — heated by my walk — 
exceedingly close and warm. I had sunk into 
a cushioned chair, and, in a confusion of mind 
that I could not explain, was endeavoring to 
define something that oppressed me — that seem- 
ed to intrude between me and my thought of 
them. It was as if I were returning to some- 
thing that I ought to remember, and although 
on the very verge of recollection, was vainly en- 
deavoring to advance. "What is it?" I asked 
myself. " What is the matter with me ?" The 
room! the air! camphor! Great God! It 
flashed upon me. The air of the chamber was 
thick with the odor of camphor ! I sprang to my 
feet. The event of a few minutes before whirl- 
ed on my brain. What does this mean ? There 
was a light, rapid step in the passage — the door 
flew open, and Mrs. Bany rushed into the room 
with a cry, and fell fainting in my arms. 

My brain reeled, and a deadly sickness over- 
came me. Summoning my energies with a vio- 
lent effort, to prevent myself from sinking to 
the floor, I lifted her in my arms, and laid her 
on a sofa. I looked about for a bell-rope, and 
not perceiving one, rushed into the entry and 
called some name, I knew not what. The serv- 
ant-girl came running up from below. " Here, 
my good girl, your mistress has fainted — some 
water, quick!" I believe the girl fell down 
stairs in her hurry; she was not hurt, however, 
for she immediately returned and entered the 
room with a tumbler. I sprinkled some drops 
on Mrs. Barry's face, and threw open the win- 
dow, then kneeling beside her, I took her small 



64 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



hands in mine, and gazed into her colorless face. 
The excitementlhad passed through had left me 
as weak as a child. My actions had proceeded 
from a desperate instinct rather than reason. 
I now began to be calm again, and to question 
the meaning of all this. The camphor — the 
mere singularity of the coincidence overcame 
me ; she entered, and alarmed me by swooning 
in my arms. Why should she swoon? Such 
demonstrations were not in keeping with her : 
what could be the reason ? The camphor — was 
I the sport of coincidence ? Why should that 
accursed odor fill the air Avhen I was a mile from 
the house ? And why should it be here again 
in this house? The last mental question seem- 
ed to stun and bewilder me. The preceding 
thoughts flashed upon my mind with the daz- 
zling brevity of lightning, illuminating the truth, 
but binding my mental vision to its nature. I 
felt that I was on the very brink of apprehen- 
sion; that another, the next gleam of clear re- 
flection, would reveal the form of the mystery. 
I strove to be calm — to collect my faculties. I 
gazed intently into her face, pallid as marble — 
that was the color of the swoon — but then I saw 
that the cheeks were wan, the eyes sunken. 
" She has been ill," I murmured ; " my sudden 
visit has perhaps occasioned an excitement too 
powerful for her feebleness." Yet some inex- 
plicable feeling refused me satisfaction from this 
conjecture. I suddenly remembered that the 
servant was standing behind me, and that I 
might determine my speculations by a question. 
I was about to make an inquiry to this effect, 
when a slight motion from Mrs. Barry an- 
nounced the return of consciousness, and chain- 
ed my attention to her. A faint flush deepen- 
ed gradually on the pale face, the eyes slowly 
unclosed. As they met mine, and the life 
brightened in them, and a thin smile stole soft- 
ly, like celestial light, over her features, I 
thought that I had never seen a face more sad- 
ly beautiful. A feeling of tender awe filled 
my heart. I raised her, a moment after, from 
her recumbent position, and, with a sigh, the 
swoon ended. Clinging to my arm with a con- 
vulsive grasp, she laid her head upon my shoul- 
der, and tears flowed lightly from her eyes. I 
assisted her to a deep-cushioned chair. Dis- 
missing, with a motion of my hand, the poor 
girl who had stood staring at us in silent won- 
der, and closing the window, I drew a chair 
near her and sat down. 

"Now," I thought, "this will be explained." 
My first words were spoken with the design of 
tranquilizing her. She was, however, calm — 
far calmer than I was. Turning her pale, beau- 
ful face toward me — her face was very pale in 
the softened light of an astral lamp hanging from 
the ceiling — she spoke of her joy in my pres- 
ence. I understood from her that she had been 
very lonely, and that the relief experienced at 
my unexpected arrival had so agitated her that 
she had given way. This explanation did not 
satisfy me. I felt that her agitation was con- 
nected with another cause, but I hardly knew 



how to tell her so. I inquired for Barry. She 
informed me that urgent business had called 
him to New York several days before ; that he 
was expected home daily. " Will he never, nev- 
er come !" she added, with an emotion that sur- 
prised me. " Is it possible," I thought, " that his 
absence for a few days can have thus depressed 
her ?" I knew her strength of character so well, 
that I imagined it improbable. 

" Helen," I said, " tell me ; you are, or have 
been ill — is it not true ?" 

"No," she answered; but I have been very 
lonely, and he is absent when — " 

Her voice faltered ; she was silent. I felt 
my blind foreboding of some evil dilate until 
my brain was giddy ; but I never, at that mo- 
ment, apprehended the truth, or the shadow of 
the truth. I endeavored to speak cheerfully — 
playfully. 

"Now, Helen," I said, "how can you have 
allowed yourself to be lonely and melancholy, 
when you have your little Helen — my little dar- 
ling — with you, and — " 

I stopped suddenly; I remember these things 
perfectly. As I mentioned her child's name, a 
change passed over her face. She trembled, and 
laid her hand on my arm ; her lips moved, as if 
she was about to speak, but no sound came from 
them. And then I thought I knew all. 

While I had been speaking, I confess there 
had been but one thought in my mind ; and that 
was of the scent which had surrounded me 
when I was a mile from the house, and which 
now oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber. 
If it is thought strange that I did not immedi- 
ately divine, or at least question more directly, 
the occasion for its presence in the room, let me 
answer, that my mind was so entirely occupied 
and confused by the simple fact of the coincidence, 
that up to that moment I had been endeavoring 
to account for that, and that only. Even when I 
had chanced to ask myself the reason for its being 
in the house, the mere abstract fact of the coin- 
cidence had paralyzed the inquiry ; and my un- 
natural excitement, caused by the unexpected 
concurrence of circumstances, and augmented 
by the manner of my reception, had blinded 
and perplexed my understanding. But now, 
when I saw her voice fail on her quivering lips 
at the mention of her child's name, a terrible 
presentiment of the reason for its being here 
fell upon me. Yet I feared to ask directly for 
the child — I feared to hear at once that it was 
no more. I spoke hurriedly : 

"Tell me ; why is there so strong a scent of 
camphor in the room ?" 

" A vial was broken here a few minutes ago," 
she replied ; " see — here it is." 

In fact, a broken vial was on the adjoining 
table. 

"Is it disagreeable to you?" 

I did not reply; this was not the answer I 
had expected. 

"Helen !" — I took her hands in mine — "you 
have something to tell me ; is it not so ? Do not 
fear to let me know the worst. Your child is — " 



THE KNOCKER. 



65 



I feared to say it ; then something in her face 
told me it was not — it could not be that. 

"No?" I inquired. 

"No," she said, "not dead, but she is ill." 

I was relieved — yes, glad ! For a moment I 
felt a sense of positive exultation. My heart 
was light to know that the calamity which had 
befallen was less than I had feared. I inquired, 
almost mechanically, in the full flush of my 
gratification, if there was any danger? She 
answered that the physician who had been 
called in, and who bore the reputation of being 
a scientific and skillful practitioner, had assured 
her that the case was an ordinary one, and gave 
no cause for alarm. My exultation swelled into 
a feeling of triumph. 

" And what is her malady ?" I asked. 

" It is the scarlet fever." 

I looked at her. A yawning gulf seemed to 
have opened at my feet for an instant, and 
closed before I could see what it contained. 
"The camphor — my wife — the child;" I found 
myself faintly murmuring these words. I was 
on the point of telling the hideous details of my 
wife's death. I paused ; I resolved to postpone 
the narration until a more fitting period. With 
a strenuous mental effort I dismissed the whole 
subject from my thoughts, and changed the 
course of the conversation. 

My speculations respecting the unusual ex- 
citement of her manner in receiving me, were 
now, as I thought, finally resolved. Her hus- 
band absent — her child ill — and the loneliness 
and anxiety arising from these circumstances 
depressing her mind, it was not singular that 
she should be overpowered by the unexpected 
arrival of a friend so near to her as I was. 
For a time I felt perfectly satisfied with this 
conclusion. Then I again became uneasy and 
perplexed ; for my attention, rendered unusual- 
ly active by my excitement, was directed to 
certain peculiarities in her manner, which I 
could not explain, and which half-alarmed me. 
I noticed first, that she seemed averse to enter- 
ing into conversation about her child. My 
questions and remarks relating to the little girl 
elicited from her only indistinct and brief re- 
plies. This would not, perhaps, under differ- 
ent circumstances, have surprised me. I have 
never met with a woman who, loving deeply 
and tenderly, had less of the pedantry of affec- 
tion than Mrs. Barry. But at a time when 
even morbid prolixity on such a subject might 
have been expected and pardoned, I could not 
but observe the want of allusion to it. She 
was taciturn on that subject only ; on any other 
she conversed readily, and with a feverish, 
though deliberate, fluency. Then I began to 
observe something, which I intuitively con- 
nected with the topic she seemed so anxious to 
avoid, and which perplexed me more and more 
as I continued to notice it. I saw — and know- 
ing, as I did, the utter absence of any morbid 
nervousness in her temperament, I could not 
but notice, and wonder at it — that she was un- 
usually susceptible to, and cognizant of, the 



occurrence of any slight sound in the room. 
Once, while she was detailing the reasons for 
Barry's retirement from business, she started 
suddenly in her chair at a slight noise, made by 
an unfastened shutter without, swaying in the 
gust. Again, while she was telling me the 
causes for their occupation of the present house, 
I saw her turn pale, and pause in her relation, 
at a sound occasioned by the falling of an ivory 
ball from the table to the carpeted floor — the 
table having been jarred by a movement of 
mine. I have remembered these two instances, 
because they convinced me at the time that 
her mind, which would naturally have been 
supposed to be intent upon her narration, was 
preoccupied by another thought, and that she 
was listening for the occurrence of the sounds to 
which she was so nervously alive. This ex- 
treme sensitiveness was so marked, and its 
manifestations were so frequent, that I was 
forced to perceive it. I could not suppose that 
this was induced by despondency for her child, 
by restlessness at her husband's absence, or by 
over-agitation at my sudden visit. It rather 
indicated to me that her mind, abstracted and 
removed by an absorbing interest to some un- 
known object, was in a condition of vague and 
passive terror ! 

Imagining as yet that all this might be acci- 
dental, I strove to divert her thoughts by re- 
lating in an exaggerated and graphic style of 
humor the series of misadventures that had 
befallen me in my endeavors to reach the house. 
I watched her narrowly as I went on, and saw 
that, even when most interested, she was per- 
fectly cognizant of the slight noises that took 
place in the room, and evinced the same sub- 
dued alarm at their every occurrence. Indeed, 
the symptoms seemed to increase, as if her 
mind, diverted at first by my advent, and be- 
coming gradually familiarized with my pres- 
ence, was resuming a former channel. I no- 
ticed on these occasions that her glance rested 
on the door behind me, with an intensity which 
had induced me several times to turn my head 
in order to ascertain what she was looking at. 
I felt grieved. I did not wish to question her 
regarding this strange disquietude, for I thought 
that it would hardly be abated by its cause be- 
coming known to me. Besides, I trusted to my 
own observation to ultimately satisfy my curi- 
osity. One thing I felt sure of: that her man- 
ner was in some way connected with the illness 
of her child. I was right in my conjecture. 

We had been talking in this way for some 
time, and, with an unkind perversity which was 
determined to engage her attention to the topic 
she seemed to avoid, I had spoken for some 
minutes only upon that, when a knock was 
heard at the parlor door. At the same time — 
it may have been, I thought, an accidental mo- 
tion — I observed that she suddenly placed her 
hand upon her bosom. Wondering at my own 
silly stupidity in not divining from her restless- 
ness and frequent glances in that direction, 
that a visitor was expected, I immediately rose 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



from my seat and opened the door. To my 
astonishment, there was no one there. So cer- 
tain was I that I had .heard a knock, that I 
stepped into the entry to assure myself that no 
one was without. The passage was dimly but 
sufficiently lighted by a swinging lamp de- 
pending from the ceiling, sufficiently to con- 
vince me at a glance that I had been deceived. 
Re-entering the parlor, and closing the door, I 
resumed my seat ; observing as I did so, to 
Mrs. Barry, who sat with her eyes covered by 
her small, jeweled hand, that " I thought there 
was a knock." She raised her head, and quietly 
answered, 

" I thought so." 

"We were mistaken," I said, "it was some 
casual noise." 

"Yes," she replied, in a tremulous voice, 
"an accident." 

Her face was very pale, and I thought her 
eyes had a singular expression as she looked 
directly in my face — an intense earnestness, as 
if they sought to detect a thought I might be 
anxious to conceal. The look was only mo- 
mentary, and she again shaded them with her 
hand. I did not, at the time, so much observe 
the expression as to be attracted by it into any 
speculation, nor even think of it in connection 
with the knocking. For the latter, though I 
had distinctly heard it, yet having failed to 
corroborate an opinion testified to by one sense 
by the evidence of another, I had come to the 
conclusion that I had been deceived by some 
accidental sound, and gave it no further thought. 

After some desultory conversation, Ave rose 
to visit the bedside of the child. The room in 
which she lay was on the opposite side of the 
entry — the same in which I had seen through 
the window the shadow start on the ceiling. 
As I entered, I recognized in the furniture and 
arrangement of the antique chamber a counter- 
part of that where, a few months before, I had 
held the little girl in my arms. Whatever in- 
voluntary feeling of pleasure the memory awak- 
ened was now tempered with melancholy, when 
I thought of the fallen fortunes of my friends, 
and when I saw — the only strange object in the 
chamber — the small carved bed in which the 
child lay. She was asleep. The red flush of 
fever was on her face ; the lustrous eyes were 
closed ; the beautiful dark tresses had been 
shorn from the fair head. As I bent over her, 
a spectral memory of the destiny which hung 
above her house passed across my mind. Then 
all the wild love that I bore in my nature for 
her came up in blinding tears to my eyes, and 
an aspiration, mighty as a prayer, rose from my 
soul to God, for a blessing that no mortal words 
could name. 

We sat down near each other — Mrs. Barry 
and I — and conversed in low tones that did not 
disturb the hush of the chamber. The shaded 
lamp gave a dim light that seemed to expand 
the large proportions of the shadowy room. A 
few red rays from the smouldering coals in the 
grate rested on the carpeted floor. Without 



was the faint wailing of the w r ind, rising at 
intervals into a rushing sound, as if something 
were sweeping through the air around the house, 
and pausing, to sink into a hushed and mourn- 
ful sigh. The constant ticking of a small clock 
of black marble sounded like dropping water. 
There was no other sound but the low murmur 
of our voices, whispering together. Gradually 
these died away, and we were mute. I sat and 
watched her. She reclined in a low cushioned 
scat beneath me, in the shadow of the bed, 
which gave a duskier pallor to her pale, sweet 
face. The eyes were closed. Only upon her 
white hands, laid together as if in supplication, 
fell a faint light from the lamp beyond. It 
shone upon the jewels, which gleamed like 
sparks of golden and crystal fire. And thus in 
my latter years, whenever the tempest broods 
with night over land and sea, and in the dark- 
ness, when the winds are wild and low — with a 
deeper shadow on a brow made holy with the 
peace of answered prayer, and holier light rest- 
ing in promise on her praying hands — she rises 
in the mists of vision, and sits in my memory 
forever ! 

The hours waned slowly away. We had not 
spoken for some time. The tempest was dying 
away, and there was no sound but the monoto- 
nous ticking of the clock. She had risen quiet- 
ly from her seat, unknown to me, so deep was 
the reverie in which I had been lost. I was 
awakened suddenly to consciousness — and saw 
her standing by the bed, looking at the sleeping 
child — by a loud rap at the door. Without re- 
flection, I arose and opened it. I started back 
with surprise at beholding no one there ! Re- 
covering myself instantly, I sprang into the 
entry. There was no one ! I stood amazed, 
petrified, struck dumb with wonder. Was I 
dreaming ? No — I heard it ; distinctly — clearly 
— plainly heard it. I peered about the entry ; 
there was no place of concealment there ; the 
dim light of the lamp illuminated the entire 
passage. I was conscious of supernatural fear. 
I turned and looked into the room. She was 
standing by the bedside, with her averted face 
covered by her hands. A secret fire leaped 
through my veins. I knew then that she had 
heard it — yes, and heard it before ! Chilled 
and pale, I entered the room, and shutting the 
door, went to her side and laid my hand on her 
arm. She turned quickly ; her face was white, 
and large tears stood in her calm eyes. A 
forced smile played on her colorless lips, as she 
said, 

" How pale you are !" 

" Helen !" I screamed, " what is this ?" 

She looked at me, with the same smile on her 
pallid face. 

"My friend," said she, and her voice was 
sweet and clear, " be calm ; you must be calm !" 

She laid her hands in mine, and the tears 
flowed from her eyes, steadily fixed on my 
face. 

"Come," I said, "come, Helen, into the 
next room, where we can talk without disturb- 



THE KNOCKER. 



67 



ing her, and tell me what was on your mind all 
this evening." 

We crossed the passage to the room where 
we had previously sat, and resumed our former 
seats. For a few minutes we looked at each 
other in silence, as if listening for the recur- 
rence of the mysterious noise. At last I spoke, 
and after asking if she had heard these sounds 
before my visit, which she answered that she 
had, I requested her to tell me every thing 
about them. She complied, without a mo- 
ment's hesitation. What she told me was sub- 
stantially as follows : 

On the day after her husband's departure, 
the little Helen, her child, came to her and 
complained of being unwell. She was sitting 
in her chair, and the little girl's head rested in 
her lap, when she heard a knock at the door. 
She was surprised, for she had not heard the 
hall door open, and visitors were usually shown 
by the girl into the opposite parlor — the room 
in which we were now sitting. Thinking that 
it might be the servant, although she was accus- 
tomed to enter the room without formality, 
Mrs. Barry said, "Come in." The door not 
opening, she rose, and was still more surprised 
to find no one without. The sound had been 
singularly distinct ; however, she thought no 
more of it until a couple of hours afterward, 
when it again occurred, and the result was the 
same. She was amazed. Nothing of the kind 
had been heard during the few months' previ- 
ous occupation of the house. It was not heard 
again that day until late in the afternoon, when 
it came with great plainness. She began to feel 
uneasy, the more so that the child was becom- 
ing seriously ill. She took her up stairs, and, 
putting her to bed, sent for a physician. He 
came ; pronounced the nature of the disease, 
prescribed, and went away. That evening, after 
a long silence, the child suddenly said, "Mother, 
do you think I am going to die ?" As the words 
were spoken, the mother heard the knock at the 
door. This, it will be understood, was in a 
chamber overhead, clearly showing that the 
noise Avas not confined in its manifestation to 
any particular part of the house. The mother 
did not answer the question. Erom that mo- 
ment she instinctively connected the phenom- 
enon with the illness of the child. She remem- 
bered that its first evidence was given at the 
time when the child complained of being un- 
well. A gloomy and tremulous foreboding filled 
her mind. That night she did not sleep. The 
dreadful noises came at intervals during the 
long vigil, seeming to increase with the delirium 
of the child. She did not dare to call the 
seiwant-girl, fearing that she might hear them, 
and, becoming alarmed, desert the house and 
leave her alone. She knew none of the neigh- 
bors, and the fear of creating any excitement 
dissuaded her from summoning strangers. She 
could only pray for her husband's return. 

The physician came again in the morning, 
and went away, assuring her that there was no 
danger. She did not mention to him the cause 



of her anxiety. But the chamber was dreadful 
to her. Sending out for a porter, she had the 
bed conveyed down stairs to the room it now oc- 
cupied. The noises only came at long intervals 
that day ; the very fact made them more omin- 
ous. That afternoon she slept a few hours. 
Toward evening, as she thought of the certain- 
ty of another night, thronged with the terrors 
of that which had passed, the anticipation be- 
came almost insupportable. She prayed for re- 
lief. She began to hope that the noises might 
be accidental, or might cease. That evening, 
as she was bending over the child, a loud knock 
came, so suddenly that it forced a cry from her. 
She immediately recovered herself, for she rec- 
ognized the challenge of a visitor on the hall 
door, and nothing supernatural. Remembering 
that the girl was absent on an errand, she was 
about to go to the door herself, and only paused 
to regain her composure, when she heard the 
door open, and the voice of the servant ushering 
in the visitor. The courage which had upborne 
her in the trials of the preceding days gave way 
as she fainted in my arms ! 

Every thing respecting her nervous manner 
that evening was now explained. It was her 
cry that I had heard at the hall door ; it was 
her shadow that started on the ceiling. I now 
understood the reason for her attention to the 
casual noises which took place in the room — 
which continually reminded her of the sounds 
mysteriously connected in her mind with the 
fate of her child — and her frequent glances to 
the door at their occurrence. She had hoped 
that my presence was the announcement of 
their ceasing ; and when I had heard the first 
evidence of their existence that evening, and 
thought myself deceived, she kneAV that she 
was not, and her hope had faded. In my re- 
membrance of her pale face, shaded by her 
hand, when I re-entered the chamber, the trem- 
ulous voice in which she had assented to my 
opinion, and the intense expression of her earn- 
est eyes, seeking to ascertain if I suspected the 
truth, I now read the reassumption of a former 
foreboding, already sinking in her mind to the 
cold resignation of despair. I began to repent 
having permitted myself to become so agitated 
and excited, fearing that I might have strength- 
ened her belief in a fatality by evincing a too 
ready adhesion to the theory that these sounds 
were the result of a supernatural agency. With 
this repentance came a hesitating doubt. The 
sounds had certainly occurred, yet they might 
have been the singular effect of a vulgar cause, 
only mysterious because unknown ; and the 
facts of their occurrence at the child's first ill- 
ness, and apparently in answer to her question 
regarding the possibility of death, merely casual 
coincidences. But no ; that answered nothing. 
Even if the (not impossible, but still) monstrous 
hypothesis were admitted, that a sound, the 
same in all its peculiarities, can be produced by 
a simple and natural cause, in several places 
absolutely removed and apart from each other 
— and is intelligent, and bears reference to a 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



human life — then, at least, it is ominous of a 
relation that it bears to the law which controls 
that life. It is not the less terrible because it 
is the blind vassal of a destiny ; it can not have 
become so by accident ; and if it can, it is not 
the less appalling, for it has ceased to be acci- 
dent. I shall be accused of superstition, of 
unintelligent credulity. I repel such accusa- 
tions with scorn. The phenomenon, so simple, 
so direct, so palpably removed from uncertainty 
in its manifestations, was mysterious enough to 
thrill any one with horror. As I listened to 
Mrs. Barry's story, I could not but admire the 
courage which had nerved her to bear such ter- 
rors, and the admirable balance of mind which 
had not tottered from reason. When I myself 
had been so powerfully excited by a single even- 
ing's experience, and in her company, what 
must have been her feelings, compelled for days 
of loneliness to hear such sounds, without a 
single clew to their cause or meaning but one, 
and that one so dreadful. There was no doubt 
in my mind, there could be none, of the verity 
of their occurrence. The raps were on the 
door, distinctly on the door. They were pecul- 
iar, not only in distinctness, but in a deliberate 
abruptness, as if they were given by an unfal- 
tering hand. They were always double raps, 
varying in loudness, but never faint or hesi- 
tating. Nothing earthly but the human hand 
could have produced such sounds. I say no- 
thing earthly ; and I base this opinion upon the 
conviction acquired by subsequent experience 
and investigation. 

My only course was to assume an indifference 
that I did not feel, and endeavor to impart it 
to her, trusting that all this might yet be ex- 
plained aAvay. A strange idea that I have held 
at different periods of my life — a shadowy and 
fluctuating fancy — now took possession of me. 
I felt a vague confidence, that if she could be- 
come strongly informed with the faith that her 
child would live, it would exert a mystic and 
magnetic influence on a life which was bound 
to her OAvn by all the strong affinities of love, 
and preserve it to her. I said every thing I 
could to induce this belief in her ; but I failed. 
It was in vain for me to attempt to undermine 
her conviction of portended death. I could 
not explain the phenomena on which it rested ; 
and although I did not share her belief as to 
their meaning, yet there was a strangeness, a 
homely horror in the manifestations, under the 
circumstances, that completely awed and be- 
wildered me. 

It was nearly eleven o'clock. We were en- 
tirely alone. The servant-girl had long since 
retired, and I resolved to watch with Mrs. 
Barry by the bedside of her child. She assent- 
ed to my determination; and after extinguish- 
ing the entry lamp, and replenishing the fire in 
the grate, I prevailed on her to occupy a couch 
near the bed, where she might sleep, if so in- 
clined ; and taking a cushioned chair for myself, 
sat down to watch the night away. 

At two o'clock the sound occurred again, 



with a distinctness absolutely fearful. We did 
not hear it again that night. The child awoke 
once about four, and required attention. She 
relapsed into a state of relative insensibility 
without recognizing me. This awakened a sad- 
der feeling in my heart than all that had passed. 
It haunted me in a chaos of reveries until the 
dim lamplight began to sicken in the cold gray 
of the cloudy daybreak. The cheerless dawn 
melted gradually into my waking dreams, slow- 
ly blotting them away, until my mind in its 
blank consciousness felt that it had something 
akin to the faded fire smouldering in the dead 
ashes, and the sallow light of the lamp, paled 
in the deathly, unnatural morning. Rising from 
my seat, I softly crossed" the room and looked 
out. The snow lay deeply on the blank street. 
A naked tree before the house shivered noise- 
lessly as the gust shook its black branches. All 
was desolate without, and a desolation like 
death, or the shadow of death, rested heavily 
within. My heart was sick. Turning from the 
window my eye fell upon the pale features of 
Mrs. Barry. She slept. A happy smile, like 
the light shed from a pleasant dream, was upon 
her wan and spiritual face, and vailed its se- 
raphic sorrow with an unearthly beauty. A 
tender and solemn feeling rising in my awed 
heart, as I gazed upon that sweet and noble 
countenance, dilated into peaceful hope, and 
rebuking my doubts and fears, stood within me 
in deep and unutterable prayer. Softly, very 
softly, fearing to awaken her, I crossed the 
room and looked upon the child. Then came 
the awful knock at the door — low and distinct 
— thrilling my heart — curdling my blood with 
its mysterious meaning! I turned — she was 
sitting up ; her slumber had been light, and she 
had heard it. We looked at each other in si- 
lence, with a look that understood each other's 
thoughts. She sighed heavily, and my eyes 
grew dim with tears. I turned away to repress 
them, and bent over the child of our common 
affection, for whom were our hopes, and pray- 
ers, and fears. Then the reality of the day, 
and the need of courage to sustain it, came 
upon me, and I grew calm. 

My story darkens to a close. Before the 
maid came down I wrapped myself up and left 
the house for an early walk through the streets 
of the adjacent town. I had need of exercise 
after a long night spent in the sick chamber. 
The air was warm, and at every step my feet 
sank deeply in the soft snow. I did not heed 
the difficulty of my progress. My every thought 
was absorbed in the fate of the child, and the 
strange tissue of presentiments in which that 
fate was involved. 

I returned to the house in a couple of hours. 
The servant answered my summons at the door, 
and seemed rather surprised at what she un- 
doubtedly supposed was an early visit. I was 
glad to see that she did not know I had passed 
the night in the house. As I stood in the en- 
try, divesting myself of my overcoat, the knock 
occurred very near me, on the right hand door. 



THE KNOCKER. 



G9 



Before I could speak the girl threw it open, 
supposing that her mistress had summoned her 
thus from -within, and was very much surprised 
at seeing her standing by the child's bed, at a 
distance which she could not have attained in 
the slight interim elapsing between the rap and 
the opening of the door. I relieved her by say- 
ing, with a laugh, that I had made the noise 
with the heel of my boot on the floor, "in this 
way," said I. Before I could produce a sound, 
which, to a fine ear, would have borne no simili- 
tude to it, the knock came again on the open 
door, sounding, of course, within the chamber. 
" So," said I, coolly. The girl looked at me 
with the most perfect expression of stupefaction 
that I ever saw on a human countenance. I 
bore it like a Stoic, although strongly tempted 
to laugh in earnest, despite the dread I felt at 
this demoniac jesting — this singular anticipa- 
tion of my purpose by the unknown cause of 
the sounds, and by the fear that the noise might 
occur again while she was watching my motions, 
or that she might doubt my assertion as it was. 
Had she done so, I firmly believe she would 
have left the house instantly, although she was 
much attached to her mistress. She was not, 
however, incredulous of my assertion, but won- 
der-struck at my ability to produce a sound, 
evidently in another place, on the floor beneath 
me. My boot heel must have passed into her 
mind to take place among its strongest concep- 
tions of the miraculous. She never discovered 
that the house Avas haunted by such noises, as 
they were invariably confined to the neighbor- 
hood of the child, and she was kept away by 
Mrs. Barry as much as possible, on the score 
of the danger of infection. 

I entered the room and closed the door be- 
hind me. Mrs. Barry still stood by the bed. 
"It was not you?" she asked, in a gentle voice. 
I shook my head. She knew that it was not, 
but the impudence of my assertion to the girl, 
and the coincidence of the last sound with my 
intention, had doubtless induced the question. 
"It was singular," I said, alluding to the last. 
She assented by a motion of her head — her 
thoughts were with her child. 

The morning grew darker. The leaden sky 
without had changed to a deeper tint and 
hung nearer to the earth, and was puckered and 
ugly, with low, dark, sullen clouds, that crept 
slowdy along, and filtered down a dismal rain 
upon the fallen snow. A vague mist, which 
had hung about the distance, gradually deep- 
ened, and shrouded every object till its shape 
was formless. I sat at the window, watching 
gloomily the cheerless scene, witli a heart sink- 
ing from deep to deep, and a cold mist gather- 
ing in my mind. The slow, monotonous tick- 
ing from the black marble clock struck my ear. 
Tick, tick, tick! and my thought unconscious- 
ly fashioned the sound into one warning word, 
slowly and constantly repeated — Death, death, 
death ! 

Yes ; it began to be familiar in my mind. 
Vague and awful— a shadow, slowly gathering 



form. Haunting me — sullenly dogging my fail- 
ing hope through every dim avenue of thought — 
the shrouded angel, terrible and silent, whose 
dreaded name was Death ! 

A light hand touched me on the shoulder. I 
started, and followed her to the adjoining room. 
We sat down to the table. I could not eat, but 
I drank cup after cup of strong coffee, until it 
acted on my nerves with the first effect of 
opium — only narcotizing unrest, and soothing 
and strengthening the mind into calm activity. 
I began to feel more cheerful, and conversed 
with her tranquilly on indifferent topics. We 
had finished breakfast, and re-entered the sick 
chamber, when the physician was announced. 
He was an old gentleman, grave and kind in 
his deportment, and with a certain subdued 
cordiality of manner. He said much to assure 
Mrs. Barry that her child was in no imminent 
danger, and after expressing his opinion that 
the fever was rapidly attaining its crisis, which, 
safely passed, would terminate all doubt as to 
the result, and prescribing the usual remedies 
dictated by the common method of treatment, 
with some further general directions, he cheer* 
fully left us. 

I can not describe the feeling of confidence 
with which his visit reinspired me. I strove to 
impart it to her, but she only answered with a 
sad smile. Her mournful incredulity only gave 
fresh strength to my reinvigorated hope. The 
fate of my wife might have warned me to be 
cautious in my anticipations. It did not, how- 
ever. I had begun by striving to convince Mrs. 
Barry of the truth of fables Avhich I did not be- 
lieve ; I ended by deceiving and convincing my- 
self. I now talked extravagantly and buoyantly 
of the certainty of the child's recovery. My hope 
no longer caught at straws to save it from sink- 
ing. It clung to the physician's assurance as to 
a life-preserver. Alas ! like that, its support 
was only filled with human breath. 

The fatal knock came again at the door while 
I was talking. I cared not ; I defied auguries. 
Yet, after a time, the excitement began to de- 
crease, and the old feeling slowly began to re- 
turn. I went to the door and examined it. It 
was of solid oak, old, but utterly free from de- 
cay. For an hour I wandered about the pas- 
sage-way — sounding the walnut wainscots — the 
floors — trying to discover some plausible natHral 
reason for these noises. It was in vain. 

I re-entered the chamber. The child was in 
a state of partial insensibility, sometimes broken 
by the low, incoherent wanderings of delirium, 
and then sinking into brief, uneasy slumber. 
Every attention that could be bestowed on her 
was, of course, given by the mother. 

As the slow morning crept toward noon, the 
snow already began to dissolve under the inces- 
sant torrents that poured from the heavy clouds. 
The frantic wind rising, dashed the rain against 
the streaming panes, shook the elm trees before 
the window, and swept through the sullen air. 
The storm was wild without — within all was 
quiet. So the morning wore away. 



70 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



At two o'clock the physician came again. 
After he had gone I began to think of going to 
the city to my hotel, so as to return in the early 
evening, but it rained so furiously that I resolved 
to wait a couple of hours, hoping that the storm 
might abate. I earnestly desired, more than 
all, the return of Barry. We had heard no- 
thing from him. She had sent two letters. 
When I mentioned to her my anxious wish for 
his presence, she expressed her conviction that 
he would not return before all was over. The 
thought chilled me, and I begged her not to 
cherish a presentiment so distressing. She only 
replied with a sad and fatal smile. 

The circumstance gave a deeper color to my 
thoughts. The smile, cold with the unimpas- 
sioned grief of despair, haunted me. If she 
had wept, wildly and bitterly, I could have 
borne it ; but this fatal and prophetic sorrow 
was dreadful. I could not answer her, and sat 
in painful silence. 

An old remembrance came slowly to me. It 
gathered form from every object in the room, 
and brought me back to the day, months before, 
when I had held the child upon my knee, and 
seen her eyes unclose in the silence, and a 
strange, supernatural gaze look from them into 
mine. I remembered the fatal family tradition. 
Mrs. Barry was sitting near me. 

"Helen," I said, "you were an orphan from 
your childhood." 

"Yes." 

I was silent for a moment. 

" Do you know," I resumed, " that Paul, like 
you, was an orphan ?" 

"I know it," she replied; "w r e were both 
orphans from our childhood." 

" Yes," I answered ; " and his parents were 
also both orphans." 

"It is true," she said; "they were also, like 
us, only children ; so were mine." 

" You know it ?" I inquired — " you know this 
to be true ?" 

"Yes," she answered, "I know it." 

" And have you ever thought of it as strange ?" 
I asked. 

"Many times," she answered — "and more 
than strange. We have sometimes wondered 
if it reverted to our great-grandparents : but we 
do not know. It is said that some of Paul's 
family — perhaps his great-grandfather, but he 
thinks an earlier ancestor — lived in this old 
house before the Revolution." 

"What!" I exclaimed— "in this house?" 

" In this house," she replied. 

"Why did you not tell me before?" I in- 
quired. 

She did not answer, nor did I care that she 
should. Nothing more was said. / feared to 
say more. I rose and looked at the child. The 
face was hidden in the bedclothes. I did not 
disturb them, but resumed my chair by the win- 
dow. Eor a long time the sound of the storm 
was confused and dim in my ears. I thought 
— if my vague reveries can be so termed — of the 
words I had just heard, and all the mystery and 



meaning of their theme gathered into one vast, 
awful sense of coming doom ! 

The rain did not abate. I prepared to go, 
promising to return soon. Taking an umbrella, 
I sallied out. The -snow was quite washed 
away from the streets. Some waste white 
ridges lay along the gutters, and on portions 
of the sidewalk a cold, gelid substance, trod- 
den by the feet of many passengers, still re- 
mained. There was a breath of fever in the 
warm, fitful south wind. The rain, whirled 
about in the currents of air, shaken from the 
trees, dashed out of the spouts on the black, 
drenched eaves, was streaming every where. A 
fever in my veins pulsed with the gust, and a 
wild spirit in my bosom exulted in the storm. 

I reached my destination in less than half an 
hour. Sitting down in the parlor of the hotel. 
I wrote a few lines to Barry, imploring him to 
return immediately. This I dispatched at once 
to the post-office. What I wrote was earnest 
enough, God knows ; and yet, while I was writ- 
ing, I felt a singular gayety of mind. When 1 
had finished, and the letter was gone, I was 
conscious of a still greater exuberance of spirits, 
accompanied by a slight giddiness, and a dull 
pain, or rather pressure, in the back of my head. 
With this feeling increasing, I walked into the 
reading-room, and took up an evening paper. 
Glancing down its columns, my eye fell upon 
this paragraph. 

" Sudden Death. — We learn from the New 
York Sv?i of yesterday, that Mr. Paul Barry, of 
Boston, who was stopping at the Astor House 
in that city, fell down suddenly in the reading- 
room of the hotel, and was taken up dead. An 
inquest was to be held on his body the same 
afternoon." 

I read this item without emotion of any kind. 
I read it slowly, carefully, and gravely. This 
too, I thought, is a reading-room ! Then I 
walked up stairs slowly to my own apartment. 
On the stairs, I laughed once. I changed my 
clothes with the utmost deliberation, and with- 
out moving a muscle of my face. Having com- 
pleted my toilet, 1 walked very slowly up and 
down the room twice. I laughed again. Then 
going down stairs into the street, I rushed back 
to the house with the speed of a whirlwind. 

It was nearly six o'clock in the evening when 
I re-entered the chamber. The child slept. 
Mrs. Barry was sitting tranquilly by the bed. 
I took a chair near her, and, seating myself, 
looked at her with a placid interest. I noticed 
then, Without any sense of sadness, but rather 
with a feeling of pleasure, how frightfully she 
had altered within the two preceding days. 
Her eyes were sunken, and of an unearthly 
brightness. Her face was very pale and wan, 
giving a strange brilliance to the sad smile with 
which she welcomed my reappearance. The 
hair, arranged in long, dark tresses by her face, 
made its pallor more apparent. I thought that 
the face wore a singular — an indescribable look. 
Its supernatiiral beauty seemed to vail, and half 
reveal, another face within, whose features were 



THE KNOCKER. 



71 



those of withered age— old and worn, and seem- 
ing to look through the outward countenance. 
At times — particularly when her eyes were 
downcast — this appearance of age was more 
strongly visible ; the face wore a secret, blind, 
meaningless expression, as if the lineaments of 
another blended with, and partially confused it. 
In a word, it impressed me as if the counte- 
nance was introverted ; or as having somewhat 
the appearance of the back of a transparent 
mask, where the features appear semi-neutral- 
ized. I gazed at her quietly. With the same 
placid, happy feeling, I thought that all this was 
but the work of a deep inward agony, changing 
her beauty to premature decay. 

Sitting near her, I tried to converse ; but our 
voices soon ceased to murmur. I began to feel 
an uneasy awe. The sounds had not been 
heard since the morning. I now feared them. 
Yet I found myself in a few minutes wishing 
that they might re-occur. Their cessation gave 
me uneasiness ; it seemed unnatural — it seemed 
to me that it must predicate evil. I began to 
feel a morbid propensity to discover shapes in 
the furniture — to fancy every thing sentient, 
and imagine it watching me. I thought I must 
be getting over-excited ! To overcome my fan- 
cies, I covered my eyes with my hand, and en- 
deavored to abstract my mind from feelings 
which seemed to be gathering like a crowd of 
spectres, to surround me before the uprising of 
some infernal terror. 

In this effort I succeeded so far as to lose the 
impression of sentience in the inanimate objects 
around me. Then I thought that I would enter 
upon a calm, a very calm, mental review of the 
chain of circumstances which had been forced 
upon my cognizance. I would look at them, 
one by one. I could not refrain from smiling. 
I was conscious of a singular expansion in my 
brain ; I was disposed to imagine very strange 
things ; yet I could think very calmly, clearly ; 
the human brain was such a marvelous mechan- 
ism ! I began to recall the incidents, one by 
one ; the first shadow on my mind, months be- 
fore, when I remembered the ancestral sin that 
brought orphan brides, and lonely births, and 
death to the house of Barry; the look in the 
eyes of the child ; my return to hear of the 
fallen fortunes of my friend ; the warning of 
the accursed scent of camphor on the black 
night ; the whirl of emotions that greeted my 
entrance to the haunted house ; the illness of 
the child ; the revelation of the warning sounds ; 
the father's absence ; the silent agony of the 
mother ; the dreadful repetition of the noises — 
an invisible, perhaps an ancestral, hand for- 
ever challenging at the door ; the spectres of the 
mind ; my fear, fright, doubt, and horror, while 
his cold corpse lies, white and rigid, in a distant 
city, and all rounds on to the final blackness of 
the doom! 

I look up — a fierce fire in my brain. We sat 
in silence — an awful silence. No sound but the 
stormy wailing of the desolate winds, sweeping 
about the mansion. No sound but the slow 



ticking of the clock — Death, death, death ! A 
slow whirling in my head — faster — faster ! No, 
no ; I am the fool of chimeras — I am yielding 
to imaginary terrors — I must be calm. Death, 
death, death ! 

" Helen, your clock is a good time-keeper — 
remarkably good." 

She looked at me in surprise. I did not look 
at her, but I knew she Avas looking at me in sur- 
prise. I drew out my watch, and compared it 
with the clock. 

" How very pale you are," she said. 

I rose to my feet. 

"But your clock — your clock does keep good 
time !" 

"Yes; it belonged to my father — why! 
what is the matter?" 

She sprang up and caught my arm. I would 
have fallen to the floor. She assisted me to 
my seat. 

"A sudden faintness," I said, "nothing but 
that." 

I made a strong effort to compose myself. 
She left the room. Can I bear this much 
longer ! These thoughts are killing me ! Oh ! 
agony, agony ! 

She returned with a glass of water. I drank 
it. 

" You are ill ; what is the matter ? Oh ! how 
pale you are !" 

"Nothing, Helen," I said, faintly, "positive- 
ly nothing. I am fatigued — I felt a moment- 
ary weakness which nearly overcame me. Do 
not be alarmed. I am better now — much bet- 
ter." 

There was a mirror in the room. I arose 
and looked in it. Pale ; I was livid ! I re- 
sumed my seat. 

" You know, Helen, I did not sleep last night ; 
my fatigue and the warmth of the room brought 
on a passing faintness." 

" Oh ! forgive me," she said ; " I forgot that 
you had no sleep ; you must be wearied. Come, 
you must go up stairs and rest." 

" No, no, Helen ; I will not go up stairs. I 
am quite well. Come," and I tried to laugh, 
"you must not imagine me so delicate as to be 
exhausted by one night's vigil !" 

"But you are so pale," she answered; "you 
look unwell. At least, if you will not go up 
stairs, go into the other room and lie down on 
the sofa. Do not hesitate to leave me here. I 
will call you if any thing occurs." 

I yielded. I was in truth very weary, but I 
did not intend to sleep. I only wanted to be 
alone for a few minutes, that I might give vent 
to the feelings which were becoming insupport- 
able, and regain my composure. 

I went into the room, which was well lighted. 
I turned down the lamp until it only gave a dim 
light, and throwing myself upon the cushions, 
covered my face with my hands and wept like a 
child. Then I grew calmer. I sat in silence 
for a long time, sad and weak with the storm 
of feeling which had passed within me. The 
tempest was at its height without. I drew aside 



72 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the curtains from the western window, and 
pressing my face close to the cold panes, looked 
out. There were no houses before me; my 
eyes rested only on a sullen waste of murky 
marshes, stretching away until it ended in a 
curving line of darkness against the faint gray 
of the horizon. Over this waste rolled a low, 
drifting rack of stormy clouds, with a dim, 
phosphorescent light, revealing their gray edges. 
The rain had ceased ; only the wild, despairing 
winds raged over the waste fields. Opening 
the window, I let the cool air blow on my fore- 
head and lift my hair. There was a strange, 
sweet odor on the night. As its spicy breath 
played on my brow, a tenderer feeling awoke 
within me. The phantom of the happier hours 
of my childhood, filled with hope and blessing, 
floated out from the darkness of the Past upon 
the gloom, and murmured — Peace. The pres- 
ent sorrow grew dim. I closed the window 
gently and sat down. 

Soon a feeling of weariness stole upon me. 
I reclined on the ottoman, and listened to the 
wailing and shrieking of the frantic winds — 
sinking at intervals into mad whispering and 
gibbering, and then rising with low moanings 
into deep, sonorous, drowning cries. Gradu- 
ally their hoarse and howling voices seemed to 
die entirely away, and I slept. 

I awoke slowly to a vague consciousness that 
my slumbers had been long and deep. I had a 
faint remembrance of having heard the winds 
jarring a shutter during my sleep. They were 
silent now ; the tempest was over. There was a 
soft, luminous dimness in the chamber, which 
I could not account for. The lam]) burned very 
low, giving really no light. I felt startled. 
Could I have slept until morning? I looked at 
my watch. No — it was just twelve o'clock; I 
had slept four hours. I arose, and lifting the 
curtain looked out. The mystery was then ap- 
parent. The sky was a floating mass of vapor, 
illuminated by a misty, yellow moon, which 
hung, large and gibbous, below the zenith, de- 
scending to the west, and diffused a drowsy 
light over the dead waste below. The night 
was very still. The very essence of Lethe 
drugged the air of the chamber, and drowsed 
my senses. Sinking down on the cushions, I 
again slept. 

My sleep this time was troubled. I was 
haunted by a vague sense of hearing the winds 
blowing about the house, and again jarring the 
shutter. Then it seemed to me that the shut- 
ter was beating in the wall of the mansion, and 
with a feeling of alarm, I tried to awake. I 
was in the midst of an uneasy and ineffectual 
struggle to shake off the spell which held me, 
during which the shutter, I thought, was beat- 
ing more furiously, and the wall was beginning 
to totter, when I felt a touch, and immediately 
started up, perfectly aroused. Mrs. Barry stood 
before me with a lamp in her hand. Her un- 
bound hair hung in heavy black masses by her 
face, fearfully relieving its ghastly pallor. I 
saw her white lips move, and heard her voice, 



low and clear, and seeming to reach me from 
an immeasurable distance : 

" Helen is dying !" 

My eyes were bound to hers. I felt no alarm 
— I was not startled— only a cold thrill stole 
slowly through my blood. 

" Hush !" said she. 

We stood and listened in the dead silence. 
I noticed the yellow moonlight that lay in a 
sluggish pool upon the floor. 

"Have you heard them?" 

" No," I answered. I remembered my dreams. 

"They have been loud, very loud, for the 
last hour. Hark !" 

No sound in the silence but the beating of 
my heart. My watch lay on the" cushion. I 
took it up ; it was an hour past midnight — the 
hands pointed to one. 

" And he is dead !" she resumed in the same 
low, clear voice, still seeming to reach me from 
an immeasurable distance, but now filled with 
an awful tenderness ; " he is dead ; my Paul — 
my light of life — soul of my soul — heart of my 
heart — my husband ! He is cold and dead !" 

" Who has told you ?" I murmured dreamily, 
without emotion, watching the unearthly calm- 
ness of her white face. 

" They have told me," she slowly answered ; 
"they have been loud — very loud. My heart 
has told me. Come !" 

The hollow tones seemed to linger and re- 
verberate on the strange quiet of the air. I 
followed her. We softly entered the room 
where the child lay. I bent over her and lis- 
tened to her faint, heavy breathing, broken only 
by low moans. I lifted her in my arms, and 
pressed her close to my heart. As I held her 
thus, the knock came, low and secret, at the 
door. I listened Avith the feeling of desperation 
for minutes. The ticking of the clock ! I laid 
her again on the pillow and sat down, feeling 
like one in a dream. 

The mother lifted her in her arms and spoke 
her name. There was no answer; she lay pas- 
sively, without any motion — without any sound 
but an occasional moan. Gradually the moan- 
ing ceased ; only a faint, unsteady breathing 
denoted that she lived. Then the mother laid 
her down, still holding her in her arms; and 
bending over her, she pressed her lips to the 
face in the last kiss of agonized love, and her 
dark tresses fell upon the pillow like a vail. 

A quarter of an hour had passed. I sat list- 
ening to the slow, measured ticking of the clock. 
Death! death! death! clear as if a low voice 
was repeating it. No other voice on the still- 
ness — no other sense in the mind. 

The mother rose from her position. Her 
face was wet with tears, but calm and nearly 
stern. I took her hands in mine — I could not 
speak. She returned the pressure, and said, 
" It will end soon." Then she retired to a lit- 
tle distance. I understood by her position that 
she had taken her farewell of the child, and 
was listening and waiting for the last. 

I stood silently by the bedside. I listened to 



THE SENSES. 



73 



the low voice whispering slowly in the shadows 
of the room — Death ! The ticking of the clock 
began to excite me. So slow — so monotonous ; 
it numbed my brain; it grew louder, beat by 
beat. Formless things, with a terrible smooth- 
ness to their surface — with a terrible silence in 
their motion, began to whirl and dilate in my 
mind, revolving with an awful velocity, but 
silently — silently; and I grew giddy with their 
dreadful speed, and although marble-calm with- 
out, became frantic within, and longed to burst 
out in shrieks and wild raving. I looked at 
the dial; the hands pointed to half past one. 
I sighed. Something seemed to mimic the 
sigh. There were two small key-holes in the 
circular white face. They became strange 
eyes, and looked at me quietly — very quietly ! 
I looked away. Every object in the room as- 
sumed some wild form, and all were watching 
me. There was an oblong table, covered with 
books and other articles, standing near the 
centre of the chamber. The lamp, which had 
been placed for some reason on the floor, threw 
its shadow upon the wall in the exact semblance 
of a coffin! Not an outline was wanting to 
complete the likeness. I watched it, and with 
every thought and emotion rushing frantically 
with the silent current of that awful whirl in 
my mind, I watched it calmly. The small lid 
of the coffin opening over the face of the dead, 
was counterfeited in the mocking shadow by a 
book which stood on end upon the table. The 
shadowy lid was, of course, uplifted. I moved 
to the table, standing between it and the lamp, 
and saw my own shadow on the wall, bending 
over the coffin, in the attitude of one looking 
on the face of a corpse within. I felt a de- 
moniac interest in the contemplation of the 
dread phantasma. Slowly — impelled by a de- 
sire which I could not control — I laid clown the 
book upon the table. Slowly the spectral lid 
sank, under the touch of the shadowy hand, into 
the level plane of the coffin. I stood, and 
looked, and listened to the faint respiration of 
the child. Timing with its low breathing — 
timing with the gigantic eddying sv/eep of that 
tremendous lunacy of size and motion in my 
mind, I still heard the ticking of the clock, 
the low word that left no echo on the air — 
Death ! death ! It grew louder — louder — with 
no accompanying increase of quickness, but 
steady and slow, till it seemed to swell into a 
roar, and stunned my brain with the appalling 
thunder-strokes of that word — Death ! death ! 
death ! I could bear it no longer. I fixed 
my burning eyes upon the dial. The hands 
pointed to a quarter of two. 
to my mind; I obeyed it. 
stopped them. A blessed 
The phantoms faded. I felt a sense of exult- 
ation and relief. Although still in a state of 
powerful abnormal excitement, a reactionary 
movement had commenced; I was regaining 
my self-command. 

I resumed my place by the bedside. The 
mother had taken no notice of my actions ; she 



A thought leaped 
I went over and 
silence followed. 



had not once changed her position — her attitude 
was still that of a listener. I drew out my 
watch, and hung it on one of the carvings of 
the bed, where I could note the time. The 
child scarcely breathed. As I took notice of 
this decrease of consciousness, a wild sense of 
the approaching moment which would end the 
life so dear to me swelled in my heart until it 
became agony. I took the little form in my 
arms and held it to my bosom. Every tender 
emotion, every fading hope and gentle memory 
linked with her, melted into one agonizing fer- 
vor of affection, and held her there, as if to be 
retained forever. Over that last embrace the 
slow minutes passed away. An icy torpor suc- 
ceeded ; my soul grew blank and desolate, and 
a dull despair gathered over it, like a frigid sky. 
I laid her on the pillow — Avithdrawing my arms 
from her body — and looked quietly on her face. 
The hands of my watch indicated the hour 
of two. As I noticed them, a sudden motion 
from Mrs. Barry startling me from my apathy, 
caused me to look round. At one glance 1 
saw her with her hand upraised, looking at the 
child, and listening! In that brief, rapid view. 
her colorless face, livid by contrast with the 
ebony tresses — with its white lips, partly open, 
and its strange, unhuman expression, made 
more appalling by the dim, distorted light and 
shadow of the chamber — was so dreadful, that 
instantly — instinctively — I averted my eyes. At 
the same moment — our action had been almost 
simultaneous — the hideous knock, loud and vio- 
lent, struck upon the door, and — great God ! — 
the eyes of the child suddenly unclosed, and 
for an instant looked directly into mine with 
that wild, unearthly brightness, that supernatu- 
ral meaning which I had never but once seen 
in them before ! The past and present, in that 
look, were linked with a shock. I was petrified 
with terror. My blood curdled — a cold sweat 
started on my forehead — a stifled shriek rose in 
my throat — my reason swooned upon its throne ! 
I looked away. For a moment of awful horror, 
in which the very silence became more still, I 
held my breath, and did not dare to move. 
Fearfully, at last, I looked round, and saw that 
the eyelids were closed. I laid my trembling 
hand upon her heart. Then darkness rushed 
with a roar upon my brain, and I sank slowly 
down. Every sensation with me became, for a 
time, mercifully lost. The child was dead. 



THE SENSES. 

I. — TASTE. 
" Our mouth shall show forth Thy praise." 

¥IIEN Turandot, the far-famed princess of 
the East, who gave her lovers riddles to 
solve, and took their lives if they failed, saw 
one more favored suitor near victory, she sud- 
denly asked him, "What is that palace that 
even the poorest possess, and the richest can 
no further adorn ? Its portals arc hung with 
crimson curtains of wondrous fabric ; they fall 
upon gates of whitest ivory, carved with subtle 
cunning, firm and fast as the mountains, and 



74 



HABPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



yet opening and shutting with lightning's speed. 
Within are hid man's costliest jewels, and from 
the depths of that palace cometh forth a voice 
that ruleth the world ?" 

The reply was instantaneous: "It is the 
Mouth of Man." 

Three features there are in the human face, 
representing as many great organs of the senses, 
which constitute the noblest part of the body of 
man as he was made after the image of God. 
They are at the same time the most active in- 
struments of the soul, and therefore placed in 
such prominence that without any one of them 
the countenance is not only disfigured, but the 
divine impress seems to have vanished. They 
are eyes, nose, and mouth. Of these, the mouth 
would seem to be by far the most important, for 
its principal duties alone in the marvelous house- 
hold of the human structure are four-fold. One 
it has, in man in common with all animals, that 
of receiving the necessary food, solid or liquid, 
and of thus supporting the earth-born body. The 
mouth becomes thus the great gate of all ma- 
terial supplies which enter through the two 
portals, the lips, and repeats, in its anatomical 
structure in the head, the whole lower-digestive 
apparatus, as the nose repeats there, in like 
manner, though on a much reduced scale, the 
organs of respiration. Nor can this be claimed 
as a high prerogative in man. Among the 
Buddhists the custom prevails to this day that 
the priest of Brahma can not eat from a vessel 
that has been used by an Indian of lower caste, 
nor must he suffer himself to be seen eating by 
human eye. In like manner there is upon 
earth a whole numerous class of beauteous be- 
ings who hold their meals in secret, far from 
the eye of man, and never take food from the 
plate of others. This is the great kingdom of 
Plants. The tree hides his food-imbibing root 
in the dark depths of the earth, and neither the 
eye of man nor the sharp senses of the keenest 
of animals can discern the faint vapors that feed 
the majestic agave, as it raises its magnificent 
candelabra high into the air, and crowns them 
with gorgeous flowers. 

But among animals, almost without excep- 
tion, the table is set, as with the monarchs of 
former days, in the open light of heaven, and 
all the world may come and witness their daily 
meals. Not that they all sit at the same table, 
or feed in the same manner. For here, also, 
we find that our great mother Earth brings her- 
self the required food to the young and the 
helpless. Tiny birds, lying weak and wingless 
in their dark nests, are fed by loving parents ; 
and other animals, that have no parents in the 
sense of this world, and yet can not move, are 
cared for by a love higher and stronger than 
all earthly love. The poor oyster is chained to 
the rock in the midst of the moving waves ; it 
has neither eyes to see nor hands to grasp its 
daily bread — nothing but a mouth that ever 
craves food, a stomach that needs being fdled 
without ceasing. Yet it has but to open its shell, 
lined with the brilliant colors of the rainbow, 



and ample supplies are always at hand. The 
helpless, diminutive worm in the hazel-nut can 
hardly move on its imperfect legs, and knows 
not at first where to seek for food. But — like 
the boy of the German story-teller, who was 
shut up in a. mountain made of pancakes, and 
lived upon its savory walls until he had made 
an opening through which he beheld the light 
of heaven — the worm sits in the very heart of 
the sweet kernel, and has only to bite and to 
eat without moving from the spot. 

There are some animals in the very lowest 
classes who either really cake no food at all, or 
so secretly that it has as yet escaped the eye of 
man and the powers of the microscope. The 
mouth of certain insects, for instance, is, during 
their perfect state, as imago, actually closed, and 
apparently no food at all can be taken. But 
there is at least one animal — theNotommata — 
which, from the day of its birth, when it leaves 
the egg, to the moment of death, never takes 
the slightest nutriment. It has neither mouth 
nor digestive apparatus ; it is built up by the 
gradual absorption of the stores laid up for it 
by bountiful Nature in the egg itself, and its 
life, moreover, is only of short duration. 

In the higher animals food is generally in<- 
troduced through a single orifice, which has, 
significantly, in most languages a name differ- 
ent from that which designates the mouth in 
man. Here, however, the greatest variety pre- 
vails ; what is single in one class is a thousand- 
fold multiplied in another, and numerous fam- 
ilies exist endowed with almost countless open- 
ings or pores, which all empty into a common 
centre. Even the size and the form of the sin- 
gle orifices differ greatly, and present some most 
beautiful instances of God's marvelous crea- 
tions. Some insects are destined to feed on the 
sweet juices of flowers, which the large expanse 
of their wings prevents them from entering. 
Most of these have, like the butterflies gener- 
ally, a long tube, which lies snugly coiled up 
under the head when it is not used, but can be 
extended in the twinkling of an eye, and with 
unerring precision sucks up the honey from the 
bottom of deep blossoms, while the insect itself 
rests lightly on the outer edges. Among the 
most beautiful of such contrivances are the long, 
straight suckers of the most of the hated tobac- 
co-worms. The proboscis of one of this class, 
living at the Cape of Good Hope, is three inches 
long, while the whole animal measures but eight 
lines ! Others again have, as is well known, a 
most elaborate set of instruments for the pur- 
pose of making incisions into the skin, and thus 
flies, fleas, gnats, and mosquitoes feast royally 
upon our life's-blood. 

W T hen food consists of solid matter, nature 
generally adds to the simple .opening new means 
of seizing the desired morsel. The simplest of 
these are hair-like cilia, which, by their inces- 
sant and violent vibration, cause a current richly 
laden with varied stores to enter the mouth. 
Such is the case in most mollusks ; nor are the 
very giants of the earth exempted from such 



THE SENSES. 



75 



most humble operations. The colossal whale 
must thus race from icy Greenland to the trop- 
ics in search of his diminutive, almost invisible 
food. The huge animal gulps continually enor- 
mous volumes of water into his capacious mouth, 
and then ejects them again through his blow- 
holes, straining, as it were, through his exqui- 
site whalebone sieve, all the small fishes and 
marine animals which the water may have con- 
tained. 

In the simplest animals the passage of food 
to the mouth is direct and almost instantane- 
ous; then follow more and more ingenious 
mechanisms to convey it there; and lastly, 
special organs are given, independent of the 
mouth, to seize food and to carry it to the 
head. 

Mastication itself, and the whole inner or- 
ganism of the mouth are almost always con- 
cealed by Nature. Even among men there is 
often a certain shyness perceptible as to per- 
forming the humble act of feeding the earth- 
born body in public. In some nations — and 
those frequently the most barbarous — it is con- 
sidered a disgrace to be seen eating; and even 
in highly civilized countries, one sex has not 
rarely a reluctance to admit the other as wit- 
nesses of the unpoetical process. Even the 
great Goethe could not escape many a bitter 
sarcasm, when he introduced sentimental, deli- 
cate Lotte, on her first meeting with Werther, 
as distributing bread and butter to hungry chil- 
dren, leaving the lurking suspicion in the mind 
of the reader that she herself was not a stran- 
ger to such enjoyment. 

The second great duty of the mouth of man 
is to render indispensable aid in taking in and 
giving out the breath of life. It is true that 
respiration can be carried on without such as- 
sistance by the nostrils only ; but our daily ex- 
perience, and still more so an exceptionable 
climate, disease, or a death-laden atmosphere, 
convince us at once of the important services 
which the mouth always renders us in breath- 
ing. 

Both these purposes, however, the mouth of 
man fulfills only in like manner with that of all 
animal creation. But in man it has loftier 
duties assigned it, and greater ends to achieve. 
Free from all sensual necessity or enjoyment, it 
serves, in the third place, to modulate the air 
of heaven so as to assume the form of language 
and song. Thus the mouth becomes the beau- 
tiful organ through which man rules and reigns 
supreme upon this earth; it fashions for him, 
out of matter that can not be seen nor felt, the 
word — that word which is master of this world, 
which connects man with his God on high and 
creation below, which holds in its marvelous 
mysterious power the blessing and the curse, 
the weal and the woe of all mankind. 

Nor must We, lastly, omit the sexual func- 
tions of the mouth ; its secret power to give, 
by the simple touch of lip and lip, pleasures for 
which men are willing to sacrifice all other 
tilings earthly; to send a thrill through the 



body, and to raise the enraptured soul to a bliss 
than which this world can give none higher nor 
purer. 

It is this wonderful, four-fold duty, and the 
vast importance of the mouth with regard to all 
the inner life of man, as well as to his outward 
existence, which make this feature so specially 
expressive in our face, so strangely suggestive 
to the student of the human countenance. What 
higher praise can we bestow upon the most in- 
telligent eyes than that they "speak"? Brow, 
eye, and nose, have been found to refer more 
to the theoretic and intellectual in man, while 
the mouth represents more fully and directly 
what is ethical in him — his character, in fact 
The distinctive mark of the human head, whose 
roundness and symmetry depend mainly upon 
this one great feature, it is large and prominent 
in animals ; but in man, it stands back and 
leaves the main power and the strongest im- 
pression to the upper part — not in vain placed 
above it — the lofty brow and the bright, speak- 
ing eyes, the organs of the higher life in God- 
like man. 

It strikes the more careful observer at the 
first glance, that the fine human mouth, resting 
on delicate, finely-traced jaws, and displaying 
the symmetrically arranged teeth in a semi- 
circle within, is not like the mouth of animals, 
intended for grazing on herbs, or seizing and 
tearing bloody prey. It has here no menial, 
degrading labor to 'perform ; it but receives the 
food handed up by its obedient servants, the 
hands, and at once shows that, besides this 
humble and unavoidable purpose, it possesses 
the higher power and fulfills the loftier duty 
of uttering speech. Hence the German poet, 
Herder, could say with justice, "A well-cut, 
delicate mouth is perhaps the best recommend- 
ation in life, for as we find the portal to be, so 
we expect will also be the guest that steps forth 
from it, the Word, coming from the heart and 
the soul." 

Even its lowest and humblest part, the chin, 
so simple in appearance, so insignificant in 
comparison with other features, is here made 
in a manner peculiar to man, and in this, its 
genuine form, not met with among animals. 
With us, it is formed by the two arms of the 
lower jaw, which elsewhere separated, or, as in 
beetles and crawfish, lying horizontally, are in 
man grown together. It thus becomes, of it- 
self, one of the most striking characteristics of 
the human figure. In animals, generally, the 
skull is developed more lengthways, and the 
lower part of the head, with the mouth, pre- 
dominates largely. This indicates clearly the 
superiority of sensual necessities and enjoy- 
ments over the intellect, by the preponderance 
of the feeding apparatus over the upper parts of 
the head with the brain and its more immediate 
organs. In man the reverse takes place. Here 
the lower part withdraws modestly and leaves 
room and expression to the broad brow, the seat 
of intellect, with its life-sparkling eyes. The 
great physiognomist, Lavater, used therefore to 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



say, " The more chin, the more man :" referring, 
of course, to the original formation of bones and 
muscles, and not to the fat, which often accumu- 
lates there in masses. Both extremes of size, 
however, are, in the chin as elsewhere, equally 
objectionable and repugnant to our finer and 
often unconscious sensibilities, in precise propor- 
tion as they approach corresponding forms in 
animals. A prominent lower jaw, which always 
causes the upper one likewise to protrude, has 
invariably the effect of giving a more or less 
animal appearance to the human head. Hence 
its almost unfailing increase of size among the 
lower races, where it becomes a distinctive 
mark, and its striking effect on the head of in- 
dividuals. It is necessarily accompanied by an 
inferior development of the skull behind and 
above, its own substance having been obtained 
at the expense of these parts, thus giving an 
expression of deficient energy and intellectual- 
ity to the whole. But as a large chin always 
indicates greater strength and energy of life, 
and is therefore more frequently met with in 
man, so a lower jaw of too small dimensions 
gives a childish appearance to the head. This 
is very natural, though we may not all be aware 
of the cause, as the jaw is in children but very 
small, and develops itself perhaps more slowly 
than any other feature, the nose only excepted. 
Hence also the diminished size of the chin in 
very old men, with whom it becomes, from the 
loss of teeth and the shrinking of fat, once more 
as small as it was in early infancy, and suggests, 
among other sad symptoms of the kind, the 
coming of the "second childhood." A scanty 
chin is never considered a favorable sign of par- 
ticular strength of mind, and even a deficiency 
of flesh and fat, allowing the bone formation to 
become too prominent, is apt to leave a painful 
impression. The exuberant chin, it is true, is 
said to indicate a phlegmatic, Bceotian nature, 
given to sensual enjoyments, and little troubled 
with scrupulous cares. The mentwn subquadratum 
of the ancients is in all parts fully developed, and 
suggests, thus, perfection within, as it seems to 
be perfect without. But they disliked scanti- 
ness even more than exuberance ; a very small 
chin in men they considered unnatural and a 
very bad omen, suggesting that its owner was 
" false, and given to lying like serpents." With 
us, also, a lean and very pointed chin is consid- 
ered either a sign of old age, or, in youth, of a 
narrow character, such as we find in the miser 
or the bigot. 

It is well known that the action of the mouth 
rests mainly upon the movable lower jaw, the 
upper part having but a very limited play. But 
their combined power is truly enormous, thanks 
to certain muscles which belong to the strong- 
est of the human structure. The nerves of vo- 
lition, in their secret throne behind, send their 
order along the mysterious channels that lead 
from the spine to the forward parts, and, like 
the flash of lightning, seen only to vanish in 
an instant, the two jaws meet with a force far 
exceeding that of the most powerful engines. 



How small, how diminutive appear these mus- 
cles, even when laid bare by the scalpel, in com- 
parison with the whole size and power of the 
body, and yet their strength exceeds that which 
the whole frame, working by pressure, could 
ever produce. To crush a peach stone a mass 
of several hundred weights is required, and yet 
every healthy person can break it in a moment ! 

The lips are, as we have seen, the beautiful 
gates through which pass both earthly material 
food and the word, that is and was spirit. While 
all other parts of our mouth are more or less 
exclusively instruments used for the physical 
life, the lips are far more important in their in- 
timate connection with mind and soul. Among 
animals, where hands and feet are encased in 
hoofs, single or cloven, or hid amidst thick fur 
and unsightly coverings, so that they serve not 
for the sense of touch, the lips become the al- 
most exclusive seat of that sense, especially 
when they or the nostrils are prolonged, as in 
the pig, the mole, and the elephant. But how 
inferior are they even there, with all their as- 
tonishing power and marvelous adaptation, in 
comparison with the exquisite delicacy of the 
lips of man ? If any part of the face may be 
called articulate, it is surely this part of the 
mouth, repeating, as it does, in strange beauty, 
the general contrast between the upper part of 
the countenance, the intellectual, and the low- 
er, the sensual or practical features. This is 
seen even in the outlines ; the upper lip, shaped 
like an arrow bent in the middle, thus repro- 
duces the two main lines of the eyes, their up- 
per arches, while the lower lip repeats the 
roundness of the chin — a correspondence seen 
in this also, that the motions of both these feat- 
ures invariably go together, so that if the eye- 
brows are raised in joy or astonishment, the 
mouth also opens ; if the eyes droop and are 
dejected, the- corners of the mouth also are 
drawn downward, conveying at once the expres- 
sion of sorrow. 

There prevails here also, of course, a great 
variety of forms, and not in individuals only, 
but in whole races. A remarkable instance of 
this is shown in the difference between the Ne- 
gro and the Caucasian races. With the former 
the lips are thick, fleshy, and protruding, and 
indicate thus, at once, a much duller, more ma- 
terial nature of mind and of senses, than is sug- 
gested by the firmly drawn and finely cut lip? 
of more favored nations. But even among the 
noblest of our kind there are differences, broad 
and striking, in the varied forms of the mouth. 
Strongly marked and fully developed lips be- 
long to men of strong will, endowed with abound- 
ing energy. Too full and too large, overfed 
and overhanging, they betray still more clear- 
ly that their main use has been to seize and 
convey food, and thus cause us to suspect the 
owner as a gourmet, or a person of great in- 
dolence. In dry, heartless men, where the in- 
tellect has been fostered and developed at the 
expense of the heart, they are apt to be large, 
but lean and drawn in, and as an exuberance 



THE SENSES. 



77 



of material indicated coarseness and gross sens- 
uality, so we seldom err if we suspect the heart 
hid behind very narrow, pale lips, to be cold, 
avaricious, or wicked. Where they are pecu- 
liarly soft and beautifully shaped, they rarely 
fail to belong to a noble, perhaps slightly sens- 
ual, but always poetical mind ; and the finer 
and the more delicate they appear under such 
favorable circumstances, the more we fancy 
they are used and adapted for man's highest 
prerogative, speech. Of the two lips the upper 
decides as to the tastes and the affections of man. 
Pride and wrath curve it, often painfully ; good- 
humor and love round it in pleasing outlines; 
and on it hang, in mysterious attraction, love 
and desire, the kiss imprinted, and the longing 
desire. Hence, also, the great attention that 
painters and sculptors give to the proper con- 
nection of this part of the mouth with the nose. 
Classic beauty in Greek sculpture, and in the 
ideal heads of Raphael, shows it to us ever short 
and fine, when a noble, sensitive character is to 
be represented. Physiognomists tell us that the 
effect is produced by thus placing the mouth 
nearer and closer to the regions of intellect in 
the face, and it is certain that a long and gen- 
erally slightly bulging upper lip is only met 
with in coarse individuals, and in low, uncivil- 
ized nations. 

The lower lip embraces and bears up the 
upper one like " a cushion of roses, on which 
rests the crown of dominion," but it serves al- 
ways more to receive food, and is consequently 
less in psychological expression. Hence a truly 
noble face must necessarily show us the upper 
lip overhanging and overruling the lower — if 
the latter protrude, even but slightly, vulgarity 
or wickedness are instantly there depicted. 

Pierced by some savages to receive barbarous 
ornaments, painted and tattooed by others, the 
lips attain their highest beauty among us by 
their exquisite delicacy of expression. What 
can equal the subtlety and the speaking power 
of the nervous tremor of the upper lip as occa- 
sionally seen in highly sensitive persons? To 
express scorn and contempt we raise the eye- 
brows and "turn up our nose," but intense dis- 
gust finds its highest expression at last in the 
raised lower lip. Vanity and supercilious pride, 
often mere haughty ignorance, repeat the same 
motion, and give finally a permanent bend to 
the lip, and with it a painful, because irritating, 
expression to the whole face. A similar re- 
markable power is given to the corners of the 
mouth where the lips meet. Drawn up or down, 
they alter instantaneously the expression of the 
countenance, and change perhaps, more swiftly 
than any other feature, with each new whim of 
the ever-changing mind. They droop in the 
weary, the grieved, and the suffering; they rise 
with cheerful hopes and heartfelt joy ; hence we 
raise them when we laugh, and let them sink 
when we are weeping. As one or the other 
tendency prevails in our mind, the frequent 
repetition of either of these effects gires, here 
also, finallv a fixed position to this feature, and 
Vol/xII.— No. G7.— F 



thus to the whole face a permanent expression. 
Nor ought it to be forgotten that the best judges 
of men have ever most carefully watched the 
delicate and unconscious play of the lips, while 
the owner was speaking, and thus professed to 
obtain the most accurate and reliable insight 
into his character. 

Passing through these truly " eloquent gates," 
we meet at first the formidable instruments that 
serve to destroy solid food, and to prepare it for 
the much narrower gate through which it will 
soon have to pass when swallowed. Here also 
nature has combined most beauteous forms with 
highest utility. The well-rounded lines of the 
lips open slightly to show us behind the square 
massive teeth, whose straight and perpendicular 
lines contrast not less harmoniously with the 
round lines near them, than the ruby of the lips 
with their own immaculate whiteness. 

Where fluids only are taken as food by ani- 
mals, teeth are utterly wanting, as in diminutive 
insects or gigantic fishes, like the sturgeon. In 
birds and other insects they would make the 
head too heavy for their aerial flight, and so 
they have been transferred nearer to the centre 
of gravity, and assume the shape of gizzards. 
Among the higher animals the ant-eater is the 
only one who is entirely without them. In the 
lower ordei's, on the other hand, they abound, 
and are even found in the stomach, where the 
food is finally ground and crushed, while some 
fish, like the trout and pike, possess a marvel- 
ous number and variety of teeth, now blunt and 
noAV sharp, and of all possible forms and sizes. 
Mastication itself is, however, here carried on 
not in the mouth but in the funnel-like entrance 
to the gullet. It is well known that their ar- 
rangement and structure, in their wonderful 
adaptation to food and habitation, are among 
the most striking evidences of the agency of a 
Divine Will in the creation. Hence their al- 
most paramount importance in the study of the 
animal kingdom, and the certainty with which 
Cuvier could, even in his dreams, scorn the Dev- 
il's threat to eat him, because cloven feet and in- 
cisors showed Satan unable to take animal food ! 

With man they lie in two close parabolic 
ranks, and are all on a level ; the two protrud- 
ing corner-teeth, which give so decided a char- 
acter to animals, as expressive signs of rude, 
physical force, are here missing, because they 
are not needed. The upper teeth are beauti- 
fully grouped around the palate, which sepa- 
rates the mouth from the inner cavern of the 
nose; the lower are, in like manner, arranged 
around the tongue. In this, all races agree, 
though not in the minor details ; for in some 
nations the two rows fall just one upon another, 
so that all the front teeth are gradually worn 
away horizontally, as we observe in the skulls 
of the old Egyptians, the Esquimaux, and most 
of the first inhabitants of Northern Europe, 
whose remains have been discovered in the 
famous "giants' barrows" accompanied by stone 
utensils. In other races the upper teeth slightly 
project beyond the lower; here the pressure is. 



78 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



better distributed, each tooth felling commonly 
upon two, so as to lessen the wear and tear con- 
siderably. 

The peculiar structure of the teeth, which was 
first discovered by the celebrated Leuwenhoek 
— though he knew no Latin, and worked with a 
microscope consisting of drops of molten glass — 
is calculated to excite unbounded astonishment 
and admiration. In the second month of exist- 
ence the double provision for teeth is observed 
in the head, although the second set rarely ap- 
pears before the eighth year, or later ! The mi- 
croscopic researches of our own day have only re- 
vealed new wonders and heightened the marvel. 

Teeth have, of course, different forms accord- 
ing to the different purposes which they are 
made to serve. The boar and the elephant 
have two especially developed for defense ; the 
narwhal has only one, to break through the 
thick layer of ice that covers his home in the 
great ocean ; and the walrus employs his to de- 
tach the mussels, on which he feeds, from their 
rocky resting-places. In gnawing animals the 
teeth do not meet, but work as scissors do, and 
thus are always kept sharp, being covered only 
on one side with enamel. They must, however, 
be used, or they grow out to an unnatural length 
— as is not rarely the case in mice and rats — 
when they bend back again into the mouth, so 
that the poor creatures die of starvation. 

Man has, as we know, thirty-two, but the last 
appear only at an advanced age, when the jaws 
have, with the whole skeleton, grown sufficiently 
large to hold the entire number. The front 
teeth, or incisors, take the food, and with their 
fine sharp edges cut and mince it delicately; 
what is thus prepared next reaches the tip of 
the tongue, which is waiting close behind ready 
to receive and forward the morsel. The harder 
parts of the food go at once to the sides of the 
mouth, where the molars grind them, their mill- 
ing surface becoming more and more powerful 
as they stand farther backward. Between these 
two are the canine teeth, so large in carnivorous 
animals, which both pierce and cut their food, 
and submit it to the molars. Tims every new 
tool has its new action, and our food is carved 
by the front teeth, pierced by the middle, and 
ground down by the molar teeth, until it is re- 
duced to a pulp and all the nutricious juices 
have been set free. 

We consider teeth most beautiful when they 
are not too large, are closely set, and of a pure, 
but not dazzling white. Barbarous nations find 
pleasure and beauty in mutilating them ; they 
file them until they assume the form of a saw ; 
they grind them to the gum, or dye them a deep 
black. The ancients considered strong and 
close teeth a sign of great strength and bold- 
ness. The great master Porta, following Scot- 
ns, considered such to be a good omen for a long 
life, and predicted to those with small and iso- 
lated teeth a short and sickly life. Experience, 
however, does not always confirm this opinion.. 
In phthisis, where the innate imperfection of 
the respiratory organs necessarily hastens the 



dissolution of the body, long and very white 
teeth are not unfrequent, while in scrofulous 
persons they are often imperfectly developed, 
and quickly destroyed without serious danger. 

Protected by these double gates, the rosy lips 
and the ivory teeth, there lies behind them the 
palate, covered with a thin, exquisitly sensi- 
tive skin. In the rear its upper part, form- 
ing, as it were, the floor of the inner cavity of 
the nose, and its lower skin, the ceiling of the 
mouth, unite in the so-called soft palate. There 
we find one of the most marvelous structures in 
this "wonderfully and strangely made" body of 
ours, a delicate double curtain, held back on 
both sides by peculiarly powerful muscles. As 
we swallow, they are drawn together, by an un- 
conscious action and with the rapidity of light- 
ning, to protect the windpipe that lies open be- 
neath them. This is instantaneous ; for as long 
as they are closed all within is shut off from 
mouth or ear, and we are prevented from breath- 
ing. Hence the movement is so wondrously 
rapid, that it remained unknown to anatomists 
until within some twenty years, when it was 
first discovered by Professor Dzondi. So little 
do we know of our own body — so wide is the 
vast field yet open for research and discovery! 

This is, at the same time, the first of a series 
of actions over which man no longer exercises 
dominion. So far, all has been subject to his 
will; now, however, begins the instinctive, in- 
dependent part of the great process of feeding 
man. As long as the food is yet in our mouth, 
we feel it, we taste it, we handle it just as we 
choose. Jaws, and teeth, .and tongue are all 
subject to our •will. By touch we judge of the 
time when the morsel is ready for swallowing; 
as soon as the feast of the tongue is over, we 
roll it up into a tiny ball and drive it backward, 
aiding the movement by saliva or the fluids we 
may have taken. But the instant the pellet 
touches those mysterious curtains, it is beyond 
our control, and, under ordinary circumstances, 
becomes even lost to our consciousness. A faint 
impression of taste is all that lingers behind. 

Few steps in the great process of life are more 
strikingly eloquent of the beautiful, self-acting 
mechanism of the human body. We touch one 
tiny nerve or a bundle of nerves, and in a mo- 
ment a whole system begins silently but indus- 
triously to perform its various duties. A mor- 
sel of bread is no sooner seized by the lips than 
the chewing muscles begin instantly to stretch 
and- to move; saliva gathers, we know not 
whence, and moistens the food; other muscles 
follow, each one exciting the neighbor, and the 
whole play of nerves is restlessly active until 
the morsel is changed into nutritious pulp, and 
distributed all over the system. Whatever 
thoughts may in the mean time engage our 
mind, whatever impulses the ten thousand mus- 
cles of our body may follow, the process is faith- 
fully going on, and no part rests until the whole 
duty is well performed. 

Within the silent realm of the palate dwells 
that wondrous " little member that no man can 



THE SENSES. 



79 



tame," and in whose " power are death and life" 
— the Tongue. There is many a mystery yet 
connected with that powerful instrument, even 
as far as its mere physical nature may be con- 
cerned. It is evidently the most sensual part 
of the sensual regions of the mouth, hence it is 
carefully concealed from the observation of 
man, and to show it without necessity is a vul- 
garity above all others, and an unpardonable 
insult. And yet what can surpass the intensity 
of affection when tongue meets tongue in a long- 
drawn kiss ? Nor is it without interest that of 
the four handmaids of the senses which man 
lias in common with animals, that is most per- 
fectly developed which is generally least known 
and appreciated. Many animals surpass us in 
the acuteness of other senses, but man stands 
supreme in the delicacy of his perception through 
taste. This arises probably from two sources. 
Among animals the skin on the surface of the 
tongue is often very thick and hard, evidently 
little adapted to perform the duties of taste ; in 
some it is even covered with warts, changed, as 
in cats, into little hooks turned backward. Their 
prey and food are generally bloody, and the 
tongue serves less to enjoy than to aid in de- 
stroying the solid tissue of animal fibres. The 
lion's tongue, when caressing the hand of a 
painter who had become the friend of the royal 
beast, took the whole skin away with it, such 
was the force of the small spines and hard em- 
inences with which it is furnished. All animals 
are, secondly, in their choice of food, much more 
guided by smell than by taste; most of them 
only apply their nose to the food, and instantly 
swallow the morsel. We learn thus that, with 
them, the tongue is simply a mechanical instru- 
ment for seizing their food; but even in this 
humble capacity it exhibits a fullness of forms 
and a variety of structures as beautiful as they 
are striking. The ant-lion, for instance, has it 
shaped in the form of a long, thin worm, which, 
hy the aid of a sweet, odorous juice with which 
it is covered, attracts the tiny insects, and re- 
turns to the mouth laden with countless vic- 
tims. Our common woodpeckers have a sharp- 
ly-pointed tongue, which they suddenly dart out 
from their bill by a most violent effort, and thus 
transfix the unlucky insect whose dwelling they 
have laid open. The frog has but a soft valve 
grown on to the lower jaw ; while the chame- 
leon boasts of a tongue in the shape of an elastic 
ribbon, rolled up like a spiral spring in a thick, 
cylindrical cover. This curious instrument is 
held back in a state of rest by most powerful 
sinews, but the animal can unloosen them with 
great rapidity, and then displays an organ longer 
than its whole body, and furnished at the end 
with a prehensory tip, resembling the finger of 
the elephant's trunk. The tongue of snakes is 
forked, and ever moving ; that of crocodiles 
never stirs from the part of the huge mouth to 
which it is immutably fastened. 

Even here, however, the tongue of man sur- 
passes, in the beauty of the contrivance and the 
perfection of mechanism, that of all beings en- 



dowed alike. In its humblest merely sensual 
capacity, it stands like a faithful watchman at 
the door of entrance to the inner part of our 
body, to test all that goes in by taste before it 
goes farther on to be swallowed, where another 
watchman — the soft palate — stands guard, to 
measure its size, and thus its right of admission. 
But what has been much overlooked even by 
physiologists is the three-fold duty which the 
tongue of man has to perform, corresponding to 
the three distinct capacities of motion, touch, 
and taste, with which it has been endowed by 
its heavenly Maker. Its marvelous mobility fits 
it peculiarly for service as one of the organs of 
speech. Without the tongue there are sounds, 
but no words ; hence tongue and language are 
synonymous. The velocity of the "unruly 
member" far surpasses that of any other mus- 
cular movement in animals. It is quicker than 
the arrow-like flight of the bird, and more en- 
during than the well-trained race-horse or the 
powerful lion. The muscles in the wing of the 
swiftest bird under heaven move but five or six 
hundred times each second ; those in the tongue 
of man eight hundred times. The sinews of a 
race-horse contract about seventy times in the 
second, and can continue the same motion but 
for a short time ; the little world of diminutive 
organs of speech connected with our tongue con- 
tinue their infinitely quicker and more frequent 
motion for hours, without fatigue or danger. 

The other two faculties of touch and taste 
are, however, more intimately connected with 
the sense, to which the tongue serves as organ. 
By the first it decides on the inequalities of the 
food introduced, whether it be hard or soft, 
sharp or mild, and on the temperature of solids 
and liquids. By taste proper it decides not the 
material, but the chemical nature of food, and 
hence this peculiar sensation is given only to 
the hindmost part of the tongue, and a por- 
tion of the palate is endowed with the same 
power. The two functions are so entirely dis- 
tinct, that the tongue may feel without tasting, 
and taste without feeling. Cruel experiments 
have taught us that when certain nerves are 
cut, a red-hot needle may be passed through the 
tongue without causing pain, and food may be 
placed on it without any effect on the adjoining 
nerves and muscles, because it does not feel the 
contact. But taste remains in full vigor, and 
the insensible tongue will show, and cause symp- 
toms of suffering when a drop of bitter quassia 
is suffered to fall on its surface. Trials made 
as to the delicacy of the sense of touch on this 
organ have shown it to be the most exquisitely 
sensitive, far surpassing that of the special or- 
gans of touch, the tips of the fingers. This 
marvelous subtlety is, moreover, combined with 
not less surprising strength. While it is cover- 
ed with a vast number of nerves coming from 
all parts of the face to endow it with touch a«nd 
taste, it is powerfully suspended by at least three 
well-secured bones, and hence, although so sup- 
ple and soft, endowed with uncommon mechan- 
ical power. Taste itself is not, as many believe, 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



merely an abstract notion, a vague, arbitrary, or 
imaginary sensation, but the result of an actual 
absorption of food. For the tongue adds to its 
many strange functions that of being the first 
of the many absorbing organs which are em- 
ployed in nutrition. Wine and other fluids, 
merely held over it in the mouth and not swal- 
lowed, recruit the nervous and bodily powers 
of the body ; water retained there refreshes in 
like manner. The tongue thus obtains, at once, 
its reward for doing its duty; it enjoys and con- 
sumes its share of the food, and only sends on 
what is fit exclusively for the lower organs of 
digestion. 

Eor taste was evidently given to man in pro- 
portion to the higher development and the 
greater refinement of his physical structure. It 
has been argued that the highest and finest or- 
ganization must needs also be most exposed to 
pain and suffering, and that hence man might 
have hesitated to maintain his poor, earth-born 
body, preferring to let the heaven-born soul es- 
cape to the realms from whence it came. But 
an all-merciful God taking pity on feeble man, 
and willing to aid the soul through the body, 
added a feeling of pleasure, a sense of enjoy- 
ment to the irksome task, and blessed the "eat- 
ing of bread in the sweat of our face." Thus the 
faithful performance of the duty we owe our body 
was secured by a new sense which derives from 
good, appropriate food a pleasing and exhilar- 
ating impression, and rapidly diffuses it through 
the whole system. Hence the remarkable fact 
that taste, and especially its pleasures, are most 
lively and powerful in early years. The young 
citizen of this world, when as yet unconscious 
of the lofty purposes for which he was sent hith- 
er, is thus induced to build up his house on 
earth, and to prepare ample and proper material 
for the future. Later, when the temple is raised, 
"which is holy, which we are," the perceptions 
of this sense become less powerful, but, on the 
other hand, much more refined and fastidious, as 
if they also had been gradually spiritualized, so 
that now, when the high aim of our earthly life 
is understood and appreciated, a finer discrim- 
ination of food suggests also the best and safest 
means for maintaining the decaying structure. 

As to the nature of the sensation itself, it is 
contended that it is neither a mechanical soft- 
ening of the skin, and of its countless little 
warts, as some have thought, nor a chemical 
change, but an electric or galvanic action. A 
proof of this is found in the fact that not only 
fluids endowed with chemical powers produce 
this effect, but a mere contact with the insolu- 
ble metals, nay, the slightest galvanic current 
brought in contact with the tongue. Every 
body knows that the taste of tin is very differ- 
ent from that of clay, and that we need only 
place a piece of copper under the tongue, and a 
piece of tin upon it, to perceive, when the two 
metals meet, a decided acid taste. This extreme 
delicacy, and almost incomprehensible subtlety 
of instantaneous impressions explains also, at 
once, the astonishing differences in the taste, 



not only of different persons, but even of the 
same individual at various periods of life. The 
sense of taste is, in this respect, more subjective 
than any other, and all nations abound in prov- 
erbs like the French Chacun son gout. 

But it ought not to be forgotten, that the 
tongue is an organ of the sense of touch as well 
as of taste, and that hence the latter will in- 
variably be much heightened by motion. The 
food, thus moved about, is constantly brought 
in contact with new parts of the sensitive sur- 
face, and the sensation both multiplied and 
strengthened by each one of the almost count- 
less little tongues on the great parent tongue. 
This has led to an opinion that motion is in- 
dispensable to taste. It is certain that when 
the tongue is only touched, the taste produced 
is very faint and almost imperceptible ; the mo- 
ment, however, that a motion is made to swal- 
low or the tongue moves, the taste becomes 
clear and decided. The tip of the tongue feels 
most distinctly, but tastes imperfectly ; sugar 
and aloes, for instance, produce no impression. 
The end of our fingers can, with equal accuracy, 
distinguish whether we touch oil or water. On 
the other hand, we find that the sense of taste 
is most developed in the root of the tongue ; 
hence connoisseurs, when trying wines, let the 
liquid go as far back as can be done without 
swallowing. Touch is thus gradually and almost 
imperceptibly passing into taste; the change be- 
gins at the extremities of the lips, it extends in- 
side toward the root of the teeth, and then from 
the tip of the tongue to the last part of the 
palate. 

Although taste is a sense excited, like touch, 
by contact, it is of a vastly more refined nature, 
giving us a knowledge of properties of which 
touch knows nothing. The process itself is as 
marvelously subtle as it is precise. A single 
atom of an acid, an oil, or a salt, conveys at the 
instant in which it touches the delicate surface 
of the tongue, and especially the nerve-covered 
little warts upon it, a decided perception to the 
nerves that lie behind, and which in reality give- 
effect to the taste. The dainty tongue absorbs 
and sends the fairy gifts to the aerial regions of 
the brain, and there causes pleasure or disgust, 
The degree and the variety of perceptions of 
taste in animals are necessarily unknown, as 
we have no standard by which we could judge. 
Even with man, we find that the savors are as 
numerous as the odors. What pleases us, sick- 
ens, others. The aphrodisiacal durion, the de- 
light of men and women in India, has the odor 
of a spoilt onion, and the Greenlander drinks 
the putrid oil of the whale with as much real 
pleasure as the son of the East his skillfully 
perfumed sherbets. How many elderly men 
prefer an " advanced" cheese to the fresh milk 
which was the delight of their young days! 
But our taste may be trained, like all the other 
senses, as is shown by the exquisite delicacy 
and acuteness of professional wine-tasters and 
tea-tasters, who distinguish the nicest shades in 
the flavor of different kinds of wine and tea, 



WINIFRED'S VOW. 



81 



and affix their relative value to each with great 
accuracy. A quick succession of such experi- 
ments, however, blunts the sense, and after many 
repetitions even sweet and bitter taste alike. 
Anomalous tastes are daily met with, and arise 
mostly from disorder in the body. Certain dis- 
eases produce regular changes ; fever gives often 
a sour, affections of the lungs a salty, and hem- 
orrhage of the lungs a sweetish taste. 

As most senses stand in a peculiar mutual 
relation to each other, so also taste and smell. 
Hence it is a familiar remedy against the bad 
odor of medicines, to prevent the nose from 
smelling ; and hence, also, the curious fact, 
proved by the careful experiments of Dr. Rous- 
seau, that it is impossible to distinguish differ- 
ent kinds of wine with bandaged eyes and firmly 
compressed nostrils. 

Taste has no memory, such as smell has. 
How vividly does not the fragrance of a flower, 
passing on the light breeze, or a favorite per- 
fume, at once conjure up the images of distant 
friends, or the scenes of long-forgotten events ! 
But these sudden and vivid, though rare, recol- 
lections excepted, our memory rests exclusive- 
ly upon light and hearing. Taste has as little 
memory as touch, because it has no nerves as- 
signed to its exclusive uses, but shares them only 
with other senses. Hence we may recollect 
having had a certain taste, but we can not, by 
any effort of recollection or fancy, conjure up 
and actually perceive that taste, as we can, at 
will, paint on the eye scenes of all lands, and 
foear in our ear melodies by which we have once 
been charmed or saddened. 

On the other hand, we find that taste has 
sympathies as strong and as active as any other 
sense. The whole delicate system of glands, in 
palate, eye, and stomach, stand in closest con- 
nection with the organs of taste. The latter 
lias sensations so very disgusting, that they 
<eause almost instantaneously nausea and vio- 
lent emotion. Others, again, are so pleasing, 
that the saliva begins to collect in abundance, 
and, by an as yet unexplained co-operation of 
the adjoining organs of smell, tears also flow in 
profusion. 

Such are only a few of the wonders of this 
one of the many senses with wdiich our heaven- 
ly Father has endowed us; but surely enough 
has been said to remind us of the words of the 
Psalmist : " I will praise Thee, for I am fear- 
fully and wonderfully made." 

WINIFRED'S VOW. 

¥INIFRED JAMES sat in the autumn 
moonlight by the sea-shore with her friend 
Grace Wilson. The heavy dew had soaked 
through Grace's thin muslin gown, 60 that it 
clung dank and close about her; her hair lay 
uncurled on her bosom, and her wan face looked 
paler and sadder than ever in the waning light 
of the pallid autumn moon. There were no 
tears in her sunken eyes looking mournfully out 
on the dark waves, but they were full of a deeper 
sorrow than is ever told or lightened by tears. 



Her thin hands lay listlessly in her lap, and 
their palms, curved inward, were burning as if 
on fire ; her lips were drawn and hard, and the 
veins on her brow were blue and swollen : no 
hope, no joy, no energy, no life was round her; 
there was nothing but the dull oppression of 
despair, the quiet of a sorrow which can only 
be dissolved by death. 

Winifred had often tried to understand the 
strange mystery which of late had hung round 
Grace. For she had not always been the 
broken-hearted creature she looked to-night. 
But excepting a promise that she would tell 
her sometime, Grace used to change the sub- 
ject as soon as her friend approached it. How- 
ever, to-night she let her say what she would. 
Either the time fixed by herself for her con- 
fession had arrived, or she was conquered by 
the tenderness and love and quiet strength of 
Winifred. Suddenly taking her hand, she 
placed it on her waist ; and, leaning forward, 
whispered something in her ear which made 
Winifred shrink and start, and cover her face 
with both her hands, trembling. 

"Now you will hate me," said Grace, in a 
hollow voice, letting her hand fall dead in her 
lap. "Like all the rest, when they know — 
you too will despise and desert me. I deserve 
it!" 

" Never ! never !" said Winifred passionately, 
looking up through her tears and kissing her. 
" Never, Grace !" 

"Nor it?" said Grace. "When I am dead 
will you take care of it ?" 

" No ; nor it — and I will take care of it. 
But you will not die, Grace ! You can not die, 
then ! When you hear that little voice your 
soul will come back again to earth, were it at 
the very gates of heaven." 

"Heaven? For me?" said Grace. "No, 
Winifred, my birth-right on earth and my hope 
of heaven lie in the same grave with my honor. 
Do not wish me to live as I am now. Why 
should I? What have I but to support eternal 
shame myself, and to see all that I love — all 
that belong to me> — cast into the deep shadow 
of my disgrace ? It were better for us all that 
I and it should die together. For when I am 
gone, who will be its mother ? Poor baby ! 
What wrong has it done to be born to an in- 
heritance of sorrow and infamy ?" 

" I will be its mother, Grace," said Winifred. 
" I will love it, and care for it, all my life. If 
you leave it — if you die — it shall never feel that 
it has lost its mother. While I live, it shall 
have one in me." 

"You swear this, dear Winifred?" 

" I swear it !" said the girl, solemnly, raising 
her hand to heaven. 

" Now I shall die happy," said Grace, kissing 
her cheek. "Death has no pang for me, now 
that I feel I shall not leave my poor child 
wholly motherless. A pang? No! Death is 
my best friend, my only hope, truly an angel 
messenger from God ! Oh, Winifred, how can I 
thank you for your goodness ! You little know 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the heavy burden of sorrow I lay down, by this 
desolate sea-shore, to-night — a burden unclasped 
by your hands. But you will not be unrewarded. 
The God who punishes, recompenses ; the hand 
which has stricken me will strengthen you. 
Now, let us go home. I am weary, Winifred, 
and my heart is very full. I must go and pray 
—not for myself; I dare not pray for myself; 
but for you and this innocent unborn life, I 
may ; and God will not refuse to hear me when 
I ask His blessing for you !" 

Weeks passed away, and Winifred stood by 
Grace's dying bed. The supreme moment had 
come; and, as she had foretold, the hour which 
gave life to her child closed her own — merci- 
fully for her. Winifred did not forget her vow. 
She took that child of sorrow, shame, and death, 
and carried it to her own home, as tenderly as 
if its birth had been the well-spring of a nation's 
joy. Her mother, a kind, good, weak woman, 
sanctioned the unusual position she adopted; 
at least, by silence. She did not condemn, if 
she did not commend, but let things take their 
own course. She only lifted up her hands and 
eyes, saying, " Grace Wilson, who'd have thought 
it!" and so the sad story passed without further 
comment. But in time there were not wanting 
many who ridiculed the idea of such devotion, 
and who hinted plainly that little Mary was 
nearer to Winifred than a mere adopted child. 
It was all very well, they said, for Mrs. James 
to be so complaisant, and Winifred so generous, 
but they had better reasons than a romantic 
morality between them. Depend upon it, when 
folks gave themselves out for better than the 
rest of the world, they were sure to be a precious 
deal worse. Grace Wilson was dead, and queer 
things were said of her; but who knew whether 
they were true or not ? And wasn't Miss Win- 
ifred away out of sight for a long time, too ? 
So the cloud darkening the tomb of poor Grace 
fell over Winifred as well ; and the fatal truth 
that no wrong is finite, but that the influence 
of evil spreads and multiplies forever, rested 
like a blight on the young foster-mother and 
her child. 

It was striking the change which this adop- 
tion worked in Winifred. No, not change, so 
much as development. Always a girl of deep 
feelings and an earnest nature, the terrible story 
of one who had been like her own sister, her 
mournful death, and now this adoption of her 
child, brought out all that was most serious in 
her character, and subdued whatever girlishness 
she might have had. But this change in her 
only made her character more beautiful. Al- 
ways good, she was now admirable; always 
conscientious, she was now heroic. And how 
she loved that little one ! 

It was a dear little baby, too, lovable for it- 
self, if for nothing else more touching. It was 
©ne of those round, fat, curly things, that laugh, 
and cry, and kick up, and crow all day long — a 
thing of unrest and appetite, forever fighting 
with its fat, foolish arms, and senseless hands 
doubled into rosy balls, striking wide, and hit- 



ting its own eyes or nose in the spasmodic way 
of babyhood ; when it wanted to suck that doub- 
led fist, making insane attempts before it could 
reach its rosy, wet, w.ide-open mouth, and gen- 
erally obliged to take both hands before it could 
accomplish that first feat of infancy; a restless, 
passionate, insatiable baby, that had strong no- 
tions of its own importance, and required at 
least one slave in perpetual attendance ; an un- 
reasonable baby ; a willful baby ; but a baby 
after a woman's own heart. So to this little 
life Winifred devoted herself, never heeding the 
cold looks and slighting Avoids of the world with- 
out, and never thinking that a day might come 
when any other love could step in between her 
child and herself. 

Louis Blake was Winifred's great friend. 
They were like brother and sister, and insep- 
arable. Louis was exactly Winifred's own age 
■ — five-and-twenty ; the little Mary about three 
years old now. It was circumstance and op- 
portunity that made them such fast allies r. for 
by nature they had not many points of sympa- 
thy together. Louis was a brave, energetic, 
honorable man, but essentially a man of the 
world — ambitious, clever, and eminently unro- 
mantic. That in him which pleased Winifred 
was his manliness. Tall, handsome, powerful, 
and practical, he was the ideal of masculine 
strength ; while the materialism and worldly 
pride which marred his character were not 
brought out in the circumstances of a quieS 
country life. The only side now seen was his 
undeniable common sense and personal dignity ; 
and these were graces, not defects, in their pres- 
ent proportion. 

They were together a great deal, walking, 
riding, sitting by the same dark sea which hail 
borne away poor Grace's tears; reading togeth- 
er, thinking, talking, studying; until at last the 
conditions of their daily lives grew so closely 
interlaced, that neither thought it possible to 
separate them. Winifred had thought so little 
at any time about love, that it never occurred 
to her to ask herself whether this were love or 
friendship ; and Louis knew too well how large 
his own ambition was, and how it filled his 
heart, to dream it possible he could give place 
to any other passion. So they went on in the 
old sweet way of descent, and believed they 
were standing on the high plain above. 

But Louis began to think more of Winifred 
than he liked to acknowledge to himself; and 
he began to think, too, how he could arrange 
his life if he married her. If this should ever 
be, he thought the first thing he would do would 
be to send little Mary to the Foundling Hos- 
pital, or put her out to nurse, and afterward to 
school. At any rate he would have her taken 
from Winifred. Louis thought this the best 
thing for the girl herself; and as for Mary's 
happiness, she must take the consequences of 
her painful position. Her birth was an acci- 
dent, certainly, and it seemed hard to punish 
her for it; but the birth of a royal duke was an 
accident too, and yet he got the benefit of it. 



WINIFRED'S VOW. 



83 



So Louis reasoned, smoking his cigar in the 
evening, and believing that he reasoned judi- 
ciously and well. 

Tilings went on in the same way for many 
months, until at last a letter came, demanding 
the immediate presence of the young student in 
London, on matters of great consequence con- 
nected with his future career. Louis was pleased 
at the prospect of immediate employment; it 
was the first round of the great ladder won, and 
was the best practical news he could hear. But 
he was more than grieved to leave Winifred and 
South Shore. He had solved the problem, and 
found that love and ambition could exist togeth- 
er. His next lesson would be on their propor- 
tions. 

"Winifred," he said, "I have bad news for 
us — though good for me too." 

"What is it, Louis?" said the girl, looking 
up from the ground where she was sitting, play- 
ing with the little Mary. 

" Leave that child to herself for a moment, 
if you can," he said, almost pettishly, "and 
come with me into the garden." 

Winifred gathered up her black hair, which 
had fallen below her waist, and, sending Mary 
to her nurse, went out with her friend. They 
walked some time in silence; Louis pale and 
agitated, his arms crossed, and biting his fore- 
finger. 

" What is the matter, dear Louis ?" said Win- 
ifred at last, laying her hand on his shoulder as 
a sister might have done. "You are so pale 
— and — why, Louis, you are trembling ! Oh ! 
what has happened to you?" 

"I am grieved, Winny," he said, affection- 
ately, taking her hand from his shoulder to hold 
it between his own. " I did not think I should 
have felt it so much." 
"Felt what, Louis?" 
"Leaving South Shore." 
" Leaving us ? Oh ! are you going to leave 
us !" cried poor Winifred, bursting into tears. 
"What shall I do without you, Louis — my 
friend — my brother — my own dear Louis !" 

"And are you so sorry, Winifred?" said 
Louis, in a low voice, holding her tenderly 
pressed to his heart. 

"How can you ask, Louis! What will 
be my life without you? I can not even 
imagine it without you to share it ! Louis ! 
Louis! what shall I do when you have left 
me?" 

"Winifred" — and Louis trembled, so that 
he could scarcely speak — "do you then really 
love me ; love me as my wife should ?" 

The girl started back ; she flung off his hands, 
and looked at him with a wild, frightened look. 
Her color went and came ; her heart throbbed 
violently ; her eyes were dim, and she could 
scarcely see. At first she was about to deny, 
and then to leave him — to rush from him to 
the end of the earth, if that were possible ; and 
then these two impulses passed, and something 
broke and something rose within her. She 
went back to her old place, threw her arms 



round his neck, and, sobbing on his shoulder, 
said, " Oh, Louis, I believe this is love !" 

There was no time then for explanations. 
Louis could make no conditions, Winifred op- 
pose no conflicting duties. The dream must 
go on for a short time ; and, though the pain 
of separation mingled with the first joy of their 
love, yet this could well be borne when helped 
out with such divine stimulant. 

Months passed before Louis even spoke of 
return, and months again before he could exe- 
cute his wish. In all, it was between two and 
three years before they met again. In the 
mean time he had been in the heart of the 
world — in the midst of London life — struggling, 
fighting, conquering, so far ; but in the struggle 
his ambition and all his worldly passions were 
roused and excited. He had been, too, with 
conventional people ; and had got more than 
ever of that conventional honor and morality 
which are the farthest possible removed from 
truth. His object in life was success — by all 
fair means, and honorable. And though he 
would not have sacrificed love entirely, yet that 
love must be as compatible and as helpful as 
might be to the future he had marked out for 
himself. To Winifred herself there was no 
kind of objection. She had fortune; she was 
of good family; and her reputation, even through 
the undeserved reproaches sought to be cast on 
it, was yet grand and noble. But his objection 
was to the child. So long as Mary was with 
Winifred, she was no wife for him. For so 
long as she kept the little one by her side, and 
gave her her name, there would be still the 
scandal and the sneer; and his wife must be 
not only pure before God, but blameless before 
men. No ; she must choose between her love 
for him and the little one. They could not 
exist together. 

This was the feeling, then, that Louis brought 
with him to South Shore, when he returned, 
after more than two years' absence, to arrange 
for their wedding. And these were the reflec- 
tions with which he overwhelmed Winifred in 
the first days of his arrival. 

"You are not serious, Louis?" she said, turn- 
ing pale. 

" Never more serious in my life ! My dear 
girl, we must have a little common sense in 
this world! We can not always act solely on 
impulse against our best interests." 

"But dishonor and perjury can never be our 
interest, Louis," said Winifred. "Not to speak 
of their intrinsic wrong, they are even bad step- 
ping-stones to fortune." 

" Dishonor and perjury are hard words, Win- 
ifred." 

" But true ones, dear." 

" That may be. But, dishonor or not," said 
Louis, rather angrily, " it must be done. Once, 
now and forever, I distinctly refuse to sanction 
this absurd adoption of yours; nor do I recog- 
nize your duty or your right in maintaining it. 
Let the child be sent to school. I do not wish 
her to go to the workhouse, or to come to harm ; 



84 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



but I wish absolutely that my house shall be free 
of her, and your name dissociated from her." 

" Don't say that, Louis," said Winifred, trem- 
bling. " Do not say that I am to desert my 
child, for that means I am to lose you. I could 
not break my vow, Louis, though I might break 
my heait." 

"Folly! The heated fancy of an enthusi- 
astic girl ! Is this to be put in competition with 
my love, Winifred ?" 

" Oh, Louis, nothing in the world can be put 
in competition with that," cried Winifred, "but 
duty !" 

" A mere play on words. Your duty is to me." 

"And to the helpless and the dead," said 
Winifred, softly. 

"Then you don't love me, Winifred?" 

" More than my life, Louis," cried Winifred, 
passionately. 

"But not more than this senseless child?" 

" Not more than my honor, my duty, and my 
vow," she said, weeping. 

"Let us talk no more of it," said Louis, ris- 
ing. " I leave your fate, and mine too, in your 
hands. Think well before you decide; and re- 
member, that you have to choose between a 
.superstitious literalism or my love, my happi- 
ness, and my life." 

And he left the room, sternly. 

This was the first of a long series of conversa- 
tions, all in the same tone, and all on the same 
point ; Louis becoming angry, and Winifred sor- 
rowful ; but both firm, and with each discussion 
less than ever disposed to give way. At last 
Louis, one day, more passionately than usual, 
even swore he would not marry any woman in 
the world who refused the condition he had 
made ; and Winifred said firmly, she would not 
buy either her own happiness or his by deser- 
tion and treachery. So Louis went to London, 
and the day after wrote, so that Winifred could 
only reply by releasing him from his engage- 
ment. This release he accepted with ardent 
sorrow, but yet with decision ; feeling that he 
had now given up all chance of peaceful hap- 
piness, and that he must make his life out of 
ambition. 

So the lives which should have been united 
forever, became not only separate and distinct, 
but estranged. But though Louis went back to 
the Avorld and to the strife he loved, he was not 
happy ; for he was not at peace with himself. 
Even now, while he still hoped all things from 
ambition, and while flushed with the passion 
and the eagerness of the combat, he had mis- 
givings — indistinct and infrequent, but not the 
less real ; while Winifred sank into a silent, 
sorrowful, prematurely aged woman, whose only 
joy was in the love which had cost her all her 
happiness. Without Mary, she would probably 
have died in the first years of her widowhood — 
for it was a true widowhood for her, so friend- 
less as she was. But the strength which had 
enabled her to make the sacrifice enabled her 
to support it; and the love which had demand- 
ed it rewarded her. 



Winifred's mother died not long after this, 
and Winifred left South Shore with the child. 
They went into Devonshire, where they took a 
house in the most beautiful part of the county, 
and where they lived peaceful and retired — 
Mary's education the occupation of Winifred's 
life. Bearing the same name, Mary passed 
there for Winifred's niece, and even the moth- 
erly way in which she spoke to her, and Mary's 
calling her "Mamma Winny," did not bring 
suspicion on them ; for, as people said, if there 
had been any thing to conceal, why did they not 
conceal it? And why did they come as stran- 
gers to a place advertising themselves as un- 
worthy of notice, when they might so easily 
have avoided all suspicion ? So that Winifred 
found her life pass more easily here than even 
in her old house ; and gradually her spirits 
gained, if not joyousness, at least peace. 

Mary was now a beautiful girl of about eight- 
een or nineteen — a noble, animated creature, all 
life and love, and enthusiasm, and innocence. 
Just, free-spirited, with bright eyes and bright 
hair, a bright, quick color, and a voice that was 
like a silver bell ; seeing all things through the 
clear air of her own hope and love, making a 
very sunshine round her path, and wherever she 
went taking joy and smiles with her ; the true 
ideal of a glad-hearted girl. This was the de- 
velopment of that turbulent baby kicking in its 
cradle nineteen years ago. She seemed to have 
robbed Winifred of all her life, so exuberant 
was her own, so pale and depreciated her poor 
foster-mother's. All Winifred's beauty had gone 
with her youth. Her black hair had grown thin 
and gray, her laughing eyes were dim ; her lips 
had lost their tint, her cheeks were pale and 
hollow ; not a trace of any possible beauty in 
the past was left on her face ; and no one who 
saw her for the first time would believe that as 
a young girl she had been even more than ordi- 
narily pretty. But it had been a beauty merely 
of youth, passing with the bright skin and the 
happy smile of youth, and leaving the ill-formed 
features, with all their want of regularity, ex- 
aggerated and unsoftened. 

In the midst of his ambition Louis Blake 
still remembered Winifred. She was the only 
woman he had ever loved, and as time gave its 
romance to the past, it seemed as if he had loved 
her even more ardently than was true. He had 
gained all he had striven for in life ; he was 
rich and powerful, and his highest flights of 
ambition were realized. But his heart was 
empty ; his home was solitary. He blamed 
himself for the part he had acted; and, secure 
of his position now, thought he had been even 
unwise in not associating Winifred and all her 
life with him. He would have been strong 
enough to have borne them up the ladder with 
him, and she would have lived down the petty 
calumny that endeavored to destroy her beauti- 
ful action. For it was beautiful ; yes, he recog- 
nized that now. Full of these thoughts, and 
just at the age when the man who has been am- 
bitious in his youth wishes to be domestic in his 



WINIFRED'S VOW. 



85 



maturity, he made inquiries about Winifred at 
her old home ; and learning her address there, 
he set off suddenly to Devonshire, to renew his 
acquaintance — perhaps his love, who knows?— 
with his former friend a.nd Jiancee. But Louis 
made one fatal mistake. He did not realize 
the years that had passed since he parted with 
Winifred. It was always the same Winifred 
whom he left sitting on the ground, playing 
with a baby girl — her black hair falling far be- 
low her waist, and her dark eyes bright and 
clear — whom he expected to find again. All 
the world told him — and he knew without van- 
ity, that it was true — that time had been his 
friend. His curly chestnut hair, a little worn 
about the temples, had not a silver line in it ; 
his bearing was more manly, and his figure bet- 
ter developed than when Winifred saw him last; 
success had given him a certain commanding 
manner which might easily pass for majesty ; 
and constant intercourse with the world a pro- 
found insight into human nature. He was 
eminently one of the present generation — one 
of the men whose mind and character influence 
their whole circle. Handsome, noble, and ca- 
pable, he was a very king and hero to the minds 
of most women ; against whom not the most 
beautiful youth in the world, were he Apollo 
himself, would have had a chance of success ; 
and who, like a veritable monarch, might have 
chosen his queen wheresoever he listed. And 
he thought that time, which had so beautified 
him, would have done the same for Winifred. 
It would be a matured, ennobled, glorified wo- 
man that he should meet, but still the same 
that he had left ; it would be the nymph be- 
come the goddess. And thinking, hoping, be- 
lieving this, it was with all the fervor of his old 
affection that he knocked at the door of the 
cottage where they had told him Miss James 
lived. 

A beautiful girl came hurriedly and rather 
noisily into the room, almost as soon as he had 
entered. She did not know of his visit, and a 
deep blush broke over her brilliant face. Louis 
forgot all about baby Mary, and never remem- 
bered the possibility of this glorious creature 
being the butterfly from that cradled chrysalis ; 
he only said to himself, that dear Winifred had 
just as much sweetness as ever, and as little 
vanity, else she never would have dared the pres- 
ence of such a beautiful girl as this. He asked 
for her, however, smiling; and Mary went out of 
the room to call her, glad enough to get away. 

Winifred came down almost immediately, 
bringing Mary with her. When she saw Louis, 
she stood for a moment — stupefied, as if she had 
seen a ghost from the grave before her ; then 
uttering a low cry, she staggered, turned deadly 
pale, and holding out her withered hands to- 
ward him, cried, "Louis! Louis!" and "My 
love !" and then fell fainting to the ground. 

In her fainting the last chance of illusion 
vanished. Oh ! why had he come ? Why had 
he not been content to live on the pleasant ro- 
mance of memory and faith ? 



Winifred's faintness soon passed ; and with it 
her weakness. When she recovered she held 
out her hand, smiling; saying, in a firm tone, 
" It was such a surprise to see you, Louis, that 
I was overcome." And then she began to talk 
of former days with as calm a countenance as 
if they had parted but last week, and had never 
met in love. She thus put them both into a 
true position, which they had nearly lost, and 
left the future unembarrassed by any fetters of 
the past. Louis could not but love the woman's 
delicacy and tact, and saying to himself, "I shall 
soon get accustomed to the loss of her beauty," 
believed that he would love her as of old, and 
that all would go smoothly and happily for them 
both. He was glad now that he had come. 
After all, what did a little prettiness signify? 
Winifred was just as good as, perhaps even bet- 
ter than, she used to be ; and what did it mat- 
ter if she were less beautiful ? Louis was philo- 
sophical — as men are when they deceive them- 
selves. 

He remained in Devonshire for nearly a 
month, and at the end of that time began to 
grow perplexed and confused in his mind. In 
the first days he had made Winifred understand 
that he loved her still ; he had told her why he 
had come to Devonshire ; he had spoken much 
of the softening and beautiful influence that her 
memory had been to him all his life, and of how 
he had hoped and trusted in the future ; he had 
called back all her former love to him, and had 
awakened her sleeping hopes; he had poured 
fresh life into her heart — he had given her back 
her youth. He had spoken of her to herself as 
a being to be worshiped for goodness, and, in 
speaking thus, had pressed a kiss on her with- 
ered cheek ; and, when he had done all this, 
and had compromised his honor as well as his 
compassion, he found out that she w r as old and 
faded ; that she was a mother, not a wife ; that, 
considering her age, love-passages between them 
were ridiculous. If she had been Mary now! 

Mary was much struck with Louis Blake. 
His grand kind of bearing, his position, the 
dazzling qualities of his mind, all filled her with 
admiration so intense, that it was almost wor- 
ship. But worship tinged with awe. And, 
thus — she changed too. Her frank and child- 
ish manners became fitful and reserved ; her 
causeless tears, her wild excitement, her pas- 
sionate manner to Winifred, embracing her 
often and eagerly, as she used when as a child 
she wanted her forgiveness for an unconfessed, 
but silently recognized fault ; her bashfulness 
when Louis spoke to her; her restless wretch- 
edness when he passed her in silence ; her eager 
watching for his eye and smile, and her blushes 
when she was rewarded ; all gave the key to 
Winifred, so far as she was concerned; though 
as yet she did not know that this key opened 
another heart as well. But she began to feel a 
change, gradual, and perceptible, and sure, in 
Louis. He grew cold in his manner to her, and 
sometimes irritable ; he avoided her when she 
was alone, and he spoke no more of the past 5 



86 



HAMPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



he was constrained, he was harsh — he no lon- 
ger loved her, and this was what he was teach- 
ing her. His manner to Mary was as fitful as her 
own. Now tender and fatherly, now hard and 
cruel ; sometimes so absorbed in watching her, 
or talking with her, that he forgot all the world 
beside, and sometimes seeming to forget her 
and her very existence in the room. Winifred 
saw it all. She was the first to give the true 
name to this perplexity, and factitious attempts 
to reconcile impossible feelings; and when once 
enlightened she accepted her position with dig- 
nity and grandeur. There was no middle way. 
Louis no longer even fancied that he loved her, 
and she could not hold him to the promise made 
when under the illusion of that fancy. She 
must again judge between duty and self, and 
again ascend to the altar of sacrifice. He loved 
her child ; and Mary — and Winifred wept as she 
said it low in her own chamber, kneeling by her 
bed, half-sobbing and half-praying — Mary loved 
him. Yes, the child she had cared for as her 
own, and for whom she would have given her 
life, now demanded more than her life. And 
she should have it. 

It was in the gray evening when Winifred 
went down stairs, passing through the low 
French windows of the drawing-room, and on 
to the lawn, where Louis and Mary were stand- 
ing near the cistus-tree. But not speaking. A 
word too tender, a look too true, had just pass- 
ed between them, and Louis was still struggling 
with the impulse which bid him say all, look all, 
and leave the issue to fate. Mary was trem- 
bling, tears in her eyes, and a strange feeling of 
disappointment stealing over her ; though she 
could not have said why, for she did not know 
what she had expected. Winifred walked gen- 
tly over the grass, and was by their side before 
they knew that she had left the house. Mary 
gave a heavy sob, and flung herself on her neck, 
saying, 

" Darling Winny ! How glad I am you have 
come !" 

Louis turned away, painfully agitated. 

" Why do you turn from me, Louis ?" said 
Winifred. " Are you afraid of your friend ? Do 
you fear that you can not trust her love ?" 

"What do you mean, Winifred?" said poor 
Louis, passionately. "For God's sake, no enig- 
mas ! Oh, forgive me, dearest friend, I am 
harsh and hard to you; but I am mad — mad!" 

"Poor suffering heart, that suffers because 
of its unbelief," said Winifred tenderly; and 
taking his hand she placed it in Mary's. Clasp- 
ing them both between her own, " See, dear 
Louis," she said, the tears falling gently over 
her furrowed cheeks, " my hand is no barrier 
between you and your love. Rather a tie the 
more. Love each other, dear ones, if therein 
lies your happiness! For me, mine rests with 
you, in your joy and your virtue. And when, 
in the future, you think of Winifred, my Mary 
will remember the foster-mother who loved her 
beyond her own life, and Louis will say he once 
knew one who kept her vow to the last." 



A BASKET OE THUNDER-BOLTS. 

WHEN it was ascertained that the orbit of 
Biela's comet intersects that of the earth, 
a few very worthy persons prepared for the de- 
struction of the world by a collision between the 
two. It was shown that if the earth's progress 
had been hastened, or the comet delayed one 
month, in the year 1832, the shock would have 
been inevitable ; and though the earth is a mod- 
el of punctuality, comets, as is well known, are 
subject to a variety of disturbing causes which 
might seemingly retard or accelerate their ve- 
locity. Tradition depicted comets as agents of 
mischief or messengers of evil. Antiquity viewed 
them as awful manifestations of the Divine dis- 
pleasure, and portents of disaster to man. Louis 
the First of France was so terrified by the com- 
et of 837, which approached within 2,000,000 
miles of the earth, that he emptied his treasury 
to build churches and convents. Armies have 
been smitten with panic at the sight of a comet, 
and cunning demagogues have turned their ap- 
parition to excellent account. Even so late as 
a couple of centuries ago, signs in the heaven- 
— "comets with fiery streaming hair" — were re- 
garded by the pious people of New England as 
symptoms of the Divine wrath, which it was 
proper to appease by a revival of the austerities 
of Puritan discipline. In the wake of such 
goodly examples, men of imaginative minds 
quaked as they watched for the return of Biela's 
comet. If philosophers had ceased to see fiery 
horsemen in the heavens waving two-edged 
swords — if Congress legislated none the more 
strictly because stars had fallen or auroras 
gleamed — if the world called them superstitious 
because they set their house in order and pre- 
pared for eternity — were not these evidences of 
blindness and obstinacy plainly foretold? 

Science, meanwhile, pursuing its steady path, 
unrolls the map of the heavens, and, while it 
strips many a dreaded apparition of its hor- 
rors, discovers in the wondrous space above new 
beauties, it is true, but likewise new causes for 
apprehension and affright. Eight millions of 
comets, according to Arago, may revolve with- 
in our system; six hundred have been actually 
observed. More than one of these cross the 
earth's orbit in their usual journey through 
space ; others, we know, are liable to be dis- 
turbed by the attraction of the larger planets 
and each other ; and thus, in the language of 
Humboldt, " from being apparently harmless, 
have been rendered dangerous bodies." Was 
there not once a planet between Mars and Ju- 
piter, and what mighty force shattered it into 
asteroids? Was it a collision with the solid 
nucleus of some other cosmical body — a huge 
comet? Did a day dawn for the inhabitants 
of that orb " in the which the heavens passed 
away with a great noise, and the elements melt- 
ed with fervent heat, their earth also and the 
works which were therein were burned up?" 

Fifty persons, in round numbers, are killed 
every year in the United States b} r lightning. 
In the single month of July, 1854, thirty-seven 



A BASKET OF THUNDER-BOLTS. 



87 



persons were struck dead within the limits of 
the Atlantic States. Ancient mythology con- 
tained nothing so terrifying as these colorless 
statistics. The ancients dreaded Jove's thun- 
der-bolt ; but their awe was mingled with a de- 
votional sentiment which could not have been 
devoid of a certain sense of pleasure. The 
pastoral Etruscan rejoiced when the lightning 
played harmlessly over the horizon, for he knew 
that his prayers had been heard. Even when 
it flashed overhead, and perhaps clove some 
tall tree to the earth, he was not dismayed ; his 
religion told him that the gods had assembled, 
and that a decree of the divine council had 
gone forth to authorize Jupiter to launch his 
bolts. He bowed his head, abandoned the en- 
terprise on which he was engaged, and cheer- 
fully sacrificed a bullock. It was a happy day 
in the Greek camp when Calchas saw the light- 
ning illuminate the heavens on his right hand, 
and fearlessly did the heroes go down to battle. 
Nor was all hope lost when the divine token lit 
up the skies on the left. It meant that more 
altars must be erected, and inexorable justice 
meted out to the guilty : the gods were irritated, 
but their wrath was not unappeasable. There 
is no terror in the soul of Job when, he pro- 
claims that " God made a decree for the rain, 
and a way for the lightning of the thunder." 

Faded was the prestige of the Olympic gods 
when the Athenians began to treat lightning as 
a terrestrial phenomenon. Fled was their poetic 
fancy when they could stand at their doors in 
a thunder-storm, and fill the air with hissing 
sounds, in the foolish belief that the flashing 
fire would be thus averted. And where were 
the augurs, when the Roman knights encased 
their bodies in stout seal-skins, which, according 
to the science of the Augustan age, the light- 
ning could not perforate ? When the gods fell, 
all was foolishness until Franklin came. Au- 
gustus — like the modern Emperors of Japan — 
fled into a deep cellar at the first rumbling of 
the thunder, and bewailed himself that he could 
not, so frail was his constitution, drown his fears 
with his courtiers in draughts of Falernian or 
Caecuban. Cowardice, conspiring with ignor- 
ance, has ascribed to fifty different substances 
and agencies the power of averting lightning- 
strokes. Feathers were long believed to be an 
infallible protection. Even in our day, timid 
girls creep into bed and draw the pillow over 
their faces when the thunder roars ; though it is 
well known that several persons have been killed 
in bed, and that in one case at least — in New 
York, on the 1st of August, 1854 — lightning has 
set fire to a mattress without visible flash or audi- 
ble thunder. A whole host of trees have been 
honored as lightning-proof. Tiberius, conscience 
smitten at the approach of a storm, would crown 
his brow with a wreath of laurel. The Chinese 
flock for shelter to the mulberry-tree. Colu- 
mella believed that a large vine growing over a 
house afforded complete security, and not with- 
out some shadow of reason. The peasants of 
the time of Charlemagne found that tall poles 



erected in their fields near their house afforded 
protection ; but the pole was of no use unless it 
was crowned with a magic scroll. Sailors have 
believed from time immemorial that frequent 
discharges of cannon prevent or dissipate thun- 
der-storms. It happens that some of the heav- 
iest cannonades remembered — such as the bom- 
bardment of Rio Janeiro, by the French, in 
1711, and the bombardment of Sebastopol, by 
the Allies, last September — were immediately 
followed by lightning, thunder, and rain. The 
ringing of church bells was long regarded as a 
specific against lightning. Wyncken de Worde, 
an old English writer, says : " The evil spiry tes 
that ben in the region of th' ayre doubte moche 
when they here the belles ringen ; and this is 
the cause why the belles ringen when it thon- 
dreth, and when grete tempeste and rages of 
wether happen, to the end that the feinds and 
wycked spirytes should ben abashed and flee, and 
cease of the movynge of tempeste." In France, 
when the priests blessed a new set of church bells 
they prayed: "Whenever they ring, may they 
drive far off the malign influences of evil spirits, 
whirlwinds, thunder-bolts, and the devastations 
which they cause, the calamities of hurricanes 
and tempests !" And the pious peasantry, at 
the first approach of a storm, would bid the 
ringer tug at the bell-rope till the very thunder 
could hardly make itself heard. The Academy 
of Sciences denounced the practice, and a church 
has now and then been struck by lightning while 
the bell was pealing its loudest; but still, in parts 
of Brittany, when dark clouds gather, and swal- 
lows groundward fly, the traveler is startled by 
the solemn tolling of the parish bell, which 
sounds like a mournful appeal to Providence 
for mercy. 

Curious to see hoAv generation after genera- 
tion will run its nose against an important dis- 
covery, walk round it, perhaps pick it up and 
throw it down again, never dreaming of its value 
till the right man comes and appropriates it. 
A trifle over a century has elapsed since Frank- 
lin gave to the world the lightning-rod, and we 
honor him as its inventor. Yet Columella's 
vine was nothing but a conductor, if a bad one ; 
and the poles, with mystic inscriptions, which 
the French peasants used to set up in the fields, 
what were they but lightning-rods ? Even the^e 
were more distant approaches to the discovery 
than the Temple at Jerusalem, which was pro- 
vided with as complete an apparatus of con- 
ductors as could be constructed to-day. The 
roof, which was " overlaid with gold," bri.-tled 
with gilt iron lances, and metallic pipes led from 
it to large cisterns in the court, in which the rain 
was collected. The object of the Israelites in 
erecting the lances was to prevent birds from 
settling on their holy edifice ; but they served 
so admirably the purpose of lightning-rods thai, 
in a country where thunder-storms were com- 
mon and violent, the temple stood a thousand 
years without being struck once. 

Of late years Franklin's conductor has had 
to stand some criticism. There are builders 



88 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



who deny its efficacy. Some people fancy it 
attracts the lightning. It is well to know, when 
these opinions are alioat, that the late Monsieur 
Arago considered it an infallible protector 
against lightning, and even went so far as to 
state that the modern improvements which 
have been made in its form, etc., have rather 
injured than improved the original conductor 
as devised by Franklin. It fell to his duty to 
examine and report upon several buildings — 
among others, a Government powder-magazine 
— which, though provided with conductors, had 
notwithstanding been struck by lightning. In 
every one of these cases he traced the accident 
to defects in the construction of the conductor. 
As Monsieur Arago was in his lifetime the high- 
est authority on questions of meteorology, his 
opinion is entitled to weight. Indeed, until it 
is shown to be at variance with indisputable 
facts, it is quite safe to abide by it without ref- 
erence to other scientific theories. 

Considering that fifty persons at least are 
killed annually by lightning in the United 
States, sixty-nine in France, and twenty-two 
in England, it is strange that no one has ever 
devised a conductor to be carried on the per- 
son. Franklin certainly did hint that it w r as 
rather advantageous than otherwise to be drench- 
ed during a storm. But by this he intended 
merely to deny the popular fallacy that a wet 
skin increased the danger. A moist coat and 
breeches might act as a conductor; but few peo- 
ple would be willing to use them as such with- 
out a trifle more isolation from the epiderm- 
is. Monsieur Arago threw out a few sugges- 
tions on the subject. A crowd, he considered, 
was more likely to be struck in a storm than an 
individual, because perspiration and respiration 
create an ascending column of vapor which is 
a better conductor than the surrounding air. It 
has long been known that lightning invariably 
makes for elevated points : hence the two most 
dangerous situations for an individual to occupy 
during a storm are, first, the close neighborhood 
of a tree, church steeple, or other similar ob- 
ject; and, secondly, the centre of a level plain. 
Winthrop — whose advice is still excellent — 
recommends persons caught in the fields by a 
storm to station themselves between two tall 
trees, at a distance of some twenty feet from 
each. It has been imagined that running 
increases the danger, because, according to 
Arago, a body passing rapidly through space 
leaves a partial vacuum, which is a better con- 
ductor than the air. But as railway trains are 
hardly ever struck, it may be taken for granted 
that this maxim has more theoretical than prac- 
tical value. 

A few years ago, it used to be considered 
very dangerous to carry pieces of metal, such 
as keys or penknife in the pocket, or even to 
wear rings or bracelets during a thunder-storm. 
Latterly this apprehension has lost ground. 
Some very curious facts are, however, cited in 
its support. A flash of lightning struck a group 
of persons in the prison of Biberach, in Swabia ; 



it killed one only, the chief of a famous band 
of robbers, who was chained by the waist. A 
lady put her hand out of a window to close it; 
a flash of lightning melted a bracelet she wore, 
injuring her arm but slightly. Another lady — 
a friend of the traveler Brydone — was caught 
in a thunder-storm, and her hat, the frame of 
which was of thin metallic wire, was burnt to 
ashes without injuring her head. It is perhaps 
safe to consider these as exceptional cases. At 
all events, when we remember how much iron 
and metal surrounds us on every side, we shall 
hardly expect that a bunch of keys or a brace- 
let can exercise much attraction as a conductor. 
" Avoid fire-places," said Franklin ; " sit in the 
middle of the room, unless a chandelier hang 
there ; avoid metallic substances, and surround 
yourself rather with glass, feathers, silk." But 
does any one believe that a thunder-storm would 
have driven the philosopher from his printer's 
" case," if it had been of moment that he should 
stay there ? 

After all, as we must die, what objection can 
there be to the speediest, perhaps to the least 
painful form of death ? There is no trace of 
agony in the face of a lightning-struck corpse. 
A black speck or two where the fluid entered, 
another where it found an exit, and perhaps a 
dark line or furrow marking its path, are all 
the evidence of the catastrophe. It has hap- 
pened that lightning has crushed the bones of 
its victim as though a celestial giant had felled 
him with a monstrous club. But on the other 
hand, men have been found dead without ex- 
ternal sign of injury, and lightning has only 
been suspected of the murder when pieces of 
metal found on the body were perceived to be 
magnetic. Men live who have been struck 
blind or deaf by a lightning-stroke ; others, 
whose limbs have been paralyzed by the same 
cause. These make cheap acquaintance with 
the dread destroyer ; for they generally recover 
from the injury, and, by way of compensation, 
nature usually grants them better health after- 
ward. Rheumatism and nervous complaints 
seldom survive a smart lightning-shock. Some- 
times, when no shock is experienced, persons 
who have been exposed to a thunder-storm find 
their hair and beard loose next morning, and 
in a few days become bald. How are all these 
effects produced ? Science is mute. The doc- 
tors can only say that lightning kills by destroy- 
ing the vital principle — just as their predeces- 
sors, in the time of Moliere, announced that 
opium facit dormire, quia est in ec virtus doi'initiva. 

When Thomas Oliver, who was struck by 
lightning, and remained senseless for several 
hours, recovered his wits, he sprang up in his 
bed, and inquired, with the pugnacity of a true 
Briton, who knocked him down ? Ladies, Avho 
start and close your beautiful eyes at a flash of 
lightning, the story was intended for you. A 
fatal flash is never seen by its victim. He is 
struck, and the lightning has gone to its home 
in the unknown depths of the earth, before he 
perceives that the clouds have spoken. For the 



A BASKET OF THUNDER-BOLTS. 



89 



quickest eye can not mark periods of time much 
shorter than a quarter of a second ; whereas the 
lightning which God shoots forth to the ends of 
the earth, lasts not for the thousandth part of a 
second. Long before the ray of light reaches the 
eye it is gone. It flashes, and the roar of the 
thunder sets out toward our ear with the won- 
derful velocity of thirteen miles in a minute, 
but does not reach us till ten, twenty, thirty, 
ay even fifty seconds have elapsed; it flashes, 
and the bright image starts at the inconceivable 
speed of seven millions of miles in a minute, 
but does not strike the retina till long after the 
celestial flame is extinguished, and the clouds 
are at rest. 

Savages have worshiped the thunder. 'Tis 
our slave. Lightning comes at our call, carries 
our messages, gilds our plate, prints these lines. 
More yet it can and must do. On the summits 
of the Alps and Cordilleras gleam beautiful 
patches of enamel, sometimes gray, sometimes 
yellow, sometimes olive-green. On the sandy 
shores of Brazil, in the sandy deserts of Silesia, 
and on many a sandy beach where young swim- 
mers love to bathe, round holes have been found 
in the earth, fringed round with beautiful hard 
glass. They are the mouth-pieces of tubes which 
penetrate through the sand and clay to a depth 
of many feet. So delicate and fragile are these 
tubes that it has never been possible to extract 
them entire ; but we know that their inner coat- 
ing is like their orifice, bright pure glass. It 
was once supposed that they were vegetables ; 
then it was suggested that they might be the 
holes of serpents. A higher office is now as- 
cribed to them. They are the homes of light- 
ning flashes. Again and again, when the storms 
burst, and the black night is lit up by lightning, 
the forked flash glides through the heavens, and 
seeks rest in these tubes, fusing the sand into 
the most perfect glass. No human eye sees 
these mysteries of its private life ; but the re- 
cord of its visits to the bleak Alpine tops, and 
its journeyings to the dark abyss where it dwells, 
is written in characters which man can not 
counterfeit. 

Where shall its usefulness stop? Shall it 
glaze — shall it create the most lovely enamel 
for the delight of the reptile and the eagle only ? 
If the flash which bursts over a dwelling-house, 
and follows the bell-wire from story to story, 
fuses it as it goes, shall this wonderful power be 
used in mere play? Earth is not rich enough 
to throw away such treasures, nor man blind 
enough to neglect them. 

Plutarch, moralizing on superstition to the 
best of his knowledge and belief, exclaimed : 
" He who stirs not from home does not fear 
highway robbers, nor does the dweller in Ethi- 
opia dread thunder." Some Egyptian had misled 
the Cheronean philosopher; storms are not un- 
frequent in the region he called Ethiopia. But 
substitute Lima, and the reflection will be scien- 
tifically correct. In Lower Peru, and on many 
points of the Pacific coast of South America, it 
never thunders or lightens. Nature, dividing 



her favors with impartial hand, has allotted to 
one region earthquakes, to another thunder- 
storms. The Liman sees his house totter and 
quiver with a smiling face ; but he can not com- 
prehend the courage of the men of the North 
who can watch a thunder-storm without terror. 
In Spitzbergen, and the polar regions north of 
the 75th parallel of latitude, no lightning ever 
bursts through the four months' night ; the dis- 
tant roar which startles Arctic explorers is not 
the sound of thunder, but of icebergs gnashing 
their sides, and grating angrily against each 
other. It is in the tropics that the celestial fires 
burn with the greatest splendor. Districts in 
Central America take pride in being the seat 
of tremendous storms, and rival villages have 
been known to dispute with each other fiercely 
the honor of having "the mightiest thunder in 
the country." 

Till very lately no attempt was ever made to 
guage the annual quota of thunder-storms in 
various places. Any table of meteorological 
phenomena must therefore be based on insuffi- 
cient and possibly erroneous data. The late 
Monsieur Arago, with more boldness than prob- 
able accuracy, classed several well-known sites, 
according to the frequency of their storms, from 
the best information he could obtain. His list 
begins as follows : 

1. Calcutta averages 60 days of thunder per year. 

2. Patna (India) supposed 

to average 58 " " " 

8. Rio Janeiro averages.. . 50'6 " " " 

4. Maryland (U. S.) sup- 

posed to average 41 " " " 

5. Martinique averages.. . 39 " " " 

6. Abyssinia supposed to 

average 88 " " " 

7. Guadaloupe averages.. . ST " " " 

8. Viviers (France) aver- 

ages 24-7 " " " 

9. Quebec averages 23-3 "• " " 

10. Buenos Ayres averages. 22 - 5 " " " 

11. Denainvilliers (France) 

averages 20-6 " " " 

The lowest average he gives is that of Cairo 
in Egypt, three days of thunder per annum. 
That of Paris and most of the European cities 
is about fifteen days ; he estimates the days of 
thunder at New York to be about the same. It 
is probable that they are much more numerous. 

"When the good ship Argo — so runs the le- 
gend — had cleared from Colchos with the golden 
fleece, and Jason was proudly bearing away his 
bride, a storm arose, a fierce Black Sea storm, 
which sorely vexed the bold craft. Higher and 
higher rose the waves ; the oars snapped, and 
the sails tore themselves free. In the depth of 
despair, clasping the fair Medea to his breast, 
Jason acknowledged that his science was ex- 
hausted. He sat him down by the creaking 
mast, and prepared for death. Then up sprang 
his faithful Orpheus, and bade his master be of 
good cheer, as with inspired hand he drew from 
his lyre a moving prayer to the gods. Above 
the roaring of the wind and the groaning of the 
ship rose those sweet sounds, and Jupiter, seated 
high on Olympus, heard them and was touched. 
Two swift messengers, bright pink flames, sped 
through cloud and rain, and rested on the heads 



90 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



of the statues of Castor and Pollux. The pious 
Argonauts accepted the omen, and gave thanks. 
They were still in prayer when the wind abated, 
the sea fell, and the danger passed away. In 
memory of that happ}' escape, antiquity grate- 
fully gave the names of Castor and Pollux to 
the lambent flames which appear on the tops of 
masts and other elevated points during storms. 
When Christian saints succeeded to the honors 
of the heathen demi-gods, the inheritance of 
the twin brothers fell to the lot of the good 
Saint Elmo. He it was who, when a fierce 
hurricane assailed Columbus, and his vessel 
travailed in the trough of the sea, "appeared 
at the mast head with seven lighted tapers. . . . 
Litanies, prayers, and thanksgivings were then 
heard all over the ship, for, as sailors believe, 
as soon as Saint Elmo appears, the dangers of 
the tempest are past." Sad that science should 
demolish so pretty a fancy! But the worthy 
saint can not be allowed to maintain a reputa- 
tion as a harbinger of fair weather for the simple 
reason that he is obliged to be on duty during 
all storms, from first to last, on sea or on shore. 
He has been seen on steeples and on tree-tops ; 
he has perched on the bayonet of a sentinel and 
on the chimney of a private house ; travelers 
caught in a storm have even been favored with 
his visits, and have started at seeing their com- 
panions' heads fringed with fire. A quiet, harm- 
less saint at all times ; never known to have 
been guilty of mischief; if not entitled to the 
honors vouchsafed to him by antiquity, at least 
claiming our admiration as one of the beautiful 
storm-signs which can be contemplated without 
dread. 

How different those other heavenly visitors, 
which the old poets named thunder-bolts, and 
this prosaic age of science knows as aerolites ! 
When Jupiter was wearied by the perversity of 
man, he seized his three-pronged thunder-bolt, 
and hurled it at the earth. The fiery missile 
blazed through space, lighting up the darkest 
night, and filling the air with bright corusca- 
tions ; when it struck, the earth trembled, and 
mankind acknowledged the sovereignty of Jove. 
Greek altars rose on the spot it had touched ; 
fences Avith pious inscriptions warned the Ro- 
man not to adventure a sacrilegious foot on the 
ground which Jupiter had deemed worthy to 
receive his messenger of wrath. When the 
Israelites saw "the hail, and fire mingled with 
the hail" — fire which "ran upon the ground," 
they thanked God, who would deliver them out 
of the hand of Pharaoh. Long and long after- 
ward they remembered it, and their Psalmist 
sang : " He gave up their cattle to the hail, and 
their flocks to hot thunder-bolts." 

Whence came these fiery visitors? "From 
the sun," said the skeptic Anaxagoras. " He is 
the centre of fire ; whatever is heated must pro- 
ceed from him." "From the moon," said the 
philosophers of the last century. "A little 
knowledge" had shown them the lunar volca- 
noes, and they questioned not but that thunder- 
bolts had been originally projected from thence, 



had traveled a quarter of a million of miles, and 
finally sought rest on the earth. Even such 
acute minds as Laplace and Berzelius allowed 
themselves to believe that the force of those 
huge gaping volcanoes in the moon was such 
that they could project a body beyond the limits 
of its attraction. 

Meanwhile science dug and delved, and new 
discoveries shed further light on the question. 
On bright nights, observers of the stars watched 
meteors flash across the sky and disappear into 
unknown darkness. Twice a year — about the 
tenth of August and the middle of November — 
these meteors were so numerous that the old 
priests piously suggested that the saints, whose 
natal days occurred at that period, must be 
weeping for the sins of mankind. Then some 
renowned philosopher announced that he had 
seen a ball of fire, equal in size to the moon, 
roll swiftly across the heavens, and disappear 
with a sort of explosion. The ice broken, sev- 
eral other persons declared that they had seen 
similar balls, some red, some white, some blue, 
some green. In one or two instances the fall 
of thunder-bolts was simultaneous with the ap- 
pearance of these fire-balls. The great thun- 
der-bolt at iEgos Potamos, which fell in the year 
470 B.C., and was described as being equal to 
a full wagon-load, was certainly accompanied 
by such a globe of fire. When Livy recounts 
how "heavy rains of stones fell from heaven," 
he mentions likewise that strange balls of fire 
appeared in the sky. 

It was with these data to guide him that the 
great Olbers undertook his calculations. He 
proved that a body set free in space between the 
moon and the earth, or the sun and the earth, 
would not fall to the latter, but would revolve 
in a regular orbit round the sun, like the plan- 
ets. On this law rests the modern theory that 
shooting-stars and fire-balls are in fact inde- 
pendent bodies, moving through space in orbits 
of their OAvn ; that the latter occasionally pass 
so close to the earth that fragments of their 
substance, in the shape of aerolites, fall within 
its attraction, plunge through the atmosphere, 
and sink to rest on the soil or in the sea. 

The boy who picks up a meteoric stone in the 
fields — as who has not? — seldom realizes the 
wonderful story that stone could tell. A rude 
heavy mass — mostly composed of iron, with a 
little nickel and olivine, with a smooth black 
crust, marking where the metal has cooled soon- 
est — it lies peaceably a few inches under the 
soil, or on the out-crop of a stratum of rock, as 
though that were its birth-place. But that stone 
is an alien. Alone of all the objects that hu- 
man hands have handled, it was born beyond 
the outermost limits of this world. Where its 
cradle was no man can tell ; but this we know, 
that it is not of this earth. It is a link — the 
only one — between us and the worlds without. 
To grasp it in the hand is the next thing to vis- 
iting a planet or one of the other cosmical bodies. 
That huge thunder-bolt which fell at JEgos Po- 
tamos, and of which a c: reless world has actu- 



SISTER ANNE. 



91 



ally lost all trace — that other mighty stone which 
lies on a mountain slope in Brazil, and weighs 
seven tons, and all the other aerolites scattered 
in every region from the Pole to the Equator, 
would tell us, if they could speak, of strange 
spaces where the earth has never been, where 
human eye has never penetrated. 

One almost forgets the grandeur of their 
history in the purely human contemplation of 
the mischief they might do. These fire-balls, 
which are supposed to launch them earthward, 
seem far more dangerous neighbors than the 
comets. With a diameter exceeding a mile, 
they whirl past us at a distance sometimes not 
greater than thirty and even twenty miles. 
Some have been seen to explode like a rocket ; 
oftener they sink into night as noiselessly as 
they came. Seven hundred of them, accords 
ing to Olbers, fly close to us every year, and 
hurl some ponderous fragment contemptuously 
as they pass. Woe to the man or the house 
it strikes ! " They were more," said Joshua, 
" which died with the hail-stones, than they 
whom the children of Israel slew with the 
sword." That deaths were not uncommonly 
caused in ancient times by thunder-bolts, is 
proved by the frequent mention of such catas- 
trophes in the Greek and Roman poets. A 
couple of centuries ago, a monk was struck dead 
by an aerolite in Italy : one or two other cases 
of similar deaths have been placed on record 
since modern history began. Houses have fre- 
quently been set on fire by these heated vis- 
itors, and ships are said to have been destroyed 
by the same means. But how trifling the in- 
jury actually inflicted in comparison with that 
which might be caused by seven hundred in- 
candescent missiles, varying from a ton to a few 
pounds in weight, and falling with a force which, 
in the case of the larger ones, would shatter the 
strongest fort in the world! 

Shooting stars — perhaps the most beautiful 
phenomenon of the celestial world — have no 
terrors for man. Similes fail to render any 
adequate idea of these splendid meteors ; there 
is nothing in nature worthy of being compared 
with them. The lonely star which shoots mourn- 
fully downward, threading its way through the 
heavenly host, and disappearing, apparently 
without reason, at some point above the hori- 
zon, is a sight which fills the sensitive mind 
with gloom ; but the gorgeous star-shower, like 
a heavy fall of snow, which Humboldt saw in 
Central America in November, 1799, or that 
still more famous one which every one in this 
country watched with rapture in November, 
1833, is a spectacle which exhilarates instead of 
depressing the mind, and fills the soul with joy- 
fulness at the glorious majesty of the Creator. 
Every November the scene is renewed. On the 
nights of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, 
the heavens are traversed by thousands of shoot- 
ing-stars, which almost eclipse the fixed constel- 
lations. But it is only once in thirty-four years 
that the earth passes through the great stream 
'of stars which Humboldt has compared to snow- 



flakes. Those of us who live till November, 
1867, will doubtless witness it again — unless 
some new and mysterious change in the laws 
of these eccentric bodies — and such changes 
are constantly taking place in obedience to a 
higher law yet unlearned by man — should hasten 
or retard their journey through space. 

Whence do meteors come ? To say that they 
are ponderable bodies revolving round the sun, 
and becoming luminous when they approach 
within a certain distance of the earth, is to tell 
us little of their character or origin. Are they 
star-seed, revolving patiently through space in 
expectation of the fiat which shall condense 
them into a planet? Are they wretched frag- 
ments of some shattered orb, wheeling sadly in 
its vacant path, and suffering gradual absorp- 
tion into the larger bodies of the universe ? Or 
have they no future to hope for, no past to re- 
gret ? In their simple phrase, the old philoso- 
phers said that "Nature abhors a vacuum." 
We know that every particle of space within and 
upon the globe is inhabited ; that the solid rock 
has its lodgers, and the polar ice a race of in- 
sect inhabitants which die when the temperature 
rises above zero. Is it so with the heavens? 
Beyond this petty globe of ours, in the vast, 
measureless depths in which the insect planets 
float, is space wasted, or has every possible orbit 
its tenant, far beyond the power of telescopes to 
discover ? A few years ago, it was disgraceful 
not to know that there were seven planets in 
our system ; now, those only who keep the 
closest watch on the periodical reports of as- 
tronomical societies can venture to say how 
many companions we have. Nature, be it re- 
membered, knows no capricious beginnings, or 
abrupt endings. Every thing in her economy 
is graduated from the infinitesimally small to 
the infinitely great. A gigantic Jupiter implied 
a tiny Flora; the latter may suppose myriads 
of aerolites, mere star-dust, yet endowed with 
orbs, volume, and orbits, and even peopled with 
new forms of life, as perfect of their kind as any 
with which we are acquainted. 



SISTER ANNE. 

SISTER ANNE sat in the porch watching the 
sunset. The luminary whom old-fashioned 
poets have baptized with all sorts of names, 
sooner than degrade their verses with the fine 
old Saxon word "sun" — this planet of many 
aliases was never more splendid than on the 
present occasion. There was a purple edge of 
hill on which he was hovering, red and enor- 
mous, as if he was reconnoitering the huge 
steeps down which he was about to plunge. 
On the serrated crest of the purple hill waved 
a few plumy trees, standing blackly against the 
fiery glow, like watching warriors thrown out 
against the flame of some besieged and burning 
fortress. All along the meadows and creeks 
that stretched from the base of the purple hill 
to the porch where Sister Anne was sitting, a 
tide of golden light was slowly ebbing. A 
moment ago it was rippling over the garden- 



92 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



walks, making;, like a second Pactolus, the very 
gravel valuable, and now it has receded and 
washes the edges of the green meadow below, 
and trickles through the thin, transparent leaves 
of the motionless maple. Now the old stranded 
boat on the shore of the narrow creek suddenly 
glitters like Cleopatra's galley, as the waves of 
light dash silently over it; and lo ! an instant 
passes, the galley is gone, and the splitting 
planks and mouldering keel again lie sadly 
on the sands. So ebbs this wondrous tide, 
silently but swiftly, until it reaches the base 
of the purple hill ; then, trembling an instant 
on the grass and rocks, it suddenly sinks, or 
evaporates, or disappears like a fairy sea, and 
the shores it washed are cold, and gray, and 
dull. 

Sister Anne loved sunsets. There was an 
indolent splendor about the hour of evening 
that suited her temperament — an atmosphere 
of opiate vapor that seemingly emanated from 
the retiring planet, lulling her into a dreamy 
repose. The truth is, that Sister Anne was 
lazy. When other girls were hemming the 
edges of mysterious garments, or cutting geo- 
metric figures out of linen, or stitching at pat- 
terns dimly seen through cambric fastened over 
the paper on which they were traced; while in- 
dustrious maidens were doing all these useful 
and ornamental things, Sister Anne was used 
to sit in the window if it was summer, and by 
the fire if it was winter, and dream. She had 
the air of a dreamer. Her features were still 
and regular; her eyes large and dark; and 
when she moved there was a drowsy pliancy in 
her limbs that made her seem as if she had 
lived by the fairy lake on the shores of which 
Tennyson's Lotos Eaters dreamed life delight- 
fully away. Her two sisters looked on Sister 
Anne as utterly lost. She was altogether use- 
less, and did not contribute one jot to the gen- 
eral fund of labor. There was not on all Long 
Island so lazy a maiden. She knew not how 
to make pastry or butter. Her sewing was 
wretchedly crooked and uneven ; and as to 
knowing any thing about cutting out a dress, 
why Sister Anne might as soon be expected to 
draw out the plan of a fortification as to per- 
form that nice and intricate branch of female 
mechanics. She loved the woods, however, 
and the green leaves, and was very industrious 
in the line of gathering wild flowers and at- 
tending on the birds. Sister Anne was a slave 
to the feathered tribe. She was not black, nor 
did she wear gold rings on her ankles or any 
other sign of serfdom, still she was as much a 
slave as if she was copper-colored and fettered 
with gold. She followed the oriole from tree 
to tree anxiously and timidly, as a courtier 
haunting the presence of his king. For hours 
together she would lie in the high grass of the 
fields watching the blackbird with his crimson 
epaulets, keeping watch from a lofty tree over 
his wife as she sat in her nest built in the sway- 
ing forks of the golden rod. The cat-bird was 
to her a source of singular and endless delight 



and admiration. His elegant shape, his jaunty 
swagger, his splendid confidence, his immense 
vocal genius, all captivated her, and she would 
hide behind a tree and hour after hour watch 
his gambols in the branches. I will not say 
that the birds knew Sister Anne. She was no 
bird-tamer, like the charming dream -girl in 
George Sand's romance of Teverino, and I doubt 
if she called ever so long whether any of her 
feathered friends would attend to her ; but still 
I think the birds felt, by a rare instinct, as in- 
describable as any of the strange spiritual phe- 
nomena that are disclosing themselves nowa- 
days, that Sister Anne was their worshiper. 
Cat-bird and oriole, it seems to me, permitted 
the young girl to come closer than any other 
idler in the fields. 

It may be supposed that these erratic habits 
were not very much relished by Sister Anne's 
family. She was generally up a tree when she 
should have been mending stockings, and those 
wild-wood sports of hers did not produce a very 
favorable effect upon her toilet. Her gowns 
were sadly rent, and her shoes wore out with 
the most astonishing rapidity; while the marks 
of thorns on her small, delicate hands, and the 
tan on her quiet, dreamy face were not the most 
favorable additions to her personal appearance. 
She was a moral weed in a family of thriving 
and useful plants ; a toy in the midst of a whole 
factory full of industrial machines. In vain did 
mother and sisters remonstrate; in vain did they 
point to baskets full of awful shirts yet unsewn, 
and terrible handkerchiefs yet unhemmed. Sis- 
ter Anne turned a lazy glance and deaf ear to 
all, and fled to the fields, when the singing of 
the birds and the breath of the flowers consoled 
her for all her -troubles. 

So Sister Anne sat in the porch and dreamed. 
Was it of her friend the cat-bird, or her com- 
rade the oriole? Did flowers dance before her 
mind's eye, or did she wander amidst visionary 
forests? Something tells me that Sister Anne 
dreamed of none of these, much as she loved 
them. But two summers ago, a tall young fel- 
low, with blue bright eyes, ,and long dark hair, 
came to board for three months at the house, 
bringing with him a small valise and a large 
sketch-book. He, too, like Sister Anne, wan- 
dered all day in the woods and fields, and it 
often happened that they wandered together. 
They explored the pleasant beaches that lie 
along the Sound opposite to the hazy Norwalk 
shore. They watched the gambols of the sun- 
shine upon the blue waters and the plumy 
woods ; and that summer Sister Anne heard 
sweeter music than the song of birds, and had 
other companions than the oriole and cat-bird. 
The young artist, Stephen Basque, was a new 
revelation to the young girl. For the first time 
she had found one who understood her love of 
nature, and did not look upon her adoration of 
birds and flowers as mere folly. He talked of 
art and beauty, and Sister Anne awakened to 
poetry, until then a divinity unknown. He lent 
her a couple of volumes of Tennyson, and she 



SISTER ANNE. 



93 



beheld how, by a magic art, life and substance, 
and all the passion and beauty of earth, could 
be transferred into print and paper to live for- 
ever. In the midst of this delightful dream — 
dream far more delicious than all her bird and 
forest visions, Stephen Basque packed up his 
small valise and large sketch-book, and went 
off to New York city to pursue his art. Poor 
Sister Anne was left doubly alone ; and when 
she went out into the fields for the first time 
after his departure, it seemed as if the birds 
no longer knew her as of old. She wandered 
now less than of yore, but shut herself up in 
her room, which soon began to be littered with 
bits of paper scrawled all over. Her mother 
and sisters grumbled in vain ; her little room 
was to her a sanctuary, and she fled there from 
persecution. It seems then to me, that at the 
moment I allude to Sister Anne sat in the 
porch and dreamed of Stephen Basque. 

"As usual— idle ! Will you never do any thing 
useful, child?" cried Mrs. Plymott, Sister Anne's 
excellent mother. " Look at your sisters busy on 
father's shirts, and you — you do nothing but sit 
like a lady all day long, with your hands before 
you." 

" I can't work mother," answered Sister Anne, 
starting from her reverie with an expression of 
sudden pain, as the old lady emerged from the 
cottage door, her large hands parboiled with 
washing. "I know I am very useless to you, 
but it pains me to sew." 

"Pains? trash !" cried Mrs. Plymott. "You 
are the skit of the whole village. Do you know 
what they call you ? You don't ! well they call 
you Mother Plymott's Duchess." 

Sister Anne smiled sadly. 

"We have no titles in America," she said, 
"so they are wrong." 

"Oh ! its easy for you to turn it into a jest, 
but I tell you it's no joke for me to have a child 
that is not able to earn a cent for herself, or 
save one for me. What would you do, Miss," 
the old woman continued with a savage sneer, 
" if father and I were to die ? How would you 
earn your bread, eh ?" 

"I don't know exactly," said Anne, "but I 
don't suppose that God would allow me to die 
of starvation any more than he allows the robin 
and the chipping-bird." 

Mrs. Plymott burst into a loud coarse laugh. 

" So you'd live on berries, and sleep in the 
hedges, my pretty little robin, would you ? Oh ! 
how pleasant you'd find it! I'll lay in a lot of 
poke-berries for you this fall, and your feeding 
will be cheap during the winter." 

"Does my feeding cost you much, mother?" 
asked Sister Anne, mildly. 

"More than you are worth," was the brutal 
reply. 

"Then it shan't cost you any thing for the 
future," answered the young girl, whose dreamy 
face lit up for a moment with a flash of insulted 
pride. 

" Oh ! we're offended, are we ? we are going 
to earn our own living! Good luck to you 
Vol. XII.— No. 67.— G 



child ! Let us see how long this good resolu- 
tion will last." 

"Longer than you imagine, mother," said 
Sister Anne, retreating quietly to her room. 

She had taken on a sudden a strange resolu- 
tion. Her arrangements were quickly made. 
She packed up a few things in a small bundle, 
examined her pockets, which she found con- 
tained exactly the sum of eight and sixpence. 
This done, she sat herself down to her little 
table and continued to write on several slips of 
paper until late in the night. 

The next morning Sister Anne was up by day- 
light, reinspecting her little bundle of clothes, 
and making up her slips of paper into a small 
parcel. This done, she slipped into the break- 
fast parlor, and sat down to breakfast calmly, as 
usual. 

"Well, are you going to idle to-day, as 
usual ?" said her sister Mary. 

"No," answered Sister Anne, with a queer 
smile, " I am going to be very industrious." 

Then as soon as breakfast was concluded, she 
stole out unobserved by her industrious family, 
and, bundle in hand, set off for the railway 
station, which was distant about two miles. 
As she walked along the scrubby plain the lazy 
dreamer seemed to have vanished. She ran and 
skipped along, and tossed her bundle aloft, and 
sang vague melodies to herself. The face so 
still and calm seemed on fire with bold resolve. 
Assuredly Sister Anne had some great scheme 
in her little head. 

She reached the station, paid from out of her 
eight shillings for a ticket to New York, and 
seated herself timidly in a vacant chair. It 
was the first time in her life that Sister Anne 
had been on a railroad, and it was with much 
wonder and alarm that she beheld herself 
whirled along until trees, and fields, and houses 
seemed to melt into a confused mass. Ere she 
had ceased to tremble and wonder the cars went 
more and more slowly, and she was informed 
that she had arrived at Brooklyn. She hurried 
out, and following the stream, found herself on 
board a ferry-boat, and in a few seconds across 
the river, and in the great city. Never having 
been in New York but once before, Sister Anne 
knew nothing whatever of the huge town, but 
being a stout little body, and having learned a 
sort of fearless freedom from her friends the 
birds, she asked the first person she met to di- 
rect her to the office of the Aloe daily news- 
paper. The man said he was going in that di- 
rection, and that if she would keep him in sight 
he would point out the very door. So Sister 
Anne, with her precious bundle in her hand, 
trotted off after her civil guide until they 
reached that cluster of streets that all merge 
into the Park, and where newspaper offices arc 
as thick as blackberries. 

"There Miss," said the man, pointing to a 
tall, dirty-looking building, " there is the office 
of the Daily Aloe. Editor's rooms are on the 
third story." 

"Thank vou, Sir," answered Sister Anne, 



94 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



with a little bird-like nod of the head, and in a 
moment she was climbing up the steep stairs, 
dimly lighted, leading to the editor's room. 

No one seemed to take the slightest notice 
of her as she entered. Seven or eight men were 
all sitting at desks, cutting up newspapers, writ- 
ing as if by steam, turning over new books, amidst 
a horrible litter of papers and pens, and all the 
paraphernalia of an editorial room. Sister Anne 
timidly inquired if the editor could be seen. 
The scratching of pens ceased for an instant — 
one of the men looked up, pointed with his pen 
to an inner door, and went on writing again. In 
the inner room the child found a handsome 
bearded gentleman alone, and very busy writ- 
ing. She stood for some time a little inside the 
door, expecting that he would look up. He 
seemed, however, as unconscious of her pres- 
ence as if she did not exist. 

"Please, Sir!" said Sister Anne, after waiting 
to be spoken to as long as she thought was rea- 
sonable. 

The gentleman looked quickly up. 

"What can I do for you?" said he, kindly 
enough, but still looking as if he wished that she 
had not interrupted him. 

"Please, Sir," said the intruder, "I'm Fil- 
bert !" 

This singular announcemen seemed to cause 
immense surprise to the editor of the Aloe. He 
opened his eyes very wide, and looked with an 
incredulous smile at the childish figure before 
him. 

"You Eilbert!" he cried. "You the author 
of those charming poems that have appeared 
from time to time in the Aloe? why it's impos- 
sible ! You can't be more than fourteen !" 

"I'm fifteen," answered Sister Anne, "and 
indeed, Sir, I'm Filbert." 

" Sit down," said the editor, " and tell me 
what I can do for you." 

Sister Anne took a seat, and put her hand 
her pocket, from which she extracted a paper 
bundle. " Here," she said, "are ten more poems, 
Sir. I think they are as good as the first ones." 

The editor took them with a smile, glanced 
at the handwriting, seemed convinced of the 
little authoress's identity, and said : 

"Who taught you to write such charming 
poetry ?" 

"I don't know, Sir," answered Sister Anne, 
flushing, " but I think I learned it in the fields, 
and from the birds and trees." 

"And your name is — " 

" Anne Plymott, Sir. I live on Long Isl- 
and, but I have come to New York to see if I 
can earn some money by writing." 

"It's a hard trade," answered the editor, 
gloomily. 

"All trades are hard," said Sister Anne, with 
a hopeful smile, " but people succeed in making 
money by them." 

"Yes," answered the man of letters, "but a 
cabinet-maker has a better chance than a book- 
maker. There is a greater call for mahogany 
than for mind." 



" But my poems are surely worth something," 
said the innocent, with a confident glance. 

" Of that there is no doubt. But you won't 
get any one to give you any thing for them." 

"What!" exclaimed Sister Anne. "Don't 
you pay for poetry ?" 

" My dear young lady," answered the editor 
of the Aloe, " we only pay for news and valuable 
matter." 

" So you won't pay me for any of my poems ?" 

" It would, I assure you, be a deviation from 
our established rule." 

" If they are not valuable, why, then, did you 
publish them?" asked Sister Anne, with un- 
taught logic. 

"Because we thought them good, and some 
of our readers like good poetry." 

"Then if your readers like it, it is worth pay- 
ing for." 

The editor of the Aloe smiled compassionate- 
ly at this innocent poetess, who expected to re- 
ceive money in return for her labor and her 
mind. It was certainly a very absurd expecta- 
tion. 

" Give me my poems, Sir," said Sister Anne, 
very brusquely, "I can't afford to give them for 
nothing." 

"And we can't afford to buy them," answer- 
ed the editor, very courteously handing back the 
bundle of manuscript. 

Sister Anne bowed majestically, took her 
bundle, and stalked indignantly out of the of- 
fice. When she got into the street, however, a 
sick, hopeless sensation seemed to crawl over 
her heart. All her anticipations were destroy- 
ed at a single blow. The poems which she had 
labored at in secret, and which, when she saw 
them published, had given birth to such wild 
hopes, were then of no actual value, and all her 
expectations of making money and supporting 
herself were at an end. She would have given 
worlds to have gone back into the office, and 
asked the editor's advice as to what she should 
do, but her pride was wounded, and she would 
not stoop to ask a favor of one who she thought 
had treated her so badly. Oh ! if she could 
only meet Mr. Stephen Basque. So she walk- 
ed on through the crowded streets, where she 
was jostled and pushed about by the eager 
throng of people, each bent on the same money- 
getting errand as herself; and she rested a lit- 
tle in one of the parks, and took a cheap meal 
in a restaurant, which consumed all her remain- 
ing money except a few cents, and then as even- 
ing came on, she felt as if she would gladly have 
encountered death sooner than face the great 
heartless city by night. 

Poor Sister Anne was completely bewildered. 
What was she to do? No friends, no money, 
no place to sleep. It was terrible ; and she now 
began to regret having stalked off so majestically 
from that practical editor who would not pay 
for poetry. 

She was looking in through the window of a 
brilliantly lighted print-shop, and admiring the 
splendid engravings, in spite of the tears that 



SISTER ANNE. 



95 



stood in her eyes, when she observed a young 
man stop and look at her very attentively. It 
was not difficult to frighten Sister Anne now. 
It was night, and her friends the birds, however 
bold by day, were timorous indeed at night, and 
she was like them ; so the steady gaze of this 
young man alarmed her. She immediately 
moved away, but to her great dismay he follow- 
ed, and presently addressed her. He said that it 
was a beautiful night, but Sister Anne only 
quickened her pace. He next ventured on a 
remonstrance about her running away so quick- 
ly from him, and coolly passed his arm under 
hers. Poor Sister Anne thought she would 
sink into the earth. 

" Go away ! Please to go away, Sir !" she 
cried, half fainting. " I don't know you ! I 
don't wish you to follow me !" 

"But really I can not be so ungallant as to 
let you walk alone," said the young man, per- 
tinaciously. " Pray let me see you home." 

*• I have no home I" cried Sister Anne, in an 
agony of fear. 

". Oh, ho !" cried her companion ; " so that's 
it. Let me offer you one, then." 

"Oh !" murmured the poor girl, "if Stephen 
Basque was only here !" 

"Who calls for Stephen Basque?" said a 
passer-by, suddenly catching the words, and 
stopping. 

"I — I!" cried Sister Anne, rushing toward 
the new-comer. "Do you know him?" 

"Why, Sister Anne! Is it possible that 
this is you?" cried Stephen himself, winding 
a protecting arm around her. "What's the 
row?" 

" That man — that man !" sobbed Sister Anne, 
pointing to a respectable-looking, fat old gentle- 
man, who had just stopped, attracted by the 
scene. 

Stephen marched up to him instantly. 

"What did you mean, Sir," said he, "by in- 
sulting this lady ?" 

"Me!" exclaimed the man. "I never saw 
her before in my life !" 

"Oh, it isn't him!" cried Anne, who by this 
time had recovered her senses ; then looking 
round for the true delinquent, it was found that 
he had vanished. Stephen, of course, offered 
his apologies to the bewildered old gentleman, 
and explained the mistake ; then making Sister 
Anne take his arm, he burst through the little 
crowd that had already formed around them, 
and marched up the street. 

" I knew you were in the city," he said to his 
companion, as soon as they were clear of the 
throng: "the editor of the Aloe related to me 
a curious interview he had with you to-day. 
Where are you staying?" 

"Nowhere," said Sister Anne, red with 
shame. 

"Why, how is that?" 

"I have no money. I expected to be paid 
for my poems," and the poor child sobbed bit- 
terly. 

" That, indeed, was expecting much. So 



you really wrote those delightful poems ! Why, 
Sister Anne, or Filbert, you are a genius !" 

"That's very little good to me if I can't 
make money," said Filbert, still sobbing. 

"Not by poetry, certainly. But has it never 
entered your little head that there is a style of 
composition named prose. People always pay 
for prose." 

Sister Anne lifted her head. There was a 
gleam of hope in this. 

"Do you think I could write prose?" she 
said, timidly. 

" If you try hard, I think you might. I know 
a very respectable old lady who keeps a nice 
boarding-house in Fourth Avenue. You shall 
go there to-night. In the morning I will see if 
I can not get some newspaper to give you an 
engagement to write some pretty country sketch- 
es. You can call them ' Dried Leaves,' or some 
other vegetable title, and they will be sure to 
succeed." 

" Sister Anne said nothing, but gratefully 
pressed Stephen's arm; and that night, when 
she was installed at old Mrs. Britton's boardino-- 
house, she blessed the young fellow with a vir- 
gin prayer. 

So, after all, Sister Anne staid in New York, 
and set up for herself. Stephen got her an en- 
gagement on the Weekly Gong, and very soon 
some sensation began to be created by her se- 
ries of sketches entitled "Lichens," under the 
signature of " Matilda Moss." She was paid for 
these tolerably well, and had the triumph of 
writing home to her family that she was now 
supporting herself. 

After she had been six months in the city, 
and had been asked to Miss Ransack's literary 
soirees, and actually was on the eve of publish- 
ing a book, Stephen Basque came into her room 
one day with dancing eyes. 

"Filbert!" he cried, "I want you to come 
and pay a visit with me." 

"Where?" said Filbert, raising her head 
from her desk on which she was writing. 

"At a lady's," answered Stephen, with an 
exulting smile. 

" What lady's ?" and Sister Anne felt a fore- 
shadowing of evil. 

"Well, Filbert, the fact is, I'm going to be 
married, and — Why, Filbert, what's the mat- 
ter ?" 

Poor Filbert was as pale as death. She bent 
her head over her desk, and her whole frame 
quivered. Poor child ! she had loved the young 
fellow silently for two long years, and now he 
was going to take another to be his darling. It 
was very hard for her to bear. 

"Filbert! are you ill?" cried Stephen, lifting 
her head gently. 

"No, no!" she cried impatiently, shrinking 
from his touch. "It was only a pain produced 
by stooping so long. I am ready, Stephen ; let 
us go and see your bride!" And Sister Anne 
rose with a steady countenance, and proceeded 
to put on her bonnet. 

"You will not have to go far," cried Stephen, 



96 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



with a strange, joyous twinkle in his eyes. " She 
is waiting round at my studio." 

" Come !" said Sister Anne, marching to her 
martyrdom with sublime resolution. "Tell 
me, Stephen, is she pretty ?" 

"Lovely as the dawn!" 

"Young?" 

" About seventeen." 

" Clever !" 

"Well, yes. She is rather silent, however, 
but she looks intellectual." 

" May God bless you and her !" cried Sister 
Anne, clasping his hand convulsively as they 
reached the door of the studio. 

"Amen!" answered Stephen fervently, re- 
turning the pressure. 

The door opened and they entered. The 
room was empty. 

" She is gone — tired of waiting perhaps," 
murmured poor Anne, with a sigh of relief. 

"No, she is behind this curtain," answered 
Stephen, stepping up to a red merino curtain 
that hung across one side of the studio. "Fil- 
bert, allow me to present to you Miss Anne 
Plymott." 

He drew the curtain suddenly aside, and lo ! 
there in a huge gold frame, Filbert saw a full- 
length portrait of herself. She uttered a cry of 
joy and running to Stephen, hid her blushing 
cheeks on his breast. 

"You surely are not surprised, Filbert?" said 
Stephen, half reproachfully. 

" I am," she answered. " I never dreamed 
of being so happy. What made you paint this 
picture, though?" 

"It was my way of asking you whether you 
would have me. You have not answered yet 
though, Filbert ?" 

Filbert took the young artist by the hand, 
and leading him up to the picture, said, " There, 
Sir, is your bride. Why don't you kiss her ?" 

" True," said Stephen, " I forgot that ;" but 
instead of kissing the picture he kissed the orig- 
inal, who screamed a little, blushed more, called 
him hard names, and then nestled up closer to 
him than ever. 

"Filbert," said Stephen after a pause, "I in- 
tend to ask the editor of the Aloe to be my 
bridesman." 

" I consent," cried Filbert gayly. "If he had 
paid me for my poems I should not have met 
you that night, and — " 

"I should not have painted your picture !" 
" Tell your friend the editor, Stephen, that I 
have forsaken poetry for ever." 
" But you have not — " 
" I have. Am I not going to be married ?" 



BELLOT. 

HIS ADVENTURES AND DEATH IN THE ARCTIC 
REGIONS. 

TVTOW that Dr. Kane has returned safe, 
-Li the history of another heroic explorer of 
the Arctic desert is interesting without being 
cruel to relate. It will be remembered by all 
who felt an interest in the American Arctic 



expeditions, that when Dr. Kane decided to 
undertake his last voyage, he was left free to 
select his officers and a crew. It was a mat- 
ter of great importance that the former, espe- 
cially, should be men on whom reliance could 
be placed. Dr. Kane, after due reflection, of- 
fered the post of second in command to a young 
French naval officer, Lieutenant Bellot. Had 
that offer been accepted, the people of New 
York would doubtless have been engaged at 
the present time in the pleasing task of feting 
one of the noblest and most promising young 
men this century has produced. It was de- 
clined; and instead of honors and fame in 
America, an obelisk of granite on the banks 
of the Thames bears testimony to the virtues 
and the services of Bellot. 

His is a very simple story. Some eighteen 
years ago, a poor blacksmith, living at Roche- 
fort, on the Charente, discovered that his son 
Joseph was a boy of unusual talent. It was 
the father's dearest wish that the boy should 
go to school and college ; but, after many an 
anxious calculation, he found that he could not 
possibly afford it. The blacksmith had almost 
given up hope, when the City Government gen- 
erously offered to defray the expense of the 
lad's education. Deeply grateful for the boon, 
young Joseph Rene Bellot entered college ; 
wrought as boys will work when their object is 
really the acquisition of knowledge ; became, 
at twelve years of age, a sort of tutor to an idle 
schoolfellow; and with his first twenty-franc 
piece in his hand, ran to his father — "Here, 
father, you said we must put by money for 
your journey to Paris : here are twenty francs." 
Through college with honor; then to Brest, 
where, after the usual probation, he embarked 
on board the corvette JBerceau, an eleve de ma- 
rine, assigning half his meagre pay to his family. 
"I must keep watch over myself," wrote this 
lad of eighteen in his private journal, " or I 
shall fall into the greatest sloth. The desire 
of showing gratitude for all that has been done 
for me, ought of itself to constitute a very suffi- 
cient motive for me. Ought I not also to re- 
flect that I am destined to support a numerous 
and beloved family, of whom I am the sole 
hope ? I am considered ambitious, it is true ; 
but is ambition ignoble ? Perhaps there is too 
much self-love in all my schemes. ... I too 
often forget what I have been ; I do not reflect 
that my father is a poor workman with a large 
family ; that he has made great sacrifices for 
me." This, be it noted, when his captain was 
reporting him as an officer "whose post was 
wherever there was a good example to follow 
or a danger to brave ;" when he was leading the 
sailors and being wounded at the attack on 
Tamatave; when the government of Louis Phi- 
lippe was creating him a chevalier of the Legion 
of Honor. Very soon, the admiral of the station 
bearing witness that he was " the most distin- 
guished eleve under his command for his high 
intelligence, his character, and his conduct," he 
! obtained a step, and made his second cruise to 



BELLOT. 



97 



the coast of South America as enseigne or pass- 
ed midshipman. 

A sorry life, however, that of an enseigne cle 
vaisseau in peace time, for a young man who was 
" considered ambitious." He had long thought, 
he wrote to a friend on his return to France, of 
a voyage to the Polar Seas ; and by way of pre- 
paring his body for the climate, had slept all 
winter without a blanket. Lady Franklin was 
fitting out an expedition of her own to continue 
the search for her lost husband. Bellot — burn- 
ing with enthusiasm and admiration for so hal- 
lowed an enterprise — obtained permission from 
the French Minister of Marine, and volunteered 
as second in command on board her vessel, the 
Prince Albert. Lady Franklin visited, and all 
obstacles overcome, the young officer wrote, 
like an old Koman, to his family: "I recom- 
mend to you courage rather than resignation." 
On the 3d June, 1851, the Prince Albert weighed 
anchor at Stromness, and Bellot took his leave 
of Lady Franklin, who could only say in her 
tears, "My poor boy, take care of yourself!" 

The Prince Albert was a small schooner, ill 
rigged, and ill built. She pitched and tossed 
so violently that Bellot, though an old sailor, 
complained that he invariably got out of his 
berth bruised and aching. Her captain, Mr. 
Kennedy, of the Hudson Bay Company's serv- 
ice, was a man of remarkable energy and large 
experience. His religious faith and piety ap- 
peared wonderful to the young Frenchman. 
His ultimate aim in life was to found a fishing 
establishment on the coast of Labrador, not so 
much to catch fish as to convert the natives. 
When Bellot began to copy the official instruc- 
tions which had been given to Captain Ken- 
nedy, he noticed with surprise that they were 
interleaved with prayers ; and inferred that the 
writer knew it was the only way of making the 
reading of the document attractive to the cap- 
tain. The boatswain, Grate, was likewise some- 
thing of a theologian : he had a theory of his 
own about Judas Iscariot, whom he considered 
to be a much-injured man ; and assured Bellot 
that a new translation of the Bible was need- 
ed, as was evident from such phrases as that 
about " passing through the eye of a needle," 
where "camel" had evidently been substituted 
ignorantly for "cable." Bellot himself had a 
deep sense of religion. He was not a strict 
Catholic, and in his journal often expresses 
his admiration for the Protestant belief. On 
board ship he read a sermon to the crew every 
Sunday; when left in charge exacted Sab- 
bath observance as strictly as Kennedy himself, 
and set the example by devoting the day to re- 
ligious study and prayer. The men were all 
earnest in their religious belief, and steady, 
good hands. The young Frenchman soon be- 
came a favorite among them, and all vied in 
trying to win his regard. 

At first he had much bodily suffering to en- 
dure. Teetotalism was the rule of the expedi- 
tion — a very irksome one to the young French- 
man, who had been always used to drink wine I 



at meals. To train his body to hardship, he 
slept almost without covering on a bed with a 
single apology for a mattress. His eyes, which 
had always been weak, were attacked by oph- 
thalmia, and for many weeks he expected that 
the disease would terminate in blindness. No 
one had tKought of providing acetate of lead, 
which alone could cure him. Happily the en- 
ergy of his mind enabled him to surmount 
these ills, and not only to perform his duty 
with alacrity, but to write up his journal in a 
cheerful tone. 

Nineteen days' sailing and tossing, and they 
sight Cape Farewell, the most southerly point 
of Greenland. Then — as the schooner enters 
Baffin's Bay — calmer seas, and plenty of ice in 
bergs and sheets. "The first berg" he sees 
"looks like a light block of ice," and he is 
disposed to think the crew are hoaxing him. 
" Wait a while," say they, " we are ten miles 
from it yet." Two hours afterward he calls it a 
mountain, and shudders as it passes the vessel. 
They soon become familiar neighbors. Huge 
masses, half a mile long and twice as high as 
the vessel, seem to wage incessant warfare with 
their mother, the sea, which roars and " charges 
them, spreading over them like a tongue of 
flame ;" they, meanwhile, " proud and insensi- 
ble children, resist without flinching ; sustained 
by their imposing mass, they brave the impo- 
tent attempts of their angry mother." Others, 
less solidly built, " oscillate under the shocks 
like drunken men, but like those habitual drunk- 
ards to whom a familiar want has imparted an 
instinct of equilibrium, they always recover 
their centre of gravity." Some bergs fly the 
combat, and seek refuge in shallows near the 
shore. One, near Cape Farewell, has stood ten 
years in the same spot, aground, and bids fair 
to rival the land in longevity. Fancy exhausts 
itself in seeking comparisons for their shapes. 
Here is an island with creeks, bays, promonto- 
ries ; there a gigantic tent, from which one ex- 
pects every moment to see the Ice-King emerge 
to welcome the visitor ; on this side a splendid 
architectural pile ; on that a colossal ruin, with 
toppling wall and shattered tower. 

Through these the Prince Albert picks her 
way to Uppernavik, the great rendezvous for 
Arctic explorers. Commander Hartstein's re- 
cent narrative has made every body familiar 
with the ladies of Uppernavik, who dance so 
well in breeches. M. Bellot was not so favor- 
ably impressed by them as our countrymen. He 
visits an Esquimaux hut, and with the help of 
a by-stander crawls through the door, which is 
two feet high. The first thing he sees is " half 
a seal, from which the fat has been removed, 
but the bloody flesh remains, trampled under 
foot, at hand whenever the inmates of the lint 
feel disposed to eat." On one side is " an old 
woman, nearly blind, with grizzly locks, bare- 
legged and bare-armed, sewing skins. Her red 
eyelids, contrasting with her bistre skin, seem 
more prominent from her extraordinary lean- 
ness. At the further end a young woman, near- 



98 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ly naked, is suckling a naked child Two 

lamps, fed with fetid oil, do the double service 
of lighting and warming the apartment. There 
is no opening for the escape of smoke. A sin- 
gle hole near the entrance, glazed with thin in- 
testinal membranes, alone allows it to be seen 
that there is an outer world." The young 
Frenchman gasps, rushes out, and wonders how 
human beings can live in such a condition. 
Poor creatures ! They of Uppernavik, in their 
filthy hovel, are incomparably better off than 
the rest of the race. The Hudson Bay Com- 
pany's hunters often find them dead, evidently 
of hunger. One camp has been seen contain- 
ing fourteen corpses. One of them, that of a 
man of strong build, was whole; the others 
were stripped of flesh, showing how the sur- 
vivor had sustained life until even cannibalism 
failed him. An old Esquimaux told Captain 
Kennedy, with tears, that he had last winter 
"eaten his wife and children, having nothing 
else left." 

In point of intellect they are far inferior to 
the more southern tribes of Indians. Though 
they can draw an accurate representation of a 
ship, and seem to enjoy music exceedingly, they 
have never learned English from the whalers 
they meet so often. With singular stupidity for 
woodsmen, they will kill game at all seasons 
and in reckless profusion, excusing themselves 
by saying that they seek to be revenged on the 
deer or fowl because they were so scarce last 
season. Though without religion, they are 
blindly superstitious. When an Esquimaux 
who was picked up at sea returned to his fam- 
ily, they took him for a ghost, asked him what 
he wanted, and would have nothing to say to 
him. On one occasion a trader in the Hud- 
son Bay Company's service was much annoy- 
ed by the Esquimaux dogs. He summoned 
their owners, and told them gravely that on 
such a day God would cross the river at the 
Post, but that he had an insurmountable objec- 
tion to dogs. The Esquimaux went out imme- 
diately and killed all their dogs. When the day 
came they assembled to meet the " Great Spir- 
it," but as it happened to be very bad weather, 
the knavish trader informed them that he had 
postponed his visit for the present, and they 
went away satisfied. 

Sir John Franklin's story of the old Esqui- 
maux affords a criterion of their intelligence. 
The Indian was asked how old he was, but said 
he did not know. Sir John then asked him, 
"How old were you when guns were intro- 
duced?" "Oh, I had long left off hunting 
when this old man's grandfather was alive ! I 
was a man almost before he was born." " Well, 
then, at the time the whites settled here?" 
(thirty years before.) " I was as old as I am 
now." 

On leaving Uppernavik the Prince Albert 
steered to the north, and fell in with De Haven's 
ships in Melville Bay. Bellot now began to 
experience the delights of Arctic navigation. 
Every second day the ship was locked in the ice. 



They sailed north, south, and west, in the hope 
of finding a passage through the pack, but in 
vain. " Net results of the cruise," says he, in 
his journal, " nothing but obscure and inglorious 
dangers, in return for many tribulations." In- 
tercourse with the Americans is his only solace. 
He likes them; discovers that the word "im- 
possible" is not in their dictionary, and derives 
useful information from Dr. Kane on every sub- 
ject started in conversation. They — Kennedy, 
Kane, and Bellot — spend many a pleasant day 
together roaming over the ice, and many a 
queer adventure do they relate of those merry 
cruises. " I must admit," says Dr. Kane, in his 
book on the Grinnell Expedition, " on the evi- 
dence of my shipmates, that, treated as a group, 
the effect is unique of a couple of human beings 
slipping heels up on an ice margin, while they 
are holding up a third by the strap of his shot- 
pouch." The couple were Kennedy and Kane; 
the hero of the shot-belt poor Bellot. But 
even these pleasures are short-lived. De Ha- 
ven resolves to try to find a northern passage 
round the pack to Lancaster Straits. Leask, 
the sailing master of the Prince Albert, de- 
termines more wisely to seek a southern chan- 
nel. The new friends part with many expres- 
sions of regret. Bellot is inconsolable at the 
loss of Kane ; how the latter esteemed the 
young Frenchman we know from his published 
work and his subsequent offer to him. 

The labor of crossing the pack was prodi- 
gious. It was twenty miles wide, and not an 
hour elapsed during the passage without an 
alarm that the ship would be caught. Bellot, re- 
stored in health, works like a galley-slave with 
the men ; he " can not see men straining all 
their strength and not give them a hand." They 
get through at last, and sight the western shore 
of Baffin's Bay. Esquimaux board them ; their 
hearts sink when they hear there is no news 
of Sir John. On they push, through loose ice 
and clear water, into Lancaster Sound, and 
thence into Prince Regent's Inlet. They had 
intended to advance as far as Griffith's Island, 
but the ice blocked the way. The next best 
thing was to explore the shores of Prince Re- 
gent's Inlet, and to this they devote their ener- 
gies. Many days they toss about from side to 
side, watching for an opportunity to reach Port 
Leopold, where provisions and letters had been 
left for Franklin. 

An occasional bear-hunt relieves the monot- 
ony of their life. They had seen bears before 
in Baffin's Bay, and chased them. One brute, 
which seemed as large as an ox, yawned at their 
approach, and stared at them in surprise till a 
bullet informed her of their business. Not 
judging proper to fight, she scampered off with 
wonderful agility over the moving pieces of ice. 
Occasionally they will take to the water, dive 
toward a boat, and knock a hole in it with their 
paws ; on which occasions the roles are reversed 
and the bear becomes the hunter. Another day, 
when they were in company with De Haven's 
vessels, Kennedy, Dr. Kane, and Bellot discov- 



BELLOT. 



99 



er a bear on an iceberg. In great excitement 
the three sailors divide into two parties, and run 
round the berg in opposite directions, so as to 
catch the bear between two fires. Bellot, who 
is so agitated that he hardly notices it when he 
falls into the water, comes within sight of the 
animal at a distance of a hundred yards. There 
he sits on his rump, looking queerly at the ships, 
sniffing the scent of flesh, and wagging his tail 
in a meditative way. Bellot has no powder- 
flask, and therefore resolves to fire at shorter 
range. While he advances, however, Kennedy, 
on the other side, lets fly, and the bear starts. 
Unable to contain himself Bellot fires too, and 
all give chase at top speed. Away goes the 
bear, running by leaps like a greyhound, and 
though the men do not spare themselves, the 
distance between them increases very rapidly. 
In a few minutes, in fact, Bruin is out of harm's 
way, and the baffled hunters have the satisfac- 
tion of perceiving by his tracks that he had not 
hurried himself, but had fled leisurely. Bellot 
is consoled by Dr. Kane, who assures him that 
the bear gave a little jump when he fired, and 
that the wound will probably prove mortal. 

In the Inlet they are more successful. A 
bear is seen swimming across the bay. The 
boat is instantly launched, and pulls toward him 
so as to cut off his retreat. In a few minutes 
a couple of guns are fired, and Bruin bobs under 
water. But there are no ice lumps round which 
he can dodge. The boat lies quietly across the 
track he must take to reach the shore, and the 
distance between it and him is too great for the 
bear to reach them by diving. They watch, 
breathless, for the sight of a yellowish-gray tuft 
of hair on the surface. At last it reappears, and 
pop go the guns again. Down dives Bruin once 
more, steering in the direction of the boat. 
But, poor fellow ! he has nothing but water in 
his stomach, as they discover afterward, and 
four balls impede his agility. He must rise to 
breathe. The moment his head looms up, a 
fifth ball skips over the water, and puts an end 
to the battle. He is very fat, though he has not 
had a meal for some time, and measures eight 
feet six inches from snout to tail, and six feet 
four round the body. 

The hunters are not often as fortunate as on 
this occasion. Rarely will the bears allow them 
to approach within shooting distance ; and even 
when they do so, a couple of balls hardly dis- 
turb Bruin's composure. Nor are the seals easier 
to shoot. Bellot hunts them in the most ap- 
proved manner; crawls on hands and knees by 
the hour, sings his most siren-like songs; but 
it is all of no use ; the seal usually takes one 
look at him, then dives to unknown hiding- 
places. 

On the 9th September the schooner is only 
half a mile from land, and Captain Kennedy 
goes ashore in a boat to explore. He has hard- 
ly left the vessel when the wind veers round, 
and the ice begins to drive in a southerly direc- 
tion, carrying the ship with it. Away they drift, 
helplessly, leaving Kennedy and his men be- 



hind ; can not anchor till they reach Batty Bay, 
on the east shore of New Somerset. This ap- 
palling disaster rouses Bellot's courage. The 
moment the vessel is moored, he starts with 
three men to march to Leopold Island; but 
after great sufferings, a heavy snow-storm 
comes on, and they are forced to return to the 
vessel. Bellot's anxiety is intolerable. If Ken- 
nedy did not reach Port Leopold in three days, 
he is already dead of cold and hunger. If, hav- 
ing reached it, he has left it in search of the 
ship, the chances are fearfully against his find- 
ing it, and the same fate must befall him. Bel- 
lot sets out again with a party, better provided 
than before ; but the ice breaks under them, 
they narrowly escape drifting out to sea, and 
their stores and baggage are wet, and soon 
freeze solid. "With God's help," says Bellot, 
" we must make a third attempt." And so he 
does. The cold has deprived him of the sense 
of hearing, his feet and hands are covered with 
chilblains, he has pains in every limb ; but he 
gives the men no rest until they start once more 
on their perilous journey. This time they are 
successful. Kennedy has gained the shore, and 
Bellot finds him after three days' march. 

The Arctic night was already beginning, and 
the travelers had but little time to prepare for 
it. Banking up the ship's sides with snow, 
building store-houses, enlarging the cabins by 
removing all useless partitions, and providing 
for the entrance of fresh air into their close re- 
treat, occupied every moment. The thermom- 
eter soon fell to nearly 40° below zero, and tre- 
mendous snow-storms kept the voyagers close 
prisoners for days together in the cabin. When 
the storms abated, Bellot ventured on shore. 
Any thing so desolating as the prospect he 
there beheld he had never conceived. He had 
seen on his voyage to Uppernavik the glorious 
Arctic day, when for weeks together he could 
read all night without lamp or candle. The 
Arctic night had now begun. The sky wore a 
slaty hue, infinitely sad to behold. All objects 
at a little distance were confounded in a fune- 
real, leaden gray. The moon, seen through 
the pall of heavy snow, looked like a light shin- 
ing into a cellar through a loop-hole. Weary 
work it was to toil to the top of the ice-hills on 
the beach, and look vainly round for some ob- 
ject which might break the monotony of the 
endless snow, or to scan the southern horizon 
for the reddish gleam which would betoken the 
approach of day once more ! 

With the first return of twilight Bellot start- 
ed with a small party of men on an exploring 
excursion to Fury Beach. Nothing puzzled him 
so much as the optical delusions caused by re- 
fraction and the reflection of the snow. Objects 
twenty miles off seemed close by. A man raised 
his foot to step, as he thought, on a hillock, and 
found he had plunged into a hole. Another 
stepped off a hummock, apparently a few inch- 
es high, and tumbled ten feet. Dr. Kane re- 
lates that a party of sailors once saw, as they 
thought, a man of" gigantic height coming toward 



100 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



them ; they advanced to meet him, and found 
it was a bird. Bellot made mistakes as laugh- 
able on his way to Fury Beach. They reached 
Somerset House in safety, and found it precise- 
ly as it had been left by Sir John Ross. No 
trace of Franklin or his men. A second ex- 
cursion in a different direction had nearly 
proved fatal to the young Frenchman. He 
and his men were caught in a snow-storm and 
lost their way. It was so dark when they 
reached Batty Bay on their return home, that 
they could not see the ship or even the hills on 
shore, and for five hours they wandered about 
in the storm, ready to drop from exhaustion, 
and obliged, every five minutes, to stop and 
rub their faces with snow to prevent frost-bites. 
How they escaped perishing that night was a 
mystery to themselves. 

At length, on the 15th February, a hearty 
cheer from the crew welcomed the reappear- 
ance of the sun over the hills. From that hour 
all was bustle and preparation for the land jour- 
ney Kennedy and Bellot had planned, to occu- 
py the winter months. Early in March they 
started, with the bulk of the crew, and, as they 
considered, ample supplies of pemmican. They 
hoped that, if they did not fall in with Sir John 
Franklin or any of his men, they would at least 
meet with some Esquimaux who could give 
them information respecting him. Traveling 
southward from Batty Bay, they coasted New 
Somerset as far south as Brentford Bay ; then 
turned, crossed the land to the west shore of 
the promontory, and marched round to Cape 
Reserve, on its northwest extremity. But fate 
was adverse. They met no white men or Es- 
quimaux, found no traces, lost inestimable time 
through fogs, n and missed their way. Near Cape 
Walker they explore a virgin coast, which they 
proceed to baptize according to custom. The 
land is christened Prince Albert's Land, the in- 
let Grinnell's Inlet, and Bellot's own name is 
given to the cape on which they encamp. These 
are the only fruits of their expedition. 

One morning Mr. Webb discovers blue spots 
on his legs : fears it is scurvy. His companions 
rally him on so absurd a supposition, and pri- 
vately examine their own legs. Before long, all 
find the same evidence of the dreaded disease. 
Their provisions run short, owing to the delays 
they have experienced. Further explorations 
to the westward are abandoned, to the poignant 
grief of Bellot ; and their own fate becomes a 
matter of uncertainty. Tea and pemmican are 
doled out more sparingly. They begin to dream 
— as starving men always do — of sumptuous re- 
pasts, and see in fancy piles on piles of succulent 
viands. One or two out of the number find it 
very hard work to keep up with their comrades in 
the day's march. It is evident that they can not 
hold out much longer ; all idea of returning di- 
rect to the vessel is given up. In this trying po- 
sition, pious Kennedy — the greatest sufferer of 
the party — reminds Bellot that they are in the 
hands of Providence. " True," says the French- 
man, "but we must help ourselves." Not that 



Kennedy — as brave a fellow as ever stepped — 
needed such advice. In spite of his sufferings, 
he is the first to lead the way, and It is he at 
last who discovers a cache, or depot of provisions, 
at Cape M'Clintock. 

For three days after the discovery, the poor 
famished travelers do nothing but eat, drink, 
and sleep. Then they think of their legs, lay 
in lime-juice, and hobble about on crutches. 
By the end of May the strongest among them 
walk to the vessel, which has weathered the last 
two months in safety. June and July are spent 
drearily, nine-tenths of the crew being in the 
doctor's hands. August comes, and the Prince 
Albert is still fast in the ice. There is no time 
to be lost ; snow falls, and water freezes at night 
and sometimes in the day. Ice-saws and can- 
isters for blasting are called into requisition. 
The prospect of home gives strength and cour- 
age to the feeblest, and in a few days a passage 
through the ice sets the schooner at liberty. A 
little more labor, and in October, 1852, the 
Prince Albert anchors in the port of Aberdeen. 

It was a proud day for Bellot when the gen- 
erous people of England welcomed him home, 
and the Government signified officially its ap- 
proval of his conduct, and Sir Roderick Mur- 
chison addressed him words of thanks and com- 
pliment in the Hall of the Royal Geographical 
Society. A happy man was he as he hastened 
homeward to meet those dear friends who had 
never been absent from his memory for a day 
during his voyage, and whose names, coupled 
with touching expressions of love, occur in ev- 
ery page of his diary. Well might his father 
be proud of so gallant and so affectionate a son. 
All goes well with him now. The French Min- 
ister of Marine sends him his brevet of Lieu- 
tenant, and details him on the grateful duty of 
describing what he has seen. "I will write 
books," says he, "which shall be marriage-por- 
tions for my sisters." And he begins, accord- 
ingly, to prepare a narrative of his voyage for 
the press. 

But the idea that Sir John Franklin may still 
be wandering through the Polar wilderness 
haunts him. His patriotism revolts at the rec- 
ollection that France alone of the four great 
nations has done nothing for the cause of Arctic 
discovery. Friends assure him that if the mat- 
ter is properly stirred, the Government may yet 
consent to send an expedition to the Arctic seas. 
He determines to try. Hints — trial-balloons he 
called them— are adroitly thrown out in the 
newspapers, and one or two articles from his 
pen appear in the periodicals. When the pub- 
lic mind, as he judges, is prepared, he addresses 
the Minister officially on the subject. Shortly 
before, Dr. Kane had offered him the post of 
second in command on board the Advance, and 
he had declined it in the hope that he would 
succeed in his French scheme. Lady Franklin 
had proposed to him to take the command of 
the Isabella steamer ; and his old captain, Ken- 
nedy, had actually offered to sail under his or- 
ders to the Polar seas once more. But Bellot, 



EVERY INCH A KING. 



101 



with beautiful delicacy, feared that Lady Frank- 
lin's hold upon the mind of her countrymen 
might be weakened by an exhibition of so mark- 
ed a preference for a foreigner, and declined 
this offer likewise. The French Government 
was not convinced by his reasoning, and did 
not notice his suggestion. He then applied for 
leave to sail under Captain Inglefield in the 
Phenix, and this request was granted. 

The Phenix sailed in May, 1853. In August, 
on the eighth, he wrote a letter full of hope and 
spirit to his friend M. Emile de Bray, who had 
just volunteered on the same service on board a 
British man-of-war. He was then on board the 
Phenix in Erebus and Terror Bay. Captain 
Inglefield was absent, on a search for Captain 
P alien of the North Star. The latter returning 
during Inglefield's absence, Bellot conceived it 
to be his duty to set out in person to try to find 
Sir Edward Belcher, for whom he had Admi- 
ralty dispatches of the highest importance. He 
left the ship on the 12th, and proceeded in the 
direction of Wellington Channel. His own 
judgment would have prompted him to keep 
the middle of the channel ; but his captain's 
orders were to follow the coast at a couple of 
miles distance, and he obeyed them. On the 
night of the 14th he proposed to encamp on 
shore. Two of his men crossed from the ice to 
the coast in the India rubber canoe, and fixed a 
pass rope. Three trips were made in safety ; 
a fourth was about to be attempted, when the 
ice suddenly started and began to move. Bel- 
lot shouted to let go the rope, but before the 
men could obey, the floe had swept them out 
of reach. "I watched them," said Madden, 
one of the sailors who had landed, "from the 
top of a hill till I lost sight of them. M. Bellot 
was then standing on the top of the hummock. 
They seemed to be on a very solid piece of ice. 
At that moment the wind was blowing hard 
from the southeast, and it was snowing." "M. 
Bellot," added one of the men who was carried 
off with him, and was picked up afterward, " sat 
for half an hour in conversation with us, talking 
on the danger of our position. He said : ' When 
the Lord protects us, not a hair of our head 
shall be touched.' I then asked him what 
o'clock it was? He said, 'About a quarter 
past eight a.m.,' and then lashed up his books, 
and said he would go and see how the ice was 
driving. He had only been gone about four 
minutes, when I went round the same hum- 
mock under which we were sheltered to look 
for him, but could not see him. On returning 
to our shelter saw his stick on the opposite side 
of a crack about five fathoms wide, and the ice 
all breaking up. I then called out 'M. Bel- 
lot !' but no answer — at this time blowing very 
heavy. After this I again searched round, but 
could see nothing of him. I believe that when 
he got from the shelter the wind blew him into 
the crack, and his southwester being tied down 
he could not rise." 

When the Esquimaux heard of his death, 
they shed tears, and cried, " Poor Bellot ! 



Poor Bellot !" Two years before, he had seen 
an Esquimaux dragging himself painfully over 
the ice with a broken leg. To call the carpen- 
ter, give him directions to make a wooden leg 
for the Indian, and to teach him to walk with 
it, were matters of course' for the generous 
young Frenchman ; but they were unusual kind- 
ness for a white man to show to an Esquimaux, 
and the simple-hearted people remembered it, 
when they cried "Poor Bellot!" Had they 
known more of the world, their pity would have 
been bestowed upon us who have lost him. 

EVERY INCH A KING. 

A CENTURY ago there was a very "sick 
man," and wealthy withal, living upon the 
banks of the Ganges. England had set herself 
down to watch by the bedside of this invalid 
Indian gentleman, who was called the "Great 
Mogul," with a tender assiduity equaled only 
by that manifested by the Russian Czar toward 
the poor ailing Sultan of Turkey. One by one 
the possessions of this Indian invalid fell into 
the hands of his devoted watcher, who could not 
be reasonably expected to wait by his dying 
couch for nothing, 

When the Great Mogul finally died, such of 
his estates as had not been appropriated by En- 
gland were divided among his heirs. Among 
these was a fine territory, perhaps twice as large 
as England, called Oude, lying far up toward 
the Himalaya mountains, near the head-waters 
of the Ganges. This fell to the share of a gen- 
tleman named Asoph-ul-Dowlah, who bore the 
title of Nawab of Oude. 

His Highness the Nawab kept on the best of 
terms with his English neighbors, who kindly 
rendered him sundry services, for which they 
one day asked him to be good enough to pay 
them eight or ten millions of dollars. The 
Nawab protested that nothing would give him 
greater pleasure than to settle this little bill; 
but really he himself was quite out of funds ; 
there were, however, in his capital a couple of 
old ladies, the Begums, one the widow and the 
other the mother of his predecessor, who had a 
great deal more money than they knew what to 
do with ; the Begums, moreover, his Highness 
insinuated, were not as fond of the English as 
he himself was. Now if Mr. Warren Hastings, 
the Govern or- General of India, would make use 
of the proper arguments, there was no doubt 
that these old ladies could be induced to part 
with a portion of their spare funds. The argu- 
ments suggested by his Highness the Nawab as 
likely to prove efficacious, were of that stringent 
species by which the Inquisition is wont to con- 
vince obstinate heretics of the unsoundness of 
their theological dogmas. 

But Mr. Hastings was a very mild and gen- 
tlemanly personage, who could not think of ap- 
plying the rack and thumb-screws to the persons 
of two ladies of royal rank. He even had some 
scruples about shutting them up in their apart- 
ments, with a very limited supply of food. Still 
the money must be forthcoming; the Nawab 



102 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



had none, and the Begums had an abundance. 
Since Mr. Hastings objected to arguing the mat- 
ter personally with them, in the manner sug- 
gested, perhaps they might be convinced in 
some other way of the expediency of parting 
with their money. 

Where there is a will there is a way, is a prov- 
erb as true in India as in England. Among the 
attendants of the Begums were a couple of old 
men of that peculiar class from which Oriental 
monarchs have always chosen the guardians of 
their seraglios. The Begums reposed the ut- 
most confidence in these eunuchs ; and if they 
could be convinced that the money should be 
paid, very likely their mistresses would accept 
their conclusions, though they themselves had 
not felt the force of the arguments employed. 

Mr. Hastings could see no possible objection 
to this course. The favorites of the Begums 
were seized and shut up in the prison of Luck- 
now, the capital of Oude, where the proposed 
discussion took place. They were very obsti- 
nate, and for a long time refused to yield to the 
force of the arguments employed, which were 
pressed upon them in the most urgent manner, 
and in every possible shape. After a very long de- 
bate the eunuchs at length suffered themselves 
to be convinced. To make the assent of the 
Begums more certain, they had in the mean time 
been confined to their houses, and kept upon 
short allowance of food during the two months 
that the proceedings lasted. As had been an- 
ticipated, they were guided by the conclusions 
of the eunuchs, and agreed to surrender their 
treasures. Unfortunately, however, these were 
far less than had been anticipated. Though 
they gave up every thing they had, even to their 
common household utensils, the whole amount- 
ed to only three millions of dollars, hardly a 
third of what Mr. Hastings demanded. Still he 
managed to make this sum answer his immediate 
purpose ; he was enabled to pay his troops, and 
thus the British dominion in India was secured. 

It is painful to say that Mr. Hastings's con- 
duct was not properly appreciated at home. He 
was subjected to impeachment, and a long and 
vexatious prosecution ensued. A couple of 
gentlemen named Burke and Sheridan, at that 
time members of Parliament, took a prominent 
part in these proceedings against him, and an- 
imadverted in very severe terms upon his con- 
duct in this affair as well as others. If any 
reader wishes to know precisely what view they 
took of the transaction, he can be satisfied by 
referring to Professor Goodrich's admirable 
work entitled " British Eloquence." 

It is, however, consoling to reflect that Mr. 
Hastings was at length honorably acquitted; and 
when many years later, to borrow the language 
of Alison, "he was called from this checkered 
scene, his statue was, with general consent, 
placed among those of the illustrious men who 
had founded and enlarged the Empire of the 
East Bright indeed," exclaims the his- 
torian in a burst of enthusiasm, "is the mem- 
ory of the statesman who has statues erected to 



his memory forty years after his power has 
terminated." 

In the mean while his Highness the Nawab 
retained his friendship with the English, who 
lent him their armies to repel his enemies and 
keep his refractory subjects in order. It is 
doubtless pleasant for a monarch to be protect- 
ed by his neighbors, but it is not so pleasant to 
pay them for it. The Nawab found so many 
uses for all the money he could wring from his 
subjects, that he grew culpably remiss in his 
payments to the English, and suffered his in- 
debtedness to accumulate to a large amount. 
At length Lord Wellesley, who was now Gov- 
ernor-General, presented a formidable bill of 
arrearages ; and as there was no money in his 
Highness's treasury, and no more rich Begums 
to plunder, his Lordship suggested that the Na- 
wab should surrender a portion — say only about 
one half — of his territories to the English, on 
condition that his arrearages should be cancel- 
ed, .and an army maintained for him in future 
at their expense. "The Nawab," says Mr. 
Alison, "evinced the utmost repugnance to 
make the proposed cession ; but at length his 
scruples were overcome by the firmness of the 
British diplomatic agent, and a treaty was con- 
cluded by which his Highness ceded to the Brit- 
ish Government all the frontier provinces of 
Oude, containing 32,000 square miles, or three- 
fourths of the area of England." 

If the advantages to all parties were so great 
as appears from the statement of the philosophic 
historian, one can but wonder at the hesitation 
of the Nawab. "Though the revenue of the 
ceded districts," says he, " at the time of the 
treaty, was considerably less than the Nawab 
was bound to pay for the subsidiary force, yet 
the British Government was amply indemnified 
for this temporary loss by the value of the ceded 
districts, which soon arose to triple its former 
amount; while the native prince obtained the 
benefit of an alliance, offensive and defensive, 
with the Company, and a permanent force of 
13,000 men to defend his remaining territories; 
and the inhabitants of the transferred territories 
received the inestimable advantage of exchang- 
ing a corrupt and oppressive native, for an hon- 
est and energetic European, government." 

The next Nawab happened to be of an eco- 
nomic disposition, and as his army was maintain- 
ed for him at the charge of the Company, he 
contrived to save a large amount. The British 
Government in India has always been afflicted 
with a chronic want of cash. Longing glances 
were cast at the overflowing treasury of the 
Nawab. In consideration of the sum of ten 
millions of dollars, a barren tract, just con- 
quered from Nepaul by the English, was made 
over to Oude, and its ruler was invested with 
royal rank. His Highness Ghazi-u-deen thus 
became his Majesty the King of Oude, and 
would have been entitled to address Queen Vic- 
toria, the Emperor Nicholas, and Louis Napo- 
leon, had they then occupied their thrones, as 
his "good cousins." 



EVERY INCH A KING. 



103 



This took place in 1819. His Majesty Ghazi- 
u-deen enjoyed his regal dignity for eight years, 
during which he managed to fill his treasury 
again ; and then died, leaving his wealth and 
his dignity to his son Nussir-u-dcen, "the 
Refuge of the World," with whom we propose 
to make our readers somewhat acquainted — 
thanks to an English gentleman who had the 
honor of acting for some years as one of the 
household of his Majesty. 

This gentleman, who modestly refrains from 
affixing his name to his book, "The Private 
Memoirs of an Eastern King," happened to visit 
Lucknow, the capital of Oude, about a score of 
years ago. He was curious to see what an In- 
dian king was like, and solicited an audience 
from his Majesty. He was favorably received, 
and an intimation was given to him that there 
was a vacant post in the royal household very 
much at his service. 

Now the King of Oude, though an independ- 
ent monarch, with full power to act as he pleases 
toward his Indian subjects, is not allowed to 
have intercourse with Europeans without the 
consent of the English Government, which is 
represented at his court by a quiet gentleman 
with the modest title of "Resident." This 
gentleman being applied to, graciously con- 
sented that the King should take the new- 
comer into his service, upon condition that he 
should not intermeddle with affairs of state. 

He was soon honored with a private recep- 
tion in the royal garden. Taking his station 
bareheaded in the broiling sun, he awaited the 
approach of the King. His hands were crossed 
before him, the left palm supporting the right, 
which was covered with a cambric handkerchief, 
upon which rested five golden mohurs (a coin 
worth about eight dollars), by way of nuzza, or 
present, without which no one must come into 
the presence of an Eastern monarch. The 
King approached. He was a slight, dark- 
skinned, dark-eyed young man, dressed in Eu- 
ropean costume, black coat and trowsers, patent- 
leather boots, and round hat — very like a well- 
got-up lounger sauntering down the shady side 
of Broadway. 

He smiled as he approached his new servant, 
and touched the gold coin with the tips of his 
fingers, in token that he acknowledged the 
gift. 

u So you have decided on entering my ser- 
vice ?" he said. 

" I have, your Majesty." 

" We shall be good friends," was the reply 
of his Majesty, as he passed slowly on. 

The new servant put his money back into his 
pocket, for the offer of it was but a mere form, 
and followed his master into the palace, a rec- 
ognized member of the royal household. lie 
soon found that he was regularly installed as one 
of the five Europeans who were the King's spe- 
cial confidants. These Mere his Barber, his 
Tutor, the Captain of his body-guard, his Por- 
trait-painter, and his Librarian. He sedulous- 
ly avoids specifying which of these posts was 



the one filled by himself; but from intimations 
scattered here and there, we learn that it was 
neither of the three first above mentioned, and 
we have the choice between the two latter. We 
shall probably not err if we set our narrator 
down as Librarian to his Majesty. 

Eirst and " foremost of these five was the 
Barber. He was by all odds the greatest man 
in Lucknow. His power exceeded that of 
Rooshun, the native Prime Minister, his son, 
the Commander-in-chief, and Buktar Singh, the 
General of the army, or more properly, the Chief 
of the Police, all combined. What Oliver le 
Dain was to Louis XL, this Barber was to 
Nussir-u-deen. He was a fat, ungainly little 
fellow, who had been brought up as a hair-dresser 
in London. Pie came out to Calcutta as a 
cabin-boy, resumed his old profession, and after 
a while made his way up the river to Lucknow. 
It happened that the English Governor-General 
was blessed with a profusion of curling hair. 
Ringlets were of course the fashion all over 
India. The Resident at Lucknow was anxious 
that his lank locks should imitate the curls of 
the Governor; and, thanks to the skill of our 
knight of the curling-tongs, his desire was ac- 
complished. 

His Majesty was delighted with the trans- 
formation wrought in the appearance of the 
Resident, and submitted the straight wiry locks 
on his own royal head to the miraculous ma- 
nipulations of the Barber. His skill rose to the 
greatness of the occasion. The wiry locks as- 
sumed the form of cork-screws. The monarch 
was delighted, and the Barber was rewarded. 
The title ofSofraz Khan — " Illustrious Chief" — 
was bestowed upon him, with a salary sufficient 
to maintain his new dignity. There were no 
bounds to the honors heaped upon him. He was 
a regular guest at the royal table ; and was soon 
appointed purveyor of wines and beer to his 
Majesty. Not a bottle of wine — and the King 
was a great drunkard and jolly boon compan- 
ion — came to the table that was not purchased by 
the Barber, who also drank the first glass, to as- 
sure his master that it was not poisoned. He 
was, moreover, appointed superintendent of the 
royal park and menagerie, all the expenditures 
for which passed through his hands; and of 
course he made a liberal commission upon his 
business. Our narrator was present upon one 
occasion when he rendered his monthly ac- 
count, which amounted to nearly fifty thousand 
dollars. 

" Sofraz Khan is robbing your Majesty," sug- 
gested an influential courtier one day. 

" If I choose to make him a rich man, is it 
any thing to you?" was the royal retort. "I 
know his bills are exorbitant. Let them be so; 
it is my pleasure. He shall be rich." 

In India all purses are open to the King's fa- 
vorite. Every one who has a point to gain ex- 
pects to pay for it. What with bribery, the over- 
charges on his monthly bills, and his liberal sal- 
ary, it is no wonder that the Barber grew rich. 
When, a few years subsequent, he was forced 



104 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



to leave Lucknow, he took with him something 
like a million and a quarter of dollars. 

The King was very desirous of speaking En- 
glish, and valorously resolved to devote an hour 
a day to study ; and for that purpose he em- 
ployed a tutor with a salary of seven or eight 
thousand dollars a year. 

" Now, Master," he would say when the hour 
for study arrived, "let us begin in earnest." 

A few sentences would be read by the tutor, 
and repeated by his royal pupil. 

"Bobbery bopp, heigh-ho! This is diy work, 
Master. Let us have a glass of wine." And 
so the lesson would come to a close, at the end 
of ten minutes. 

Let us invite ourselves to dinner with his 
Majesty of Oude. Not one of the grand state 
dinners which he gives every month to the 
Resident and his officers; for these are dull 
affairs enough, as the "Refuge of the World" 
feelingly confesses. " Thank God they are all 
gone !" he exclaims, when his state-guests have 
departed. "Bobbery bopp, how stupid these 
things are ! Now let us have a glass of wine 
in peace !" and he tosses his jeweled cup to the 
other end of the room, like a school-boy just 
set loose. But our dinner is a select one, in a 
private apartment. The King occupies a gilt 
arm-chair slightly elevated in the centre of the 
table. The guests are placed on both sides of 
him, leaving the other side of the table unoc- 
cupied, so that his Majesty may have a full 
view of the entertainments with which the re- 
past is accompanied. His Majesty no sooner 
takes his seat than half a dozen female attend- 
ants glide noiselessly from behind a gauze 
screen. They are of rare beauty. The out- 
lines of their voluptuous busts and gracefully- 
rounded arms gleam dimly through a thin gauze 
covering, which is met at the waist by pyjamas, 
or Turkish trowsers, of crimson satin, whose 
full folds are confined at the ankles and waist 
by golden clasps. Their dark hair is thrown 
back, and twisted in fanciful folds, and orna- 
mented with pearls and silver pins. They are 
the favorites of his harem, and etiquette requires 
that we should not appear to be conscious of their 
presence. By a convenient fiction, they are sup- 
posed to be, now as ever, religiously secluded 
in the retirement of the zenana, invisible to the 
eyes of mortals of the other sex. They take 
their stations behind the King's chair waving 
long feathery fans, with a slow and graceful 
motion, above his head, or filling his hookah as 
it is exhausted, in perfect silence, regarding us 
apparently as little as we appear to regard 
them. 

The cook is a Frenchman, and has presided 
over the cuisine of the Bengal Club, which is 
sufficient warrant for the superlative quality of 
his dishes. The Barber has carte blanche as to 
the cost of the wines, and as he must partake 
of every bottle, we may be sure of the choicest 
vintages, and that they are iced to a charm." 

Mussulman though he be, the Refuge of the 
World has no scruples about partaking of the 



juice of the grape, notwithstanding the Prophet's 
stringent prohibition. He has a private inter- 
pretation of this original " Maine Law," which 
allows him the exercise of the largest liberty in 
the matter. " The Prophet could not have in- 
tended to forbid the use — only the abuse — of 
the fruit of the vine." 

The soups and curries, the fish and joints 
having been discussed, dessert is brought in. 
With it are introduced the dancers and singers, 
or whatever other entertainment has been pro- 
vided for the evening. The nautch-girls glide 
through the voluptuous mazes of the dance, the 
singers and players exhibit their best skill, the 
puppet-master works his automata as dexter- 
ously as he may. We have been told that some- 
times these refined entertainments do not afford 
his Majesty as much entertainment as is to be 
desired. He finds nothing new in them. The 
truth is, the Refuge of the World is blase'. It 
were worth any body's while to invent some- 
thing new for his amusement. The one who 
should do this would be richly rewarded, as 
happened one evening not many months ago. 

On that particular evening his Majesty took 
even less delight than usual in the dancing and 
singing, until a new performer was introduced. 
She was a girl from Cashmere, of wonderful 
beauty, with large dreamy eyes, and a figure 
like a Venus. She sang her native songs with 
a plaintive pathos which arrested the attention 
of his Majesty. 

" Shavash ! shavash ! Brava ! brava !" he ex- 
claimed. " You shall have a thousand rupees, 
Nuna, for this night's singing !" 

The more Nuna sang, and the deeper the 
King drank, the higher rose his admiration. 

"You shall have two thousand rupees," he 
cried, at the close of another song. 

A thousand dollars for singing a single even- 
ing! Truly America is not the only country 
where singers and dancers can coin their notes 
and poses into gold. Might it not be well for 
some of the artistes who leave us in disappoint- 
ment at the failure of their reasonable expecta- 
tion of making a half million in six months, to 
try their fortune at Lucknow ? 

"I will build you a house of gold, Nuna. 
You shall be my Padsha Begum, my Queen, 
some day," exclaimed the Refuge of the World, 
as his admiration and intoxication reached their 
climax. 

For a short time Nuna was the reigning fa- 
vorite. Many looked forward to the time when 
she should be regularly installed as chief wife 
to the King, and perhaps become the mother 
of a line of princes. Stranger things than this 
have happened in India. 

But soon the new toy lost its novelty. The 
King yawned when she sang, and interrupted 
her dancing by ordering a quail-fight. Nuna 
was in disgrace, and the attendants made up by 
scorn and insult for their former obsequious- 
ness. She appeared no more at the King's din- 
ner parties. Some said she had been given to 
one of the Begums as a slave. But nobody 



EVERY INCH A KING. 



105 



knew and nobody cared. In Oude a fallen fa- 
vorite has no friends. Perhaps it is otherwise 
with us. 

Our dinner, meanwhile, goes on swimmingly. 
As the Refuge of the World verges toward in- 
toxication he grows doubly affectionate toward 
us, his five European " friends." 

" I have always loved Europeans," he says, in 
a somewhat husky voice. "But the natives 
hate me. My family would poison me if they 
could. But they are afraid of me too. "Wal- 
lah ! how they do fear me !" 

c "Your Majesty has made them fear you," 
suggests the Barber. 

" So I have — so I have. You see the people 
of Lucknow fighting with each other, and kill- 
ing each other sometimes, don't you ?" 
"We do indeed, your Majesty." 
" But they don't touch you. No. The wretch- 
es know that I would exterminate them if they 
did. They know that I love the Europeans, 
and that makes them wary." 

The Refuge of the World is decidedly drunk. 
Two eunuchs assist the female attendants in 
carrying him away, and he disappears behind 
the curtain. "There is a divinity that doth 
hedge about a king;" and his Majesty Nussir-u- 
deen is every inch a king ; yet when he is drunk 
it is wonderful to see how much he looks like 
any other drunken fellow. 

His Majesty is very fond of playing chess, 
and draughts, and billiards ; but it is contrary 
to etiquette for any one to beat him, and as he 
is a very poor player, it needs all his opponent's" 
skill to avoid coming off conqueror. He likes 
to challenge us to play for a hundred gold mo- 
hurs, and as we must lose, his winnings would 
apparently make a sensible diminution in our 
incomes. But to do his Majesty justice, he does 
not often take advantage of his success. 

" You owe me a hundred mohurs," said he to 
his Tutor at the end of one of these games. 

"I do, your Majesty. I shall bring them 
this evening. 

" Be sure not to forget." 
Evening comes, and we five are as usual din- 
ing with his Majesty, for that has by this time 
come to be the regular custom. 

"Well, Master, have you brought the gold 
mohurs ?* inquires the King. 

" I have, your Majesty. They are below in 
my palanquin. Shall I bring them here ?" 

" Nonsense ! Keep them. Do you think I 
want them ?" 

Still it will not be quite safe for one who is 
not in favor with his Majesty to play for a high 
stake with him ; for he now and then takes it 
into his head to vex the officers of the Com- 
pany's army, for whom he has no great liking, 
by retaining his winnings. " Kings," said the 
Duke of Argyle, " are ticklish animals to shoe 
behind." They will sometimes give most un- 
expected kicks. 

His Majesty is fond of the royal sport of 
hunting, and not unfrequently makes grand 
excursions to the districts where game abounds. 



The villagers along the route are in the utmost 
consternation when the royal retinue approach- 
es. His servants plunder and maltreat them at 
pleasure. If it appears desirable that a new 
road be constructed, men, women, and children 
are turned out to make it, and the only pay 
they receive is blows and abuse, if their task is 
not executed as rapidly as is wished. 

Deer are sometimes hunted with the cheetah, 
a species of leopard ; this furnishes very ex- 
citing sport. They have also tame stags trained 
to hunt. These are taken to the skirt of the 
wood where wild deer abound. The boldest of 
the wild herd advance to meet the new-comers, 
with whom they soon become engaged in fierce 
conflict. So deeply engrossed are the combatants 
that they pay no attention to the Indian hunters, 
who creep cautiously behind the wild deer and 
hamstring them, rendering them powerless. The 
tame ones are then called off, and the poor vic- 
tims are ruthlessly butchered. This is a mode 
of hunting that is nowhere else, as far as we 
know, employed. 

Our narrator was present at one of these 
hunting expeditions, upon a scale of unusual 
magnitude. The King all at once grew weary 
of the sport, and returned to the capital in haste, 
leaving a part of his train behind. The villagers 
who had been plundered, took occasion to at- 
tack the half-deserted camp. When the tidings 
of this attack were brought to the King, his 
anger knew no bounds. 

" To think," he exclaimed, " of the wretches 
daring to lay their defiling hands upon the 
clothes worn by me and my wives! By my 
father's head, they shall pay for it !" 

" The NaAvab has seized some of the princi- 
pal offenders," said the Barber. 

In fact he had seized a dozen of the first 
villagers he encountered, though it was an even 
chance whether they were or were not concerned 
in the attack. The prisoners were brought up, 
each bound upon a rude stretcher, with his 
wounds undressed. 

" They shall die !" exclaimed the Refuge of 
the World, " every one of them. No power on 
earth shall save them." 

And they were all beheaded the same day, 
without the slightest inquiry into their actual 
participation in the assault. Justice is exe- 
cuted in a summary manner in Oude. Out of 
Lucknow jails are unknown. If a native is ap- 
prehended upon any charge, and the swearing 
is hard enough to make out a case, off goes his 
head at once. 

In his conduct toward Europeans, his Majesty 
of Oude stood in wholesome awe of the Resi- 
dent. But the life and fortune of the most 
powerful native was at the mercy of the slight- 
est momentary whim of the sovereign; and his 
moods were so capricious that no one could be 
sure of safety for a moment. 

After his European "friends," his prime fa- 
vorite was Rajah Buktar Singh, the general of 
his army ; or in strictness, the chief of the po- 
lice. He was not unfrequently present at the 



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pleasant little dinners, given by his Majesty, 
and entered into all the tricks of buffoonery 
with which the King solaced his royal leisure. 
Buktar Singh was to Nussir-u-deen what Beau 
Brummell was to George the Magnificent ; and 
like that audacious Dandy, he paid dearly for 
a harmless jest. 

It happened that at one of their jolly even- 
ings the King thrust his thumb through the 
crown of his European hat. 

"There's a hole in your Majesty's crown," 
said the Rajah, laughing. 

There had been disturbances at the time of 
his Majesty's accession, and he was sensitive to 
any allusion to the somewhat precarious tenure 
of the crown. The double-entendre in the word 
crown is the same in Hindustanee as in English. 
The King took the allusion in an offensive 
sense. 

" Ha ! did you hear the traitor? Seize him, 
and off with his head forthwith !" cried his Ma- 
jesty, dashing his hat to the ground, and stamp- 
ing upon it in his rage. 

"We heard it," said the Nawab, who was no 
friend to the General, and would gladly see him 
ruined. 

" He shall die ! No power on earth shall pre- 
vent his dying ! His head shall be cut off before 
it is dark !" 

By dexterously falling in with his humor, 
and adroitly insinuating that in case of such an 
insult the King of England would order the of- 
fender to be formally tried, the European at- 
tendants succeeded in inducing the King to 
postpone the immediate execution of the sen- 
tence. The Rajah was, however, thrust into pris- 
on ; all his rich garments were stripped off, and 
he was left naked, with the exception of a scanty 
rag tied about his loins. His aged father, his 
wives, and children, were subjected to the same 
treatment. The King was bent upon wreaking 
a common vengeance upon them all. 

In the mean while the English Resident had 
been induced to interfere. A hint was given 
to the Prime Minister that he would be held re- 
sponsible to the Company for the lives of the 
family of the Rajah. The Nawab was alarmed, 
and thought it expedient to intercede for the 
life of Buktar Singh as well. 

"Let it be so, then," said the King at last. 
"Let the traitor escape with life. But let his 
property be confiscated, and let him be kept in 
a cage in perpetual imprisonment. But he must 
be disgraced. Let his turban and dress be 
brought — his sword and pistols." 

According to Hindoo ideas any indignity of- 
fered to the turban is considered as endured by 
the wearer in person. A scavenger was sum- 
moned, and ordered to defile the turban and 
dress. The sword and pistols were broken into 
fragments. The Rajah had been subjected to 
a depth of ignominy and indignity for which 
there is no equivalent in our Western ideas. 

That evening "Nussir-u-deen" gave one of 
his pleasant little private suppers. Nobody 
spoke, or seemed to think of the fate of their 



late jovial associate the Rajah. The King quaff- 
ed his Champagne with even more zest than 
usual, and outdid himself in boisterous hilarity. 

A year passed and, no allusion was made at 
court to the fate of Buktar Singh. In the 
mean while the harvests had been deficient. In 
India a single bad harvest brings millions to the 
verge of starvation. Discontent arose; there 
were disturbances in the bazaars. Famine will 
infuse something like courage even into the 
feeble Hindoos. 

The Refuge of the World was alarmed. 
" There is evidently something wrong. I never 
knew the discontent continue so long before." 

The Nawab hinted something about the crops 
having been bad. 

" Bah !" exclaimed his Majesty. " Don't talk 
to me about the crops. I tell you there's some- 
thing wrong. What do you think about it, 
master?" 

"I think, your Majesty, there must be some 
mismanagement in the bazaars," replied the 
Tutor. 

" You are right. Let us go this very even- 
ing and inquire into it. Let us go in disguise. 
I will go too. It will be useful and agreeable." 

The whim took fast hold upon the royal mind. 
Go to the bazaars he would. A strong body of 
his attendants, disguised like the ordinary loung- 
ers of the place, were posted around. His Ma- 
jesty elbowed his way, all unknown, through 
the crowd, and listened, like another Haroun- 
al-Raschid, to the talk of the people. There 
was discontent enough. Every body was com- 
plaining. 

"Another attack npon the rice-stores this 
morning," said one. 

"Yes; one can't sell his goods for what he 
likes, without running the risk of having them 
destroyed." 

" Ah ! bad times, bad times ! It was not so 
once." 

" No ; when Rajah Buktar was minister he 
kept the bazaars in order." 

"Ah, yes ! so he did. Rajah Buktar kept the 
bazaars in order, as you say. Bad times these ! 
Bad times !" 

A new idea had entered the King's mind. 
There was discontent now; and in India no- 
body knows how soon discontent may become 
revolution. But when Buktar Singh was in pow- 
er there was no discontent. He kept the bazaars 
in order. A valuable man was the Rajah. 

In a couple of months from that day Buktar 
Singh had been taken out from his cage and 
re-instated in his old office. Royal favor wash- 
ed out the stain of the indignities he had en- 
dured. Luckily the next harvests were abundant, 
so that the Rajah found it easy to keep the 
bazaars in order, and was in higher favor with 
his master than ever. 

The native nobles could not be pleased at the 
favor enjoyed by the Barber and his European 
companions. The Nawab once thought that he 
had a fair occasion to supplant them. 

" It is not right for these gentlemen," said he. 



EVERY INCH A KING. 



107 



"to enter the royal presence with their boots 
on. Your father would never have suffered it." 

Now in the East it is a mark of respect to 
uncover the feet, as it is with us to bare the 
head. " Put off the shoes from thy feet," was 
the command to Moses, •"for the place upon 
which thou standest is holy ground." On the 
the contrary, to remove the turban is a mark of 
ignominy. " May my father's head be uncover- 
ed, if I do," is the strongest expression of dep- 
recation. 

The King saw the force of the insinuation of 
the minister, and met it effectually. 

"Am I a greater sovereign than the King of 
England ?" he asked. 

"The Refuge of the World is the greatest 
king in India. May he live a thousand years." 

"But am I greater than the King of En- 
gland ?" 

" It is not for your Majesty's servant to say 
that any one is greater than his lord," replied 
the courtier. 

" Listen to me. The King of England is my 
master; and these gentlemen would enter his 
presence with their boots on. But do they 
come into my presence with their hats on ? An- 
swer me that." 

"They do not, your Majesty. They remove 
their hats." 

" That is their way of showing respect. They 
take off their hats ; you take off your shoes. 
Now I will get them to take off their shoes, as 
you do, if you will take off your turban, as they 
do." 

Solomon himself could not have more effect- 
ually silenced the discontented minister. 

One of the favorite amusements at the Court 
of Oude is the fighting of various animals. Dog- 
fights, bull-fights, cock-fights, and the like hu- 
mane exhibitions are not so unusual even among 
us, that we can afford to plume ourselves over- 
much upon our superiority in this respect. But 
at Oude they have given their whole minds to the 
subject, and have attained a much wider range 
than we have done in the list of combatants. 
At the pleasant little dinner parties to which 
his Majesty has so often invited us, Ave have 
often seen the dishes and decanters removed, 
and a couple of partridges, duly trained and 
scientifically gaffed, set to fighting upon the ta- 
ble. When this contest has been decided, we 
can have pur choice of a quail-fight, a crow- 
fight, or a cock-fight upon the* same arena. 
These will serve to pass the time agreeably when 
the Refuge of the World is not in a humor to 
enjoy the performances of the dancing-girls. 

These are all pleasant after-dinner amuse- 
ments; but they are nothing to the grand en- 
tertainments got up on special occasions. As 
we are special favorites of his Majesty, we can 
have just what we please, by speaking a good 
word to our friend and associate the Barber. 
Shall it be a fight of antelopes or of camels, or 
of tigers, or of rhinoceroses, or of elephants, or 
shall any one of these animals be matched 
against any other? The beautiful little ante- 



lopes of the Himalayas, they tell us, afford cap- 
ital sport ; they make up in spirit what they lack 
in size and strength. A camel-fight is a disgust- 
ing affair. They are peaceful animals by na- 
ture, and when trained to fight, they do it with 
a bad grace. They stand for a while spitting 
their acrid saliva into each other's eyes, and then 
one manages to seize the long lip of the other 
in his teeth, and lacerates it fearfully; and after 
all, neither is injured except about the mouth 
and eyes. It put us somehow in mind of a fight 
between two women — spiteful enough, but dis- 
gusting even to the patrons of the ring. 

The rhinoceros is sometimes matched with 
the elephant, but it is a slow affair. Both 
animals are too unwieldy to make good sport. 
To be sure, should the elephant manage to throw 
the rhinoceros from his legs, he thrusts his tusks 
through and through him in fine style. But it 
is more likely to happen that the rhinoceros gets 
his snout between the elephant's fore-legs, and 
rips him up with a single jerk ; while the ele- 
phant can do no more than belabor his antago- 
nist with his trunk. After all, the rhinoceros is 
prevented by the elephant's protruding tusks 
from getting his head far enough under to reach 
a vital place, so that the chances are that nei- 
ther animal is seriously harmed. 

Much more exciting, and consequently a 
greater favorite with his Majesty, is a fight be- 
tween a rhinoceros and a tiger. It is a fair 
contest between strength and activity. It is 
worth while to see the tiger spring again and 
again upon his huge antagonist, and tumble to 
the ground, unable to fix his claws into his thick 
hide. But by-and-by, perhaps, the rhinoceros 
manages to get a chance for a dash with his 
horn at the tiger as he lies sprawling upon the 
ground, and this finishes the fight. Or perhaps 
the tiger by a fiercer spring than usual over- 
throws his antagonist by the sheer impetus of 
his leap. It is then all over with the rhinoceros. 
The mail-like covering that protects his back 
and sides is wanting on his belly ; and the tiger 
goes to work, with tooth and claw, upon this un- 
defended spot, and the entrails of the huge beast 
are soon strown over the arena. 

Quite different, but still more exciting, is a 
fight between two tigers. The antagonists have 
been kept for a few days without food or drink, 
in order to excite them to the last degree of 
ferocity. Their cages are set opposite to each 
other, so that each may get accustomed to the 
sight of the other ; for the tiger is a coward, and 
if brought unexpectedly into the presence of 
danger, is apt to slink away. But as they stand 
growling and snarling at each other, rage gets 
the better of fear, and they grow eager for the 
fight. Up go the gates of the cages, and both 
beasts leap out with a bound. Yet with the cat- 
like instinct of their race, neither approaches 
the other in a direct line. They go circling 
about, but in constantly diminishing rounds. 
Sudden as thought, one makes a spring. His 
antagonist is on the alert, and the two hrightly- 
streaked bodies are so interlaced that one can 



108 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



scarcely be distinguished from the other. At 
last, with jaws buried deep in each other's throat, 
and claws clenched in each other's shoulders, 
they rise upon their hind-legs, fast locked to- 
gether. What a straining and tugging and 
wrestling ! It is for life and death. The one 
who is thrown will probably lose his hold. One 
is down. Has he lost his hold? No! His 
jaws are set like a vice, while he strikes out 
furiously with his claws. The betting is fast 
and furious. It is an even chance, and each 
spectator has his favorite. Ha ! what a stroke 
was that ! The undermost beast has by a ran- 
dom blow sunk his claw into the eye of the oth- 
er, and drags it from its socket. Blinded and 
in agony, the other loses his hold and tries to 
break loose. In vain. The teeth of his antag- 
onist are too firmly fixed. Once or twice he is 
dragged around the circuit of the arena. Then 
with a spring the position of the creatures is re- 
versed. The victor thrusts one paw under the 
jaw of his victim, forcing the head still further 
back, in order to get a new and deeper hold of 
the throat. The victory is decided, and the 
King has bet on the wrong beast. He orders 
the tigers to be separated. Red-hot irons are 
thrust at them through the bars of the inclosure, 
which is filled with the sickening smell of burn- 
ing flesh. But it is no easy matter to make the 
conqueror relinquish his grasp. At length the 
torture overmasters his ferocity, and he sullenly 
retreats. The doors of the cages are opened ; the 
vanquished, torn and bleeding, creeps stealthily 
in and hides himself in the furthest corner, 
while the victor stalks proudly back to his own. 

A fight between two elephants is a grand af- 
fair, and is the favorite sport of our friend the 
King. That was a splendid fight exhibited a 
while ago in honor of a visit of the English 
Commander-in-chief. His Majesty has a hun- 
dred and fifty elephants, but the pride of the 
whole stud is a gigantic black fellow named 
Malleer, who has been victor in a hundred 
fights. He has now but one tusk, the other 
having been broken off, piece by piece, in 
his numerous combats. Malleer was matched 
against an opponent worthy of his prowess. The 
scene of the contest was an open park upon the 
banks of the narrow river. On the opposite 
side was one of the royal palaces, the terrace 
of which commanded a full view of the park. 
The elephants are brought into the park. A 
cord is passed over the back of each from the 
tail to the neck, to afford a hold for the Mahout 
who directs the fight. This is a post of danger 
as well as of glory ; but Nelson would as soon 
have abandoned the quarter-deck of the Victory 
at Trafalgar, or Perry have left the Niagara as 
she bore down upon the foe on Lake Erie, as a 
Mahout would forego riding his elephant into 
battle. 

The moment Malleer and his opponent caught 
sight of each other each flung his huge trunk 
and tail into the air, and trumpeting out a shrill 
note of defiance, rushed to the onset. Their 
heads came in contact, with a sound like the 



hammer of a pile-driver. Head to head, tusk 
locked in tusk, feet firmly braced, huge bodies 
writhing and swaying, the gigantic beasts pushed 
upon each other. The Mahouts were wild with 
excitement. Holding fast by one hand upon 
the rope, with the other they wielded their iron 
prods, hammering furiously away upon the skulls 
of the elephants, shouting and screaming at the 
top of their lungs. The victory hung in even 
scales. It seemed as though the victor of a 
hundred fights had found his equal, perhaps his 
superior. Not an inch was lost or won. It 
was the French and Russians at Eylau. Was 
the battle to be an Austerlitz or a Waterloo ? 
Slowly at last the scale began to incline. One 
foot of Malleer's opponent was raised dubious- 
ly : was it to advance or to retreat ? It was to 
retreat. The other foot was raised in like man- 
ner, and lowered to the rear. Malleer's Ma- 
hout saw the movement. More fiercely than 
ever he shouted — hammered more furiously. 
Malleer needed no incitement. Slowly but 
surely he pressed his opponent back, step by 
step, toward the river. Should he succeed in 
overthrowing him, his fate was certain. The 
one tusk would be plunged like a rapier into 
his side as he lay prostrate. Still he kept his 
feet ; but he could not hold his ground, nor 
turn to fly. Just as he reached the bank, he 
gave a sudden spring backward, and flung him- 
self bodily into the water. He was vanquished, 
though unhurt. Malleer stared in rage at his 
antagonist, swimming away in safety. But he 
knew that it was useless to pursue. 

Not so the Mahout. Mad with rage he drove 
his iron prod deep into the neck of the beast, 
urging him to follow. In his eagerness he lost 
his hold, and fell at the very feet of Malleer, 
who had been goaded to frenzy. The Mahout 
lay helpless upon his back, his limbs sprawling 
wildly about. One huge foot was placed upon 
his chest ; down it came. There was a sound 
of breaking bones, and the body of the Mahout 
was crushed into a shapeless mass. Still keep- 
ing his foot on the corpse, the elephant wound 
his trunk about one arm, and tore it from the 
body; then flung it aloft, the blood spouting 
from vein and artery. 

It was the work of an instant. Before the 
horrified spectators could draw breath, a wo- 
man, bearing a child in her arms, rushed mad- 
ly before the elephant. They were the wife 
and child of the slaughtered Mahout. 

" Oh, Malleer !" she cried, " you have killed 
my husband, now kill me and his son !" 

All looked to see her torn from limb to limb. 
But the beast, as though struck with remorse, 
removed his foot from the shapeless mass which 
had once been his Mahout, and stood motion- 
less, with downcast head and drooping ears, his 
long trunk lowered and swaying idly before 
him. The woman flung herself lamenting upon 
the crushed and mutilated corpse, while the un- 
conscious child clasped his arms about the trunk 
of Malleer. He had doubtless played with him 
thus a hundred times before. 



EVERY INCH A KING. 



109 



The mounted spearmen advanced to drive 
the elephant away ; they pricked him with their 
spears. His fury was again aroused, and he 
charged madly upon them. 

"Let the woman call him off!" shouted the 
King. 

At her voice the infuriated animal came back 
like a spaniel at the call of his master. She 
ordered him to kneel ; he obeyed. She mount- 
ed his neck. At a signal, he gently picked up 
first the body, and then the infant, and quietly 
bore them away. 

From that day he would endure no keeper 
except the woman. In his wildest fits of rage, 
a word or touch from her would calm him. So 
ended the last battle of Malleer, the hero of a 
hundred fights. 

We will not order an elephant-fight, though 
his Majesty, our friend, would grant us one. 
Luckily we are saved from the embarrassment 
of making a selection. While we are deliber- 
ating, word has been brought to the King that 
"Man-Eater" has broken loose and has killed 
three or four people. 

" Man-Eater" is a horse, belonging to one of 
the troopers, who has acquired that name from 
Mi fierceness. He has several times before 
broken loose, and has killed a number of per- 
sons, mutilating them fearfully with his teeth. 
However, he has now been secured again. 

"I have heard of Man-Eater," remarks the 
King. "He must be a furious beast." 

" He is fiercer than a tiger, your Majesty." 

" A tiger — good ! He shall fight a tiger. We 
will see what impression Burrhea will make upon 
him." 

Burrhea was the most beautiful tiger in his 
Majesty's menagerie. The fight is appointed 
for to-morrow. Meanwhile Burrhea is to be 
kept fasting to make him more fierce. 

The morrow comes. The fight is to take 
place in a large court-yard surrounded by build- 
ings which afford a capital view of the scene. 
Man-Eater has been introduced before the royal 
party had taken their places. When we are 
fairly seated, the door of the cage is opened, 
and out bounds Burrhea. He is a noble beast, 
beautifully marked, the perfection of strength 
and agility. He steals, with a slow, gliding, 
cat-like motion, round the arena, his fierce eyes 
fixed upon Man-Eater, who has taken his sta- 
tion in the centre. The horse manifests no fear 
of his formidable adversary. He stands in an 
easy attitude, one paw slightly advanced, the 
head a little lowered, turning slowly around so 
as always to face the tiger as he paces around 
the circuit. Burrhea's velvet paws fall noise- 
lessly ; not a sound is heard except the slight 
crunching of the gravel as Man-Eater shifts his 
position. Eor ten minutes this monotonous 
motion continues. All at once a bright ball 
glances through the air with the suddenness of 
an electric flash. Not a growl had announced 
the tiger's intention to make the leap. He had 
aimed at Man-Eater's head and fore-quarters. 
But the horse was not surprised. He made a 
Vol. XII.— No. 67.— II 



slight diving motion of his head and shoulders, 
and Burrhea just missed the spot aimed at, but 
buried his fore-claws deeply in the muscular 
haunches behind, where he hung, vainly grasp- 
ing with his hinder-claws at the fore-legs of the 
horse. But before he could secure his position, 
Man-Eater lashed up with his hind-heels, and 
in a moment Burrhea was flung like a tennis- 
ball, sprawling against the wall of the inclosure. 

Up he sprang, and again commenced the glid- 
ing sweep around. Again, without an instant's 
warning, the leap was made, with the same aim 
as before. Again Man-Eater caught him upon 
his hind-haunches, so that the head and part of 
the body protruded behind ; but he had man- 
aged to sink his hind-claws in the horse's breast, 
where he held for a moment. Man-Eater lashed 
up with his hind-feet still more furiously than 
before. It seemed as though he would turn a 
complete sommersault. But he can not fling 
the tiger off. Another tremendous spring: a 
dull sound is heard, like the blow of a mallet. 
The horse's iron-shod heel has struck the tiger 
full on the jaw. No toughness of bone can 
withstand such a blow ; the jaw is shattered like 
an egg-shell ; and shrieking with pain he lets 
go his hold, tumbles to the ground, and sneaks 
off with his tail between his legs, like a whipped 
spaniel. 

The tiger has had enough. At a signal from 
the King, the door of his cage is raised and he 
creeps in and crouches in the furthest corner. 

The King is frantic with rage. His pet tiger 
has been ruined. "Let another tiger be set at 
him !" he shouts. 

The keeper fears that no one will attack the 
horse, for they have all been gorged with food. 

" You shall go in to the Man-Eater yourself, 
if the tiger will not attack him." 

Another cage is brought. The door is raised 
and a huge tiger stalks leisurely out. Man- 
Eater is ready for the assault as before ; but the 
gorged tiger shows no disposition to attack him. 
They prick him with sharp spears, and burn 
him with hot irons, but all in vain. He snatches 
at the spears, and tears madly at the railing, but 
will not approach the horse. We tremble for 
the fate of the poor keeper. But his Majesty 
has forgotten his threat, and shouts that Man- 
Eater is a brave fellow, and deserves his life. 

" I will have an iron cage made for him, and 
he shall be taken care of. By my father's head, 
he is a brave fellow !" 

And so it was done. A strong cage, as large 
as a moderate-sized house, was prepared for the 
horse, and Man-Eater became one of the lions 
of Lucknow. 

Our amiable friend, Nussir-u-deen, is not al- 
together a pleasant man in his family relations. 
His father, Ghazi-u-deen the Magnificent, hated 
him, as kings are apt to hate their heirs, and 
determined to put him to death, rather than to 
suffer him to stand waiting for the succession. 
The Begum, his mother, armed her attendants, 
and protected her son. When Nussir came to 
the throne, he manifested a like tender regard 



110 



ILr\RPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



for his own son. But the brave old Begum 
took her grandson under her protection, as she 
had done her son, and the father's attempt 
miscarried. A significant hint from the British 
Resident put a stop to any further proceedings 
against the lad's life. But Nussir did what he 
could. He solemnly pronounced his son ille- 
gitimate, and thus incapable of becoming his 
successor. 

The Refuge of the World had not ascended 
the throne in quietness. Two of his uncles 
had disputed the succession. These were now- 
old men, and not being considered any longer 
dangerous, they were suffered to live ; and his 
Majesty found great pleasure in annoying and 
insulting them. He was especially fond of in- 
viting them to dine with him, forcing them, with 
mock politeness, to drink themselves drunk, and 
then practicing every indignity upon them. 
Upon one occasion, he caused one of these 
aged men to be stripped stark naked in the 
midst of the dancing-girls, who were perform- 
ing for his amusement and that of his guests. 

Another time, and this proved to be the 
turning-point in the fortunes of his Majest} 7 , he 
invited the other uncle, the older and more in- 
firm of the two, to his table, and plied him so 
keenly with wine that the poor old fellow be- 
came almost senseless. 

" His mustache wants arranging," said the 
King to the Barber. " Go, good Khan, and set- 
tle it." 

The Barber fulfilled the order in its spirit. 
He seized the long wiry hairs, and twitched the 
poor old man's head this way and that, to the 
great delight of the King. 

The Europeans at table, all save the Barber, 
remonstrated, half rising from their chairs. 

" Leave your seats at your peril !" shouted 
the King. " Is not the old pig my uncle ? I 
and the Khan will do with him as we please." 

By-and-by he was left to himself, and sank 
into an uneasy slumber, his head nodding from 
side to side, so as to obstruct the King's view of 
the dancing-girls. 

"His head must be kept quiet!" cried the 
King, with a furious oath. 

Up sprang the Barber, and producing a fine 
cord, he tied it firmly to each side of the grisly 
mustache of the poor old man, and fastened the 
other end to the arms of the chair. The Barber 
then left the apartment. Soon returning with 
a bundle of fire-works, he placed them under 
the chair, and set fire to them. The old man's 
legs were severely burned, and he sprang up, 
suddenly awakened from his drunken stupor. 
Two locks of hair were torn from his lips, bear- 
ing with them a portion of the skin. The King 
laughed with delight at the agony of his uncle. 

This was too much. The indignation of the 
European officers was aroused against the Bar- 
ber, and they joined together to procure his dis- 
grace. But it was all in vain. The Barber was 
too powerful. He had made himself too great 
a favorite to be displaced. The officers who 
had conspired against him. among whom was 



the narrator from whose work we have drawn 
our facts, were dismissed from the Court. 

Affairs went on from bad to worse. The 
power of the Barber became greater than ever. 
All decency was thrown to the winds, and the 
palace became the scene of the most horrid or- 
gies. At length the British Resident was com- 
pelled to interfere. His potent influence pro- 
cured the dismissal of the Barber, who bore his 
immense treasures from Lucknow. The palace 
was filled with the intrigues of the King's fam- 
ily. Nussir-u-deen was poisoned. His son 
was passed over, and one of those uncles whom 
Nussir had so abused was placed upon the throne 
of Oude. 

This change of administration wrought no 
permanent improvement in the government. 
The present King of Oude is worthy to be a suc- 
cessor to the Refuge of the World. If Nussir- 
u-deen placed his barber at the head of affairs, 
the new monarch appointed one of his fiddlers 
Chief Justice. Government is, in fact, but a 
complicated machine for forcing money from 
the people. The taxes are farmed out in large 
districts to amils, who undertake to collect them 
from the zemindars, or land-holders, who in 
turn exact them from the ryots, or cultivators. 
Of course the enormous sum that finds its way 
into the royal coffers bears no proportion to that 
wrung from the people. It frequently happens 
that the zemindars, after having collected the 
tax from the ryots, entrench themselves in their 
mud-forts, and refuse to pay it over to the amils. 
The royal forces are then called in to bring the 
recusants to terms. A member of the British 
Parliament stated not long since, that while 
making a tour through Oude, for nine successive 
days he was never out of hearing of the sound 
of artillery thus empWed in aiding the amils to 
collect the revenue. When this means fails to 
extort the money from the zemindars, the poor 
ryots are seized and sold into slavery to raise 
the money. Thus between the upper and lower 
millstones the poor cultivators are ground to 
powder. The troops of the Company protect 
the King from foreign attacks, leaving his own 
army to be employed in crushing his subjects ; 
while in case of insurrection the British are 
bound by treaty to aid the government. 

Symptoms begin to manifest themselves that 
the Company is tired of supporting this army 
for which they receive nothing. To be sure 
they are bound by treaty to do so ; but it is 
gravely questioned how far public faith, which 
has been pledged to uphold the native govern- 
ment, should be observed, at the expense of the 
misery of millions. The English journals may 
any day contain a paragraph of a dozen lines 
announcing that Oude has been formally "an- 
nexed" to the British Empire. It is well that 
it should be so ; for bad as is the government 
of the English in India, their rule is every way 
better than that of the best native sovereigns 
who have ever reigned — to say nothing of such 
as was his late Majesty, Nussir-u-deen, the Ref- 
uge of the World. 



ftlntttjilt] Iknrii nf Current €nuh 



THE UNITED STATES. 

LOCAL Elections have taken place in several 
States since our last Record ; although they 
were for State officers, their influence on national 
politics gave them unusual interest and import- 
ance. In New York, where there were four State 
tickets in the field, the American candidates have 
probably been elected by a small plurality. — In 
Massachusetts, Governor Gardner, the candidate of 
the same party, has been re-elected ; and in Loui- 
siana the same organization has carried the State. — 
In Ohio, the election terminated in the election of 
Salmon P. Chase, who was the candidate of the 
Republican party, and supported also by the Amer- 
icans. His vote was 146,108; while Medill, the 
Democratic candidate, received 130,887 ; and Trim- 
ble, Whig, 24,237. The new Senate consists of 29 
Republicans and 6 Democrats ; the House of Rep- 
resentatives 80 Republicans, and 31 Democrats. 
— In Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidate for 
Canal Commissioner, Arnold Plumer, was elected, 
receiving 150,000 votes; Nicholson, the Repub- 
lican candidate, receiving 138,000 ; and all others 
about 13,500. — The official returns of the Tennessee 
election show that Johnson, Democrat, received 
67,499 votes; and Gentry, Whig, 65,342. — In 
Georgia, Johnson, Democrat, was elected Govern- 
or, receiving 54,023 votes; Andrews, American, 
42,548 ; and Overby, the Temperance candidate, 
6198. — In Kansas, there have been two canvasses 
for a delegate to Congress — one, fixed by the Leg- 
islature, which took place on the 1st ; and the oth- 
er, fixed by the people's proclamation, which took 
place on the 9th of October. At the former the 
pro-slavery party alone voted, and their candidate, 
Whitfield, received 2760 votes. At the latter the 
Free-soilers voted, and claim to have polled a larger 
number of votes forReeder than had been given to 
Whitfield. It will be for the next House of Repre- 
sentatives to decide which of the two is the real 
representative of the people of Kansas. A Terri- 
torial Convention, called by the Free-soil party, for 
the purpose of forming a State Constitution, and 
applying for admission as a State into the Union, 
met on the 27th of October, and was organized by 

the election of Colonel Lane as President.' The 

general history of the past month has not been va- 
ried by events of much importance. In the case 
of Passmore Williamson, to which we have on sev- 
eral occasions adverted, the defendant was, on the 
2d of November, brought before the United States 
District Court, on his petition to be alloAved to 
purge himself from the contempt for which he was 
imprisoned. In answer to an interrogatory as to 
whether he had endeavored to comply with the 
writ of Habeas Corpus, Williamson replied that he 
had only sought to obey the writ by answering it 
truly, as the slaves of Mr. Wheeler were never in 
his possession or under his control. The Judge 
then decided that the contempt was purged, and 

the defendant was accordingly released. A 

grand National, and, as it proved to be, a very suc- 
cessful Agricultural Fair was held at Boston, from 
the 23d to the 27th of October. Over twenty thou- 
sand people, on an average, were in attendance 
daily, and on one occasion the spectators present 
amounted to some eighty thousand persons. The 
specimens of cattle — cows, bulls, sheep, and horses 
— brought from all parts of the country were mag- 



nificent. The exhibition was concluded with an 
Agricultural Banquet, which was honored by many 
distinguished guests. A large list of premiums 
was awarded to the successful competitors. The 

receipts of the fair amounted to nearly $50,000. 

The complicity of Mr. Crampton, British Minister 
at Washington, in the violation of the Neutrality 
Laws, to which we referred in our last Record, has 
been made the subject-matter of remonstrance from 
our own Government to that of Great Britain. 
What action the latter will take in the premises 
has not yet been made known, but it is general- 
ly believed that Mr. Crampton will be recalled. 
The public has been gratified by the intelli- 
gence that, by the decision of the President, Gen- 
eral Scott will receive his back-pay as Lieutenant- 
General up to the 1st of October last. The sum to 
which the General is entitled amounts to about 
$10,000. No allowance, however, is made for the 
eight months during which he commanded the 

Eastern division of the army in Mexico. No 

little excitement was created in New York by the 
breaking up of a club for the discussion of Social- 
istic theories. On the evening of the 18th of October 
the club was holding one of its regular semi-week- 
ly sessions, when the proceedings were suddenly 
interrupted by the police, and several prominent 
members were arrested. The case subsequently 
underwent legal examination, but the Judge de- 
cided that the arrests were not warranted by the 

facts presented. We have also to record another 

terrible railroad accident. An excursion train, 
consisting of eleven cars, left St. Louis on the 1st 
of November, to celebrate the opening of the Pa- 
cific Railroad to Jefferson City. While the train 
was crossing the Gasconade River, about one hun- 
dred miles from St. Louis, the bridge fell, precipi- 
tating ten cars, a distance of thirty feet, into the 
water. Upward of seven hundred persons were 
on the train, and out of these some twenty were 
killed and about forty badly wounded. In con- 
sequence of the numerous murders that have re- 
cently been committed in Wisconsin, the people 
of that State are agitating for the restoration of 
capital punishment. 

We have news from Utah to the 1st of Septem- 
ber. The grasshoppers had done great damage to 
the crops, but the corn and potatoes throughout 
the northern part of the Territory gave promise of 
a fair yield. John M. Boernhisel had been re- 
elected delegate to Congress without opposition. 

' From New Mexico we learn that the election 

of delegate to Congress has terminated in the suc- 
cess of Gallegos by a majority of ninety-nine. 
Great efforts were made by Orthro's friends, but 
there was a strong Anti-American feeling in the 
country. It is understood that the election of 
Gallegos will be contested on the ground of ille- 
gality in some of the counties. Indian troubles 
had nearly ceased. On the 13th of September 
Governor Merriwether held a council with the hos- 
tile Indians at Albuquerque. The chiefs of the 
Jicarilla Apaches were present, and made peaceful 
proposals. They promised to keep their people in 
subjection for the future, and a treaty was, on this 
condition, concluded with them. 

We have advices from California to the 5th of 
October. The elections have resulted in the com- 
plete victory of the Know Nothings. They will 



112 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



have seventy-two members in the new Legislature 
against thirty-nine Democrats and two Whigs, 
making a majority of four in the Senate and nine- 
teen in the Assembly. The Prohibitory Liquor 
Law, which was submitted to the people, had been 

defeated by a majority of about four thousand. 

Cholera has been making sad havoc among the pas- 
sengers on board the Pacific steamers. The Uncle 
Sam, during her trip from San Juan to San Francis- 
co, in the early part of September, lostfive cabin, one 
hundred and six steerage passengers, and three of 
her crew, besides several others who died in hospi- 
tal after the vessel arrived in port. The same 
dreadful disease had broken out to a frightful ex- 
tent in the steamer Sierra Nevada, of the Nica- 
ragua line, with the passengers who left New 
York on the 5th of September. The vessel put 
into Acapulco in distress for water, and it was 
then reported that seventy-one deaths had occurred. 
Twenty-four others died in port. The authorities 
refused to let the passengers bring their dead on 
shore, or even bury them in the harbor, so they 
w r ere compelled to keep them until they could get 

out to sea again. Accounts from Oregon state 

that the Indians have been again so troublesome 
that a general war is anticipated. Murders of 
Whites by Indians, and Indians by Whites, were 
frequently taking place. The last outrage on rec- 
ord is the murder of eight Whites by Indians on 
the route from Puget Sound to the Colville mines. 
The reports from these mines continue favorable. 
Gold diggers are represented as doing •well. In 
Washington Territory J. Patten Anderson, Demo- 
crat, has been elected delegate to Congress. The 
Liquor Law was defeated there by a small ma- 
jority. 

By way of San Francisco, we learn that two 
American merchants, who sailed in the early part 
of the year for Japan, with the intention of estab- 
lishing a business-house in that empire, were pre- 
vented from doing so by the authorities. The 
news of this event at first created some excitement, 
as it was supposed that the Japanese had repudi- 
ated the treaty with the United States lately ob- 
tained by Commodore Perry. This, however, was 
not the case ; and the Government at Washington 
has sustained the Japanese in their interpretation 
of the treaty, which only permits Americans to re- 
side temporarily in the country, instead of perma- 
nently, as was generally believed before the docu- 
ment was translated and made known to the public. 
A quantity of merchandise w r as recently brought 
by American traders from Japan to San Francisco, 
and being sold at auction in that city realized 
about eight times its original value. A charge 
of violating the Neutrality Laws had been made 
against the owners of the bark William Penn for 
conveying some shipwrecked Russian soldiers from 
Petropaulovski to San Francisco, and thence across 
the Ochotsk Sea to the main-land. Legal proceed- 
ings had been instituted in the United States Dis- 
trict Court at San Francisco, but the Administra- 
tion holds that no violation of neutrality had been 
committed in the premises. 

MEXICO. 

Political affairs in Mexico still continue in the 
most troubled state. Upon the resignation of Car- 
rera, noticed in our last Record, the general Govern- 
ment was left without a head, and the command of 
the district of Mexico devolved upon General de la 
Vega, who immediately selected a cabinet, and de- 
clared his determination to adhere to the plan of 



Ayutla, the Revolutionary Programme. The Pres-. 
idential election, which followed soon after, result- 
ed in favor of General Alvarez. At latest dates 
Alvarez was at Cuernavaca, some fifty miles from 
the capital, in company with his officers and the 
representatives of foreign powers. Some remarks 
had been made on the action of General Gadsden, 
the United States Minister, who, it was alleged, 
had refused to recognize the Government of Car- 
rera, but had shown the utmost alacrity in acknowl- 
edging that of Alvarez. Rumors were prevalent 
that Alvarez intended to resign the Presidency in 
favor of Comonfort, finding himself unable, from 
his advanced years and feeble health, to attend to 
the duties of so responsible an office. The differ- 
ence between the Tamariz faction and the sup- 
porters of the plan of Ayutla had been settled. 

From Northern Mexico intelligence has reached 
us that Matamoras has, after a most protracted 
siege, surrendered to the Revolutionists without a 
blow. There had been more fighting at San Luis 
Potosi, but neither party, seemingly, had gained 

any decisive advantage. A battle had been 

fought between Texan Rangers and the Lipan In- 
dians, on the southern side of the Rio Grande, near 
the city of San Fernando. The Indians were com- 
pletely routed and many of them were killed. Of 
the Texans four were killed, and several more or 
less dangerously wounded. 

CENTRAL AMERICA. 

The news from Nicaragua is of the most stirring 
nature. Colonel Walker, who has assumed the 
title of General, having received large reinforce- 
ments from California, determined to attack the 
capital. On the night of the 12th of October, in 
accordance with a preconcerted plan, he embarked 
at Virgin Bay, and before daylight landed within 
four miles of Granada. A rapid march soon 
brought him to the city, and the garrison, being 
taken by surprise, surrendered at his approach 
without any serious resistance. As soon as order 
was restored, the citizens of Granada held a pub- 
lic meeting, and offered the Presidency of the Re- 
public to Walker, but he declined to accept the 
office, on the ground that it more properly be- 
longed to General Corral, the leader of the Gov- 
ernment troops. On the 22d of October, Corral 
surrendered in due form, and a treaty of peace be- 
tween him and Walker was thereupon signed and 
ratified. The natives, however, were not so easily 
reconciled to the change that had taken place in 
the governmental affairs of the republic, and but 
too successfully wreaked their vengeance on the in- 
nocent California passengers who happened to come 
within their reach. When the steamer San Carlos, 
with New York passengers, arrived before the fort 
at the junction of the river San Juan and Fort 
Nicaragua, the natives fired into her with a thirty- 
two pounder, killing a lady and child, and serious- 
ly injuring the machinery of the boat. Previous 
to this, an attack was made by the Government 
forces upon the returning Californians at Virgin 
Bay, by which four persons were killed and eight 
severely wounded. The accounts from the Kin- 
ney Colony represent it to be in the most flourish- 
ing condition. The Governor has promised to 
exert his influence at Washington to obtain indem- 
nification for the parties who suffered from the late 
bombardment at Grey town. A difficulty had oc- 
curred between Mr. Ward, the United States Consul 
at Panama and the New Granadian Government. 
The former, in making representations to the latter 



MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 



113 



touching the release of an American citizen convict- 
ed of robbery, addressed the wrong official, and his 
letter was therefore returned unopened. The Con- 
sul, regarding this act as an insult, took down his 
tlag and waited instructions from home. The Gov- 
ernment at Washington, it is understood, has sent 
out instructions to Mr. Ward to hoist his tlag again, 
and has censured him for his hasty conduct. 
SOUTH AMERICA. 

From the whole South Pacific coast complaints 
reach us of a great scarcity in breadstuff's — so 
much so, that in several States the propriety of 
reducing, or altogether abolishing, the import 
taxes, is being seriously discussed. At Valparaiso 
a dreadful accident occurred on the 12th of Sep- 
tember. An English bark, laden with gunpowder, 
blew up, killing some three or four men, and se- 
verely wounding nine others. According to the 

Chilian census, recently taken, there is in the re- 
public a proportion of one foreigner to seventy- 
two natives. The whole population is given at 
1,119,451. Our dates from Valparaiso are to the 
1st of October, at which time the Congress had 
dissolved, after establishing a national bank. The 
bill had received the approbation of the Execu- 
tive. .Another revolution in Bolivia had broken 

out. Dr. Linares, who was lately a candidate for 
the Presidency, and Santa Cruz, an old man of 
seventy, formerly President, are at the head of the 
movement. It was initiated in the province of 
Pucarani, but had been suppressed there at the 
date of our last advices. In other places Linares 

had been proclaimed. In Peru, the Convention, 

of which we have previously spoken, was still in 
session. The right of universal suffrage had been 
adopted, with the proviso that the voters must be 
over twenty-one years of age, be able to read and 
write, or be proprietors of landed property. Some 
excitement had been created in consequence of the 
passage of a bill granting religious liberty. Four 
priests attacked one of the deputies, and attempt- 
ed to assassinate him, on account of what they 

called his opposition to their holy religion.. The 

Legislative Chambers of Ecuador met on the 16th 
of October. Sefior Bustamente was elected Presi- 
dent of the Senate, and Basquez Speaker of the 

House of Representatives. In Guayaquil there 

were great complaints of the scarcity of food. 

From Brazil, statistics show that the export 
trade of coffee in 1855 is more active than it was in 
1851. In Rio de Janeiro, sixty persons were dy- 
ing daily from cholera during the latter part of 
September. The scourge also prevailed to a great 
extent throughout the country, particularly at 

Breganca, Pernambuco, and Bahia. At Buenos 

Ayres business had been dull. At Montevideo, 

Flores, who was driven from his post on the 28th 
of August, had hoisted the banner of another legal 
Presidency ; and from all accounts, great fears are 
entertained for the future peace of that country. 
THE EASTERN WAR. 

For some time after the fall of Southern Se- 
bastopol — which important event we chronicled in 
our last Record — the belligerent armies displayed 
but little inclination to resume active hostilities. 
Gortchakoff was busy entrenching himself in the 
northern forts, and the Allies were clearing away 
"the blood-stained ruins" bequeathed to them, in 
order to open an attack on their beleagured enemy. 
A sullen tire was kept up from Forts Nicholas and 
Quarantine, which the Russians had left intact in 
ifceir retreat, but no great damage was done. Ac- 



cording to latest advices, however, one hundred 
and twenty mortars had been established in posi- 
tion, and a cannonade opened, which, it was ex- 
pected, would render the north forts untenable. 
These anticipations have not as yet been realized. 
The Russian version of the storming of the Mala- 
koff, and the subsequent evacuation of the city, has 
come to hand. It does not differ materially from 
the account given by Marshal Pelissier. The Rus- 
sian General admitted to have suffered the fearful 
loss of from 500 to 1000 men per day during the 
last month of the siege. Immense stores, consist- 
ing of cannon, powder, shot, and other materiel of 
Avar had been discovered in Sebastopol, and a mil- 
itary commission was in session to estimate their 
value and divide them among the victors. The 
Allies had determined to destroy the splendid docks, 
arsenals, and ship-building yards of the city, and 
uproot the place as a naval stronghold. 

At length an increased activity, combined with 
the movements and countermovements of large 
bodies of men, gave unmistakable signs of a re- 
newal of hostilities. An expedition, composed of 
fffteen thousand French and four thousand British 
troops, secretly set sail from Balaclava. The des- 
tination of this armament was unknown at first, 
and when it subsequently appeared before Odessa, 
it was generally believed that a bombardment of 
that city was contemplated. Later dispatches, 
however, announced that the fleet, having made a 
feint before Odessa, effected, on the 15th of Octo- 
ber, a descent upon the Spit of Kinburn, and suc- 
cessfully bombarded that fortress. The garrison, 
to the number of 1500, surrendered themselves pris- 
oners of Avar, and the neighboring forti-ess on Oe- 
zakofF Point was destroyed by the Russians to pre- 
vent its sharing a similar fate. Kinburn and 
Oczakoff are situated at the extreme end of the lake 
formed out of the waters of the Dneiper and the 
Bug, and it is alleged that, Avith these strongholds 
in their possession, the Allies Avill be enabled to 
blockade Kherson and Nicolaieff — the former a 
great commercial emporium, and the latter one of 
the Czar's most important naval arsenals — and 
thus intercept the communications that noAr exist 
betAveen the Crimea and the Western Pro\ r inces of 
Russia. Another detachment of the fleet had lately 
been destroying Russian towns in the Straits of 
Kertch. On land, there Avas every symptom that 
the opposing armies would shortly meet. Early 
in October, Prince Gortchakoff reported that large 
masses of the allied troops were threatening the 
left wing of the Russian army, while another force 
Avas making demonstrations against its right wing 
from Eupatoria. A cavalry battle had occurred 
near the latter place, in which the Russians Avere 
defeated, and reinforcements were being sent there 
Avith the vieAv of cutting off the Russian retreat to 
Perekop. The very latest news comes from Prince 
Gortchakoff, Avho telegraphs that the Allies con- 
tinued their demonstrations on the Upper Belbec, 
and that their advanced posts Avere within five 
leagues of Baktchi Serai. A battle in this quarter 
Avas generally supposed to be incA'itable, if Lip- 
randi persisted in maintaining his ground. Thus, 
it will be seen that the policy aimed at by the 
Allies is, if possible, to surround the Russians, and 
force them to decide the fate of the campaign be- 
fore the Avinter sets in and prevents farther hostil- 
ities. The rumor again prevails that General 
Simpson had been recalled. While these events 
Avere transpiring in the Crimea, others of as great 



114 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



importance have taken place in Asia. On the 29th 
of September the Russians attacked Kars in great 
force. At first they were successful, and captured 
two batteries; but before tbey had time to turn 
round the guns, the Turks charged them with such 
impetuosity that they regained possession of their 
batteries, and decided the fortune of the day. The 
Russians fell back in disorder, and the Turks, rush- 
ing from the fortress at the moment, massacred 
them in large numbers. The conflict lasted seven 
hours, and the Russians left four thousand of their 
dead under the walls of Kars. On the side of the 
Turks the loss was comparatively small. Accord- 
ing to the Russian account, the blockade of Kars 
had been re-established. From the Baltic Ave have 
nothing new. Winter was setting in rapidly, and 
a large portion of the fleet was on its way home. 
The allied gun-boats had made a demonstration 
against Riga, bombarding and injuring one of the 

forts. We have received intelligence concerning 

the movements and operations of the allied fleets 
in the North Pacific. The squadron had sailed 
from the dismantled fortress of Petropaulovski to 
the Amoor, but on arriving thei-e found no trace 
of the enemy. Subsequently, however, the Rus- 
sian fleet was discovered in the Bay of Castre, and 
was surrounded by the Allies ; but, during a thick 
fog, every vessel succeeded in effecting its escape. 
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE CONTINENT. 
The financial news of the month is of the utmost 
importance. The Bank of England had succes- 
sively announced an increase in the rate of dis- 
count from five to five and a half, and six per cent, 
for sixty days' bills, and to seven per cent for paper 
of a longer date. The alarm in commercial circles 
had been great, though it had in some measure 
subsided, and at one time a suspension of the Re- 
strictive clause in the Bank Bill, and the issue of 
some kind of paper money, were looked for. The 
Bank of France had also raised its rate of discount 



to six per cent., and its action was beginning to be 
felt in almost every branch of trade. The prob- 
ability of a matrimonial alliance between the Prin- 
cess Royal of England and Prince Napoleon was 

openly discussed in the London journals.' Sir 

William Molesworth, Secretary of the Colonies, 
and one of England's greatest reform statesmen, 

died on the 22d of October.. From Denmark we 

learn that the Danish Government is in favor of 
submitting the Sound dues question to a Congress 
of States, and will abide by the result. The mat- 
ter has every prospect of being amicably settled. 
The international association for securing a 



uniform system of coins, weights, and measures, 
assembled on the 17th of October at the Exhibition 
Palace in Paris. A permanent international com- 
mittee was constituted.- A concordat has been 

concluded between Austria and the Holy See, which 

gives most important privileges to the latter.- 

Kossuth, Mazzini, and Ledru Rollin, have issued 
a stirring appeal to the European democracy, urg- 
ing insurrection.- The Czar had been to Moscow. 

and had traveled thence to Nicolaieff, where he 
was, at the date of our last advices, inspecting its 

fortifications, dock-yards, and arsenals. Several 

French Socialist refugees have been expelled from 
the Island of Jersey by the authorities, for abusing 
the Queen of England in a paper called V Homme. 
CHINA. 
Late advices from the Celestial Empire affirm 
that the Imperialists continue to put their unfortu- 
nate prisoners to death by hundreds in the most 
barbarous manner. Accounts have been pub- 
lished of a brisk engagement that had taken place 
between the boats of the U. S. frigate Powhatan and 
H. B. M. ship Rattler and a large fleet of Chinese 
pirates, in which the latter were most signally de- 
feated, and received such a lesson as will deter 
them from renewing their depredations for some 
time to come. 



fitart] $ata. 



The Song of Hiawatha, by Henry Wadsworth 
Longfellow. (Boston : Ticknor and Fields.) 
In this poem Mr. Longfellow has applied his love 
of legendary lore to the embellishment of the abo- 
riginal traditions of the American forest. With 
the materials furnished by Schoolcraft, Hecker- 
welder, and other writers on Indian antiquities, he 
has embodied some of the most poetical features of 
the primeval sylvan life in a series of vivid por- 
traitures. We think he has so far exhausted the 
subject that few subsequent writers will venture to 
tread in the same path. He has brought the re- 
sources of a versatile fancy, keen sympathies with 
nature, a sweet and tender vein of sentiment, and 
a delicate quaintness of versification to the accom- 
plishment of a task which labored under peculiar 
inherent difficulties, and which few poets could 
have completed with such considerable success. 

The leading character in the story is a myth- 
ological personage named Hiawatha, who is cele- 
brated in the traditions of various Indian tribes for 
his miraculous birth, his eminent practical gifts, 
and his endeavor to introduce the pacific and use- 
ful arts among his people. Connected with his 
marvelous history, the most striking Indian le- 
gends are wrought up into a picturesque narra- 
tive illustrating the religious faith, social customs, 



and prevailing character of the American savage. 
Many of these episodes are indebted to the poet for 
singular beauty of costume, although, in the main, 
he adheres with admirable fidelity to the spirit and 
native coloring of the original traditions. 

According to the old legend, Hiawatha was the 
son of the lovely maiden Wenonah, who, in her 
rambles over the flowery prairies, was wooed by 
the terrible Mudjikeewis, and died in giving birth 
to her child of love and sorrow. He was placed 
under the care of his grandmother, Nokomis, 
Daughter of the Moon, in whose wigwam, be- 
tween the water and the forest, he passed a happy 
childhood, instructed in the wonders of the skies, 
the language of the birds and beasts, and all the 
mysteries of sylvan nature. As he reached the 
borders of early manhood, he observed the cus- 
tomary fast of that period, and after a severe no- 
vitiate, was inaugurated as the prophet and bene- 
factor of his race. From his wrestling with Man- 
domin, he receives the gift of maize, which he 
made known to the people as their national food 
forever. This is one of the most picturesque fan- 
cies of Indian tradition, and under the plastic 
shaping of the poet is expanded into an episode 
of wild and striking beauty. The subsequent life 
of Hiawatha is diversified with an abundance of 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



115 



fabulous adventures, which Mr. Longfellow adorns 
■with the brightest hues of his imagination. In 
point of diction, the poem is marked by an elabo- 
rate simplicity — the Indian names are curiously 
■wrought into the exquisite finish of the verse — and 
though some passages are almost prosaic in their 
bareness of embellishment, the ■whole texture of 
the composition shows the dainty fastidiousness 
for which the author is remarkable. Wc do not 
think that Hiawatha will be cherished as a favor- 
ite specimen of Mr. Longfellow's genius by the ad- 
mirers of " Evangeline" and the " Building of the 
Ship ;" but it affords a noble illustration of his fine 
poetic instinct, the purity and sweetness of his 
imagination, and his artistic nicety and versatility 
of expression. 

Lily, by the author of " Busy Moments of an Idle 
Woman," will be welcomed by the readers of her 
former production, as carrying the promise of a 
brilliant and spicy story. She wields a singularly 
versatile pen, which will gain in reputation from 
the present admirable work. It is a fictitious nar- 
rative, embracing incidents in the society both of 
the city and the plantation, in each of which posi- 
tions the writer is equally at home. The charm 
cf the story consists in its delicate portraitures of 
character, which are drawn with singular fineness 
and subtlety, and in the piquant vivacity of its 
dialogue, which shows great dramatic power. The 
writer, Avhose name is not given on the title-page, 
is evidently a lady of excellent feminine accom- 
plishments, with a keen and racy intellect, and a 
gift of artistic construction to which her poAver of 
expression never fails to be adequate. If she is 
destined to a literary career, we are sure that it 
will be a fortunate one for herself and her readers. 
(Harper and Brothers.) 

Mexico and its Religion, by Robert A. Wilson 
(Harper and Brothers), is a record of Mexican 
travel during the past four years, describing, with 
great good-humor, a variety of rich adventures both 
in the capital and interior, but with no rose-color- 
ed recollections of the manners or morals of the 
people. The writer is a stanch American in his 
principles and views, and was often grossly scan- 
dalized by the spectacle of a social state so widely 
at variance with his previous habits and feelings. 
He indulges in frequent criticisms of the influence 
of the Catholic religion on the popular character, 
and usually fortifies his remarks by apposite facts. 
A good deal of interesting information is given con- 
cerning the silver mines of Mexico, which the au- 
thor believes have not received the attention which 
their importance demands. He often gives vent to 
speculations as to the probable fate of Mexico which 
many readers will deem visionary, but the narra- 
tive portions of his work will be found to be equally 
amusing and informing. His style, though care- 
less and often diffuse, is lively, and on the whole 
well adapted to matter-of-fact description. 

A Child's History of the United /States, by John 
Bonner. (Harper and Brothers.) The idea of 
this work was suggested by Dickens's "Child's 
History of England," and without indulging in 
superfluous comparisons, we may say, that the 
American author has performed his task with a 
beauty, naturalness, and vivacity, not unworthy 
of the original model. The progress of American 
history, from the discovery of the country to the 
present time, is illustrated in a clear, flowing, and 
familiar narrative, which, in felicity of arrange- 
ment and gracefulness of diction, has seldom been 



surpassed by the most accomplished writers for the 
young. Nor is the interest of the work confined 
to juvenile readers. Abounding in historical anec- 
dote, in lively descriptive sketches, and in graphic 
portraitures of character, it presents a fascination 
to persons of every age, and will meet with as warm 
a welcome in the family circle as in the school- 
room. The sympathies of the writer with what 
he regards as the pure American idea may some- 
times influence his judgments, and lead him to ex- 
pressions of enthusiasm which will meet with dif- 
ferent responses, according to the political senti- 
ments of the reader. But he has evidently aimed 
to be fair and impartial, and, as a general rule, we 
think he has succeeded in doing justice to the con- 
flicting interests and parties which enter into the 
composition of his narrative. At all events, no 
one can follow the lively delineations of the author 
without refreshing his own knowledge of the course 
of our national history, and of the relative position 
and. services of the eminent men who figure in its 
annals. 

An Outline of the General Principles of English 
Grammar, edited and enlarged by the Rev. J. 
Graeff Barton (Harper and Brothers), is an 
improved edition of a popular English work, de- 
signed to exhibit the first principles of grammar, 
and their manifold applications to the written and 
spoken vernacular, in a form adapted to popular 
comprehension. It has been used for a few years 
past in the Free Academy of this city with very 
decided success. Although it aims at general util- 
ity, and is simple and lucid in its various details, 
the work is of a highly philosophical character, 
containing many admirable suggestions which may 
be profitably consulted by the advanced student 
of philology. One of its peculiar merits is the 
light it throws on the idiomatic difficulties of our 
language, and another is its preference of the Saxon 
elements over those of Latin origin. The apposite 
quotations from English classical writers, which 
are made to illustrate the theoretical discussions 
of the work, form a useful and attractive feature. 
We think no curious student of his mother tongue 
can fail to derive satisfaction and advantage from 
its perusal, while its value as a practical class-book 
has been amply tested by experience. 

Harper and Brothers have issued a new and 
thoroughly-revised edition of Fowler's English 
Grammar, a work which embodies the latest im- 
provements in English philology, and presents a 
rich store of curious and valuable information to 
the student of language. 

A new edition of Abbott's Hoaryhead and 
M l Donner, forming a volume of" The Young Chris- 
tian Series," is published by the same house. The 
story is one of touching interest as a narrative, and 
is intended to illustrate some of the leading points 
of the Christian faith. 

In the latest volumes of Harper's Classical Li- 
brary we have translations of Cicero's Offices, and 
other miscellaneous ethical essays, by C. R. Ed- 
monds, Cwsar's Commentaries, and Xenophon's Ana- 
basis, by Watson, with a Geographical Commen- 
tary by Ainswortii, presenting a literal version 
of those standard authors for the use of beginners 
in classical studies. Each volume is illustrated by 
appropriate explanatory notes, which afford a rich 
fund of philological and antiquarian knowledge. 

Harper and Brothers have issued an edition of 
The. Works of Chaki.es Lamp., with Sir Thomas 
Talfourd's Sketch of his Life and Final Memorials. 



116 



HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



The edition is in two neat duodecimo volumes, and 
contains the complete productions of the delightful 
author both in prose and verse. 

D. Appleton and Co. have issued the fifth and 
sixth volumes of the Works of John C. Calhoun, 
edited by Richard K. Cralle, containing the 
Reports and Public Letters of the illustrious Caro- 
linian statesman. The important correspondence 
between Mr. Calhoun and General Jackson, in re- 
gard to the action of the Government on the oc- 
currences of the Seminole War, is given in the last 
volume. Apart from its personal interest, this col- 
lection of political papers possesses a permanent 
value in connection with the civil history of the 
United States. 

The National History of the United States, by 
Benson J. Lossing and Edwin Williams (E. 
Walker), comprises a rapid sketch of colonial his- 
tory prior to the Revolution, a full and graphic 
narrative of the War of Independence, and com- 
plete biographies of the Presidents of the United 
States, together with an ample collection of public 
documents, statistical reports, descriptive articles, 
and other papers in illustration of the condition 
and progress of the American Republic. It pre- 
sents a mass of accurate and valuable information, 
arranged in a convenient order, adapted to popular 
use, and embodied in an attractive form, which it 
would be difficult, if not impossible, to find else- 
where within the same compass. The work is is- 
sued in two elegant octavo volumes, and is well 
adapted to the American family library. 

A new edition of The American Odd Fellow's 
Museum is published by Edward Walker, in two 
superb octavo volumes, with numerous elegant 
pictorial embellishments. It consists of selections 
from the choicest portions of " The Odd Fellows' 
Offering," with several original papers of general 
interest. Among the contributors to this work we 
notice the names of some of the most distinguished 
writers in this country, who have furnished it with 
articles every way worthy of their reputation. 

Durrie and Peck have brought out the second 
edition of Baxter's Select Works, edited by the Rev. 
Dr. Bacon, of New Haven. The selections in these 
volumes have been made from such works of Bax- 
ter as are not familiar to the religious public, and 
are intended to bear a practical rather than a 
polemic character. Upon the original appearance 
of this work, several years since, it received the 
highest commendations from many leading divines, 
and it will still be welcome to all readers who pre- 
serve a relish for the pungent and stirring appeals 
of the sinewy old Puritan. The life of Baxter, by 
the American editor, presents an animated picture 
of his public career and his private virtues, and 
contains many details of peculiar interest. 

Illustrations of Scripture, by Horatio B. Hack- 
ett. (Boston : Heath and Graves.) The writer 
of this volume, a distinguished Professor in New- 
ton Theological Institution, made an extensive 
tour in Egypt and Palestine about three years since, 
and from the incidents and facts which fell under 
his personal notice, has selected such as seemed 
adapted to the purpose of promoting a more earnest 
and intelligent study of the Holy Scriptures. His 
work does not aim to give a connected view of the 
geography of Palestine, but to describe the peculiar 
features of the East which illustrate the accuracy 
of the Bible in its allusions, customs, narratives, 
and geographical notices. The volume is con- 
structed on a highly judicious plan, and in its gen- 



eral arrangement and execution Professor Hackett 
has exhibited both sound information and admira- 
ble taste. His descriptions are vivid and forcible, 
without any excess of coloring, and are evidently 
founded on exact observation or equally authentic 
sources of knowledge. They tend to place the 
reader, to a certain extent, on the same point of 
view with the sacred writers, thus imparting a 
fresh naturalness and vigor to their words. For 
the use of families and of Sunday-schools the vol- 
ume can scarcely be commended in too high terms. 

The Funeral Sermon on the death of the Rev. 
Dr. Cone, preached in the First Baptist Church of 
this city, by the Rev. Thomas Armitage, D.D., 
gives a just and feeling sketch of the life and serv- 
ices of that eminent divine. Dr. Cone was a man 
of rare personal qualities. He was one of the most 
decided originals that can be named in the walks 
of professional life. You could not meet him in 
the street — where his expressive and venerable 
figure was well known — without a feeling of his 
marked individuality. Singularly intrepid in his 
disposition, earnest in his convictions, of the lofti- 
est moral principle, of deep religious sentiments, 
and of a bold executive temperament, he identified 
belief and action in a living, practical union. Once 
persuaded, he could never hesitate. He loved 
truth more than he served public opinion. With 
him, to follow the path of duty was instantly con- 
sequent on his knowing it. He pursued the light 
of conscience with the same unerring necessity with 
which the needle turns to the north. His intellect 
was of a high order — more spontaneous than reflect- 
ive, imaginative rather than logical, but lucid in 
its deductions, and consistent in its results. In the 
present discourse Dr. Armitage has exhibited an 
admirable view of the character of its lamented 
subject, with a variety of valuable biographical 
details. His statements, in the main, coincide 
with the slight sketch just given, though our im- 
pressions were received from personal observation 
of Dr. Cone's public career. 

A fine illustrated edition of Campbell's Pleas- 
ures of Hope is published by Bangs Brother and 
Co., with numerous highly-finished engravings, 
from designs by Foster, Thomas, and Weir. In 
respect to typography, binding, and embellish- 
ment, the volume shows a superior style of execu- 
tion, and will doubtless prove one of the most pop- 
ular gift-books of the season. 

Little, Brown, and Co. have issued four volumes 
of Chalmers's British Essayists, containing " The 
Tattler," from the London edition of 1823, of which 
it is an accurate fac-simile. It is printed on clear, 
legible type, in neat duodecimo volumes, and for 
the convenience of its form and the beauty of its 
finish claims a favorite place in the library of con- 
noisseurs. 

Early Religious Education, by William G. Eliot 
(Boston : Crosby, Nichols, and Co.), is an essay 
by the pastor of the Unitarian Church in St. Louis, 
calling the attention of parents to the duty of re- 
ligious education, as the divinely-appointed means 
for attaining the graces of the Christian life. The 
subject is treated in a practical spirit, without im- 
mediate reference to refined doctrinal distinctions. 
In point of style, the volume is more remarkable 
for purity and ease than for boldness and vigor. 

A. S. Barnes and Co. have published a new vol- 
ume of psalmody, entitled Plymouth Collection of 
Hymns and Tunes, with the name of Henry Ward 
Beecher as principal editor. It contains more 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



117 



than thirteen hundred hymns and three hundred 
and sixty-seven tunes, selected from a great vari- 
ety of sources, and intended to promote the custom 
of congregational singing. With the difficulty of 
finding sacred poetry at once sound in thought and 
fervent in expression, combining unction and taste 
in equal degrees, meeting the wants of mental 
culture and religious feeling, without sacrificing 
the one to the other, it must be conceded that this 
work has been executed with uncommon success, 
and will commend itself to the lovers of devotional 
music as a valuable aid to the interest and beauty 
of public worship. 

The Glory of the Redeemer, by Octavius Wins- 
low, D.D. (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Black- 
iston), is an earnest and glowing exposition of the 
character of Christ in the various offices of re- 
demption, presenting the leading points of the 
Christian faith with the eloquence of profound con- 
viction. Free from the garish splendors of fash- 
ionable rhetoric, it has something of the quaint- 
ness, with all the solemnity, of the great masters of 
theology in the times of the Puritans. 

Letters to a Young Physician, by James Jack- 
son, M.D., LL.D. (Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 
and Co.) A peculiar school of medical literature 
has its head-quarters in the venerable city of Bos- 
ton. It is distinguished for its freedom from theory, 
its reliance on the processes of nature, its coolness 
and discrimination of statement, its general intel- 
lectual culture, and its chasteness and elegance of 
style. The productions of this school exhibit com- 
paratively few technicalities, and reward the atten- 
tion of the general reader as well as the professional 
student. Among its brightest ornaments very con- 
spicuous are the names of Warren, Channing, Bige- 
low, Hay ward, Ware, and last but not least, of the 
author of this admirable volume. For many yeai*s 
he has been the favorite adviser of invalids, espe- 
cially of literary men, from almost every quarter 
of the United States. His wisdom and urbanity, 
no less than his age, make him the Nestor of the 
medical profession in New England. In this vol- 
ume he has concentrated the fruits of wide expe- 
rience, great natural sagacity, extensive research, 
and a singularly well-balanced intellect. It is 
written with beautiful clearness and simplicity, 
occasionally relieved by a touch of dry humor, but 
always dignified and impressive. The judicious 
counsels which it imparts for the preservation of 
health are probably of equal value with any of the 
drugs of the pharmacopoeia, and certainly far more 
agreeable. 

D. Appleton and Co. have issued a New French 
Instructor, by S. P. Andrews and G. Batchelor, 
combining the peculiar features of Manesca and 
Ollendorff's system with the necessary theoretical 
expositions belonging to the synthetic method. 
The instruction consists of several courses of prac- 
tical lessons, embodying the characteristic idioms 
of the French language in every department of 
speech, together with a lucid statement of its gen- 
eral grammatical principles, in a series of philo- 
logical observations. The great excellence of this 
manual is found in the natural order of its arrange- 
ment, which leads the student to an acquaintance 
with the essential connecting terms of discourse, 
while at the same time he is becoming familiar 
with the special inflections, on which his progress 
in the language depends. In the construction of 
the exercises great ingenuity and care are mani- 
fest, and they afford to the diligent student uncom- 



mon facilities in the acquisition of a language 
which is now a social necessity. 

Scenes in the Practice of a New York Surgeon, 
by Edward H. Dixon, M.D. (Dewitt and Dav- 
enport.) In this record of professional experience 
the writer has adorned the scenes of daily occur- 
rence in an extensive city practice with the embel- 
lishments of a lively imagination. He has brought 
to light the hidden sufferings that lurk beneath the 
surface of modern society, and presented incidents 
of household sorrow that challenge the sympathies 
of the reader without appealing to a morbid sensi- 
tiveness. Several valuable papers in illustration 
of Western and Southern life are contributed by 
other eminent physicians. In connection with the 
vivid descriptive sketches which compose the major 
part of the volume, are essays on various medical 
and hygienic topics, presenting salutary sugges- 
tions in regard to the treatment of disease and the 
preservation of health. The work is illustrated by 
numerous appropriate engravings from the spirited 
designs of Darley. 

Metrical Pieces, Translated and Original, by N. 
L. Frothingham. (Boston : Crosby and Nich- 
ols.) The author of this volume possesses the 
accomplishment of verse in no ordinary degree, 
and has won an enviable reputation by the fugitive 
pieces with which he has graced the pages of dif- 
ferent periodicals. With an excess of modesty, he 
has heretofore refrained from collecting his produc- 
tions in a permanent form, but his fastidiousness 
has at last relented, and the public is enriched with 
these specimens of his rare and beautiful genius. 
They consist of translations from the Greek, Latin, 
Italian, and German, with a variety of original 
compositions in several kinds of poetry. The 
translations, in many cases, illustrate the curious 
scholarship of the author, and his passion for un- 
familiar and choice treasures of literature. Thus, 
he has bestowed no little care on the old Greek 
poem of Aratus on the Appearance of the Stars, 
which, though furnishing an enticing morceau to 
several ancient and modern critics, had never be- 
fore been translated into the English language. 
His translations from the German, also, were made 
at a time when the poets of Germany were com- 
paratively unknown to English scholars, and in 
each of them, with a single exception, he supposed 
himself to be the first on the held. They are re- 
markable for their great verbal fidelity to the orig- 
inals, as well as for the preservation of their most 
exquisite aromas, for the admirable poetic instinct 
with which he has secured their essential form and 
spirit, and for the sweetness, grace, and polish of 
the versification. In the original pieces the writer 
betrays the innate refinement of His mind (some- 
times approaching the borders of ingenious subtle- 
ty), the delicate play of his fancy, and his exquisite 
culture. If their scholar-like finish, their prevail- 
ing temperance of thought and retenu of expres- 
sion, in some degree remove them from the sphere 
of popular sympathy, they will be welcome to 
readers of taste as artistic studies. 

R. Carter and Brothers have issued for the Christ- 
mas holidays a superb edition of Cowpeb's Task, 
with a profusion of beautiful illustrations from de- 
signs by Birket Foster. Few poems are more fertile 
in suggestions with regard to the choicest featuresof 
English landscape, and in this edition the artist 
has vied with the author in reproducing many of 
the most delightful specimens of its .scenery. It is 
seldom that pictorial embellishments are in Buch 



118 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



exquisite keeping with the original theme as in 
the present attractive volume. 

An ornamental edition of Keble's Christian 
Year is published by E. II. Butler and Co., with 
numerous appropriate illustrations by Schmolze. 
The high merits of this collection of religious poet- 
ry are universally acknowledged, and it is here 
brought out in a style of chaste elegance which 
adapts it for a souvenir during the approaching 
festive season. 

The Red Eagle, by A. B. Meek (D. Appleton 
and Co.), is a spirited historical poem by a South- 
em writer, founded on incidents in the Creek War 
of 1813. The hero of the story is the celebrated 
Indian Chief from whom the poem takes its name, 
and who is said to have been pre-eminent among 
our aboriginal tribes for his eloquence and valor. 
He was the principal leader of the Creek Indians 
in the war which succeeded the massacre at Fort 
Minims, where nearly five hundred persons lost 
their lives. A series of sanguinary battles ensued, 
which almost depopulated the nation. The writer 
has selected some of the most striking incidents of 
this struggle as the materials for poetical composi- 
tion, and has succeeded in clothing them in grace- 
ful verse. The measure is principally octosyllabic, 
but its "fatal facility" has not seduced the author 
into indolence or carelessness, and his frequent 
vivid pictures of nature exhibit an enviable power 
of accurate description. We know of few more 
faithful delineations of Southern scenery than are 
given in many passages of this poem. The plot 
is one of varied interest, and is well sustained 
throughout, though it exhibits the nobler elements 
of the Indian character in a more favorable light 
than is often verified by history. 

The New Purchase, by Robert Carlton, is a 
reprint by J. R. Numacher, New Albany, Indiana, 
of a Western story which, on its first publication 
in this city some ten years since, was received 
with a degree of excitement which at that point 
in the history of the " trade" was somewhat un- 
common. Its circulation was, however, chiefly 
confined to the Eastern States, and the frequent 
demand for it in the West, with the difficulty of 
obtaining a copy, has induced the publisher to 
issue the present edition. Consisting of reminis- 
cences of the author's life during a period of about 
eight }-ears, for a portion of which he was connect- 
ed with a Western university, it presents a series 
of lively portraitures of social, domestic, and pub- 
lic life on the frontier, including sketches of sev- 
eral well-known living celebrities, both in politics 
and letters. The incidents of the book are derived 
from actual experience, and if occasionally they 
are painted with colors borrowed from the imag- 
ination, they show a prevailing air of verisimili- 
tude. With the gay and sparkling humor that 
gives a perpetual zest to the volume, a tone of pa- 
thetic sentiment is often combined, and no touch 
of grossness or vulgarity ever vitiates the gushing 
mirth which is the most congenial element of the 
author. His work can not fail to afford delight 
to every reader who has a taste for humorous de- 
scription, and is not afraid of a little exuberant 
fun. 

The Prison of Weltevredin, by Walter M. 
Gibson. (J. C. Riker.) Mr. Gibson's odd ad- 
ventures in the East Indian Archipelago are mat- 
ters of public notoriety. After visiting many small 
islands in the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, he 
redded for some time in the interior of Sumatra, 



studying the literature, religion, laws, and social 
habits of the people, when he was interrupted by 
the jealousy of Dutch officials, and confined for 
fifteen months in the prison of Weltevredin, on the 
island of Java. Here lie became the victim of an 
oppressive prosecution on the part of the govern- 
ment of Netherland India, but meeting with a 
series of strange and romantic incidents in his 
prison cell he was enabled finally to effect his es- 
cape, though at the hazard of his life. The vol- 
ume now published contains a copious narrative of 
his extraordinary adventures, with a pi elusion of 
descriptive sketches illustrating many of the pe- 
culiar features of Oriental society. We can not 
vouch for the historical accuracy of all its details, 
some of which read very much like a chapter of 
Munchausen ; but we can not question the power 
of the writer to relate marvelous events in a cap- 
tivating manner. 



The great event in the English publishing world 
is the approaching issue of the third and fourth 
volumes of Macaulay's History of England. Forty 
thousand copies are said to have been subscribed 
for in advance, although the price is four and a 
half dollars a volume. Other additions to histor- 
ical literature, of great value, most of which are the 
completion of works already commenced, are prom- 
ised. Prominent among these are the concluding 
volume of Creasy's History of the Ottoman Turks ; 
Thirlwall's History of the Romans under the Em- 
pire ; Grote's History of Greece ; and Milman's Flis- 
tory of Latin Christianity. 

In Biography are announced: Guizot's Life of 
Richard Cromwell ; new volumes of the Life of 
James Montgomery; the concluding volumes of 
the interminable Life and Correspondence of Moore, 
and of Charles James Fox, by Lord John Russell; 
the final volumes of James Silk Buckingham's 
Autobiography ; and the Life of Jeanne d'Albret, 
Queen of Navarre. 

Voyages, travels, and adventures, are well rep- 
resented by Dr. Barth's Travels in Africa; the 
ubiquitous Madame Ida Pfeiffer's Second Voyage 
Round the World; Lieutenant Burton's Pilgrim- 
age to Mecca and Medina, those sacred places of 
Islam which so few Christians have ever succeed- 
ed in reaching ; Captain M'Clure's Arctic Voyage 
and Discovery of the North Pole ; and Eight Years' 
Wanderings in Ceylon, by the sworn elephant- 
hunter, S. W. Baker. 

M. Ubicini, the standai'd authority upon Otto- 
man affairs, is about to put forth a work upon 
Turkey and its Inhabitants which can not fail to 
be valuable. From Mr. Erskine Perry's Bird's- 
Eye View of India, we may hope for some further 
light upon the condition and prospects of that 
country. The author was Judge of the Supreme 
Court at Bombay, from 1841 to 1852, and is now 
a Member of Parliament. 

The plan and purport of Dickens's " Little Dor- 
rit" is kept a profound secret. Whether the title 
is the name of a place or a person is unknown. 
From the fact that Dickens will pass the winter 
and spring in Paris, some of the London journal- 
ists predict that the scene of the new story will 
partly be laid in France. It has been stated that 
the profits of u Bleak House," with an average 
circulation of 35,000 a month, fell little short of 
£13,000, or £7800 a year. "Little Dorrit," like 
most of its predecessors, will be illustrated by 
"Pliiy/v-H. K- Brown. 



f Mtar'0 Cohlt 



CHANGES IN THE DIRECTION OF TAL- 
ENT IN THE UNITED STATES.— The ca- 
reer of the Anglo-Saxon race on this continent 
opened under circumstances that had never before 
surrounded a people educated in the higher offices 
of civilization, and refined by the agency of Chris- 
tianity. The world of the savage, Avhich he occu- 
pied without possessing, passed into its hands as a 
fresh gift from Nature. There was no conflict with 
the institutions of a rival society. There were no 
memorials of a past age to be removed, so that our 
forefathers might find a foundation for their new 
economy. The wandering Indian had nothing but 
the lower forms of brute force with which to op- 
pose the progress of the new race ; and, apart from 
this, the physical laws of soil and climate were the 
only obstacles which were to be encountered. It 
was the first time that cultivated mind, in the ma- 
turity of its faculties and the fullness of enterprise, 
had been returned to the primary condition of ma- 
terial nature. The original decree was then pro- 
mulgated again ; the earth was to be subdued and 
replenished ; and man, restored to the sovereignty 
with which the Creator had once invested him, was 
to reassume his position in the world, and fulfill 
his destiny on a wider and more imposing scale. 

Agreeably to this fact, our early industry was 
simply the industry of colonization. It was an 
industry that sought to provide homes for an emi- 
grant race, overcome the severe rigors of the sea- 
sons, secure the necessaries of food and clothing, 
and perpetuate existence, in the midst of circum- 
stances that taxed the resources of action and the 
utmost limits of enduring fortitude. It was an in- 
dustry that used only the plainest implements — 
the ax to level the forest, and the plow to open the 
soil — with such machinery as an age ignorant of 
the wonders of mechanical scicn.ce scantily afford- 
ed. Man was not then the master of those mighty 
auxiliaries which now multiply his skill and mus- 
cles a hundred-fold, nor had he discovered the great 
secret of compelling material nature to manage na- 
ture itself. The sunshine was not expected to do 
more than give light to his pathway; nor did the 
evaporating dew-drop teach him where he was to 
seek the most successful agent of modern intelli- 
gence. Confined within a narrow sphere, his ideas 
of labor were mainly occupied with a provision for 
want and a safeguard against death. It was life 
as a pioneer, struggling for a place rather than a 
palace — as a combatant, fighting for a truce that 
might give time to recruit the needful means, rather 
than for a final and complete victory. And yet, 
amidst all its disadvantages, it was better that this 
state of things should exist. Brought into direct 
contact with a virgin wilderness, and with little 
outside of themselves on which to lean, our fore- 
fathers had tbeir sagacity and strength developed 
in the most effective manner. It was well that 
they were not rich and powerful in the external 
aids of civilization. It was well that art and sci- 
ence did not follow in their footsteps, and the pat- 
ronage of Kings and Queens foster them in its en- 
ervating embrace. Founders of States are only 
great as they stand alone. The self-creating pro- 
cess must not 1)0 Interrupted, or it is at once viti- 
ated. And hence it is a striking proof of the pres- 
ence of Frovidence, that the original direction of 



talent and industry in this country was so inde- 
pendent of foreign control. The transatlantic 
world tried in vain to speculate on their activity, 
and to determine its channels. It was controlled 
by a higher impulse ; and, consequently, long be- 
fore the idea of a political separation from Great 
Britain had entered the minds of the colonists, they 
had been unconsciously working out a practical 
divorce from its authority by the course adopted 
in colonizing a new world. Muscle taught intel- 
lect how to be free ; and by the same steps that an 
era in the industrial and social pursuits of the peo- 
ple was inaugurated, a liberal and enlightened gov- 
ernment was rendered inevitable. The victory of, 
the ax and the plow was the ordained antecedent 
to the victory of the sword; and the triumph over 
Nature was the divine prophecy of the prostration 
of tyranny. A world that toil and sacrifice had 
w T on from the forest, the wild beast, and the de- 
graded savage, could not be the property of an- 
other, nor could any institutions rise upon its broad 
surface except such as were the natural outgrowth 
of those virtues which had reclaimed it to the use 
and comfort of civilized men. 

But the exercise of our talent and industry in 
the colonial era was chiefly preparatory. Mind 
and muscle were then busy on the scaffolding of 
that magnificent structure which has since risen 
in such massive strength and beautiful proportions. 
Our power was in training for future achievements ; 
and it is scarcely possible for us to imagine a bet- 
ter field for its disciplinary exertion. How could 
Ave have been more readily skilled in the art of 
Avar than in those campaigns which were directed 
against French and Indians ? Hoav could the foun- 
dations of American commerce have been better 
laid than in the NeAvfoundland fisheries, that nurs- 
ery of the hardiest and noblest sailors ? Or Avhat 
could have been more fortunate than our occupancy 
of the Atlantic slope, by which so much of the in- 
tercourse and business of the Colonies was connected 
with the ocean ? Our physical position, marked 
by peculiar features, Avas of signal advantage. A 
strip of Colonies, extending along an unusual 
stretch of shore-line, had a mountainous barrier 
raised against its Avestern side ; and thus the Al- 
leghany range, reaching nearly the Avhole length 
of our country, served to restrain a Avestwardly 
movement, and determine the progress of coloniza- 
tion in lines parallel to the Atlantic. One hardly 
knows which to prize the more highly — those causes 
which stimulated the intellect and energy of the 
country Avithin certain limits, or those which pre- 
A'ented its expansion beyond these boundaries. 
Viewing the Avhole subject in the light of history, 
it would appear that the physical connections of 
early American colonization — its simple industry — 
its trials and dangers — its incipient commerce — and 
abovo all, its confinement within a narrow terri- 
tory, stretching north and south in accordance with 
the configuration of die continent — had a most sal- 
utary influence in giving the first direction to Amer- 
ican mind and determining the outgrowth of Amer- 
ican institutions. Let it not be forgotten that ab- 
stract sentiments rarely give form and shape to 
social organizations. Man is a complex creature. 
The wants of his lower nature are constantly press- 
ing themselves on his attention, and impelling him 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



to seek the guidance of providential laws. The 
facts of physical geography are divine ordinances 
that he must obey ; and only so far as he executes 
the hidden will in them, can he attain to the power 
which he so earnestly covets. 

The social condition of the American people after 
the Revolution — if its capacity for progress be con- 
sidered — Avas extremely fortunate. It was a con- 
dition of virtue and integrity, of honest and truth- 
ful devotion to great principles, of sincere and 
fervent patriotism. Poor, indeed, we were ; but 
this was far from being a serious evil. The pov- 
erty under which we labored was not the poverty 
which crushes the heart in hopeless subjection to 
sorrow and suffering, but that which commands its 
own means of deliverance, and cheers the hand to 
endure the hardships of toil. We were left in a 
state to repair our losses, not merely by the ma- 
terial resources of the country, but by the active 
presence of that intelligence and industry which 
make the wealth of nations. Our people looked to 
themselves; and it is not a little surprising that 
Franklin, who was the first exponent of the prac- 
tical tendencies of the American people, should 
have originated what may be termed the Literature 
of Economical Life. The influence of his genius, 
employed before and after the Revolution to direct 
the habits of his countrymen toward the improve- 
ment of their circumstances, left its lasting impress 
on the industry of the country. By degrees, the 
resources of our nation began to be appreciated ; 
ideas expanded; capacity was felt by being ex- 
erted ; and, as if drawn by an invisible attraction, 
the thought and energy of the new people moved 
toward the end which Providence had placed be- 
fore them. 

It will be the aim of this article to delineate the 
progress of American Mind within the last fifty 
years, and especially to point out, as far as space 
will allow, the changes which have marked its de- 
velopment. Conscious of his inability to do more 
than to open glimpses of this great subject, the 
writer would fain hope that the general indications 
of our intellect and character, as presaging our fu- 
ture, and its relation to humanity, may be so pre- 
sented as to encourage others to further investiga- 
tion. Our history has been a history of sentiment 
as well as of action ; and hence it will be our pur- 
pose to trace the operations of those intellectual 
and moral agencies which have had so much influ- 
ence in determining our line of movement. 

The history of our Statesmanship, commencing 
under circumstances of peculiar significance, and 
progressing through a period which has witnessed 
the most fearful conflict of opinion and interest, 
must be closely considered, if we would compre- 
hend the intellectual and social changes through 
which we have passed. Our great constitutional 
principles remain as our fathers left them ; our na- 
tional identity has been preserved ; but, neverthe- 
less, there have been modifications of doctrine and 
policy that are worthy of careful study. First of 
all, then, it may be affirmed that the spirit of 
American Statesmanship has risen to a loftier 
consciousness of its powers and purposes. Its own 
distinctive idea, so long obscured even to the ar- 
dent advocates of popular institutions, has defined 
itself in sharper outline and broader scope. It has 
shown a constant tendency to liberate itself from 
those false relations in which it was involved, and 
to determine, by its instinctive force, a proper line 
of policy. The cautious wisdom of our fathers dic- 



tated restraints both of sentiment and action that 
were just and noble. Placed under new and re- 
sponsible circumstances, it was impossible for them 
not to feel that the experiment in popular liberty 
was hazardous, and that hence they ought to defer 
to the past, follow the ancient guides of political 
economy, and risk nothing which their sagacity 
could not foresee, and their strength sustain. But 
the lesson which time and experience taught sur- 
passed their expectations. The progress of the 
country stimulated its statesmanship, infused cour- 
age and confidence into its heart, expanded its 
aims, and aroused its ambition. In brief, the in- 
stitutions of republicanism exerted their legitimate 
sway in bringing up our Statesmanship to their 
level. Never before, in the history of the world, 
has there been so striking an illustration of the in- 
fluence of government in developing the sympa- 
thies of its subjects ; never before so impressive a 
proof that its offices are intellectual and social, as 
well as civil and political. 

But this is not all. The circumstances that 
have characterized the last three quarters of a cen- 
tury have operated most potently on American 
mind, in its relations to republicanism. Almost 
every movement abroad, as well as prosperity at 
home, has tended to liberalize the Federal Govern- 
ment, and to enhance the practical value of State 
sovereignty. Trade and commerce have been ef- 
fective agents in producing this grand result. The 
direct interest of the separate States in their own 
affairs has grown rapidly, and, as a necessary con- 
sequence, the action of their statesmanship has 
proved a valuable check on the General Govern- 
ment. Not merely our growth in wealth, but the 
peculiarities of climate, the diversities of industry, 
and the various features of our social life, moulded 
by different instincts and directed to sectional ad- 
vancement, have exerted a tremendous power in 
controlling the policy of the country. Corn and 
cotton, grain and rice, manufactures and mining, 
have done as much as political principles and gov- 
ernmental creeds to make our freedom a practical 
thing, and to preserve our statesmanship from the 
dangers that threatened it with a timid, hesitating, 
uncertain policy. Looking, then, at the past and 
present position of American statesmanship, as af- 
fected by the causes which have been enumerated, 
it must be evident that it has been brought into a 
closer and more cordial union with the spirit of our 
institutions. It has learned to lean less on tradi- 
tional authority, and more on its own instinctive 
foresight. It has cultivated a political economy 
as well as a political philosophy of its own. It has 
studied its wants as the creature of a new age, a 
new science, a new Avorld ; and its growing impulse 
has been to decide issues as they have been pro- 
posed, on their own independent merits. Once it 
was apprehensive of the people ; now its highest 
boast is their entire trustworthiness. Once it fa- 
vored a strong and consolidated government ; now 
it is jealous of the slightest excess of Federal au- 
thority. Our isolated situation, with an ocean 
between Europe and ourselves, was an argument 
that danger suggested and weakness enforced ; but, 
to-day, alive with the burning impulses of the age, 
and inspired by the consciousness of a glorious des- 
tiny, we indulge in the magnificent vision of cen- 
tralizing the commerce of the world in our ports. 
Territorial expansion was once thought antago- 
nistic to Federal unity, but experience has demon- 
strated their perfect harmony. If, indeed, we may 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



121 



discriminate between the various legitimate offices 
of government, it can scarcely be doubted that the 
spread of our domain has called into exercise the 
agency of Federal power in just such relations as 
are calculated to repress every tendency to evil, 
and discipline its integrity. Nor do these views 
limit the contemplation. A more remarkable 
change than any yet noted is found in the mighty 
growth of those formative and controlling influ- 
ences which encircle our country with a body- 
guard of truth and purity. The official states- 
manship of the nation debating measures of pub- 
lic good, concluding treaties, and devising vast 
schemes of patriotic wisdom, deserves our generous 
sympathy. But whence is it fed? "Whence orig- 
inate its noblest ideas and largest plans ? Com- 
pare the thinking done in Congress with the think- 
ing done out of it ; aggregate the ability there, and 
measure it with the gigantic mass of intellect all 
abroad among the people, and we soon see where 
the national statesmanship is located. Nothing is 
more certain than that as our country has progress- 
ed, the most important steps of the government have 
started outside of the government itself The pri- 
vate mind of the country is really its unrecognized 
Congress ; and whether the postal system is to be 
reconstructed, or steam-vessels introduced into 
navy service, or exploring expeditions initiated, 
the leader of opinion springs up among the masses. 
It was not so fifty years, or even thirty years since; 
for at that time the working of our system devel- 
oped the statesman as an original and independ- 
ent thinker, but now it develops the people. The 
days of towering intellect in public service — such 
intellect as shone so splendidly in Hamilton, Jef- 
ferson, Madison, Adams, Clay, Calhoun, and Web- 
ster — can not be expected to return as the fruit of 
American political life. If it appear at all, it will 
be the effect of causes that are not found in the or- 
ganic structure of our society. But this ought to 
awaken no regret. The mind of the people, roused 
to the watchful care of momentous interests, and 
intent on the guardianship of its own priceless 
freedom, is a much nobler spectacle than the indi- 
vidual renown of statesmanship ; and until this 
point is gained, social institutions are never incor- 
porated into the machinery of Providence, and 
made the instruments of promoting the welfare of 
the human race. 

Another marked change in the progress and di- 
rection of American mind has been effected by the 
rapid settlement of new States. The singular feat- 
ures of our frontier life are so well known as not to 
require a formal repetition here. But its agency 
in quickening national intellect has not been fully 
considered. It must be obvious to every thinking 
man that so large a body of active, energetic, in- 
telligent people as has emigrated from the older 
States into the broad prairies of the West and South- 
west, has left its impress on our civilization. It 
could not be otherwise. The physical man must 
feel the wonderful transition from cleared fields to 
dense forests — from gardens to wilds — from one 
climate to another; and the intellectual, moral, 
and social man must be still more sensitive to the 
novel circumstances. Pioneers, if they arc com- 
pelled to struggle with solitary hardship and ad- 
verse circumstances, are easily degenerated. But 
in this instance it was emigrant life in its freedom, 
animation, and picturesqueness, without its de- 
moralizing connections. It was the renewal of our 
youth, extending througli several generations, and 



yet singularly free from that waste of robust power 
and mature virtue which so generally scandalizes 
the history of a newly-opened country. The spirit 
of enterprise was thus excited; golden opportuni- 
ties flashed their visions on eyes familiar with dull 
routine and oppressive drudgery ; and the future, 
wearing the charms of an enchantment, offered a 
full reward for honest industry. Never before did 
labor enter on such a scene. Toil itself was a spec- 
ulation, amidst a multitude of chances in its favor, 
and poverty could lie down among its fruitful fields 
and dream of a bright to-morrow. It was a val- 
ley-world. No such expanse, gentle in its undu- 
lations, sunny in its slopes, and diversified in its 
aspects, could be found on the earth. Far away 
to the north and the northeast, a chain of gigantic 
lakes stretched their wedded waves, and the ever- 
lasting roar of Niagara thundered their nuptial 
salutation to the sea. Plains that awaited the 
drapery of the purpling vine; hills holding the 
secrets of centuries in store for the use of man ; 
coal-fields in which the imprisoned sunbeam was 
reserved to gladden the firesides of rejoicing homes : 
marble on which nature had sculptured the mystic 
emblems of an unknown past ; the ancient mira- 
cles of fire and flood, where chaos had been trans- 
fixed in its primeval heavings — where the footsteps 
of the traveler rested on the genesis of the globe, 
and the exodus of the world started its long pro- 
cession of pomp and splendor — all these were here, 
subject to the mighty mastery which man was to 
exert over them. The institutions of civilized life, 
the simple habits of Christian freemen, the usages 
and maxims of our forefathers, were carried with 
our migratory population ; and, side by side with 
their cabins, rose the school and the church — sym- 
bols of our power and purity. None can estimate 
the wonderful effect of this vast movement on the 
prosperity of the country. It was equal to the in- 
fusion of the blood of a new race into our veins. 
It stretched our capacity for effort and enterprise 
to the farthest limit. To the industry of the na- 
tion it was what California subsequently was to its 
currency and commerce, lifting the feet of men to 
a higher point of departure, and pressing them for- 
ward on a path of triumphant conquest. Had there 
been no other effect, the simple fact that it inau- 
gurated the era of domestic statesmanship in the 
United States would stamp it as one of the prom- 
inent events of our history. Such a thing as state- 
policy separate and distinct from mere politics — a 
system of internal improvements — was scarcely 
known before the magnificent West offered its 
prizes to the Atlantic. It was then seen that the 
wealth of the country was destined to occupy the 
Valley of the Mississippi, and the problem was to 
make it tributary to the sea-board States. Out- 
lets that should drain it engaged the attention of 
Washington and Jefferson. It was the leading 
topic of our domestic statesmanship, and the gen- 
ius of De Witt Clinton alone proved itself equal 
to the accomplishment of the task. 

One event produces another. The effect of to- 
day, flowing from a distant source, becomes the 
cause of to-morrow," and starts a new series of ex- 
tending actions. The vast wilderness of the West 
was no sooner opened, than the impossibility of its 
occupancy and cultivation by our native popula- 
tion was demonstrated. Fortunately for us, for- 
eign immigration, though much needed on some 
accounts, was slow and cautious. It gave us time 
to organize our institutions according to our in- 



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HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



herent ideas; to establish the working-machinery 
of republican States, and, above all, to create that 
assimilative power which must be exerted over an 
extraneous population. The number of foreigners 
and their descendants living in our country in 1853 
was estimated at about 3,000,000. Nearly four- 
fifths of the number have arrived since 1830, and 
more than one-half since 1840. About 40 per cent, 
of the Irish have settled in our large cities, and 
over 36 per cent, of the Germans and Prussians. 
The effect of this immense immigration — acting as 
it has done on every department of society, and 
especially on its industrial interests — has been too 
marked to escape attention. It has formed a mas- 
sive addition to the muscle of the country ; and 
not only was it needed to build our great works of 
intercommunication, but still more to liberate our 
lower classes and open opportunities of improve- 
ment to them. The humbler tasks of service — the 
menial drudgery of life — passed into their hands 
by those equalizing laws which never fail to ope- 
rate where industry determines its OAvn position. 
Our native population rose to a higher condition. 
About the same time that this immigration was 
largest, the fruits of our free-schools began to ap- 
pear in the advancing intellect of the American 
masses ; and hence they were prepared to enter on 
such pursuits as required skill and education. The 
consequence of this remarkable movement has been 
that a greater proportion of our own people have 
risen to wealth and influence during the last twenty 
years than at any other period, and that class of 
intellect which had previously contributed nothing 
beyond its ordinary share to the ingenuity and sci- 
ence of the country, has recently distinguished it- 
self by promoting our national advancement. Cer- 
tain it is that our gain in this respect, within the 
period named, has been unprecedented. The most 
prominent feature of our late history has been this 
sudden and general awakening of the working 
classes, and it can scarcely be doubted that it has 
resulted chiefly from the relief which immigration 
has afforded from servile toil, and the quickening 
impulse of new and better circumstances. 

One of the most interesting views of our subject 
is that connected with the growth of literature and 
science. If our national literature is tried by the 
standard of the older European nations, it unques- 
tionably falls short of their measure of high excel- 
lence. But practically, this is not a fair method 
of judgment. The only just criterion must be 
drawn from our position and opportunities. Our 
starting-point, too, has been peculiar, and it must 
be considered if a proper estimate is formed. The 
literature of transatlantic nations grew out of tra- 
ditions, ancestry, ballads, and kindred causes. But 
our literature could have no such germs. The past 
was not available to our mind ; and hence to-day 
could supply the only materials. The singular 
fact of our literature, therefore, is this, viz. : it has 
sprung from newspapers. Aristocracy may, indeed, 
smile at such an origin, and poet-laureates may 
affect to despise so ignoble a birth ; but our firm 
conviction is, that a literature for the people — a 
literature for their mind and heart — a literature of 
general power and utility in distinction from a lit- 
erature of caste and patronage — must have such a 
beginning. A great many of our popular books — 
full of genuine merit — are nothing more than im- 
proved editions of newspapers. The intellect ap- 
pearing in them is simply the intellect of the news- 
paper — the same type, the same pithy directness 



and close combat with the matter in hand — the 
intellect of the press idealized. But what man of 
sense can fail to see a most significant hope in this 
truth? A literature, born in this way right out 
of the bosom of the people,'speaking their language, 
cherishing their sympathies, and growing as they 
grow, must eventually transcend all other litera- 
ture. Let us briefly illustrate this fact. What 
has educated American statesmanship, and won 
for it the praise of the world ? It is not a profes- 
sion, an abstract, isolated study, a pursuit of one 
chosen class. How, then, has it attained its com- 
manding intelligence and influence ? Simply by its 
contact with the people — by its open sympathies, 
gathering thought and wisdom from every quarter 
— by free discussion — by unrestricted intercourse 
of mind with mind. The single habit of stump- 
speaking has done more to educate our statesmen 
than any thing else, and hence there has always 
been a decided superiority in the general average 
of statesmanship in those sections of the Union 
where this practice has most prevailed. Now, lit- 
erature will finally reap the same sort of benefit 
from its connection with the people. The effect is 
already apparent. No observing man will hesi- 
tate to say that books have more power in the 
United States than any where else ; and that, all 
circumstances considered, writers are better appre- 
ciated. Every child in this country is fast becom- 
ing a patron of genius. Boys in Virgil, and girls in 
Algebra, are enthusiastic readers, and their young 
hearts are throbbing with delight over " Sketches 
of Life and Incidents of Travel." Can Europe 
match this with a similar scene? And what a 
nation of thinkers, writers, and readers must a few 
generations produce? Depend upon it, the time 
has come for the people to give law, dignity, im- 
pulse, and success to every thing. Go back eight- 
een hundred years, and see Peter, John, and James 
cast aside their fisher's nets, and enter on the great 
work of reforming the world. A glorious prophecy 
was uttered then that all time has been fulfilling. 
It was the prophecy that the intellect of the peo- 
ple should rule the thought and direct the strength 
of the human race. If Christianity could draw its 
select apostleship from the people, crowning its 
brow with the chosen symbol of flame, and touch- 
ing its lips with the wondrous miracle of universal 
speech, surely all art and science, all statesman- 
ship and authority, all genius and influence, shall 
follow in its inspired train. One of the people! 
was not Luther such? One of the people ! was not 
Washington such? One of the people / were not 
Columbus and Cook, Newton and Galileo, Angelo 
and Canova, Davy and Watt such? And now 
that literature has imbibed the same genial spirit, 
warming its heart by that great central fire which 
a divine breath has kindled, let us rest in the hope 
that in our country it will fulfill its highest, no- 
blest task. 

The increased interest in science affords another 
instance of the change in the direction of American 
mind. There are more than fifty periodicals in 
the United States devoted to the discussion of sci- 
entific subjects, and the diffusion of scientific intel- 
ligence. Large convocations are annually held 
for the promotion of scientific objects, and through- 
out the country a sympathetic disposition among 
leading minds to combine their efforts in organized 
action has been eminently serviceable in giving an 
impulse to this noble pursuit. The value of sci- 
ence to a country, in its economic relations, is much 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



123 



more highly appreciated, and not only the Fed- 
eral Government, but the States themselves, have 
evinced a most commendable anxiety to encourage 
its investigations. It would be difficult to specify 
any department of life that is not a debtor to Amer- 
ican science. If we turn to mechanical and man- 
ufacturing industry, we see its agency in various 
forms of machinery that substitute automatic ac- 
tion for individual labor, and multiply muscle a 
hundred-fold. The fields of the farmer bear testi- 
mony both to the chemistry and mechanical in- 
genuity of the day. Our architecture and civil 
engineering begin to indicate grand results, while 
on the sea commerce exults in the genius of Lieu- 
tenant Maury as having introduced a new era in 
navigation. Our system of surveys and the en- 
couragement given to exploration by the Govern- 
ment, directing our talent and enterprise into most 
important channels, and awakening public atten- 
tion to subjects of fresh interest, have produced a 
marked effect on general intellect. Statistical sci- 
ence, too, has rapidly advanced; and, as an in- 
stance of it, we have only to name the late Com- 
pendium of the Census, prepared under the super- 
vision of Professor De Bow. If the labors of the 
Patent Office be compared with what they were 
twenty years since, we see the amazing progress 
which our countrymen have made in scientific 
modes of thought, and the growing desire to apply 
the best intelligence to the industrial pursuits of 
the age. Our science has not yet, indeed, taken 
its wider range, nor won the reputation of a tri- 
umph on the more magnificent fields of immortal 
discovery. But this is not to be deplored. Amer- 
ican science has followed the same law of develop- 
ment as government, industry, and literature. It 
has been a birth and a growth among the people, 
and it has been singularly successful in interpret- 
ing the wants of the day, and serving popular wel- 
fare. In due time its other advantages will not 
fail to appear ; and science, trained in the humbler, 
domestic service of man, will rise from the forest, 
the field, the ocean, to penetrate the more won- 
drous mysteries of the universe, and fulfill its moral 
destiny. 

If our space permitted, we should be glad to 
dwell on the tokens of advancing taste which va- 
rious aspects of American life present. No man 
of observation can fail to see the evident marks of 
improvement that begin to appear in aesthetic cul- 
ture, and the growing desire, manifested in so many 
forms, to enjoy the beautiful. Sensibility to re- 
fined and graceful objects is not wanting to our 
countrymen, but circumstances have hitherto re- 
strained its exercise. A more auspicious period 
has now dawned ; the spirit of art is working with- 
in our mind, and producing its earlier fruits in our 
outward life. Who that remembers the indiffer- 
ence to architecture, landscape gardening, and sim- 
ilar provinces of taste and beauty, that formerly 
characterized us, and marks the interest now ex- 
hibited in cemeteries and other public and private 
works, can doubt the great change which is in pro- 
gress? But what is far more important than di- 
rect and ostensible proofs in confirmation of this 
fact, it is apparent that our daily existence is es- 
caping from the severer service of utility, and as- 
cending to the region in which ideality ministers 
to our better nature. Of this advancement there 
are various illustrations. One accustomed to watch 
the great trains of thought t hat come forth on spe- 
cial public occasions, must have noticed how much 



more frequently such topics as relate to aesthetic 
culture are now discussed. Above all, we are be- 
coming a more cheerful, animated, happy people. 
The social ascetism that used to prevail is fast dis- 
appearing, and the other extreme, equally fatal to 
the ideal growth of a nation — a low and shameful 
dissipation, loving carnal grossness and bestializ- 
ing the spirit — is also decreasing. How eager we 
are for summer-travel ! How swiftly we fly to the 
nooks of the mountains, and to the sweeping shore 
of the ocean, and call these welcome retreats by the 
gentle names that poetry or religion gives ! The 
most attractive feature of this change is, that the 
class of persons seeking these enjoyments is not the 
old aristocracy of talent and fashion, but the in- 
dustrial portion of society. And then, our chil- 
dren ! The garden of literature is thickly sown 
with violets for them, and the heart of tenderness, 
glowing in the ragged school as warmly as in the 
princely mansion, cherishes their blessedness as 
one of the divinest vocations of the day. Child- 
hood never had the meaning in our country that it 
now has ; earth and heaven were never so linked 
in holy union for its sweetness and sanctity. It 
is almost a social transfiguration. Last May we 
took special pains to notice the accounts of festivals 
for children. Throughout the country, and par- 
ticularly over the whole South, it seemed as if 
childhood and youth had touched the portals of the 
millennium. And how can these things fail to 
make a powerful impression on us in the elevation 
of character, the refinement of habits and pursuits ? 
One other point is too significant to be over- 
looked. It is this ; viz., there is far more breadth 
of view, openness of sympathy, cordial hospitality 
of intellect in American life than ever before. The 
most encouraging aspect of our national mind is, 
that its own consciousness is beginning to determ- 
ine its action. It is writing down on marble ta- 
bles the law for its tongue, for its pen, for its con- 
duct. The lower forms of self-reliance that have 
enacted such wonders in labor, enterprise, and pol- 
itics are now emerging into the higher forms of 
self-trust; and truth, courage, and love exult in 
the hallowed ascension. What then? Go read 
" E Plurtbus Unum" in the serene light that now 
shines upon it. Is it merely the proclamation of 
the union of these States ? Is it the eloquence only 
of a common blood, a common heritage, a common 
joy? One of many, has a sublimer import. One 
of many is the prophet-thought of the age, declar- 
ing to us and to the world that our mind shall 
gather into itself the richest contributions of all 
ages, and the choicest gifts of all nations, and be 
One of many in art, science, literature, and life. 



iMtnr's (feq Cjjatr. 

THE other afternoon, as we were slowly plod- 
ding up Broadway in the drizzle, we heard a 
loud noise, which apparently proceeded from an 
angry man. Looking in at the doors and up at 
tli e windows we could see nothing, and so supposed 
that we were mistaken, and that no man was an- 
gry. But after the noise had been repeated sev- 
eral times at intervals, and no one had turned to 
remark it or ascertain the cause, we supposed, of 
course, that it was a disagreeable ringing in our 
ears. At length a woman, evidently very weary, 
stopped an omnibus and stepped off the sidewalk, in 
the mud and bustle of the street, to take her place. 



124 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Then we heard again, and from the inside of the 
omnibus, the same sudden, short cry, which sound- 
ed like an Indian " Ugh !" but which really was 
" Full !" pronounced in very loud and impera- 
tive tones. The weary woman stood in the mud 
at the foot of the steps, and looked into the omni- 
bus. "Full!" shouted another passenger with 
unshrinking firmness. It was raining, and the 
woman was wet. The omnibus was full of dry 
men. "Full!" shouted another chorus. The 
driver drew the door to with a slam. The omni- 
bus drove off, and the woman crept through the 
mud and rain back to the sidewalk again. 

Do you suppose if Sir AValter Raleigh, or Sir 
Philip Sidney, or the Chevalier Bayard, or Sir 
Roger de Coverley had been in that stage, that the 
woman would have crept back to the sidewalk in 
the mud and rain ? Do you suppose that the 
members of the chorus inside, who shouted " Full !" 
with such unanimity, although they had each a 
good sixpence in pocket to pay for his seat, and 
meant honestly to pay, were gentlemen in the 
sense of the men whose names decorate any page 
upon which they appear ? It may be difficult for 
the members of the chorus to see that they will 
none of them ever become stars, nor play nor sing 
any solo part in the consideration and respect of 
the community, until they have a breadth of style 
and a generosity of method which they have not 
yet betrayed. 

This is the old story. The Easy Chair remem- 
bers very well having preached sermons from this 
text before. But remember that in this sinful 
world the churches are open twice every Sunday, 
and there is a perpetual sermon-battery against 
many things which yet are very Malakoffs, and do 
not fall. Therefore they must be cannonaded until 
they do. If we act as boors and are not reproved, 
we may come to imagine that the world does not 
notice our coarseness and selfishness. The ostrich, 
you remember, .hides its head and believes that it 
has effectually concealed itself. 

It is in the details of life that character is shown. 
A man may go out very bravely to be beheaded if 
the world looks on in pity or interest, but he may 
be a very disagreeable companion if the cobbler 
has left a peg in his shoe. A man may also be 
very courteous at his table to guests whom he has 
invited, and has reasons for honoring. How is he 
to the servant behind his chair? How was he to 
the woman who looked into the full omnibus ? 

It is the opinion of the respectable Gunnybags, 
who rides a great deal in the omnibus, that women 
should not be allowed to stop full stages, or that, 
if the driver is weak and holds up, the woman 
should be taught that she shall not boldly presume 
to turn honest men out into the rain and cold, 
while the mutton is even now cooking or scorching 
at home. Gunnybags suggests separate stages. It 
is intolerable, in his opinion, that women should 
thrust themselves in and upset all the arrange- 
ments of society. Fat women with babies and 
bundles and baskets — three or four women, when 
there is only place for one — fussy women with 
flounces, and fine women with hoops. Gunnybags 
has fully made up his mind to shout "Full!" at 
ever} r such invasion. People may twaddle about 
politeness until they are red in the face ; it is all 
gammon. Why are not the women polite ? Why 
may not a man be as tired as a woman ? Why 
have women no consideration ? Why don't they 
sec when a stage is full, and have the decency not 



to stop it ? Why should we be imposed upon by 
women? "Full!" shouts Gunnybags, and leans 
both hands upon the top of his cane, and fixes his 
mouth like the mouth of Jupiter Ammon, and 
looking at the piteous woman in the rain, shouts 
again with the austerest morality — " Full!" 

Gunnybags has an idea that life is a ledger ac- 
count, and is to be arranged as other accounts are. 
When he pays for a thing — a share in the Gunny- 
bags Screw and Bore Company (of which he is 
President, and owns most of the stock), for in- 
stance, or a seat in an omnibus — he has a perfect 
right to it. But there happening to be other 
things in the world besides rights, he has not set- 
tled the account yet. It is a duty of Gunnybags 
to be gentle, and courteous, and humane. If Gun- 
nybags had been in Paradise he would have an- 
swered that he was not his brother's keeper, and 
he would have heard it thundered in reply that he 
was. You can not shake off your duties by shout- 
ing " Full !" to an omnibus-driver. The very fury 
and resolution with which you do it, shows that in 
your heart you are conscious that you ought not 
to do so. 

It is very Quixotic to step out and give up your 
place, perhaps to a frowsy woman, red in the face, 
and with large hands, holding unsightly bundles. 
It is very Quixotic, but the best things go by hard 
names. A man who believes that men are not only 
not brutes but have a touch of the angel, and may 
be treated accordingly, is called a dreamer and a 
Utopian. Even the word poet is in bad odor. If 
a man says something to you, and you reply, " but 
you are such a poet," he understands, and with 
some reason, that you are elegantly telling him he 
lies. Besides, the giving up your place to a young 
and lovely woman is not a matter upon which you 
can very well plume your politeness. Courtesy is 
not personal to the object but to the subject. If 
you would smilingly surrender your seat to Queen 
Victoria or to Miss Demesne (of the first circles, 
and only daughter of Billion Demesne, Esquire), 
and not to Miss Demesne's washerwoman, you are 
only a snob and a flunky, and not worthy to 
touch the fringe of the lovely Demesne's lowest 
flounce. When Charles Lamb's friend gallantly 
handed an apple-woman over the gutter, the act 
was finer than Avhen Sir Walter Raleigh threw his 
gay cloak in the mud before Queen Elizabeth. The 
beauty of Raleigh's action is in his character, and 
we applaud it because we know he would have 
done the same thing to the apple-woman. 

Quixotic things are the very things that ought 
to be done. Utopia is the very country in whose 
discovery we are all interested. For if, as is the. 
inference, in Utopia men are as courteous as wo- 
men are fair, how do you think it compares with a 
world in which twelve healthy men sit safe in an 
omnibus and shout " Full !" when a forlorn woman, 
or any kind of woman, shows herself in the rain at 
the door? 



Mr. Mumm, the great lecturer, came in the oth- 
er day very much excited. He pulled out his 
tablets, and was lost in intricate calculations. 
"Why, Mumm, this perturbation?" was the 
natural question we addressed to the eminent pub- 
lic instructor. 

" I will tell you why," said he. " If you were 
ambling quietly along in your slippers, making 
your comfortable five miles a day, how would you 
like to have a great fellow come swinging by in 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



125 



his seven-league boots, and securing the hottest 
steaks and the softest beds at the tavern?" 

" We should certainly grumble, O Mumm," re- 
turned we. 

" That is just what I am doing," said he. " No 
sooner have we little gentlemen, 'distinguished 
orators,' ' eloquent divines,' ' graceful speakers,' 
and men of ' line, clear minds,' loaded our pop-guns 
and made ourselves ready to startle the quietest 
villages, than there comes Briareus Thwackaway 
with a four-headed club, across the sea, which he 
will brandish up and down the country, felling 
cities, and villages, and towns — and where shall 
we and our pop-guns be ? However, there is one 
consolation. I have been reckoning that there 
must be at least two thousand Lyceums in the coun- 
try ; and, thank Heaven ! as there are not two thou- 
sand nights in the year, some of the others of us 
will have a chance." 

Mumm departed, satisfied. But who would not 
yield to Achilles ? Of all lecturers we have ever 
heard — and in lecturing and be-lectured America 
are they not many ? — two men, very unlike each oth- 
er, please us most. They are Emerson and Thack- 
eray. Emerson is a poet chanting, and Thackeray 
is a man of the world chatting. Yet, by ' man of 
the world' we mean nothing small. Shakspeare 
was a man of the world in the sense we mean, and 
Fielding, and Raphael. The man of the world is 
he who sees the facts clearly and takes them. He 
does not twist things to a theory, and think it so 
much the worse for the facts if they do not con- 
form. He has a fine eye and a warm heart. The 
moral of his life is charity and good-will. His 
sermon is toleration. His politics are democracy. 
When such a man lectures upon the world, or upon 
that aspect of it which is called society, we natu- 
rally all want to go and hear. If Robinson Cru- 
soe had lectured upon Desert Islands, or upon Men 
Fridays, who would not have rushed for a front 
seat ? There is a satisfaction, too, in seeing the 
men to whom we owe so much pleasure, so much 
wisdom, as we do to the novelists and poets. 
Dickens sometimes goes to Birmingham or Man- 
chester and reads in public one of his smaller sto- 
ries. Dickens does in England what Homer did 
in Greece. Would you not go to the next town to 
hear Scott read a chapter of Ivanhoe ? When the 
writers of great and good books, which are printed 
and read with delight, write little good books which 
are not printed, but which they read aloud to all 
who will come to hear, can there be any purer 
pleasure? In that way they taste directly the 
fame they have justly earned, but of which they 
usually get only a distant and indirect recognition. 
The aspect of a man, his voice, his manner, help 
interpret him. You understand his books better 
when you know him. Perhaps he puts the best 
part of himsejf into his books. Perhaps he has 
personal weaknesses and affectations which he him- 
self sees and despises, and will not allow to taint 
what he writes. But a man's personality is al- 
ways entire. Nobody is purely sincere in soul and 
a little affected in manner. Manners are not su- 
perficial. Their quality is determined by the mind 
and heart, just as the clearness of the complexion 
depends upon the healthy condition of the system. 
If, therefore, a man is dear to us from any cause, 
it is natural to wish to see him. Thus lecturing 
has come to be lion-hunting. But hunting lions 
is princely sport when you can bag a royal one. 
It is true that a man mav write a very good book 
Vol. XII.— No. 67.-—I 



and a very bad lecture. But let us try them. At 
least let us believe when a man has written a book 
full of wit and wisdom, his lecture will be very 
likely to be witty and wise. 

The great charm of Thackeray's lecturing is its 
simplicity. There is nothing of the schoolmaster 
about him. The lecture is not a sermon, nor a di- 
dactic essay. It is a series of sadly shrewd observ- 
ations upon life and people. If you can work out 
of it any other theory than that men are fallible, 
and that we all need to have charity and to try to 
do better, then do it. If you can trace profound 
principles, around which and according to which 
things group and arrange themselves, trace them. 
Thackeray seems to say that he has not found such 
theories — that life succeeds better without them — 
that it is very dangerous to trust to them. Men 
and states are wrecked upon theories. The trulr 
wise men are always empirics — always governed 
by experience. What, after all, are our best spec- 
imens of virtue ? There are no standards. It is 
easy to give alms, easy to pray, easy to build build- 
ings and found institutions, but it is not easy to be 
charitable, religious, and public-spirited. 

Thus, again, it is the sweet humanity of his lec- 
tures which is so striking. They neither shoot 
over nor under. They hit us just where we need 
to be touched. The lectures are not too fine nor 
speculative. They give us the times and the men 
as they really were : yet as they were in the light 
of a genial humanity. There are many of our 
friends who will have the chance of hearing Thack- 
eray after reading what we say. We urge them 
not to lose the chance. Mumm is a good lecturer, 
but Thwackaway is better. Mumm has what they 
call a great flow of words — Heaven save us ! — and 
the audience labors with him as he soars into the 
rhetorical empyrean, and then falls with him in a 
shower of golden rain. It is as good as fire-works 
to hear and see Mumm — a most pyrotechnical ora- 
tor. Mumm well earns his money. But somehow 
the stars continue to shine when the feu-de-joie is 
over. They were quite extinguished by the brill- 
iant burst of the rocket. But the stars will be 
there to-morrow night, and the loftiest and loveli- 
est rockets — where are they ? 



There was general joy at the return of Dr. Kane. 
If " all mankind love a lover," they do not less love 
a hero. His ships sailed away blown by warm 
wishes as well as favorable winds. Hearts went 
with him that were not catalogued with the crew, 
and there was a real hope that America should fur- 
nish the eyes that were first to see the Northwest 
Passage. 

In one way, indeed, the expedition failed. It 
went to find Sir John Franklin, and it returned 
without having found a trace of him. Before Dr. 
Kane could know it, the world knew that Sir John 
could never return. He had not forced the terri- 
ble secret of the Pole ; but somewhere in the vast, 
icy solitude his human bones remain, a monument 
of human heroism. If he could not pass the gate, 
he could lay his body before it, and thus attest the 
will to do it, and thus certify its final accomplish- 
ment. 

It was the same spirit that sent Dr. Kane. It 
Avas less the chance of finding a passage that could 
do nobody any good, than it was to demonstrate 
that Nature could not balk man with merely ma- 
terial impediments. Fourier, indeed, held that the 
defects of Nature would disappear in the degree 



126 



HARPEE'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



that men became better. In a perfectly virtuous 
world there would be no sandy nor icy wastes — no 
noisome reptiles, no material impossibility. Vir- 
tue was to melt the glaciers. Virtue was to turn 
the desert into a garden. Mount Blanc was to lie 
down with the Vale of Cachmere, and the awful 
snows of the Himalayas were to gently cool the 
summer air. There should be no storms at sea — 
no violent excess of nature. In a more poetic mood, 
he thought that virtue was so to refine the senses 
that the good man would detect each planet, as it 
passed, by its peculiar aroma. 

To Fourier the search for the Northwest Passage 
would have been a foregone conclusion. The way 
to find it, he would say, is to stay at home and 
bring your soul into harmony with Nature. Then 
the secrets of Nature would be charmed into light 
by your power, as snakes are charmed by music 
from their holes. Let men be brought into right 
relations with each other, and the desert of Sahara 
is abolished. 

If a man finds in this only a dream it is still 
beautiful. The great problems of the material 
world, whose solution has cost so many lives, so 
much anguish, must often have suggested to men 
the thought that there was an unhandsome victory 
of dead matter over living spirit. A daring and po- 
etic soul would necessarily try in some way to har- 
monize the possible facts with his consciousness of 
possible powers, and so, as of old the spheres were 
said to make music as they rolled — and the music 
of spheres is not so ridiculous an idea that we all 
laugh at it — the new philosopher believed that the 
spheres had each their aroma — and, as they could 
be seen and heard, so they could be smelled. The 
inspiration of Sir John Franklin and Dr. Kane, 
the instinctive feeling that men could wrest the 
solution of the vexed question from the icy hold 
of Nature, was in kind the same instinctive pride 
and prophecy of the human mind that Fourier ex- 
pressed. They were but various ways of asserting 
— the one practically, the other poetically — that 
man is the head of Nature. 

It is still true, although Sir John returns no 
more, and Kane looks for him in vain. The sphinx 
of ice that sits in the North, and turns to stone all 
who can not guess her riddle, shall one day yield 
and confess. We are here to subdue the earth, and 
not to be subdued by it. Even the stars can not 
hide themselves, and the mountains stretch away 
into the clouds in vain. There is no waste of hero- 
ism. Success is not external, but it belongs to the 
man, or, rather, the real success is internal, and 
consists in the growth and development of charac- 
ter. The success of the Arctic navigators is in 
their prompt and heroic obedience to a noble in- 
stinct ; and although the North will now probably 
be left to its own solitude, history, as she writes 
the story of these days, will record the names of 
Franklin and Kane with no less glowing fingers 
because they found no passage through the ice. 



Yesterday as I (for an Easy Chair, although 
it has four legs, is still only a single chair) turned 
out of the Battery, very much as Goldsmith turned 
into the Park, the eyes of the Easy Chair fell upon 
a lady moving slowly up the street with a prodi- 
gious circumference of skirt. The bonnet was a 
mere beau-knot of lace and ribbons, the cloak was 
of brilliant colors, and the whole air w r as that of 
the beautiful Miss Peacock, who is perfectly well 
known to all her acquaintances. 



The lady sailed in so jaunty a manner along the 
sidewalk, that the men hurrying about their af- 
fairs, still found time to glance at her and at each 
other, and sometimes there seemed to be a ghost 
of a smile flitting over their faces. The omnibus- 
drivers, also, and the carmen, I observed, were 
gazing very intently at the show, and I could not 
but envy the father of the beautiful Miss Peacock, 
whose daughter was the object of universal atten- 
tion, and especially the lover of Miss Peacock, who 
could thus see that draymen were not unconscious 
of her charms. 

And so I went on, speculating how many skirts 
must probably go to such circumference, when, as 
the lady suddenly stopped at a window, I pass- 
ed her. But at the same moment she resumed her 
promenade, and turning to make the bow which 
every old Easy Chair is so happy to make to that 
beautiful young lady, I was shocked to find that it 
was not Miss Peacock at all, but only her old aunt, 
Miss December Jackdaw. 

Now, what right has Miss Jackdaw to Avear the 
plumage of spring ? Would an honest woman dis- 
play such -false colors ? Would a truly virtuous 
woman of sixty try to make men, who had not yet 
overtaken her, believe that she was the young and 
beautiful Miss Peacock ? The honor of that fam- 
ily is concerned. If the Jackdaw branch is to be 
perpetually mistaken for the genuine Peacock, 
where are we ? as the great statesmen put it — and 
where, for one, am I to go ? 

One thing I will not do — because I can not — I 
will not treat a woman, old enough to be my wife, 
as if she were young enough to be my daughter. 
That is reasonable. And if it is reasonable for me, 
is it not so for her ? If I can not pay her that kind 
of homage, ought she to expect it ; or ought she to 
show that she expects it by dressing as if she did? 
Suppose this grave Easy Chair should go skipping 
down Broadway in varnished boots, yellow gloves, 
profuse buttons and watch-chains, and a dashing 
amber stick. Would not those who loved him be 
sorry ? Would they not feel the sad incongruity 
between his years and his dress ? Would they not 
instantly say, or believe, if they did not care to say 
it, that he must be related to the immense family 
of the Popinjays? 

What a family that is, and how 7 intimately it is 
related to so many other families ! My eye has 
now become so discriminating that I can tell a 
Popinjay at the first glance, and even in disguise. 
But it is not easy to disguise the Popinjay air. It 
breaks out like an accent in speaking. Nor do the 
family usually wish to conceal it. It was only the 
other day that I met Otto Popinjay. Otto is a 
son of one of the poor branches. He gets six or 
seven hundred dollars a j'ear as a lawyer's-clerk, 
and has fair prospects of advancement. Now you 
would naturally expect economy with that income, 
and you would say that a young man of sense would 
spare himself elaborate jewelry, and the appliances 
of a dandy. There are men who struggle along 
respectably upon that sum, even with families. 
A youth not extravagant in boots, and gloves, 
and operas, and cigars, ought to keep himself de- 
cent and presentable upon it. But if Otto were 
coining in to ten thousand a year, he could not be 
more flashy. I look on in admiration ; but I won- 
der. I wonder who pays. I wonder if Otto ex- 
pects to eat his cake and have it. I wonder if he 
does not regard the approval of wise men more 
than the admiration of foolish. I wonder if he 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



127 



thinks that really lovely women like him better 
for his buttons and breeches. Of course little 
Ballerina does, and his cousin, May Polka Pop- 
injay. But they only know men's cravats and 
coats, and they never can know any thing more of 
them. 

Otto Popinjay is not an honest man. When he 
walks the street, his appearance says three thou- 
sand a year, and he cherishes an appearance that 
does not tell the truth. There are men who have 
done so with sinister motives. His cousin, Plume 
Popinjay, was enamored of a young gentleman 
who had wealth of waistcoats, and boots, and 
chains. He was a distingue man. He had gen- 
tlemanly manners, and melancholy eyes. Miss 
Plume Popinjay capitulated — only to discover that 
he had nothing else. " My clothes are my for- 
tune, Ma'am," he said. He had carried her by a 
brilliant broadside •■ of waistcoat and varnished 
boots. I consider him a swindler. 

Thus it begets disagreeable suspicions when a 
man or woman dresses beyond his or her means or 
age. Late at night, in Broadway, I have seen sad 
parodies of this overdressing — women who are not 
young, nor fair, nor virtuous, flaunting in flounces 
an: l rustling silks along the street. Also, if so 
much thought is given to the exterior — if, as the 
youth (one of the Popinjays of the English branch), 
says in Punch, " I have given my whole mind to 
iny tie," } r ou feel instinctively that there is little 
thought left for any thing else. Whenever I see 
old Miss December Jackdaw, I feel that all noble 
women are insulted. She brings woman in the ab- 
stract into contempt, for the reputation of the sex 
always suffers from the foolishness of the individual. 
And I, who am a lover of the sex, and who perpet- 
ually insist, not only that men are as gallant, but 
that women are as lovely and attractive as ever 
they were in any period of history, am obliged to 
retreat hastily from the amiable gibes of my com- 
panions when I see old Miss December approach- 
ing. I am loth to believe that a woman can do so. 
We forgive men many absurdities ; but we require 
of women that they shall maintain in our minds 
the ideal they inspire. If they do not — if they are 
coarse, slovenly, or tawdry — if they sIioav any sus- 
picion of a want of self-respect or maidenly mod- 
esty — they do themselves and us a greater injury 
than they believe. 

I am disposed to chat a moment more upon this 
topic, as you sit about the Chair ; for between 
our hurry to do ever}' - thing quickly, and our 
partly natural contempt for the pompous insin- 
cerity of what is called " the old school " of man- 
ners, we are letting good manners go. Now man- 
ners are peculiarly human. Dogs and cats, and 
lions and snails, treat each other naturally and 
sincerely, but th'ey have no manners. Fine man- 
ners are, in a way, the poetry of sincere inter- 
course. The worst manners are an imitation of 
this. Courtesy is not compliment. Courtesy is 
not strictly necessary, indeed ; but is to intercourse 
what fragrance is to a flower. All the uses of a 
flower are subserved without fragrance; but the 
bloom and the odor are the best part of the flower. 
The main interest of the world in roses is not that 
the blossom is a development of the seed-vessel, 
which secures the perpetuity of roses, but it is in its 
beauty and fragrance. This makes the rose sym- 
bolic and splendid. For although the operation of 
one may sometimes be beautiful, the best beauty is 
independent of use. It is the form and color of 



the cloud that charm us, and they would charm the 
same were there no bulging fullness of welcome 
shower. 

Thus courtesy is pure poetry. A word from 
some lips is more than a speech from others. 
Good manners are only to be fostered by encour- 
aging good feeling. Good feelings do not by any 
means always produce beautiful manners. Indeed, 
there is a certain veneer of elegance, a polish which 
has nothing to do with heart and character, and 
yet which is courtly, and graceful, and attractive. 
Bad men have often good manners. But that is 
only saying that a snake is fascinating. A beau- 
tiful woman is also fascinating, and the difference 
is not hard to detect. 

So we must not let the Popinjays give us swag- 
ger for ease, and superciliousness for elegance. 
Simplicity is the crown of excellence, and there is 
nothing more simple than truly beautiful manners. 
The difficulty is, that if you think of it, you be- 
come self-conscious and lose it. But if there be 
any way of getting what is so desirable and lovely, 
it is by carefully eschewing both the morals and 
the manners of the Popinjay family. 



When Sir Walter Scott was King of the Novel, 
every fresh volume of his was looked for with 
universal interest, and seemed to be an affair of 
great public interest. Perhaps some belated reader 
grieves that he did not live in those days of grand 
excitement. But if he will remember that there 
are now two great novelists in England, and that 
as one has just finished his story, the other be- 
gins his, he may discover that he does not live in 
so pitiable a year. For my part, I am content to 
live now. There seems to be as much real interest 
in the announcement of a new novel by Dickens 
or Thackeray as there could have been in Scott's 
day. It is the rap of a friend at the door when 
Dickens announces a new book. The heart leaps 
like a girl at her lover's footstep, and quickly 
cries, " Come in !" He does come in, and how we 
laugh and cry ! How various, how affluent, how 
good he is ! It does not seem necessary to argue 
elaborately whether he or Thackeray be the great- 
est genius. The world is very wide. Dickens is 
a man who must be welcome in all manly, all 
childlike hearts. If people were glad when Sir 
Walter Scott published a book, what should they 
be now? 

And, say what we will, a serial is good ; a serial 
is very good, as Touchstone would have it. A 
serial is strictly the groAvth of modern time, of an 
improved press, of a diffused education, of a uni- 
versally reading nation. The great fact about 
America is that we are a reading people. For- 
eigners see this and wonder ; authors see it and re- 
joice. Well now, how to dispose of business, and 
two or three histories, and two or three good novels, 
at the same time ; novels no more to be missed by 
a right-minded man, than Pamela, in its day, or 
Guy Mannering. When Bulwer, and Dickens, 
and Thackeray, and how many French people, are 
writing stories and memoirs, how are they all to be 
compassed ? Easily, in the serial. You breakfast 
on Thackeray, you dine on Dickens, you tea and 
toast on Bulwer. That is, you have a spare half 
hour, an odd quarter, before and after, which you 
bestow upon those authors. In that way it was 
possible to read "My Novel," " Pendennis," and 
" David Copperfield." And yet, when they wore 
completed, what a huge pile of volumes it ^\as.' 



128 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Who could have undertaken that? Ask your 
neighbors, and ascertain how many who did not 
read those books as they were published, have read 
them since ? 

People say it is not easy to read serially. The) r 
forget who wants to marry whom. Now it doesn't 
make much matter to such people, when, how, or 
what they read. Books are not written for such 
intellectual cullenders. If a novel, or any thing 
else, is worth reading, it is worth understanding. 
Nobody who lately read " The Newcomes," was in 
any doubt whom Clive wanted to marry, and he 
had a shrewd suspicion where Ethel's heart was. 
Headers who complain of serials have not learned 
the first wish of an epicure — a long, long throat. 
It is the serial which lengthens the throat so that 
the feast lasts a year or two years. You taste it 
all the way down. You return to it. You have 
time to look back, to look over. As in life, you 
can sit, as the number ends, as you sit when the 
door closes, and muse upon what follows. Your 
fancy goes on and draws the beautiful result. Or 
your fancy steals out and returns to you in tears. 
A serial novel has the great advantage of drawing 
the author back to nature. He can not cook up a 
plot. He can not waste his brains devising ar- 
rangements and surprises. The interest must be 
sustained in the novel as it is out of novels. It 
must be an interest of character, and that is, prop- 
erly speaking, the domain of the novel. In fact, 
it is in our day that the novel has returned to its 
proper sphere. It had been long lost in the mazes 
of romance, or the darker realms of moral and po- 
litical speculation. Do you remember Plumer 
Ward's " Tremaine ?" Are you not visited by the 
vision of a body of divinity when you recall it ? 
Was ever a lover so won, except when John Bun- 
cle Avon his wives, polemically ? 

It is as true in literary art as in all other, that 
the great works are based upon Nature. The men 
who do the things that are remembered and are 
full of influence, are the men who have clung to 
Nature. Did the artists copy the Greek? But 
whom did the Greeks copy ? They copied Nature^ 
and therefore they seem excellent to the artists. 
The modern novel does the same thing. It takes 
the life of to-day, and builds upon it as the French 
vaudeville does. And why is the French vaude- 
ville the only living drama ? Because it is studied 
carefully and closely from life. 

So, at the beginning, be advised to read the new 
story of Dickens in serial parts — even in these 
pages. It will have a freshness of interest you 
can not otherwise conceive. Besides, it is writ- 
ten so. Each number is intended to end where it 
ends, and no longer, as in old times, to pause upon 
a moment of horror, just as the robber was tum- 
bling through the window, or, more breathlessly, 
just as Adolphus Augustus was going down upon 
his knee — " to be continued." Now, every num- 
ber has a certain kind of completeness. Stories, 
like life, have exigencies. Sometimes it is hard to 
see how Manlius is going to reach Marietta safely 
— how sail between the Scylla of Papa, and the 
Mamma Charybdis. That is the natural excite- 
ment of life — and so it is of the serial story. It is 
not gotten up. It is not patched up. It is the 
simple working. 

If you doubt it, try the experiment with the 
new story, which is to be commenced in our Jan- 
uary Number, and regularly continued, with the 
engravings. Why not be sure of a laugh once a 



month, or of a tear, if your name is Laura Ma- 
tilda ? Be well advised, and read the new serial 
of Dickens. 



It really seems a pity that Mr. Pfeil may not 
burn the body of Mrs. Pfeil, if that lady desires it, 
and especially requests it, before her decease. If 
a man may not burn his wife when she is dead, 
what will the Hindoos say of us ? Their luxuries 
are more exquisite. 

If a man should seriously ask to have his dog 
killed at his grave, would a friend deny the re- 
quest ? would he not take care that the dog w r as 
killed? If a man left his body to the doctors, 
would it not be freely and thankfully surrendered 
to them ? If a woman should wish to be interred 
in a black bonnet, would it not be done? If a 
woman seriously asked to have her body carried 
out to sea and sunk, who would feel easy not to 
fulfill her request? Why, if she wished to have 
it burned — as the wisest and most cultivated of 
nations had long the practice — should it not only 
not be done, but some newspapers fabricate lament- 
able complaints of monstrosity and moral delin- 
quency ? 

If the papers which have poured out wrath upon 
a man for a recent eflbrt to burn a body — which 
to our fancy is much the most agreeable way of 
disposing of the dead — really wish a good subject 
of anathema, they may find it in those Black-holes, 
the Western cars, in winter. The friend of our 
Chair will remember our last winter's correspond- 
ent. It was perfectly true. It is perfectly true 
of any railroad North or South, or East or West, 
where sixty human beings are crammed into an 
oblong box, and sealed up to consume their own 
health and the exhalations of their bodies. 

How long are these things to continue? How 
long is a man to dread a Western journey as if he 
had been ordered to take a place in the charette 
for execution ? How long are there to be no cars 
for people who want fresh air and not foul air? 
for people who are willing to close the window if 
your wife is really ill, and requires that it should 
be closed ; or if you are an emigrant, and your wife 
has not clothing enough? We beg our friends 
every where to show up these enormities boldly. 
We shall be glad to cannonade the public until it 
capitulates upon this point ; and if any man springs 
to the defense of the abomination, he shall be heard, 
but he shall be answered. Stifling in the horrid 
Calcutta Hole, can you not fancy the eager and 
agonized cry of the victims ? It rang through the 
world, and it makes history pale even now. And 
every day and every night, after the cold season 
sets in, trains of Black-holes are sent away from 
various towns, with a large lump of red-hot poison 
in the midst to secure the destruction of the vic- 
tims ; and these crowded holes dart over the frozen 
landscape express trains of death ! 

There ! if any indignant friend thinks fit to send 
us an anonymous letter complaining of our sever- 
ity, it shall be attended to. But good anonymous 
friends, in quiet country places, w T ho lean upon our 
Chair, and kindly hear our words, consider whether 
it is quite worth while to wonder why the bloom 
fades from your daughter's cheek, and the fire from 
your son's eye, if he has much winter travel to ac- 
complish. You gentlemen of firesides who sit at 
home at ease may think a dreadful fuss is made 
about close cars. Try it. Scold, but try. Jump 
into the next winter train, and breathe the air for 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



six or seven hours. Then try the anonymous let- 
ter dodge. 

This is what the exasperated papers might dis- 
cuss rather than innocent Mr. Pfeil's incremation 
of his wife. Perhaps the newspapers will take our 
beef-steaks in charge next, and inform us how much 
we may eat, at what price, and in what manner 
cooked. Let the reader never forget that roar the 
lion never so loudly, it is still only Snug the Joiner. 
" The indignant press of the country" is only Jones 
and Jenkins in bad humor. Public opinion is be- 
hind the newspapers. Young Groodle has fallen 
out with Toodle the famous dancer, and the virtu- 
ous press of an enlightened community comes down 
upon public dancing. Toodle, the famous dancer, 
introduces young Groodle to his lovely sister, and 
the discriminating journals of the lane, impressive- 
ly order the line between the morality of beautiful 
motion and the sinfulness of model statues. 

While we daily poison a thousand or more living 
beings, caught upon their travels, let us be quiet- 
mouthed about burning a dead body. 



A man feeis taller when he has voted. There 
is a sense of dignity about honest euffrage which 
is not over-described in (he most gorgeous touches 
of Fourth of July eloquence. Nothing so strikes a 
foreigner as the fease with which our ship of state 
is tacked and turned. She moves around as quiet- 
ly as a whale in deep waters. It is a text for a 
careful sermon, not the motto of a paragraph. An 
election-day, in a republic, is, ideally, one of the 
greatest days of history. But facts are so inferior ! 

There is always such a sad discrepancy between 
the political enthusiast's dream of an election and 
the morning revelation of the booths ! It was so 
when Hogarth painted; it is so when the Decem- 
ber Number of Harper is printed. There is such 
ardent huzzaing — of men who are desperately an- 
gling for the fishes, having long since consumed the 
loaves. There is such sincere saving of the coun- 
try by masked assassins. There is such purity 
of principle — among men who buy and sell voters. 
There is such patriotism — in the mouth. There is 
such devotion — to one's own interest. 

Out of all the chaos, however, comes order. 
There is a great splutter at the polls — immense 
eloquence — untiring exertion — and unprecedented 
effort. The next day comes, and the country is 
not gone. Our land and morning do not break to- 
gether, as somebody's heart pathetically did ; but 
we find a noble country and a hopeful people. The 
dirt of the election is blown away, and the gold of 
good remains. Let every man see that the noble- 
ness of the country takes no detriment, and remem- 
ber that he is bound at all hazards to be a man. 



OUR FOREIGN GOSSIP. 

We are jogging on, through this November 
weather, toward — the end of the world. Nobody 
doubts the fact ; and it would hardly be worth 
making a note of, even in our budget of trifles, if 
our foreign wiseacres — speaking through the pa- 
pers and otherwheres — had not startled us by say- 
ing that we have but a little more space to jog over 
— only a few more of these rustling Novembers — 
and then the last leaf will fall, and the world whisk 
away in a grand meteoric shower ! 

Only nine more volumes (or, if you bind the 
years in couplets, eighteen) of Harper's Magazine, 
and then the Easy Chair will be rolled away, the 
Drawer stick for aye, and the Table break down ! 



At least so says the Rev. Dr. Cumming ; and he is 
a man by whose opinions a great multitude pin 
their faith. In the year 1865, he tells us, the world 
will have accomplished its tale of j'ears ; the last 
seal will be unbroken, and the heavens roll away 
like a scroll. 

And pray who is Dr. Cumming, who ventures to 
put this sudden limit to our gossip, and to say that 
after a single decade of years we can be garrulous 
from our Chair no more forever ? He is a learned 
Scotch preacher, who draws on every Sabbath-day, 
in London, great crowds to listen to his eloquence ; 
and who, until this eccentricity of belief grew on 
him, was accounted among the most orthodox of 
the most orthodox Free Church of Scotland. We 
remember, on a time, to have heard him fill Exeter 
Hall with his voice, and with such rare art of lan- 
guage — bearing such earnestness of thought, that 
the crowd listened like an audience of Rachel's Ca- 
mille. It would be reasonable to suppose that such 
a man would carry a greater train of fellow-think- 
ers after him than our old friend Miller. (Pray, is 
Mr. Miller dead ?) And yet we doubt the fact. It 
is odd enough, but true, that practical and common- 
sense people as we are, we follow after strangeness- 
es and newnesses with more greed and in greater 
flocks than any people of the world. We recruit 
Salt Lake cities, and build Mormon temples, and 
sacrifice to Free Love and Mr. Brisbane, and inocu- 
late ourselves with morus multicaulis or Shanghai 
fevers, and entertain moon-hoaxes with more lib- 
erality and warmth than any creatures elsewhere. 

And therefore it is we think it more than prob- 
able that the parish of Dr. Cumming will presently 
be extending itself on our side of the water, and 
our eager hunters after novelty, tired with repeat- 
ing the awful prophecy of disunion or of hoop pet- 
ticoats, will embrace the doctrinal reading of the 
Scotch divine, and pin their faith to the grand is- 
sue of 1865. 

At the risk of setting ourselves forward as the 
inaugurators of the new Millerism on this side of 
the water, we beg to note down one or tw r o con- 
tingent facts, which seem to illustrate the theory 
of Dr. Cumming. 

First of all, the great war trails its shadow over 
Eastern Europe, darkening the Euxine, darkening 
the great city founded by the Christian Emperor, 
darkening the far-off households of England, and 
darkening ever} 7 where the aims and ends of civili- 
zation. We have the battle-murder by thousands ; 
we have the desolated fields ; we have the conscrip- 
tion rolling off its tens of thousands from the peace- 
ful pursuits of agriculture ; we have the Crescent 
of Mahomet going down in blood ; we have the 
twin-crosses of Greece and Rome fighting for the 
final victory ; we have the sturdy sovereignty of 
Britain shaking unsteadily in its w r ater realm ; we 
have the great land of China in fearful ferment; 
we have the gates of Japan opened ; we have the 
desert regions of Africa penetrated ; we have the 
great Arctic mysteries solved ; and lastly, we have 
our own turbid politics, bigger with threats than 
ever before. 

Nor is this all : Death was never busier doing 
his part for the final consummation. Pestilence 
is even now knocking at the doors of France. If 
the war is taking its tens of thousands, the cholera 
can boast its thousands. And nearer home, the 
vomit-plague is hanging in the wintry air, floating 
northward. 

What shall be said, moreover, of the failing crops 



130 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



of Europe, and of the foreboded deterioration in the 
productive qualities of all grains ? What if disease 
is to ravage our wheat lands, as it has our potato 
fields ? 

In short, does not enough threaten to make the 
warning of the Scotch preacher reach widely and 
loudly ? And yet, setting the prophecy by, who 
among us can count with assurance on ten years 
more of life ? 

There are those alarmists, besides the Doctor, 
who extend our lease of the world for a century 
and a half to come. The year 2000, when it ar- 
rives, will top the history of dates, and none of the 
living (it is very certain) will welcome the year 
2001. It will be an even stopping-point ; and men 
may close their journals squarely with such a round 
date as 2000. 

Meantime, how goes the European world ? Not 
frightened, surely, by any such prognostics as these, 
but yet feeling sorely the shortened supplies which 
the land gives, and peering doubtfully into the 
war-clouds which shroud the Eastern horizon. 
France, mercurial as ever, although her harvests 
are the shortest and her bank the poorest, is yet 
meeting adversity with light-hearted hopes. The 
Eastern venture seems full of promise. The French 
hospitals are rising fast into the strength of bar- 
racks upon the shores of the Dardanelles. The 
prestige of the MalakofF is not lost upon the weak 
Osmanlee. Lord Stratford, with his cunning di- 
plomacy, is day by day losing ground, and is mak- 
ing matters all the worse by venting his spleen 
upon the French officials. They tell us that he 
refused to ratify with his presence the celebration 
of the Te Deum in honor of the Malakoff, at Con- 
stantinople; and there are rumors whispered in 
court-circles, that the Emperor, who manages the 
Avar for England, has demanded his recall. 

But the time has not ripened yet for a severance 
of the two great Western interests. The spoils 
have not yet their accumulated weight ; the Turk 
has not yet withered away utterly, and the Aus- 
trian still hangs too threateningly on the Transyl- 
vanian mountains. 

Nay, there is even newspaper talk (not to be 
credited over much) that the alliance is to be drawn 
closer than ever by the marriage of the Prince 
Napoleon with the Princess Alice of England. The 
bare fact that such rumors should be credited for a 
moment is evidence of a singular union of political 
ties ; but, to our thinking, the old home character 
of John Bull will reluctate greatly to add this 
crowning seal to the war alliance. 

There is this beautiful feature in British loyalty, 
that it wraps itself around the persons of the royal 
family with a kind of domestic devotion, and is as 
tender of their interests, and jealous of their hon- 
or, and careful of their affections, as if they formed 
a patriarchate, with blood-ties to every man and 
woman in the realm. This home loyalty, it seems 
to us, would be greatly outraged at the thought of 
binding the blooming girl, Princess of England, 
who has found health among the heather of the 
Highlands, and a pure faith under the arches of 
Protestant Kirks, to the profligate Prince Napo- 
leon. There would be no rejoicing bonfires for the 
consummation of such a union. And with our 
memory resting pleasantly upon the ruddy, cheer- 
ful face of the little Alice, as we have caught sight 
of her upon the Long Walk of Windsor, we pre- 
fer to think the story an idle creation of the news- 
mongers. 



In our other-side grouping of news, we must 
not fail to note the new action of the European re- 
publicans, who, tired at length with their long and 
fruitless waiting, have issued proclamation to the 
hopeful ones to resist openly, wherever they may 
be, the existing dynasties. 

It is a proclamation easier to issue than to act 
upon. The old Radetsky, though touching upon 
his ninetieth year, is still watchful of the Lom- 
bard fortresses, and there seems no present hope 
for the republicans of Italy. 

Manin, who defended so gloriously the little 
State of Venice, has, it would seem, sacrificed his 
Venetian pride to whatever may promote the 
union and prosperity of Italy. He has openly 
declaimed his willingness to rally to a Sardinian 
standard, whenever that standard — whether borne 
by a king or a republic — shall be raised for the 
union and the freedom of Italy. It is noticeable, 
moreover, that his letter to this effect has been 
published without provoking the retributive action 
of the imperial censors of Paris. It would seem 
that the Emperor was growing less tender of the 
feelings and sympathies of his imperial brother of 
Austria. 

If the generous impulses and common-sense ac- 
tions of President IManin were more currently en- 
tertained by Italians, there would be far more hope 
for Italy. We recognize at once the true loyalty 
of that feeling which prompts an Italian to declare 
first of all for independence. Republic or monarchy 
— Sardinian or Romish ascendance, are issues far 
inferior in importance to the grand one proposed 
by Manin, of freedom from Austrian tyranny. 



Before this will meet the eye of the reader, we 
shall know what are the verdicts in the great Court 
of Industry, and how America stands in the list 
of inventive honors. We can promise ouselves, al- 
ready, the comforting assurance that our country 
will have merited and received reward* in what re- 
lates to those commoner arts of life, toward which 
a new country ought to direct its more constant 
thought. 

Our reaping-machine will stand high, if not the 
highest, and our threshers and plows, if well repre- 
sented, will certainly bear high place in comparison 
with those of Europe. We love the thought that 
our prairies, waving with grain — the feeding lands 
of Europe in their days of adversity — will thus have 
a voice in the Palace of the Nations ; and for our- 
selves, we can rest satisfied with the conviction 
that our American mind is taking the best human 
measure of those grand wants of the race which 
agriculture supplies. We can readily content our- 
selves with the thought that our new country has 
comprehended, best of all, the aids to that patri- 
archial art, which is the basis of all national pros- 
perity, and which had its beginnings in Eden. 

We can give up the paintings and the pianos ; w r e 
can import them if need be. We can measure our 
time, complacently, with French watches ; we can 
give pap in Paris spoons ; we can dish our tea in 
Birmingham ware, and we can study toilets in 
foreign mirrors ; but we hope never to see our 
prairies laid open with a British plowshare, or our 
shipwrights seeking foreign models. 

Apropos of pianos ; there was a rumor running 
through the columns of American papers, not long 
ago, that a certain manufacturer of Boston had 
gained the first premium ; and the rumor ran, gain- 
ing all the strength of running rumors, until in the 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



131 



Far West we catch a paragraph glorifying the mu- 
sical manufacturers of the country, and sneering in 
good round terms at those effete nations of Europe 
who have exhausted all their inventive genius 
even in matters of art, and who must come hence- 
forth to Boston in search of their best instruments 
of music ! 

It is a pity to expose such cheerful rhodomontade, 
and yet the truth has borne out only a minimum 
of this grand boast. It would appear that the 
square-box pianos which make an unfortunately 
common bit of American furniture (our ears are even 
now aching with the "practice" of our neighbor's 
daughter), are but little affected beyond the seas ; 
and that of seven such appearing at the Paris Ex- 
hibition, one of Boston manufacture has been re- 
commended as worthy of the fourth prize ! 

Much as we like to give modesty a prop, we do 
not know but we take even greater pleasure in pull- 
ing the stilts away from undue boastfulness. Let 
©ur dear friend Mr. Ladd, or Chickering (or what- 
ever the name may be), console himself with the 
fact that M'Cormick's reaper is cheapening bread 
to his children. In other departments of art our 
American exhibitors do not appear to have been 
very successful ; nor are we at all surprised to learn 
that the Greek Slave of Mr. Powers, trumpeted 
about Paris as the chef-d'ozucre of this age, did not 
draw away the crowd from the Palace galleries, or 
provoke a single Imperial visit. French critics are 
not taken by storm, and the approaches to their 
favor and kindly mention, although quickened by 
a discreet largess, must be quietly made. 

In allusion to American paintings (at the great 
Exhibition) a writer for the Debats expresses his 
belief that no real Americanism belongs to them 
whatever, and that they are to be rated and crit- 
icised as the essays of pupils who study and imitate, 
with more or less of success, the French or English 
models. The portraits of Mr. Healy, whose power 
of execution he reckons first, he declares to be close- 
ly after the roseate manner of Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
Very few of the American paintings, either from 
subject or treatment, call to mind the New Coun- 
try from which they come. 



Among the new and later visitors to the galler- 
ies of the Exhibition, must be now named the young 
Duke of Brabant ; he has come to Paris with his 
bride, and has been welcomed with honors and 
fete-givings, which in any other season than that 
which has witnessed the entree of Victoria and the 
Sebastopol Te Deum, would have been the talk of 
the town. Our readers may not all know that the 
Duke of Brabant is the well-looking and thriving 
son of King Leopold of Belgium; and his bride, 
the heiress of a high German name, and of near 
kin to the great House of Hapsburg. 

Poor Eugenie, through all these fete-makings, 
guards her private apartments at St. Cloud, cheat- 
ing herself of the ennui of the Imperial promise 
she bears by saunters in the private gardens of 
the Palace, and by abandonment of her old cere- 
monial robes. 

The Prince Napoleon, in his quality of Grand 
Commissioner of Industry, has just now received 
the compliment of a supper at the new Hotel du 
Louvre. They tell us it was altogether a shabby 
affair; no ladies were present; the guests proved 
disorderly ; the arrangements were illy matured, 
and the police closed the doors at one o'clock on 
the succeeding morning. 



The hotel itself is represented as altogether a 
grand one. Its west face fills the entire side of that 
open square which lies between the Palais Royal 
and the newly-built wing of the Louvre ; upon the 
Rivoli it stretches its arcades as far as the ancient 
Rue du Coq St. Honore ; and, returning upon it- 
self, occupies the entire block. Its southern rooms 
will be partially shaded by the gigantic pile of the 
Palace; but no better lounging window could be 
imagined than one upon its western front, looking 
down upon the busy square between the palaces, 
always restless with the human tide that iiows 
through the Rivoli and the St. Honore. 

The dining salon of this hotel is said to eclipse 
even the wonderful ones of New York, and the 
quaint Moorish hall of the Hotel des Princes shrinks 
altogether out of comparison. It is still a question, 
however, if the new enterprise will prove a suc- 
cessful one, and grave doubts are entertained as to 
the possibility of warping the whole hotel habit of 
French life by the mere attractions of a brilliant 
hall and a public parlor. It is specially note- 
worthy in this connection, that while the European 
hotels are just now assimilating in some measure 
to our own forms, our own fashions are shifting into 
harmony with theirs. We count both facts strong- 
ly in evidence of the amazing increase of American 
travel, as well as a pleasant foretaste of that inter- 
mingling of habit, and softening down of national 
differences, which will by-and-by secure to every 
nation the best usages of a ripe civilization. 



Among the American on difs of the gay capital, 
we can not forbear noticing the retirement of Mr. 
Piatt from his position as Secretary of Legation, 
and as acting Charge for the Paris embassy. It is 
rumored, moreover, that the retiring officer is about 
to give the world a diplomatic daguerreotyping in 
the shape of a book, which can hardly fail to be ex- 
cessively readable. 

That sad subject of " our diplomacy" has been 
often the butt of grave jests — all the more grave 
because so very entertaining. Indeed we are not 
eminent in that province. Future historians will 
never make commendatory periods about our em- 
bassies. Any national glorification of us will steer 
wide of our Foreign Appointments. Between the 
black-coat discussion, the Madrid duels, the Dan- 
iels's opera-box at Turin, the brave consuls at Lon- 
don and Panama, and the Ostend Conference, we 
have a galaxy of diplomatic exhibitions and illus- 
trations Avhich have turned people to thinking of 
what American diplomacy really is, and of what it 
really wants. 

When a government names a fierce partisan 
(with no other claim) to a fat home office, where 
a host of routine servers keep the machine in mo- 
tion, and where the lumbering incompetency may 
suck his quill, and slip on and off, like old shoes, 
without our special wonder, nobody feels aggrieved; 
but when the same official represents us, where his 
representation is a kind of national manifesto — as 
if we said in putting forward our diplomat," See of 
what stuff we Americans are made !" — we blush ex- 
ceedingly. 

And why not ? Why not feel a pride that this 
machine of Republicanism, Avhich we have set up 
and managed this half century in defiance of all 
taunts and enmities, should have capable and man- 
ly expositors of itself to the other-side unbelievers? 
Why not cherish the wish, and proudly, that it 
may reflect across the waters something of the en- 



132 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ergy, and something of the dignity, which have 
sustained it hitherto ? Why not take a pride (and 
accomplish a good) in demonstrating, through the 
person of our representative, that our material pro- 
gress has not altogether forbade a higher culture, 
and those accomplishments of the mind and heart 
•which enable him to meet on even ground with the 
diplomatic gentlemen of Europe ? 

We are aware that very many well-meaning 
persons look with contempt upon the whole system 
of our Foreign Legations, and deny the necessity 
for its existence; but independent of any strict 
business necessity, which may or may not exist, 
it seems to us that one civilized nation can not 
with propriety offend against those rules of cour- 
tesy w r hich are acknowledged and honored bj r sis- 
ter nations. A man is no way necessitated to say 
" Good-morning!" to the neighbor with whom he 
has only commercial dealings; but he is a surly 
dog who omits it. 

We love to regard our diplomacy — though it 
may prove as barren of issues as the Ostend Con- 
ference — as a kind of black-coated Good-morning ! 
sent over the water in token of comity, and in 
furtherance of whatever kindliness must and ought 
to groAV up between civilized nations. 

But, in Heaven's name, let us have men who 
can say " Good-morning" understanding^ ! If 
the system is to stand, there is not a soul so eccen- 
tric as to admit the propriety of sending those no- 
toriously incompetent. Until, however, the ap- 
pointments cease to be counted as the mere bribes 
for partisan effort, we can scarcely hope for any 
change for the better. 



Speaking of national courtesies brings us back, 
by an easy circumbendibus, to the exiled or run- 
away Republicans. Among these are very many 
quartered upon the pleasant little Island of Jersey, 
which, as every body knows, is a domain of the 
British crown, lying in sight of the western shores 
of Normandy. A certain Felix Pyat, famous in 
the stormy annals of 1848, is living among the ref- 
ugees of Jersey, and with others has latterly estab- 
lished a paper upon the island, of high Socialist 
doctrines — ignoring all the principles of the Chris- 
tian churches, and all the ties of domestic life. 

Within a short time the journal in question lias 
made an odious assault upon the Queen ; and, in- 
stigated by the Parisian visit of that sovereign, 
has loaded her with opprobrious epithets. The 
people of Jersey Avere at once in a ferment 2 they 
are sturdy loyalists, and could not abide the in- 
gratitude which assailed their monarch. They 
called a meeting (after good American fashion) ; 
they drew up a sturdy body of resolutions, very 
Lynch-like in their tone ; and at the last accounts 
the Governor of the island had waived ceremony 
in receiving a deputation from the indignant peo- 
ple upon Sunday. Whether M. Felix Pyat will 
be expelled the island, or his paper be quashed, 
remains to be seen. 



We love to regale ourselves, from time to time, 
with the London Times leaders ; they smack to the 
life (if you read them aloud), like a mug of London 
stout. We have just now fallen upon a plum of 
its hardy satire, which we lift for- the benefit of 
our readers. It appears that a certain Lord Ernest 
Vane, son of the late Marquis of Londonderry, an 
officer in the Life Guards, quartered at Windsor, 
had been bullying, in cock-pit fashion, the theatri- 



cal manager of the town, who gives the following 
account of the affair in the Windsor Express : "I 
am the lessee of the theatre in this town. Lord 
Ernest Vane, an officer of the 2d Life Guards, sta- 
tioned in this place, had been in the habit for two 
or three nights previous to the evening in question, 
with other officers, of coming behind the scenes, 
and had behaved himself in a respectable manner, 
but on the 21st ult. his lordship amused himself by 
blacking the eyes of one person, kicking another, 
and so forth. My first salute from him was his 
stick broken across my back. The curtain was 
going up ; as I did not wish the audience to be 
disturbed, I put up with it, and went on the stage. 
When the first piece was over, and I was dressing 
for the last, I was informed that his lordship had 
forced his way into the ladies' dressing-room, and 
would not leave, though repeatedly requested by 
the ladies. I sent my stage-manager to remon- 
strate with him, but to no effect. I then went my- 
self, when he told me to go to a place not men- 
tioned to ears polite. I at length was obliged to 
send for a policeman. When the officer came he 
quietly walked out. I had finished dressing and 
was preparing to go on with the last piece, when 
he met me at the back of the stage, and said he 
wanted to speak to me, took hold of me by the col- 
lar, and before I was aware, dragged me to the top 
1 of some steep stairs leading beneath the stage. He 
then said, ' You dared to send a policeman to me ; 
now I -will break your infernal neck ! I'll kill you !' 
He held me in a position that I must fall back- 
ward. I endeavored to escape from him, and said, 
' For God's sake, do not kill me in cold blood !' 
But he hurled me from the top with all his force. 
Fortunately a young man, hearing the noise, came 
to the bottom of the stairs as I fell and broke my 
fall, or death would have been certain. He then 
was cowardly enough to come and dash his fist in 
my face as I lay on the ground; but eventually 
his brother officers and other persons interfered 
and got him away. I may mention that the sol- 
diers, of Avhom there Avere many in front, had been 
informed that their officers Avere being insulted, 
and Avere forcing their way on the stage. Fearing 
a collision between the soldiers and civilians, I did 
not give him into custody. On the folloAving day 
a military gentleman waited on me to compromise 
matters. I told him I Avould bring the young ruf- 
lian to justice, and no one can prove that either 
myself, or any person on my behalf, listened for 
one moment to any offer of settlement. Having 
felt the bitterness of death, I did not think that 
money should compensate it." 

After many difficulties the poor manager gets a 
hearing before the Local Court, which condemns 
the noble delinquent to a fine of £0. Thereupon 
the manager appeals to the Times ; and the Times, 
after graA-ely pro\ r ing the injustice of the sentence, 
and the felonious intent of his Lordship, proceeds 
Avith the matter thus : 

" The pro\-incial Themis is a capricious dei- 
ty. Had the assailant in this case been a Thames 
bargee, competed of a similar assault upon his 
mate, Ave can not but think that the Areopagus of 
Windsor Avould have remitted the matter to the de- 
cision of a jury. Let us take a more merciful view 
of the case. Let us presume that Avhen Lord Ernest 
Vane Tempest said 'I'll kill you!' he meant no- 
thing more than ' I will giA'e you a good beating.' 
Let us suppose that Avhen he hurled Mr. Nash doAvn 
stairs he had, no real intention of murdering him, 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



133 



although, if a man's intentions are not to be gath- 
ered from his acts and his words, from what are 
they to be gathered ? Still here, beyond all ques- 
tion, and taking the most merciful view of the case, 
was an assault of a most heinous and aggravated 
character, certainly calculated to endanger life. 
Is it not the usual, is it not the invariable course, 
to remit such cases to a jury ? Oh ! but all this 
is an extreme view ! Lord Earnest Vane Tempest 
is such a fine young man, so extremely well con- 
nected — he was a little " sprung" at the time. The 
manager was insolent, and, in the playfulness and 
buoyancy of his youthful spirits, this really very 
delightful young nobleman simply wished to chas- 
tise the base plebeian who had outraged his feel- 
ings by letting a policeman loose upon him. What 
more natural — although we admit it was not strict- 
ly right — than that he should slightly thrash the 
manager the first time he met him ? To be sure, 
the meeting was not accidental ; the fine young 
man no doubt did, after a certain delay, go in search 
of the ' common fellow,' the scoundrel manager ; 
but the delay only proves that Lord Ernest Vane 
Tempest is not in the habit of giving way to the 
first impulse of passion — a point in his favor. Be- 
sides, it is quite obvious he could not have intend- 
ed any thing serious by hurling — let us say easing 
—Mr. Nash down the ladder, for else it would have 
been incompatible with his feelings, as a member 
of the aristocracy, to dash his fist in the manager's 
face as he lay upon the ground after his fall. If 
you cut a man's throat, you don't box his ears after- 
ward. Had poor Lord Ernest really intended seri- 
ous injury to the fellow by sending him to the bot- 
tom of the stairs, he would have been satisfied with 
that ; but, as he was not satisfied with that, it is ob- 
vious that he could not have intended serious injury. 
As for the language held, that goes for nothing ; 
young noblemen are not supposed to be acquaint- 
ed with the force of language, or with the English 
language at all, for that matter. On the whole, the 
right conclusion is that Lord Ernest Vane Tempest 
was guilty of a venial error. He did not intend any 
tiling more than the infliction of a slight punish- 
ment; his conduct can not altogether be justified; 
but all his error will be amply expiated by the 
payment of £5. Consider, again, what the con- 
sequences must have been had this case been re- 
mitted to a jury. Lord Ernest Vane Tempest — 
an officer of the 2d Life Guards, a scion of one of 
our noblest families — would in all probability have 
lost his commission had the case been brought be- 
fore a criminal court — a result which could not for 
a moment be contemplated. The manager was 
not killed, after all ; so let the fellow take his £5 
and be content. This seems to have been pretty 
much the sort of reasoning which helped the Wind- 
sor magistrates to their conclusion. It must be 
quite a feather in the cap of the Horse Guards' 
Minos that a civil court has been found which em- 
ulates the decision of his tribunals. Lord Har- 
dinge is at least clear of all responsibility in this 
case — save in so far as he has permitted Lord Er- 
nest Vane Tempest to exchange into a Dragoon 
regiment, now in the 'Crimea, in place of dismiss- 
ing him from her Majesty's service altogether. 
The assault committed was not only most disgrace- 
ful in itself, but it had been accompanied by other 
actions -which were an outrage upon all propriety. 
Lord Ernest, it seems, had been "blacking" the 
c-ofi of one person behind the scenes, knocking an- 
down, and, finally, by way of bringing these 



Tom and Jerry proceedings to a climax, he had 
made his way to the dressing-rooms in which the 
ladies attached to the theatre were robing and un- 
robing themselves for the performance, and here, 
in violation of all common decency, he would re- 
main. Hence the policeman's appearance upon 
the stage, ahd hence the savage assault upon Mr. 
Nash. The lessee of the Windsor Theatre de- 
serves, in our opinion, the highest credit for the 
spirited manner in which he has followed up these 
proceedings, considering how seriously his inter- 
ests may be damaged by the hostility of the offi- 
cers quartered at Windsor. One word more, and 
we have done. We have no doubt that the army 
in the Crimea — that band of brave soldiers led by 
gallant gentlemen — will properly appreciate the 
high compliment paid to it by Field-Marshal Lord 
Viscount Hardinge, who, when a wanton and in- 
solent lordling breaks through every rule of de- 
corum at home, marks his high sense of the offend- 
er's behavior by sentencing him to serve in the 
ranks of those heroes who have shed their blood 
like water for their country. In the good old 
times Botany Bay, and not the Crimea, would be 
the reward of such gallant deeds as that recently 
perpetrated by Lord Ernest Vane Tempest." 

We do not envy the reputation that Lord Ernest 
Vane will carry with him to the Crimea. 



But the Times is not occupied only with the 
castigation of these occasional recreants ; its old, 
last winter's bombardment of the British military 
system, of the octogenarian generals, of the draw- 
ing-room captains, and the younger sons portioned 
with lieutenancies, is again begun. 

"Why is it," says a leader of mid-October, 
" that the states of Continental Europe can embark 
in war without so discreditable and disastrous a 
transition from a state of peace ? What are the 
advantages possessed by these less wealthy and 
less active nations? France has, indeed, carried 
on campaigns during a quarter of a century in 
Africa, but it has been chiefly a warfare of skirm- 
ishing and surprises ; it was not in Africa that her 
engineers learned how to sap up to the Malakoff. 
In the present generation Russia has made only a 
single short campaign in Hungary; yet the Rus- 
sian generals and officers have shown themselves, 
by the admission of their enemies, men of the 
highest skill, while their transport service and 
commissariat have performed prodigies. Prus- 
sians and Austrians never see any warfare more 
serious than a review, yet were they to take the 
field they would perhaps march and bivouac with- 
out serious loss. Even little Piedmont has sur- 
prised the world by the efficiency of its troops. 
Every thing connected with its army is said to be 
a model of arrangement. We, the only people 
who in the last forty years have carried on regular 
wars — we who have fought the disciplined armies 
of mighty Indian princes as well as Cadres and 
New Zealanders, who have invaded China and 
tamed the Burmese, find ourselves on a great occa- 
sion novices in the military art. Why have AfF- 
ghanistan and the Punjab given no lessons for the 
Crimea ? That Indian experience has been lost as 
regards the present war is part of the system, and 
the blame must fall somewhere. But even practi- 
cal warfare seems in the case of our allies and ene- 
mies to have been less the cause of efficiency than 
careful education and accurate arrangement. Our 
officers we know to be bravo beyond all praise ; the 



134 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



men who follow them are worthy of such leaders ; 
yet what is the result? We can not relate a deed 
of heroism without blushing at an act of folly. 
They rush needlessly on batteries at Balaclava; 
they have no batteries to defend them at Inker- 
mann. It is glorious, but not war, say French 
and Russian lookers-on. The subaltern a"hd the 
general are equally fearless and equally unskillful ; 
there is no difference between them ; the genei'al is 
only a subaltern of seventy. These gallant deeds 
have not saved the nation's military fame ; after a 
year of perils and endurance, every paltry German 
newspaper can talk of England's exhaustion and 
humiliation." 

And the indefatigable correspondent who gave 
us that familiar picture of General Simpson sitting 
in a trench wrapped in his cloak, upon the famous 
day of the Redan, is still provokingly critical, and 
very careless of what the Globe calls " gentlemanly 
proprieties." 

At the risk of giving very much war-color to our 
gossip of the month, we venture to add a little of 
his irony and picturesqueness here. The date is 
of the 1st October — not so far away from Decem- 
ber as many of our country friends are from Bala- 
clava ! 

" The contrast between the actual proceedings 
of the allied armies since the 9th of this month and 
the fevered dreams in which the public at home, 
as represented by the press, are indulging, is as 
striking as it is painful. The Russians, so far from 
flying in discomfort over boundless wastes, are 
calmly strengthening their position on the north 
side. The face of the country bristles with their 
cannon and their batteries. As I write, the roar 
of their guns is sounding through our camp, and 
occasionally equals the noise of the old cannonades, 
which we fondly hoped had died into silence for- 
ever. There is no trace of any intention on their 
part to abandon a position on which they have lav- 
ished so much care and labor. They retired from 
the south side when it became untenable, shaken 
to pieces by a bombardment which it is imprac- 
ticable for us to renew. They have now between 
themselves and us a deep arm of the sea, a river, 
and the sides of a plateau as steep as a wall. We 
let them get off at their leisure, and looked on, 
much as we would have gazed on the mimic rep- 
resentation of such a scene at Astley's, while the 
Russian battalions filed in endless column over the 
narrow bridge, emerging in unbroken order out of 
that frightful sea of raging lire and smoke, which 
was tossed up into billows of flame by the frequent 
explosion of great fortresses and magazines. What 
time our generals woke up and knew what was go- 
ing on, I can not tell ; but it is certain they did 
not, as a body, distress themselves by any violent 
efforts to get a near view of the enemy's movements 
early in the morning. It Avas late in the day when 
Fort Paul blew up. At about half-past five o'clock, 
as well as I can now recollect, that magnificent 
work was shaken violently, heaved upward, seem- 
ed to fly into pieces — the breaking masonry and 
embrasures emitting sheets of white smoke, lighted 
up by fire, and then collapsed, as it were, into ruins. 
The mine missed in the first instance ; but, so cool 
were the enemy, so perfectly satisfied of our inac- 
tion were they, and so convinced they had us awed 
by their tremendous energy in destruction, that 
they sent across a boat with a few men in her, 
about half-past four o'clock in the evening, who 
quietly landed and went into the fort, and were 



seen by several people in the act of entering, in 
order to prepare for the explosion which followed 
immediately after they had retired. Spies have, 
however, informed the authorities, in the most pos- 
itive manner, that the Russians were prepared to 
retreat, and had all in readiness to cover a retro- 
grade movement, in case the fleet succeeded in forc- 
ing a passage, and the Allies evinced a determina- 
tion of throwing their whole force against the north 
side. Their field-guns and guns of position were 
all in readiness, and were strengthened by a very 
large corps of cavalry, which would hold our infant- 
ry in check, and our cavalry could not, of course, 
get over the water in less than several days, nor 
could it gain the heights of Mackenzie unless the 
infantry had previously established themselves 
there. Ever}^ thing was foreseen and calculated, 
and the Russians were in hopes that they might 
catch us at a disadvantage amidst some of their 
fortified positions in a difficult country, and retrieve 
their past disasters, or, at all events, make a mas- 
terly retreat. But when they saw that all was 
hesitation, if not confusion, in the army of the Al- 
lies, they recovered their courage, stared the situ- 
ation in the face for one moment, and the next were 
busily employed in making the best of it, and they 
have now erected such batteries as to shut up the 
harbor to our present navy, and to render any at- 
tempt to cross it as rash as it Avould be undesirable. 
Yesterday they finished a neAv line of batteries, to- 
day we begin to make some reply." 



Our readers will remember, perhaps — perhaps 
they will not — that some months since, in the 
course of our foreign mention, we took occasion to 
appreciate the French book of a certain Madame 
Fontenay ; it appears that the volume has latterly 
fallen under the eye of Jules Janin, the theatrical 
critic, and weekly feuilletonist of the Debats news- 
paper in Paris. Inspired by its truthfulness, and 
made zealous by what he counts the indignities 
which have been put upon Mademoiselle Rachel in 
this savage country, he indulges in a warm diatribe 
against American art, and ignores American culti- 
vation of any sort. The special cause of his provo- 
cation in the matter of Mademoiselle Rachel, seems 
to have been the fact that she should have been 
called upon to chant that "odious and bloody" 
song of the Marseillaise ; and he indites for her an 
indignant reply to such appeal. What "will the 
feuilletonist say, when he learns that his great 
tragedienne has once more — in a free land (once 
ittore) — stooped to the level of the great French 
war-song of Liberty ? 

How hard, indeed, to chime with the humors of 
a people which is every thing by turns, and nothing 
long ; which now pasquinades perfidious Albion, 
and now courts her Queen ; a people, with whom 
all the serious things of government, of popular 
rights, of political privilege, shift like a play; 
and to whom the only real stable materials of 
thought and of affection, are just those which to 
every other nation are fleeting and changeful acces- 
sories ; to wit, their art, their music, their plays, 
their mistresses, and their wines ! 

Let their umpires in such matters rule supreme. 
But when they affect to talk of high national char- 
acteristics, or of the manly dignity which belongs 
to freedom, let us listen warily : it may be only 
the phantasmagoria of a dreamer ; or haply, the 
make-scene of an actor, who will change his part 
to-morrow ! 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



135 



dfttititfa Sxmn. 

THE prince of German poets, Goethe, leaves us 
this passage, which meets us as we open the 
Drawer for the last time in another year : 

" The year is going away like the sound of bells. 
The wind passes over the stubble and finds nothing 
to move, only the red berries of that slender tree, 
which seem as if they would remind us of some- 
thing cheerful; and the measured beat of the 
thresher's flail calls up the thought that in the dry 
and falling ear lies so much nourishment and life." 

One 3^ear g 0es anc i another comes. The sun 
goes down but to rise again. Man dies but lives 
again, and that forever. Yet the close of the year, 
as the close of life, is often filled with sad thoughts, 
as if it were the end of pleasures, and not, as it is, 
the morning of a bright future, the dawn of a glo- 
rious day. In the future is life — the present is 
ours as the portal only of years, of life to come ! 

And so while we are musing let us hear the 
words of one whose philosophy, though quaint, is 
worthy of being pondered when we are turning our 
thoughts inward : 

" Man is not merely a creature displaying the 
endowment of two legs, and the only being entitled 
to study grammar ; not an animal browsing in the 
fair fields of creation, and endeavoring with all pos- 
sible grace to gild and swallow the pill of exist- 
ence ; but the master-piece in the mechanism of the 
universe, in whom are wedded the visible and the 
invisible, the material and the spiritual ; before 
whom the waves of the ocean crouch, and on whom 
the winds and lightnings and all wait to do his 
bidding ; the great gardener of the Lord ; the keep- 
er of his great seal, for he alone is stamped with 
the image of God. Man is a glorious poem ; each 
life a canto, each day a line. The melody plays 
feebly at first upon the trembling chords of his 
little heart, but with time gains power and beauty 
as it sweeps onward, until at last the final notes 
die away, far above the world, amidst the melodies 
of heaven." 

Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, begins a splen- 
did poem on the close of the year with this review 
of the seasons : 

" Gone ! gone forever ! — like a rushing wave, 
Another year has burst upon the shore 
Of earthly being — and its last low tones, 
Wandering in broken accents on the air, 
Are dying to an echo. 

The gay Spring 
With its young charms has gone — gone with its leaves, 
Its atmosphere of roses — its white clouds 
Slumbering like seraphs in the air — its birds 
Telling their loves in music — and its streams 
Leaping and shouting from the up-piled rocks 
To make earth echo with the joy of waves. 
And Summer, with its dews and showers, has gone ; 
Its rainbows glowing on the distant cloud, 
Like spirits of the storm — its peaceful lakes 
Smiling in their sweet sleep, as if their dreams 
Were of the opening flowers, and budding trees, 
And overhanging sky — and its bright mists 
Resting upon the mountain-tops, as crowns 
Upon the heads of giants. Autumn, too, 
Has gone with all its deeper glories — gone 
With its green hills, like altars of the world 
Lifting their fruit offerings to their God- 
Its cold winds straying 'mid the forest aisles 
To wake their thousand wind-harps — its serene 
And holy sunsets hanging o'er the west, 
Like banners from the battlements of heaven — . 
And its still evenings, when the moonlit sea 
Was ever throbbing, like the living heart 



Of the great universe. Ay — these are now 
But sounds and visions of the past— their deep, 
Wild beauty has departed from the earth, 
And they are gathered to the embrace of Death, 
Their solemn herald to eternity." 



It is well to be merry and wise, as well as to be 
thoughtful and sad, when the old year is dying. 
And if we have no other reason to be mindful of 
the coming of the end, there is enough to make us 
think of it in the settlement of our accounts, which 
must be attended to about these days. 

Mrs. Uptown salutes her husband with an ele- 
gant gold chain, as he comes home to dinner the 
day before Christmas, exclaiming, " See here, hub- 
by dear, what a splendid present I have bought for 
you to-day !" 

" Thank you, my love ; I paid the bill an hour 
ago !" 

" Oh, shocking ! I told Ball not to send the bill 
till the next six months' account was rendered." 

"Oh! the bills, Christmas bills ! 
What a world of misery 
Their memoiy instills! 
As the merchants with their quills 
Stuck behind their ' ears polite," 
So caressingly invite 
Your kind and prompt attention 
To their bills ! 
How they dun, dun, dun, 
As they kindly urge upon 
Your earnest attention their blessed little bilk, 
Little bills ! 

" With a power of perforation 

And a maw that never fills, 
What a sad dissimulation 

To call them little bills ! 
While all the tin that tinkles 
In your pocket, only sprinkles 
A little liquidation on the 
Bills ! 

" Oh ! the destiny that fills 
All our holidays with bills, 

When the Christmas dinner 

Of the poor indebted sinner 
Might be cooked with the fuel of his bills ! 

Oh ! the bills, bills, bills ! 

Nothing else but bills I" 



" Can you let me have twenty dollars this morn- 
ing to purchase a bonnet, my dear ?" said a lady 
to her husband one morning at breakfast. 

" By-and-by, my love." 

"That's what you always say, my dear; but 
how can I buy and buy without the money ?" 

And that brought the money, as one good turn 
deserves another. Her wit was so successful that 
she tried it again the next week. 

" I want fifty dollars, my dear, to get a new 
dress for New Year's." 

" Well, you can't have it ; you called me a bear 
last night," said her husband. 

"Oh, well, dear, you know that was only be- 
cause you are so fond of hugging !" 

It hit him just right again, and she got the 
money and something extra as he left his pretty 
wife and hurried off to business. " It takes a for- 
tune to keep such a wife as you are — but if a worth 
it." 



Speaking of wives and their undying affection, 
we were quite amused at Clara Flighty's reason 
for getting married so soon after the death of her 
husband, whom she petted to death in less than a 



136 



HAMPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



year after their marriage. Her friend, Miss Prude, 
suggested that she ought to wait at least six months 
before rushing into the arms of matrimony again. 

"Oh, la!" said Clara, "I do it to keep from 
fretting myself to death for poor, dear Tom !" 

To pursue the subject a step further, and attend 
to the " lords of creation," we take from Dr. Ed- 
ward Thompson's Letters from England the follow- 
ing remarks on the different views which obtain 
respecting marriage in different countries : 

One says : 

" I wish to take advice about a serious matter 
that weighs heavily on my mind." 

"What is it?" 

" Getting married. Is it best ?" 

" Well, who have you in view ? If she is young, 
handsome, and virtuous, the sooner you get her the 
better. Who is she?" 

" Oh, nobody in particular ; it is marrying in the 
abstract that I am thinking about." That is young 
Germany. 

"Zounds! I love her, and will have her if I 
have to swim the river for her." Young America. 

" No use to deny me or run from me. Where 
you go I will go, where you stop I will stop, where 
you live I will live, where you die I will die, and 
where you are buried, there will I be buried." That 
is young Ireland. 

" She is worth three thousand one hundred and 
twenty-seven pounds six shillings and fourpence 
half-penny, which, under the circumstances, is not 
quite sufficient." Young England. 



Our correspondence and the papers have poured 
into the Drawer even more than the usual amount 
of "clerical" anecdote, and we venture, with some 
hesitation, to dispense a few of them, which are 
vouched for as genuine and true. 

At the meeting of the Synod of New York and 
New Jersey, held in Newark, it was resolved to 
adjourn to Greenport, Long Island. The Rev. Mr. 
Whittaker suggested to the reverend members, as 
there was good fishing at Greenport, they should 
bring their iishing-taokle with them. The Rev. 
Dr. S. H. Cox replied, that " the suggestion might 
be apostolic, but he certainly thought it a scaly 
one." The Synod seemed to think so too, for they 
reconsidered the vote, and agreed to meet else- 
where. 

Probably Greenport is as well able to support a 
minister as that parish in Massachusetts, of which 
we made mention some time ago, where the pas- 
tor's salary is twenty-live dollars a year and half 
the fish he catches. 

The Rev. Mr. Blank, of the Episcopal Church, 
after laboring in an ancient and very respectable 
town in Louisiana long enough to have planted a 
vineyard and eaten the fruit thereof, became dis- 
couraged, and very justly disgusted with the peo- 
ple. He determined to leave them, and in his 
farewell sermon he thus unburdened his heart and 
his conscience : 

"And now, if there is any man in this congre- 
gation that can prove he ever paid me a dollar, it 
shall be refunded to him on the spot." 

He then gave out a hymn to be sung, commenc- 
ing with these lines : 

" Lord ! what a wretched land is this, 
That yields us no supply." 
And having thus shaken off the dust of his feet 
for a testimony against them, he gathered his robes 
about him and retired. 



" Served them right !" saith the world. 

But " hard times" among the clergy are not con- 
fined to the profession in this country. A London 
minister, no more fastidious than our brother in 
Louisiana, lately astonished his congregation by 
informing them that he had had a personal inter- 
view with the Devil, which happened on this 
wise : 

" I was sitting," said he, "in my study, when 1 
heard a knock at the door. ' Come in,' said I, 
when the door opened, and who should walk in 
but— the Devil ! 

" ' How d'ye you ?' said he. 

" ' Pretty well, thank you,' said I. 

"'What are you about?' said he; 'preparing 
your sermon for next Sunday ?' 

" ' The very thing,' said I. 

" ' Ah !' said he, ' I dare say you think you are 
doing a great deal of good.' 

" ' Well,' I said, ' not so much as I could wish ; 
but a little good, I hope.' 

" ' You have a large congregation,' said he. 

" 'Well, pretty large,' I said. 

" 'And I dare say,' he remarked, 'you are very 
proud of them ?' 

" 'No,' said I, 'that I am not, for not one-third 
of them pay for their sittings !' 

"'You don't say so!' said the Devil, in great 
surprise. 

'" Yes, that I do,' I repeated ; ' not one-third of 
them pay a penny for their sittings.' 

" 'Well,' said the Devil, 'then I say they are a 
shabby lot !' " 

The congregation took the hint so very explicit- 
ly given, and a marked increase was observable in 
the receipts of the treasury. 



The Western Christian A dvocate says that at the 
opening of a new Episcopal Church in Davenport, 
Iowa, the following notice was given : 

" N.B. The chewers of tobacco are earnestly re- 
quested to avoid the use of the article in the church, 
or else spit in your hats /" 

It appears to us incredible that in a civilized 
country such a notice should be given ; but a cor- 
respondent, writing from the extreme Southwest, 
informs us that the Rev. Dr. S e, of the Pres- 
byterian Church, always carries with him a walk- 
ing-stick of reed, fitted with a head which easily is 
taken off and put on. He is constantly chewing 
tobacco, and whenever he is in a church or a house 
where the spittoon is not at hand, he removes the 
head of his cane and spits into it ! The cane will 
hold a quart or more, and is cleansed by his serv- 
ant two or three times a day. Decidedly this is a 
better contrivance than the abuse of a hat. 



And now that we are down in that region, we 
are tempted to tell the story of a Dutchman who 
made his entry into New Orleans last summer 
while the cholera was raging there, and was great- 
ly troubled in finding a boarding-house. He in- 
quired of the first one he saw if they had the chol- 
era in the house, and learning that the}' had, he 
went to another, and another, determined not to 
stop at any house where the disease was doing its 
work of death. At last, after a long and weary 
search, he found one where there was no cholera, 
and he took up his quarters there. The master of 
the house was a godly man, and had family wor- 
ship every night. As all were assembled for that 
purpose, and the master was offering prayer, he 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



137 



groaned with some force and fervor, when the 
Dutchman started up, and cried out : 

" Lord ! vot ish ter matter ?" 

" Nothing," said the host ; " keep still, will you, 
and behave yourself." 

In a short time he groaned again, and the Dutch- 
man started, with his eyes staring like saucers, and 
exclaimed, " Oh, mine Got ! dere is someting ter 
matter mit you !" 

" No, there ain't," said the landlord; and then, 
to calm his boarder's apprehension, he added: 
" I'm a Methodist, and it is the habit of the most of 
the members of the church to groan during their 
devotions, and that is my way." 

This was enough for the Dutchman, who rushed 
into the street, asked for a doctor, found one, and 
begged him to run to the house on the corner. 

" What's the matter?" said the doctor; "have 
they got the cholera?" 

" No, no, but worse ; da ha got der Mettodis, and 
der man will die mit it pefore you don't kit there, 
if you run quick!" 

So one thing leads on to another; and this 
brings up a letter from a friend who had occasion, 
in October last, to cross the Alleghany mountains 
in a stage, a mode of travel now almost entirely 
superseded by the rail. He writes from Pittsburg, 
October 20th, 1855 : 

"As we were coming down the mountain at a 
tremendous pace, the terror of the ride was greatly 
enhanced by a thunder-storm which burst upon us. 
We had been amused, in the midst of our anxi- 
eties, by the distress of a Dutch gentleman, a mer- 
chant of Philadelphia, who could not conceal his 
apprehension that we should all be dashed to 
pieces. An awful clap of thunder drove out his 
last vestige of self-possession, and crouching down 
in the bottom of the stage, he lay there in a heap 
till Ave reached the foot of the hill, and found the 
weather clear and every thing safe and sound. As 
soon as we came to a stand-still our frightened 
friend picked himself up, and resuming his seat and 
his courage at the same time, remarked : 

" ' Dat was awful ! if it was not for my religion, 
I should have been most frightened !' 

"'And, pray, what is your religion that has 
kept up your courage so bravely while the rest of 
us had none ?' I asked of the chicken-hearted, and 
now boastful Dutchman. 

" ' Oh, my religion is de Dutch Deformed !' 

" ' I should think so,' said a quiet old gentleman, 
'deformed enough, and like your countryman's 
stony farm, the more you have it, the worse you 
are off.' " 



The fondness of reformed drunkards to speak of 
their former habits, and the applause they receive 
in proportion to the excesses of which they have 
been guilty, are marked features of the temperance 
reform. At one of these meetings, not long ago, a 
very unexpected finish was put by the speaker to 
his narrative, and his audience suddenly found that 
he was among them, but not of them. He said : 

" My friends, three months ago I signed the 
pledge. (Clapping of hands and loud cheers.) 

In a month afterward, my friends, I had a half 
eagle in my pocket, a thing I never had before." 
(Clapping and still louder cheers.) 

■ In another month, my friends, I had a good 
coat on my back, and I never had the like before." 
(Great applause, and cries of " Go on.") 



"A fortnight after that, my friends, I bought a 
coffin." The audience were about to cheer again, 
but paused and waited for an explanation. 

"You wonder," he continued, " why I bought a 
coffin. Well, my friends, I will tell you why. I 
bought the coffin because I felt pretty certain that 
if I kept the pledge another fortnight I should want 
one." 

The rascal was unceremoniously hustled out as 
an enemy in disguise. 

Paddy's distress on waking was very natural 
but very amusing. He was observed in the morn- 
ing to be looking unusually blank and perplexed, 
and his friend inquired what ailed him. 

" Ah, but and I've had a drame." 

"Was it a good or a bad dream?" 

" Faith," said Pat, " and it was a little of both, 
and I'll be after telling it till ye. I drained I was 
with his Holiness the Pope ! He was as great a 
jintleman as any in the district, and he axed me 
wad I drink? And I said till him, 'And wad a 
duck swim?' He smiled like, and taking the 
limons and sugar, and making ready for a dhrop 
of punch, he axed me very civil, wad I take it 
cowld or hot ? ' Hot, yer Holiness,' I replied, and 
wid that he stepped down into the kitchen for the 
bilin' water, but before he got back I woke straight 
up ; and now it's distressing me / didn't take it 
cowld /" 



And these temperance anecdotes must be closed 
up with the last from that inveterate punster of the 
Boston Post. 

" Can you tell me," said Old Roger, while speak- 
ing of the operation of the stringent Liquor Law, 
" why the people where such law exists are like 
half-converted Hindoos ?" 

The Brahmin took three whirls of his pipe before 
he answered that he didn't know. 

" It is," said he, " because they don't know 
whether to give up their jug-or-not." 

The Brahmin worked out the problem on the 
ends of his fingers, and smiled assent. 



" Does the razor take hold well," inquired the 
barber, as he cut away on the bleeding cheek of 
his suffering victim. 

"Yes," groaned the martyr, "it takes hold first 
rate, but it don't let go worth a cent." 



" I called at Kerr's Restaurant, on the Fourth 
Avenue, the other day, happening to be in that 
neighborhood," says a friend of ours, " about time 
for lunch, and called for corn-bread. 

"'Corn-bread!' returned the Irish waiter; but 
recollecting himself, he added, ' We have no corn- 
bread, but we have plenty of good carn-bafe /" 

Another friend of ours, Mr. Stone, called at the 
Union Square Post-office, and asked if there were 
any letters for Stone. The sagacious clerk reflected 
a moment and said, " There's none for Stone, but 
here is one for John Rock ; will that do ?" 



Western courts of justice have furnished many 
ludicrous subjects for the pen-painter, and now 
Texas presents us with some not less rich and ex- 
travagant. A correspondent writes to us from 
Victoria, in that State, and vouches for the truth 
of a brace of stories in the words following : 

"Judson T. Mills, of South Carolina, was a 
judge of our District Court, in Northern Texas, 



138 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



fond of a joke, but very decided in his discharge 
of duty. Thomas Fannin Smith was a practicing 
lawyer at the bar, and having shamefully mis- 
stated the law in his address to the jury, turned to 
the Court, and asked the Judge to charge the jury 
accordingly. The Judge was indignant, and re- 
plied, 

" ' Does the Counsel take the Court to be a 
fool ?' 

" Smith was not abashed by the reproof, but in- 
stantly responded, ' I trust your honor will not 
insist on an answer to that question, as I might, 
in answering it, truly be considered guilty of con- 
tempt of Court.' 

" ' Fine the Counsel ten dollars, Mr. Clerk,' said 
the Judge. 

" Smith immediately paid the money, and re- 
marked, it was ten dollars more than the Court 
could show. 

" ' Fine the Counsel fifty dollars,' said the Judge. 
The fine was entered by the clerk, and Smith not 
being ready to respond in that sum, sat down. 
The next morning, on the opening of the Court, 
Smith rose, and with much deference of manner 
began : ' May it please your honor, the clerk took 
that little joke of yours yesterday about the fifty 
dollars as serious, as I perceive from the reading 
of the minutes. Will your honor be pleased to 
inform him of his error and have it erased ?' 

"The coolness of the request and the implied 
apology pleased the Judge, and he remitted the 
fine. 

" Judge Williamson, or three-legged Willie, as 
he was familiarly called, was one of the early 
judges of Texas. In his court a lawyer by the 
name of Charlton started a point of law, and the 
Court refused to admit the Counsel's statement as 
sufficient proof. 

'"Your law, Sir,' said the Judge; 'give us the 
book and page, Sir.' 

'"This is my law, Sir,' said Charlton, pulling 
out a pistol; 'and this, Sir, is my book,' drawing 
a bowie-knife; ' and that is the page,' pointing the 
pistol toward the Court. 

" ' Your law is not good, Sir,' said the unruffled 
Judge; ' the proper authority is Colt on Revolvers,' 
as he brought a six-shooter instantly to bear on 
the head of the Counsel, who dodged the point of 
the argument, and turned to the jury. 

" On another occasion the Judge concluded the 
trial of a man for murder by sentencing him to be 
hung that very day. A petition Avas immediately 
signed by the bar, jury, and people, praying that 
longer time might be granted the poor prisoner. 
The Judge replied to the petition that ' the man 
had been found guilty, the jail was very unsafe, 
and, besides, it was so very uncomfortable he did 
not think any man ought to be required to stay in 
it any longer than was necessary.' The man was 
hung !" 

An evening party, in the month of October 
last, having the epigrams of our Drawer for that 
month under discussion, started the entertaining 
contest of seeing who could recite from memory 
the best one not included in that list. 
The first one repeated was : 
"John, tall, and a wag, was sipping his tea, 
When his landlady, rather uncivilly free, 
Accosted him thus : ' Sir, a man of your metre 
Must be, I should think, a very large eater!' 
' Nay, nay,' quoth the wag, ' 'tis not as you say, 
For a little with me goes a very long way /" 



Very good ; but the second Avas better, being the 
description of an old toper : 

"His name was a terrible name indeed: 
'Twas Timothy Thady Mullagin, 
And whenever he emptied a tumbler of punch 
He always wanted it full a'gin. 

And that suggests a third on rum and flour : 
" To rob the people two contractors come : 
One cheats in corn, the other cheats in rum ; 
The greater rogue 'tis hard to ascertain, 
The rogue in spirit, or the rogue in grain." 

But the fourth was not up to the mark : it was 
an epitaph on a miser : 

"At rest beneath this church-yard stone 
Lies stingy Jimmy Wyatt ; 
He died one morning just at tea, 
And saved a dinner by it." 

A very conceited young man offered the follow- 
ing: 

"When Sarah Jane, the moral miss, 
Declares "tis very wrong to kiss,' 

I really think that I see through it ; 
The lady, fairly understood, 
Feels just as any Christian should, 

She'd ' rather suffer wrong than do it P " 

Which was very properly resented by the young 
ladies, one of whom instantly repeated the lines, 
which she specially commended to the youth Avho 
had just spoken, though the advice was good for 
every body: 

"If you your lips 

Would keep from slips, 
Five things observe with care ; 

Of whom you speak, 

To whom you speak, 
And how, and ivhen, and where." 

This was Avell received, but a sudden rivalry ha\ r ing 
been sprung betAveen the ladies and gentlemen, 
and the epigrams taking the form of repartees, one 
of the gents quoted the following lines on the sensi- 
tive plant : 

"As three girls in the garden were vieAving the plants, 
Conducted respectively by their gallants, 
Says William to Nancy, ' Here is one Avill reveal 
A secret which many fine beauties conceal, 
And Avhen modest virtue has flown from the stand 
It will shrink at the touch it receives from the hand.' 
The ladies all gazed as if rather dismayed, 
But Nancy at length said, ' Pooh 1 I'm not afraid.' 
Her fair hand advanced, the experiment tried, 
When lo! in an instant the plant drooped and died. 
The poor girl first redden'd, then whiten'd as snow, 
Said softly, ' Lord help me, how did the plant know!'''''' 

The ladies declared this was too bad, and one of 
them retorted Avith the best epigram of the eA T ea- 
ing: 

"As Harry one day was abusing the sex 
As things that in courtship but studied to vex, 

And in marriage but sought to inthrall ; 
' Never mind him,' says Kate, ' 'tis a family whim ; 
His father agreed so exactly with him, 

That he never would marry at all !' " 



It is an astonishing thing how little a matter 
will sometimes disconcert a man who is accustom- 
ed to speak in public, and to ha\ T e his thoughts 
about him, and ready at command on almost all 
occasions. 

" I was once opening a speech from the stump," 
said a distinguished Western political orator to us 
recently, and was just beginning to warm Avith my 
subject, when a remarkably clear and deliberate 
voice spoke out behind me, saying : 

" ' Guess he wouldn't talk quite so hifalutinatin' 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



139 



if he knew that his trowsers was bu'st clean out be- 
hind !' 

" From that moment I couldn't ' get on.' The 
people in front began to laugh, and there was a 
loud roar in my rear, and I dared not reverse my 
position for fear of having a new audience of my 
condition. I made, or rather invented an excuse 
for delay, and sat down. The malicious scoun- 
drel !" continued the orator ; " it was only a mean 
trick after all. There was nothing under heaven 
the matter with my unmentionables !" 

Every one will remember the story of Burke, 
who on one occasion had just risen in the House of 
Commons, with some papers in his hands, on the 
subject of which he intended to make a motion, 
when a rough-hewn member, who had no ear for 
the charms of eloquence, rudely started up, and 
said : 

" Mr. Speaker, I hope the honorable gentleman 
does not mean to read that large bundle of papers, 
and bore us with a long speech into the bargain !" 

Burke was so swollen, or rather so nearly suffo- 
cated with rage, as to be totally incapable of ut- 
terance, and absolutely ran out of the House. 

It was on this occasion that the witty George 
Selwyn remarked : 

" This is the first and only time that I ever saw 
the old fable realized — a lion put to flight by the 
braying of an ass !" 

This compliment, it is said, tended not a little 
to mollify Burke's resentment. 



Dr. Franklin is not so well known as a poet 
as he is as a philosopher; yet the Doctor wrote 
verses which, if they were not of the highest order 
of poetry, were abundantly imbued with whole- 
some satire and his accustomed strong common 
sense. Many, perhaps most of the little pieces 
that appeared on the different pages of Poor Rich- 
ard's Almanac were from Dr. Franklin's own pen. 
In his " Poetry for December" 1798, we find the 
following hit at unsalable or unsold books : 

" Oh, blessed season ! loved by saints and sinners, 
For long devotions or for longer dinners ; 
More grateful still to tbose who deal in books, 
Noav not with readers, but with pastry-cooks : 
Learned works, despised by those to merit blind, 
By these well weighed, their certain value find." 

Under the head of " Courts" in the same num- 
ber, may be found the annexed dash at lawyers. It 
is as keen as a Damascus blade : 

"I know you lawyers can with ease 
Twist words and meanings as you please ; 
That language, by your skill made pliant, 
Will bend, to favor every client ; 
That 'tis the fee limits the sense 
To make out either side's pretense ; 
When you peruse the clearest case, 
You see it with a double face, 
For skepticism's your profession, 
You hold there's doubt in all expression. 

" Hence is the Bar with fees supplied, 
Hence eloquence takes either side ; 
Your hand would have but paltry gleaning 
Could every man express his meaning. 
Who dares presume to pen a deed 
Unless you previously are feed ? 
'Tis drawn, and to augment the cost, 
In dull prolixity engrossed; 
And now we're well secured by law, 
Till the next brother find a flaw!" 



Ix one of the morning journals, recently, there 



was a painful description of a suicide committed 
by a young German husband and father, upon the 
grave of his newly-buried wife, who had died in 
giving birth to a son. He had inclosed the grave- 
lot with a tasteful fence, and ornamented it pro- 
fusely with flowers ; and he was in the habit of 
visiting it every day At length he visited it for 
the last time, and shot himself through the head, 
falling lengthwise upon his wife's grave. Among 
the inscriptions which he had written with a pencil 
in German, upon the white marble of the grave- 
stone, were these sentences : 

" How soon are the ties of Love sundered! 

"My heart is all too sad; therefore, O Death! 
fulfill my fate, and soon unite me to her, and to 
Love's eternal rest ! 

" It is at the grave alone that man learns the 
true value of Love ! 

" I depart from the sweet habit of existence !" 

As we read this last touching and beautiful sen- 
tence, we bethought us of the following passage 
from the diary of a lovely and gifted lady, now no 
longer of this world. How well she appreciated 
"the sweet habit of existence," may be inferred 
from the following : 

" There is never a day upon which I do not open 
my eyes at morning, with an instant thankfulness 
that I am alive upon God's earth ; that I shall be- 
hold the blessed faces of my familar affection ; 
that my full heart is beating ; that these veins are 
warm and glowing with the cheerful tide of life ! I 
looked out this morning upon trees stripped of their 
foliage — their summer dew and song ; upon sere 
places amidst the grass, and sullenness over the 
waters, and the brooding sorrow of a wet Novem- 
ber day pervading earth and air. Yet my spirit, 
nowise hindered, spread her untouched pinions, 
and I blessed the hour that saw and sees me liv- 



ing 



i" 



If you have ever met, in traveling, reader, with 
a garrulous old woman, whose tongue it was whol- 
ly impossible to keep from " running all the while" 
you will laugh, as we have laughed, at the annex- 
ed very graphic sketch of New England female 
stage-coach company. The extract may seem a 
little long at first, but never mind that ; you will 
think it too short when you are through with it : 

" The day was remakably fine : our road lay 
through the pleasantest part of pleasant Connecti- 
cut, near the picturesque valley of the Housatonic ; 
our cattle were sleek and fine-looking ; the driver 
was civil, and dressed well ; while the coach itself 
was a miracle of comfort." 

" In the midst of this prospective and present 
enjoyment, an elderly lady, with a monstrous band- 
box, a paper-covered trunk, and a little girl, are 
stowed away in the coach. And here beginneth 
the trouble. Before getting in, however : 

" ' Driver,' said the lady, ' do you knoAv Deacon 
Hitchcock?' 

"'No, ma'am,' replied the driver; 'I've only 
druv on this road about a fortnight.' 

" ' I wonder if neither of them gentlemen don't 
know him?' she said, putting her head into the 
coach. 

" '/ dont,' said one whom we will call the wag, 
' but I know Deacon Hotchkiss, if that will answer 
your purpose !' 

" ' Don't either of them other gentlemen know 
him ?' 

"No reply. 



140 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" ' Well, then, I don't know whether to get in or 
not,' said the lady ; ' 'cause I must see Deacon 
Hitchcock before I go home. I am a lone widow 
lady, all the way from the State of New Hamp- 
shire, and the Deacon was a very particular friend 
of my husband's, this little girl's father, who has 
been dead two long years, and I should like to see 
him 'mazingly.' 

" ' Does he live about here ?' asked the driver. 

" ' "Well, I don't know for certain,' said the lady ; 
' but he lives somewhere in Connecticut. This is 
the first time I was ever so far from home. I live 
in the State of New Hampshire, and it is dreadful 
unpleasant. I feel a little dubersome abeout rid- 
ing all alone in a stage with gentlemen that I never 
see before in all my life.' 

" ' There is no danger, ma'am,' said the driver ; 
' the gentlemen won't hurt you.' 

" ' Well, perhaps they won't ; but it is very un- 
pleasant for a lady to be so far from home. I live 
in the State of New Hampshire ; and this little 
girl's — ' 

" ' You had better get in, ma'am,' said the driver, 
with praiseworthy moderation. 

" 'Well, I don't know but I may as well,' she 
replied ; and after informing the driver once more 
that she was from the State of New Hampshire, 
and that her husband had been dead two years, 
she got in and took her seat. 

" ' I will take your fare, ma'am,' said the driver. 

" ' How much is it, Sir?' asked the lady. 

" ' Four-and-sixpence,' said the driver, ' for your- 
self and the little girl.' 

" ' Well, now, that's a monstrous sight of money 
for a little girl's passage like that ; her father, my 
husband, has been dead these two long years, and 
I never was so far from home in all my life. I live 
in the State of New Hampshire. It is very un- 
pleasant for a lady ; but I dare say neither of them 
gentlemen would see me, a lone widow, imposed 
upon.' 

" ' I'll take your fare, if you please,' repeated the 
driver, in a tone somewhat bordering upon impa- 
tience. 

" ' How much did you say it was? — three-and- 
sixpence ?' asked the lady. 

" ' Four-axL&six., if you please, ma'am,' politely 
answered the driver. 

" " Oh ! jfcwr-and-sixpence !' And after a good 
deal of fumbling and shaking of her pockets, she at 
last produced a half-dollar and a York shilling, and 
put them into the driver's hand. 

"'That's not enough, ma'am,' said the driver; 
' I want ninepence more.' 

" ' What ! ain't we in York State ?' she asked, 
eagerly. 

'"No, ma'am,' replied the driver, 'it is six 
shillings, York mone}\' 

" ' Well,' said the lady, ' / used to be quite good 
at reckoning, when I was to home in New Hamp- 
shire ; but since I've got so far from home, I b'lieve 
I'm beginning to lose my mental faculties.' 

" ' I'll take that other ninepence, if you please,' 
said the driver, in a voice approaching a little 
nearer to impatience. At last, after making allu- 
sion three or four times more to her native State 
and her deceased husband (happy man !), she hand- 
ed the driver his ninepence, and we were once more 
in motion. 

'"Do you think it's dangerous on this road ?' 
began the lady, as soon as the door was closed ; I 
am a very lengthy way from home, in the State of 



New Hamphire ; and if any thing should happen, 
I don't know what I should do. I'm quite unfa- 
miliar with traveling. I'm a widow lady. My 
husband, this little girl's father, has been dead 
these two years come this- spring, and I'm going 
with her to the Springs: she has got a dreadful 
bad complaint in her stomach. Are you going to 
the Springs?' she asked of an invalid passenger. 

" He shook his head feebly in reply. 

" 'Are you going, Sir?' she said, addressing the 
humorist. 

"'No,' he replied, 'I am not; and if I were — ' 
But the contingency was inwardly pronounced. 

" ' Are you ? J she asked, turning to me. 

11 'NoP 

" 'Ah? I am very sorry. I should like to put 
myself under the care of some clever gentleman ; 
it is so awful unpleasant for a lady to be so far 
from home without a protector. I am from the 
State of New Hampshire, and this is the first time 
I ever went a-traveling in my life. Do you know 
any body in New Hampshire ?' 

"'No, madam,' answered our wag, 'I do not, 
and I hope you will excuse me for saying that I 
never wish to !' 

" 'Well, now, that's very strange,' continued the 
old gossip, ' I haven't met a single soul that I 
know since I left home. I am acquainted with 
all the first people in the State. I am very well 
known in Rocky Bottom, Rockingham County, in 
the State of New Hampshire. I know all the first 
gentlemen in the place. There's Squire Goodwin, 
Squire Cushman, Mr. Timothy Havens, Mr. Zach- 
ary Upham, Doctor David — ' 

" ' Hold on, driver ! hold on !' exclaimed the hu- 
morist ; ' I can't stand this ! Stop, for mercy's 
sake, and let me out !' 

"The driver reined up, and the wag took his 
valise in his hand and jumped out — the discomfit- 
ed victim of a garrulous Yankee widow !" 



The poet LongfelloAv, in his " Hyperion," makes 
one of his characters convey the following conso- 
lation to another who has been rejected by his 
sweet-heart ; whose " bright star has waned," and 
the course of whose true love has been running 
roughly : 

" That is the way with all you young men. You 
see a sweet face, or something, you know not what, 
and flickering Reason says ' Good-night ! — amen to 
common sense !' I was once as desperately in love 
as you are now, and went through all the 
" 'Delicious deaths, soft exhalations 

Of soul ; dear and divine annihilations, 

A thousand unknown rites, 

Of joys and rarefied delights.' 

"I adored, and was — rejected! 

" ' You are in love with certain attributes,' said 
the lady. 

" ' Confound your attributes, madam,' said I ; ' I 
know nothing about attributes.' 

"'Sir,' said she, with dignity, 'you have been 
drinking !' 

" So we parted. She was married afterward to 
another, who knew something about attributes, I 
suppose. I have seen her once since, and only 
once. She had a baby in a yellow gown. I hate 
a baby in a yellow gown. How glad I am she 
didn't marry me ! One of these days you'll be glad 
that you have been rejected. Take my word for it." 

Such advice, however, always falls very coldly 
upon the heart of a discarded swain. 



3$nn. Mr. %>litmwf% €mpmmm\ §x$ffimn. 




Mr. Bloemup arrives at Washington. His first 
Impressions of the Metropolis. 




Has heard of Congress Water. Thinks it must be 
" something extra." Orders a " Go !" 




The Hon. Mr. Bloemup takes his seat in the House. 
Ready for Business. 




Looks in at the House. His Idea of the Members 
and the Reality. 




Thinks Congress Water mighty poor stuff. Orders 
a Whisky Cocktail instead. 






■J^^^m^l;^ 




Hears every body crying out "Mr. Speaker." H 
follows suit. 




Ugly old Lady with pretty Daughter solicits his 
Influence. He promises to give it. 

Vol. XII.— 



Two Eras in the Life of a Petitioner. Interval, 

Twenty Years. His Bill not through yet. 
No. 67.— I* 



142 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




Mr. Bloemup begins his great Speech. — Time, 
o'clock P.M. 




General Appearance of the House while Mr. Bloem- 
up is speaking. 



x-^? 




Mr. Bloemup is delighted at the accurate report of 
his Speech next morning. 




Attends the President's Levee in the evening, and 
considers himself the Lion. 




Mr. Bloemup still speaking. Only half through. 
— Time, 12 o'clock p.m. 



\ordur ) 




An Honorable Member replies to Mr. Bloemup's 
Speech. — Time, 4 o'clock A.m. 




He sends a few copies of bis Speech to his Con- 
stituents— -franked, of course. 

WALLV RE PORT gR \M'/-\\\\ 
§ WELCHES WCf* Nil 

any 5L) Jky§h C 




A Hint at the way in which " Great Speeches" are 
manufactured. 



$m$m for Dwmher. 

Furnished by Mr. G. Brodie, 51 Canal Street, New York, and drawn by Voigt 

from actual articles of Costume. 




Figures 1 and 2.— Sortie du Bal and Child's Costume. 



144 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



THE costumes on the preceding page require 
no verbal explanation. The Sortie du Bal, 
from which our illustration was drawn, is of white 
moire antique trimmed with watered pink ribbon. 
They are, however, trimmed with various materi- 
als, according to the taste of the wearer. 




Fig. 3. — Suit of Furs. 

Furs. — The changes in the articles that go to 
make up a "set of furs" are less marked, from sea- 
son to season, than in other parts of a lady's toilet. 
As a general rule, we may sa} r that any one who 
is provided with those indicated by us last year, 
is under no imperative necessity of exchanging 
them the present season. Still there are some 
novelties worthy the attention of those who con- 
template purchasing. One of these is the Cardi- 




Fig. 4. — Cardinal. 




nal. The cape is somewhat deeper than was 
worn last year, and the front is rounded away as 

represented above. The 
collar is also rounded. 
The collar may be de- 
tached and worn sepa- 
rately. We therefore 
present a separate illus- 
tration of it. The Tal- 
ma is another favorite mode. The collar is like- 
wise removable, and is cut with peaks at the 
breast, shoulders, and back. Instead of the sim- 
ple loops by which the Cardinal is confined, the 
Talma has a rich cord and tassels. — Muffs are 
made smaller than heretofore, and will be more 
generally worn than they have been of late years. 



Fig. 5. — Collar. 




Fig. 6.— Muff. 



No one species of fur can claim absolute prece- 
dence. Of course the Russian Sable retains its 
imperial rank ; but its cost, always great, and now 
considerably enhanced by the war, confines it to 
the few. The Sable from Sweden and Hudson's 
Bay, the Mink and Stone-marten, however, afford 
a very acceptable substitute. These, with a large 
variety of fancy furs, constitute the leading mate- 
rials actually worn. For trimmings, Swansdown 
will be largely used. 




Fig. 7.— Talma. 



HARPER'S 

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



No. LXVIH-JANUARY, 1856— Vol. XII. 




A CITIZEN OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED INTERESTS. 



JANUARY FIRST, A.D. 3000. 
" "\T7"HAT year did you say it was ?" 

W "The year 3000 of the Christian era, 
and the six hundred and thirty-first of ihe lie- 
public." 

" Thank you. Rip Van Winkle was a fool 
to me. And where am I ?" 

" You are now in the capital of the world — 
in Peerless City, on the island known to the 
ancients as the Island of Borneo." 

"Then the world has ceased to be divided 
into nations ?" 

"Bless you! yes, long ago. The last nation 
to come into the general arrangement was an 
old republic on the continent of America called 
South Carolina. You will find the whole story 
in the school histories." 

" And what has become of the old nations ?" 

" Most of them have disappeared altogether. 
Our great historian, Hans Francois Johnson, has 
written a very remarkable work about the small 



islands lying to the north of Europe, and their 
early inhabitants, who were called the British. 
It appears that they built large cities, and were 
traders. Johnson says that some eleven hun- 
dred years ago a revolution broke out in the 
country, and one half the people put the other 
half to death, and then fled across the seas to 
America. But really we know very little of those 
dark ages of the past. It has been clearly 
proved by statues which have come down to us, 
that these British were a stout, manly race, 
though their dress was singular, their generals 
wearing nothing but a large cloak, as is seen in 
the statue of the Duke of Wellington, and their 
statesmen appearing in public with no other 
garment than a fig-leaf and a scroll of paper, as 
we see in several of the statues at the museum." 

This allusion to dress drew my attention to 
that of my companion. He wore nothing but a 
short pair of drawers and a pair of shoes. On 
one of the legs of his drawers was an interest- 
table ; on the other a tabular statement of the 
sailing of the expresses for the various parts of 
the world. 

" Ah !" said he, " I see you are looking at my 
costume. We declared our independence of 
tailors long ago. Now all that custom requires- 
is this simple and comfortable garment. And 
men of business turn it to account, as you see. 
To return to the subject of the old nations, I can 
not tell you what became of France. I have a 
general impression that it blew up in some way 
or other, in consequence of the discovery of 
some awfully-explosive substance by the Acad- 
emy of Science ; but you must ask Professor 
Krakman about it. There was a city, they say. 
on the borders of the Seine, called Paris ; my 
son has written a paper, that has been much ad- 
mired, to establish the place where it stood." 

" And America — the United States ?" 

"Oh! I can tell you all about them. They 
were the original authors of the idea of a uni- 
versal republic ; and in the year 2207, after their 
General, Mrs. Von Blum, had conquered China,, 
and established a territorial government there-, 
with her daughter as military Governor, the pro- 
posal was first made public. I must say the 
United States acted handsomely. They made 
the Emperor of China Postmaster General for 
the Chinese Territory; and they gave the Em- 
peror of Russia, whom their famous General, 
the Reverend Amos T. Smith, had just made 
prisoner, a very comfortable place in the Cus- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of tha- 
District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

Vol. XII.— No. G8.— K 



146 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




PARIS IN A.I). 3000. 



toms. Beyond levying a slight tribute on the 
conquered nations — barely sufficient to give 
every American citizen a house and ten acres 
of land — they made no use of their victories, 
and cheerfully conceded political rights to the 
vanquished." 

I was glad to hear that my countrymen had 
maintained so good a character, and begged to 
know somewhat further respecting their history. 

" Why, as to their early history," said my 
companion, "you must bear in mind that our 
information is but scanty. I flatter myself that 



I am of American descent ; one of my ancestors 
was the celebrated Barnum, who was made 
President of the United States in consequence 
of improvements he introduced into the breed 
of babies. But really our historical critics have 
discovered so much falsehood in the old Amer- 
ican histories, that I hardly dare trust to any- 
thing they say. It is now clearly proved, for 
instance, that the hero named Washington was 
a myth, and never existed. Some suppose lie 
is identical with the Bonaparte of the French, 
who Avas likewise a great hero, and is said to 




THE BOMB-FEEEY. 



JANUARY FIRST, A.D. 3000. 



147 



have flourished about the same time. But others 
argue with great force that he is none other than 
the Biblical Joshua, and that Washington is a 
corruption of Joshua. Washington — Joshua; 
Joshua — Washington," repeated my companion, 
sounding the words to himself, " certainly a re- 
markable affinity in the names. But to con- 
tinue : The only two American generals of ear- 
ly times whose fame appears to rest on sub- 
stantial ground are General Tom Thumb and 
General Pierce. The former commanded an 
expedition which seems to have overrun every 
civilized country, and we learn from a medal 
which is preserved at the Exhibition Rooms, 
that the ladies in all the large cities thronged to 
kiss his hand, doubtless in order to beg that 
their relations' lives might be spared. General 
Pierce's exploits are not so well known, but it 
seems certain he commanded the famous expe- 
dition against the mighty empire of Grey town, in 
which the Greytowners were utterly defeated, 
and forced, after a sharp resistance, to sue hum- 
bly for peace. It is believed that peace was 
ultimately made on the marriage of Pierce to 
the widow of the Emperor of Greytown, who 
was killed in the war. If you are anxious to be 
informed respecting those remote ages, I advise 
you to consult a curious old volume of speeches 
by a famous American orator and statesman 
named Isaiah Rynders. I have no doubt he 
was the leading man of his day, and his speeches 
afford a fair picture of American eloquence." 



By this time we had reached the border of 
a wide stream, or arm of the sea. On the shore 
opposite us stood the richer wards of the Peer- 
less City; my companion proposed that we 
should cross, and I readily agreed. I was look- 
ing for a steamer, or boat of some sort, when 
he called me. 

"Here," said he, pointing to an immense 
sphere of metal, " step in." 

There was a door in the sphere, and I obey- 
ed. I found myself in company with four or 
five persons in a hollow chamber. We had no 
sooner entered than an authoritative voice cried, 
"All right!" at which the door was closed. 

Then I heard the word "Fire!" A tre- 
mendous concussion followed, and when I re- 
gained my breath the door was opened, and my 
fellow-passengers were getting out. We had 
crossed the strait. My companion noticed my 
astonishment, and kindly explained that the 
old system of ferry-boats was abandoned long 
since ; that all shert distances were now trav- 
ersed by bomb-carriages fired from huge mor- 
tars. 

" I suppose," said I, " that you use railroads 
still." 

"Yes," was the answer; "we have railroads 
certainly, underground, though they are falling 
into disuse. Formerly railroads were built on 
the surface of the earth, but after a few centu- 
ries' trial they were abandoned, as they had 
multiplied to such an extent that they covered 




THK I'UIILIC HIGHWAY. 



148 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the whole face of the globe. No room was left 
for agriculture. Then subterranean railroads 
came into use. They answered pretty well, as 
they traveled at the rate of five hundred miles 
an hour, and accidents rarely happened ; but 
steam balloons are fast superseding them. Now 
the mail-balloon starts daily from Peerless for 
the principal cities of the world : its time is — 
New York, one hour thirty two minutes ; Pe- 
kin, forty-seven minutes ; Timbuctoo, one hour 
and a quarter ; the city of Cash, in the Sand- 
wich Isles, fifty-eight minutes ; Icetown, on the 
North-pole, two hours and a half. Rich men 
have their own coach and buggy balloons, but 
the competition between the passenger lines is 
so great that most of the companies pay people 
a trifle to go by their line." 

" I don't understand," said I, " how they can 
afford to run on such very liberal principles." 

" Ah ! my dear Sir, in your time these 
things Avere not understood. The art of com- 
petition was in its infancy. Now, let us say 
there are six rival lines to Pekin. Well, if 
they all run, it is clear there will be no profit. 
The only chance of making any thing is by 
ruining all competitors to begin with. This is 
therefore the first object of these six Pekin 
lines; whichever holds out the longest will 
make an immense fortune. I met yesterday a 
Director of the People's Independent line, who 
was in glorious spirits : he had just learned, he 
said, that the funds of the Lightning line were 
diminishing rapidly, and that it was not likely 
it could last over thirty-five or forty years more. 
When it and the other four companies fail, my 
friend's will enjoy a monopoly." 

I observed that competition was an excellent 
thing for passengers. 

" How could it be otherwise ?" asked 
the man of the thirty-first century. " You 
are not aware, perhaps, that when the 
universal republic of the United Inter- 
ests was established, an organic law sub- 
stituted divisions of employment for di- 
visions of race. It being found that the 
greater the amount of intellect brought 
to bear and concentrated on any single 
branch of industry the higher its devel- 
opment was sure to be, the territory of 
the republic — that is to say, the civil- 
ized world — was laid off into districts, 
each of which was assigned to a particu- 
lar trade or manufacture, to the exclu- 
sion of all others. For instance, the 
people who inhabit old France are all 
^love-makers, and are forbidden by law 
to do any thing but make gloves. The 
inhabitants of Timbuctoo, who were found 
to possess remarkable taste in dress, were 
declared to be tailors and milliners for 
the world. Germany was inhabited by 
the brewers until the passage of the uni- 
versal Teetotal Act; it has lately been 
assigned to speculative philosophers. The 
territory which formerly comprised the 
Northern United States of America, is 



occupied by the stock-jobbers ; they do no- 
thing all day long, from one year's end to 
another, but buy and sell scrip; and so on. 
In this way we have attained the highest de- 
gree of perfection in every branch of indus- 
try." 

I ventured to hint that the gain must be over- 
balanced by a loss of intellect in those who were 
thus condemned to inhabit so narrow a sphere 
as one single vocation. 

"Cant! my dear Sir, mere old-world cant. 
Didn't your own economical writers argue that 
the great aim of the legislator ought to be to 
divide employments? We have done it, and 
look at the result. But we have not been con- 
tent with these territorial divisions, which, 1 
may say, were only the primary development 
of this excellent theoiy. We have carried it 
out in individuals. My friend the learned Pro- 
fessor John Pierre Selinghuysen, has invented 
a plan whereby one portion of the body may be 
developed to the exclusion of the others. For 
instance, you bring him a man who is to be a 
blacksmith. He puts him through a course of 
treatment which forces all his vital energy into 
his arms and chest : his legs shrivel up, his head 
becomes a mere appendage, but his arms and 
chest are those of a Hercules. Give him a 
danseuse. In six months her nether extrem- 
ities will have acquired the strength of iron with 
the elasticity of India rubber; true, her arms 
and bust will have dwindled away, but she 
don't need them. For her speciality legs are 
the thing needful ; and therein she is unap- 
proachable. Ah ! my good Sir, civilization has 
made great strides of late years !" 

I acknowledged the fact, and gloomily thought 
what sort of a world this would be. if we all fol- 




sblinghuvskn's pupils. 



JANUARY FIRST, AD. 3000. 



149 




WOULD YOU LIKE A ROMAN, SIR 

lowed the speciality system, and each person 
reduced himself to be the mere bearer of a sin- 
gle organ. 

11 Of course you are aware," said he, " that 
though we have not yet succeeded in finding 
the proportions of albumen and carbon requi- 
site for the manufacture of a perfect man, we 
have been very successful with detached mem- 
bers and limbs. It is quite common, nowadays, 
for a man to have a spare leg or arm at home ; 
and a fellow would be ashamed of wearing the 
nose nature gave him, if it resembled some of 
those, we see in the old statues." 

I could not deny that the plan was conven- 
ient. We had just entered a large open space 
which presented a singular appearance. It was 
circular in shape, and into it twenty-four streets 
disembogued themselves. These streets were 
mathematically straight. The eye followed 
them to the horizon. The houses on either 
side were all precisely alike; each had the 
same number of windows, doors, and chim- 
neys. By way of orna- 
ment each was cover- 
ed with huge advertise- 
ments. . 

" This," said my guide, >""- 

"is the great Circle of 
Peerless. In this circle 
stand the government of- 
fices, the theatres, the 
court-house, the muse- 
um, the churches, and all 
the other public build- 
ings. You may recog- 
nize the court-house by 
that professional group. 
The gentlemen of the 
bar seem in trouble about 
their fees. If you look 
through that window you 
will notice the great zo- 
ologist and professor of 
animal reproduction, Or- 
fila Schwackbummer ; he 
is now engaged on some 
very curious experiments 



on monkeys, by which he hopes to prove, 
once more, the old principle of progressive 
development. It is whispered that a young 
monkey of his has calculated an eclipse, 
and intends to run for alderman. I ought 
to have told you that Peerless, being the 
capital, is the only city in the world which 
is allowed to contain artificers and me- 
chanics in every branch of industry. It 
is a miniature of the world, and was con- 
structed on the same model as the repub- 
lic. It is divided into twenty-four wards, 
each of which is devoted to a particular 
branch of business. All the shoemakers 
live together, so do tailors, painters, bak- 
ers, bankers, lawyers, doctors ; every calling, 
in short, has its own ward. Then, again, 
see the proof of the progress of the age 
in the appearance of the city. No mer- 
etricious ornament or useless decoration on the 
houses. You notice they are all alike. In 
former times every man built his house as he 
pleased ; consequently, as we learn from the 
pictures which have reached us, the old cities 
had a deformed and unpleasing aspect. When 
Peerless was built the government appointed a 
commission to decide what was the best sort of 
house ; they reported in due time, and a law 
was passed declaring that every house in the 
capital must conform to their model." 

I could not help saying I thought such a law 
arbitrary. 

"That's another old-world fallacy. How 
can it be arbitrary since the people enacted it 
themselves by their representatives? You are 
just like the old writers. They are constantly 
twaddling about liberty. Now I take it that 
the best sort of liberty is that which gives a man 
the best of every thing, whether he likes it or 
no : don't you think the people of Peerless 
are far better off in these beautiful houses of 





GREAT CIRCLE OF PEERLESS. 



150 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



<Ste>/ /lb 1 4.* i-f Ijjj 

w 




LEGAL CELEBRITIES. 



theirs than they would he in such shanties as 
they would build if they were let alone ?" 

The citizen of Peerless was warming with 
his argument, and I thought it prudent to feign 
acquiescence. As my walk had made me thirsty, 
and I saw the sign of a hotel, I suggested that 
we might as well go and take a drink. My 
friend agreed, and we walked up the steps of 
the Hotel of Paradise. 




▲ NATURALIST. 



A servant, magnificently dressed, and bearing 
a halberd, received us at the door, bowed thrice, 
and passed us to a second servant, who wore a 
grand gold chain round his neck. This last 
conducted us to a third domestic, dressed in 
plain silk livery, who opened the drawing-room 
door for us. A fourth asked us, very politely, 
what we wished to have. 

I inquired of my friend whether he would 
join me in a glass of Champagne. 
He almost leaped with astonishment. 
"Why, are you not aware that the man- 
ufacture of liquors of every description 
has been forbidden by law ? Hush ! there 
is a fine of five dollars imposed on the 
mere mention of the name of any of the 
old poisonous compounds." 

I apologized for my ignorance, and said 
I would be glad of a glass of water. 

The waiter immediately produced a 
bill of fare. It was as follows : 

1. Spring water. 

2. Rain water. 
8. Well water. 

4. River water. 

5. Sea water. 

6. Water filtered through charcoal. 

7. Water filtered through stone. 

8. Water filtered through gravel. 

9. Distilled water. 

And so on to No. 67. 

Somewhat puzzled by this enumera- 
tion, I hastily chose the first. A signal 
was made by the waiter. A second waiter 
appeared bearing a tray ; a third came 
with glasses ; a fourth bore a decanter of 
water. We helped ourselves, and asked 
what was to pay. A fresh signal was made 
by the first waiter, and after a moment's 
delay the bill was produced. It was a 
magnificent triumph of typography. 



JANUARY FIRST, A.D. 3000. 



151 



The MS. portion, which interested us the 
most, was as follows : 

To three bows from the waiter with halberd. . . $0 25 

To waiter with gold chain 1 00 

To waiter who opened the door 25 

To reading the bill of fare 25 

To a tray 50 

To a decanter 50 

To two glasses 50 

To two glasses of spring water 02 

To use of drawing-room 2 00 

To use of table and chairs 2 00 

$7 2T 

I was, I confess, a little taken aback by the 
charge ; but my companion was so eloquent on 
the improvements that had recently been made 
in hotels, and the splendor of the modern estab- 
lishments, that I paid the bill in silence, and 
sallied forth. 

After we had walked a short distance, I 
thought I would like a cigar, and inquired of 
my companion where such a thing could be 
bought. 

" Bless me !" said he, " the last cigars were 
destroyed four hundred odd years ago. Had 
you never heard of it ? It was discovered by 
the government chemists that smoking was, on 
the whole, injurious to the human frame, and a 
law was accordingly passed to prohibit the use 
of tobacco in this shape. Ah! the republic is 
determined to make its citizens happy. It is a 
slight improvement, we flatter ourselves, on the 
governments of olden times." 

I admitted that, in my time, the laws did not 
exercise so thorough a control over private life 
and its customs. 

" Every thing nowadays," continued my guide, 
" is done in pursuance of a system. We have 
constantly the best men in the republic at work 
in search for the best mode of doing whatever 
has to be done. When they discover that best 
mode, a law is immediately passed to declare it 
the only mode, and all others 
are prohibited under heavy pen- 
alties. For instance, in former 
times the education of chil- 
dren was left to chance and 
to the caprice of their parents, 
whence it constantly happened 
that promising natures were 
ruined. Now, step in here. 
This is our Educational Estab- 
lishment. The day after a child 
is born he is brought here, and 
intrusted to the charge of the 
distributor of infantine nourish- 
ment. This is the Infantine 
Ward, one of the best in the 
building. 

We had entered alarge room, 
on either side of which stood 
cases such as were used in my 
time in stores for the reception 
of goods. Each case was pro- 
vided with a small mattress and 
a blanket. Along the front of 
the cases ran a tube like a gas- 



pipe, and from it shorter tubes, terminating in 
funnel-shaped mouth-pieces, stretched into each 
case. The deafening sound which assailed my 
ear when we entered quite prepared me to dis- 
cover that almost all the cases were inhabited. 
A stout man received us with a rough sort ef 
politeness, and in answer to a question from my 
companion, said that the supply was slack at 
this season, not over a couple of hundred ar- 
rivals per day. I asked Where the mothers 
were. 

" Mothers ? ah ! I forgot. I have read of 
the old-fashioned maternal duties. They must 
have been a dreadful bore. We did away with 
them long ago. Children are reared in this 
establishment from their birth on a substance 
called supra-lacto-gune. It is composed of 15 
parts of gelatin, 25 of gluten, 20 of sugar, 
and 40 of water, and is certified by the govern- 
ment chemists to be the very best article of 
nutrition possible. What is the average mor- 
tality now, Abdallah ?" 

The stout man said briefly : " Fifty-seven and 
a quarter per cent." 

"Think of that!" exclaimed my guide tri- 
umphantly ; " my friend, Doctor Belphegor, as- 
sures me that in former times the mortality 
among babies was never less than eighty and 
often a hundred per cent." 

I said, deferentially, that though the new plan 
was doubtless far preferable to the old one, the 
children did not appear to like it, judging from 
their cries. 

" Oh ! mere play ! mere amusement ! We 
like babies to cry. Out of a hundred children 
who don't cry, we find that exactly eighty-four 
and three-quarters die under six months ; where- 
as your thorough roarers seldom fail. At fifteen 
months the babies are removed from this room, 
and pass their examination before the State 
Phrenological Commission. Their heads are 




TUB IWFAKTLNE WAIfcU. 



152 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




VOCATION DECIDED. 

thoroughly examined, their mental capacities 
recorded, and their vocation in life decided. 
On leaving the Commissioners' room, each in- 
fant has a ticket pasted on its person, bearing 
the name of the trade or profession to which it 
is destined. Those who are to be mechanics 
go through a course of training to prepare them 
for their apprenticeship, and are then shipped 
to the country which is appropriated to the in- 
dustry of which they are to be acolytes. Those, 
on the contrary, whose phrenological develop- 
ment justifies the Commissioners in setting 
them apart to be lawyers, doctors, clergymen, or 
men of letters, are sent to the Grand College 
of Peerless. This is, we flatter ourselves, the 
greatest establishment of the kind ever known. 
The course of study will astonish you. 

" The first thing taught at Peerless 
College is the Thibetan language, 
which is the more valuable as it ceased 
to be spoken about a thousand years 
ago. It is the basis of all other stud- 
ies, and three-fifths of the student's 
time are devoted to it. Another im- 
portant branch of study is the ancient 
hieroglyphs of Egypt, of which very 
few traces — and those unintelligible 
— have been preserved. But I hap- 
pen to have in my pocket the last 
examination papers of my youngest 
son, who has lately graduated here. 
They will explain the system. Ah ! 
here they are. You see, in languages, 
the candidate for a degree is examined 
on: 

" 1st. The 30 books of the History 
of the Green Turtle, by Shah-Rah- 
L'ah-Shah. 

"2d. The 12 books of the History 
oftheBlack Elephant, by BoufTapouf. 

" 3d. The 6 songs of the Cisterns 
of the Desert. 



"4th. The treatise 
on the happiness of 
the One-eyed, by Slug- 
Rug-Bug. 

" 5th. The great 
speech of Bal-Pul- 
Chid against Chid- 
Pul-Bal. 

"Then in history 
the candidate is ex- 
pected to give the 
names and principal 
' events of the reigns of 
\ the kings of Patago- 
- nia and Hudson's Bay 
from the time of Noah 
to the present day, 
etc., etc. In geogra- 
phy, he must state the 
mean population per 
square mile of the un- 
explored regions of the 
earth, etc., etc. In 
philosophy, he must 
demonstrate wherein the great All differs from 
the Universal Whole, and show the relation be- 
tween aggregates and the sum of their com- 
ponent parts. In mathematics, he is expected 
to be acquainted with all the problems in trig- 
onometry and algebra which are of no practical 
use whatever. And so on throughout the vari- 
ous branches." 

I remarked that, though the treatment of 
children at Peerless was undoubtedly a new 
plan, the course of studies at the college re- 
minded me, in many respects, of that pursued 
in my own time. 

"I ought to have told you," said my friend, 
" that, by a recent special act, parents who are 
ambitious of early distinction for their children 
are allowed to send them to private academies 




THE HOT-HOUSE ACADEMY. 



JANUARY FIRST, A.D. 3000. 



153 



on the plan of hot-houses. The youths who 
are thus reared are placed under cover in a pe- 
culiar atmosphere, calculated to hasten the de- 
velopment of the brain. All that the teacher 
has to do is to keep the thermometer up to a 
certain point. In this way, children have been 
produced who calculated eclipses before they 
could speak, and cut out plans of fortifications 
in clay before cutting their teeth. Strange to 
sav, at twenty or so they generally relapse into 
childhood." 

We were by this time in the street again, and 
I confessed to my companion that I was hun- 
gry. 

"Absurd I was not to think of it. Let us 
see : this is beef-day. Shall we step into this 
eating-house ?" 

And he dragged me into an enormous room, 
in which about a thousand persons were dining. 
I noticed that all ate beef. At the end of the 
room four large oxen, roasted whole, lay upon 
immense metal dishes, and a sort of guillotine, 
worked by steam, was incessantly in movement 
cutting equal slices from each. 

"Let us sit down and wait for our turn. 
You perceive that the oxen are roasted whole. 
This is in consequence of a very wise law which 
was enacted to prevent deception on the part of 
the cooks. Here you can see what you eat, and 
you are sure of getting the worth of your money, 
for your portion is cut by machinery." 

" I think," said I, somewhat nauseated by the 
surrounding beefy odor, "that I would like a 
slice of fish." 

" Impossible," was my friend's answer. " I 
thought I said that this was beef-day. The 
government found, a couple of centuries ago, 
that human life was shortened on the average 
five years per person by errors and intemperance 
in diet. A law was therefore passed, ordaining 
that certain descriptions of food should be eaten 
on certain days and no others ; likewise specify- 
ing the quantity each person should eat." 

"It seems to me," said I, a little nettled, 
" that your laws encroach mightily on individual 
freedom." 

" Tut ! nonsense ! I tell you that our plan 
is declared by the wisest men in the world to 
be the most conducive to health and length of 
life. Would it be better, think you, to let peo- 
ple kill or weaken themselves by giving rein to 
their own foolish whims?" 

I did nofc care to argue the question, but rose 
and excused myself on the plea of want of ap- 
petite. My friend politely followed my exam- 
ple, and insisted on taking me to his house, 
where I might dine if I chose. 

We soon reached it, and my conductor ran 
up a flight of steps. The moment his foot 
touched the highest step the door opened. We 
entered, and I was soon lost in admiration. 
Mechanism had certainly wrought wonders. An 
electric telegraph, with some twenty wires, com- 
municated with the various persons with whom 
my friend had to deal in business. By an in- 
genious contrivance the same set of pipes dis- 



tributed through every room heat, light, water, 
and fresh air. The windows were provided with 
telescopes of various power, commanding a ra- 
dius of some fifty miles. Tied to one of the 
highest windows was my friend's buggy, which 
floated like a bird in air, ready for use. 

He apologized for the absence of his wife by 
saying, slyly, that she was rather vain of her ap- 
pearance, and, having grown a trifle too stout 
of late,' had gone to the doctor's to have her 
waist taken in three inches. I smiled, and he 
continued to chat pleasantly, till, of a sudden, 
the floor moved in front of where I was sitting, 
and a table loaded with eatables sprang up, just as 
they used to do in pantomimes. My host begged 
me to join him, and I sat down. No servants 
were visible ; but the moment we had drawn 
our chairs to the table the carvkig-knife sprang 
up as if it had been alive, and cut several slices 
of roast beef from the joint. The fork then 
displayed equal agility in picking up a slice and 
placing it on a plate, while the gravy spoon 
drowned it in gravy. The plate then rolled 
rapidly to the place where I sat. At the same 
moment a decanter of water beside me bent 
over and poured out a glassful, and the salt and 
castors began to travel slowly round the table. 
I even saw the mustard-pot stop, the lid raise 
itself, and the silver spoon with the utmost grav- 
ity empty itself on my plate. I began to think 




A MAN OF FABIIION IN TUB THIRTY-FIRST CENTURY. 



154 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



of the spiritualists of 
my own time, and the 
tables which would 
turn. 

" I see you are sur- 
prised," said my host ; 
"but we do every 
thing by machinery 
now. Private in- 
dividuals never em- 
ploy servants. These 
wires and springs are 
the best domestics 
possible." 

We were still at 
dinner when I heard 
a sound issue from 
the wall : then an 
iron pair of pincers 
seemed to burst forth 

from a concealed niche, and stretched them- 
selves out to the place where my friend sat. I 
noticed that the pincers held a card. 

" Ah !" said my friend, " here is Cazzo Bang- 
So Cistern come to pay me a visit. Notice him, 
I beg of you. He is the most fashionable man 
of Peerless — a terrible lady-killer." 

Almost at the same moment the gentleman 
in question entered. He skimmed lightly over 
the floor, and rubbed the toe of his right boot 
against my host's toe. This, I afterward under- 
stood, was the new mode of saluting a friend — 
shaking hands having long ago gone out of 
fashion. Cazzo Bang-So Cistern was dressed 
like my friend ; but his drawers were fantastic- 
ally cut, and he wore round his neck a hempen 
cravat, which I understood was the height of 
fashion and extravagance. On his fingers I no- 
ticed a number of flint rings — the flint having 
superseded the diamond as soon as Professor 
Grobichon had discovered the secret of crystal- 
izing carbon, and turned a whole bed of coal 
into diamonds of the purest water. Round his 
neck hung a pretty ear-horn, which, when we 
spoke, he contrived to fasten in his ear by a 
peculiar motion of the muscles. He was not 
deaf, my friend said ; but it was the fashion to 
be hard of hearing. 

My host and he soon fell into an animated 
conversation. 

" Have you heard," said Cistern, " the lunar 
wire has at last been laid the whole distance? 
We are hourly expecting a message from the 
moon." 

"We shall at last understand, then, what 
was the object of the revolution, in which their 
great city was burnt the night before last." 

"Oh! as to that, if the State Astronomer 
had not been a fool, he would have perceived 
that the men in the moon had split on the sub- 
ject of the tides. I saw them plain enough 
from my window, and I've no doubt on the 
subject." 

"Very possibly. By-the-way, how gets on 
your brother Lucifer with his painting?" 

"Hum! slowly, slowly. He's only finished 




PAINTING THE CLOUDS. 

four hundred and twenty miles of it as yet ; 
seven hundred more to paint. You know how 
he intends to do the clouds ?" 

"No." 

"He bought an old locomotive at auction, 
and intends to run it along the painting while 
he daubs away with the brush. In this way he 
hopes to get through the whole sky in a morn- 
ing." 

" Tis for Boston, is it not ?" 

" Yes, for their Stock Exchange, a new build- 
ing a hundred miles long. Ah ! how desper- 
ately tired I am !" 

" Out last night ?" 

"Yes; at Mrs. Cram's — an awful crush. 
Cram had made a capital bargain for the ball, 
they say, with the cotton factory next door ; so 
we kept it up till daylight." 

My host explained that the floors of modern 
houses were set on springs, and as it was con- 
trary to the spirit of the institutions of the day 
to allow any element of profit to be lost, the 
motion which dancing imparted to the floors 
was used to work various kinds of mechanism. 

"By-the-way," said Cistern, " I've broken off 
with Justine — she'd only a million, after all. I 
wonder what she's doing now ?" 

And he skipped to the window, fixed his eye 
to a telescope, and cried almost instantly : 

" As I expected, that rascal Skiggs is on my 
track." 

We followed him to the window, and by ad- 
justing a telescope and an ear-tube, my host 
kindly enabled me to see and hear the lovers, 
who were over two miles distant. I could hear 
the lover murmur, in a low, tender voice : 

" Ah ! you were my earliest love. I have so 
often dreamed of you !" 

" So have I of you," responded the young 
girl. 

"I hardly dared love you — one million of 
your own !" 

" Besides contingent prospects." 

" Yes, I know ; you have a dropsical uncle." 

" And a paralytic cousin." 

" Without children ?" 



JANUARY FIRST, A.D. 3000. 



155 



" Not a relative but myself." 

" You are heir to both ?" 

" Acknowledged heir; and neither can live 
over a few months." 

"Ah!" cried the lover, in an ecstasy, "you 
are an angel — my own loved one !" And he 
covered her hand with kisses. 

"This sort of thing," said my host to me, 
"is not usual nowadays. That young man is 
evidently a romantic creature, like the lovers of 
old times, of whom we read. Generally speak- 
ing, all marriages are now arranged by the sec- 
retary of that department. Marrying men enter 
their names in his registers, and fathers inscribe 
their daughters, with their prospects, in a book 
which, is kept for the purpose. It usually hap- 
pens that the secretary can suit an applicant 
at once ; but the law obliges him to advertise 
parties on hand and unclaimed once a week. 
Here," he added, drawing a piece of newspaper 
from his pocket, " are last week's advertise- 
ments. If you want to marry, you can choose." 

I glanced over the list. Some were pictorial. 
One was a hideous man, without legs, with 
the simple words beneath, " Worth three mill- 
ions !" Another was from a father. It ran as 
follows : 

"A father of a family desires to dispose of 
four daughters, in consequence of his removal 
to a smaller house. One is dark, one fair, one 
red-haired, one doubtful. Each will receive on 
her marriage the sum of $G0,000. No one need 
apply unless he has been vaccinated." 

Here was one from the lady herself: 

" A widow, who has been a blessing to five 
husbands, would like to make a sixth happy. 
Her fortune consists of a good figure and a 
warm heart. Apply, post-paid, to E. L., care 
of the secretary." 





ME. AND MEB. COENOSCO. 



CHAIRWOMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON ABUSES. 

I inquired how experience justified this busi- 
ness-like system. 

My friend assured me that nothing had ever 
been known like it. Every one was happy now, 
for the feelings being abolished, the source of 
jealousies and quarrels was wholly removed. 
Even parties between whom nature seemed to 
have set an impassable gulf were, under the 
existing plan, happy and contented spouses. 
There was Cornosco, for instance, who had 
made a fortune by exhibiting himself, and then 
married Tivicini's daughter, the prettiest girl 
in her quarter ; there never were such a pair 
of turtle-doves. 

" Some ladies," he added, " from reasons of 
their own, refused to marry. The State had 
provided for them. They constituted the social 
committee — a standing body appointed by gov- 
ernment to ferret abuses. It was found that 
they could discover twice as many mischiefs 
and wrongs in the same space of time as a male 
committee; and their reports were so long that 
no one ever ventured to reply to them, whereby 
the reforms they recommended were certain to 
be accomplished. Their present chairwoman," 
my host added, " was a woman of vast accom- 
plishment, who had been chosen in consequence 
of her great speech on the art of winking — a 
discourse which lasted thirty-one hours, and 
caused the death of the sergeant-at-arms." 

This was enough. I turned to my host and 
inquired whether I could see the remainder of 
the newspaper from which this piece was taken. 

"Oh! certainly." 

And he touched a spring, on which a queer- 
looking mechanism slid along the wall until it 



156 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




my 
the 



It 



LIKERTY, EQUALITY, AND FRATERNITY. 

reached our level. It appeared to be com- 
posed of an infinite number of rollers, round 
which a band of printed paper revolved inces- 
santly, like the strips used in the old Morse 
telegraph. 

" This is the great newspaper," said 
friend. "It's name, as you perceive, is 
Everlasting World." 

" A daily, I presume ?" 

"Pardon me, it never ceases to appear, 
is printed by a peculiar press on endless bands 
of paper, which are wound on rollers, and pen- 
etrate into the house of every subscriber. It 
is adapted to every taste, and in politics de- 
votes a page or two to each separate party. In 
this way, you have only to look at the head of 
the column to perceive the articles which are 
intended for you. The rest you neglect; you 
can do so with the less regret, as the World 
prints exactly three miles of reading matter 
every twenty-four hours." 

I inquired if party spirit ran high at Peerless. 

"No, no," answered my host, " people never 
quarrel nowadays, I may say, since the law 
which passed some years ago, based on that 
famous old adage of your great jurisconsult, 
Justinian Blackstone Story, ' There are wrongs 
on both sides.' When two men quarrel both 
are seized, and condemned to lose a limb ; they 
have the right of choosing which. In this way 
we have realized the dream of universal lib- 
erty, equality, and fraternity." 

"I should think," said I, turning again to the 
newspaper, " there would be some difficulty in 
providing manuscript for so voracious a ma- 
chine." 

" On the contrary, the editor tells me he does 
not know what to do for space, and the propri- 
etors talk of enlarging the paper. In the first 
place, you have heard, perhaps, that the old 
plan of book-publishing has been abandoned, 
and that all books now appear in the news- 
papers. They absorb a great deal of room, 
as you see." 



I noticed, in fact, 
that an article, appar- 
ently several hundred 
columns in length, wns 
published in the jour- 
nal before me. It 
was entitled "Amer- 
ican Antiquities," by 
Cain, late Professor of 
the Liberia College. 
I glanced at a para- 
graph or two. 

" The nineteenth 
century," so ran the 
Professor's work, " was 
undoubtedly the gold- 
en age of ancient lit- 
erature. The immor- 
tal work of Barnum, 
which was so popu- 
lar in his own day 
that his publisher was 
crushed to death by the crowds who sought 
to buy it, and those of Arthur Pendennis, 
would alone prove this ; not to speak of other 
famous illustrations of the period, such as the 
great negro writer, Uncle Tom, Esquire, and 
the sweet poet Ticknor, whose lines, 'Speak! 
speak! thou fearful guest,' are in every one's 
memory. If our colleague Coppernose be cor- 
rect in assigning the Harpers to this period, 
they would, of course, stand far in advance of 
their contemporaries. Nothing like the learning 
of this wonderful family has ever been witness- 
ed in our day. Theology, philosophy, belles 
lettres, travels, law, fixed sciences, poetry — 
nothing was beyond the reach of their uni- 
versal genius. It is estimated that if a man 
were to read sixteen hours a day for one hun- 
dred years — a feat not likely to be accomplished 
by idlers — he could not get through one-half 
the works of this industrious family. We are 
well aware that the learned Doctor Rumdum, 
of Iceland, has suggested that the works which 
bear their name were not really composed by 
them ; but that, as it was a well-known practice 
in the nineteenth century to read new works to 
public assemblies to the sound of the harp, the 
presence of the word Harpers on the title-page 
merely means that these works were so read, 
or perhaps was a notice to the harpers to strike 
up. We have every respect for so high an au- 
thority as Rumdum ; but really there is a fam- 
ily resemblance about the Harpers' works which 
can not be mistaken. We would as soon think 
of doubting that the venerable sage Shelton 
Mackenzie was not the author of that curious 
collection of whimsicalities to which he gave 
the appropriate name of Noctes Ambrosianac, 
by Christopher North." 

This was enough. I turned to my compan- 
ion, who held the newspaper still. 

" Besides literature," said he, " the tele- 
graphic correspondence from all parts of the 
world often occupies over a mile of paper. 
You notice, likewise, that it is illustrated. 



JANUARY FIRST, A.D. 3000. 



157 



That is also done by telegraph ; or rather, a 
very pretty compound of the photograph and 
telegraph, by which a scene occurring ten 
thousand miles off can be instantaneously 
transferred to paper here. This, for in- 
stance, is a sketch of the commotion created 
yesterday at the north pole by the news that 
Professor Brown had succeeded in attracting 
the new comet by electricity, and was sanguine 
of connecting it with the earth, and so doubling 
the velocity of this planet." 

" By-the-way," said Cistern, "my telegraph 
from Philadelphia announces that my pre-emp- 
tion title to those lots in the comet has been 
sold at forty premium. A good operation ; I 
clear ninety thousand." 

"You don't say so," replied my host. "Well, 
J '11 hold my lots. Professor Sitzen assures me 
that I have a gold mine on them. He says he 
discovered undoubted indications with his tel- 
escope." 

"Very possibly," rejoined the fast man ; " but 
my uncle is shaky, and I want to effect a new 
life-policy on the old man." 

" You made rather a good thing out of your 
aunt, didn't you ?" 

"No, no, nothing to speak of; a hundred 
thousand in round numbers. The fact is, I'm 
an unlucky dog. I've taken every precaution 
— insured every member of the family from my 
uncle downward ; but somehow, none of them 
will oblige me by dying." 

At this moment the lady of the house en- 
tered. She was dressed a la bergere; except 
that on her head she wore a peculiar sort of 
crown, which I understood afterward was a 
model of a machine for making horn buttons, 
invented by her father. On her arms she wore 







A I ADT OF FASHION A.D. 3000. 



ornaments which, I was told, were likewise small 
models of other inventions made by members 
of her family. One was a new lid for sauce- 
pans ; another, a boot which laced itself, etc. 
These, as Mr. Cistern explained to me, were 
Avorn as armorial bearings; the only nobility 
recognized by that enlightened age being affin- 
ity to genius. Round her neck was a chain, 
to which was suspended a medal bearing the 
words — "Two millions of dowry settled on 
myself." 

I was anxious to hear the lady talk ; but after 
rubbing her toe against her husband's in a non- 
chalant manner, and winking at me — a pro- 
ceeding which surprised me at first, but which 
I was told was quite according to Cocker — she 
withdrew, whistling a lively air. 

I then proposed to the gentlemen to take a 
walk. 

Cistern laughed, and looking at a peculiar 
ring he Avore on his little finger, observed : 

"Just eight o'clock . . . sorry . . ." 

" You are not aware," said my host, " that 
the law requires every citizen to be in bed by 
nine." 

"Why," said I, quite angry this time, "you 
seem to have gone back to the old curfew sys- 
tem." 

"Best thing in the world, my dear fellow! 
'Early to bed, and early to rise' — 'twas an an- 
cient said so ; and the state statisticians as- 
sure us that life is prolonged three years and 
a quarter, on the average, by going to bed at 
nine. 

" Suppose," said I, " that I refuse to go?" 

" Ha ! ha !" laughed my friend. " You're a 
funny fellow! a very funny fellow! Cistern, 
how long is it since poor Chang Smith took it 
into his head to disobey the law ?" 

"How should I know? In the time of my 
grandfather, I believe." 

"He was the last of the old school of felons. 
He insisted, as you seem to want to do, on sit- 
ting up after nine. The Court sentenced him 
to sit up till twelve every night for a year. It 
nearly killed him. Human nature can not 
stand solitude or eccentricity. Come, let me 
show you the way." 

He led me to a room exquisitely furnished. 
On touching a spring a bed sprang out of the 
wall ; pegs protruded themselves forward to re- 
ceive my clothes, and the moment I had taken 
off my coat an automaton brush began to dust 
it with exquisite dexterity. As my host left 
the room and wished me ' Good-night !' he said, 
laughingly, 

" No sleepless nights here. Be quick, for in 
ten minutes this pastil will plunge you into ;t 
slumber from which an enchanter could not 
wake you." 

And as I lay down on a deliriously soft 
couch, I felt a drowsy sensation creep over inc. 
I struggled against it; but my eyelids closed 
in spite of myself, my muscles relaxed, and it 
seemed in less than a minute I was in a deep 
sleep. 



158 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




THE GREAT VALLEY. 



VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 

ADVENTURES OF PORTE CRAYON AND HIS COUSINS. 
Fourth Paper. 

" Perlege Msconio cantatas carmine ranas, 
Et frontem nugis solvere disce meis." — Martial. 

THERE is perhaps no fairer land beneath the 
sun than that section of Virginia called the 
Great Valley. Bounded by the North Mount- 
ain on the northwest, and the Blue Ridge on the 
southeast, it extends across the State from the 
Potomac to the southern line, nearly two hun- 
dred and fifty miles in length, and varying from 
twenty to forty m breadth. Through its north- 



ern portion the Shenandoah pursues its regular 
and orderly course along the base of the Ridge, 
while, farther south, the upper James, the Staun- 
ton and New rivers wind in tortuous channels 
across the Valley, cutting sheer through the 
mountain barriers east and west, and flowing in 
opposite directions toward their respective re- 
ceivers. Leaving to the geographer and polit- 
ical economist the task of setting forth the 
agricultural and mineral resources of this hap- 
py region, its healthful and invigorating atmos- 
phere, its abundance even to superfluity in all 
the good things that make it a desirable resi- 



VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



155 



dence for man, we turn, with the instincts of 
painter and poet, from advantages more strictly 
utilitarian, to rejoice in the matchless gift of 
beauty with which Heaven has endowed this 
" delicious land" — not the evanescent bloom of 
flowering savannas, nor the wild but chilling 
grandeur of Alpine rocks and snows. This is 
a picture — soft and luxuriant, yet enduring as 
the everlasting hills — of rolling plains and rich 
woodlands, watered by crystal streams, enrich- 
ed with rare and curious gems wrought by the 
plastic hand of Nature, as if in wanton sport, 
sparkling waterfalls, fairy caverns, the unique 
and wondrous Bridge, all superbly set in an 
azure frame of mountains, beautiful always, and 
sometimes rising to sublimity. 

The first authentic account we have of the 
discovery of this valley is from an expedition 
which crossed the Ridge in 1710, planned and 
commanded by Alexander Spottswood, then 
Governor of the Colony of Virginia. In no- 
ticing this event, Burke the historian says, "An 
opinion had long prevailed that these mount- 
ains presented an everlasting barrier to the am- 
bition of the whites. Their great height, their 
prodigious extent, their rugged and horrid ap- 
pearance, suggested to the imagination unde- 
fined images of terror. The wolf, the bear, the 
panther, and the Indian were the tenants of 
these forlorn and inaccessible precipices." 

To one familiar with mountain scenery these 
sounding phrases seem like gross exaggeration 
when applied to the wooded and gentle slopes 
of the Blue Ridge, which seldom rises beyond 
a thousand or twelve hundred feet above its 



base. But every thing in the world is estimat- 
ed by comparison, and the good people from 
the lower country, in the early times, doubtless 
viewed this modest ridge with mingled awe and 
wonder. 

It may also afford some entertainment to the 
Western Virginian to receive the following in- 
teresting piece of information from a book, 
pleasantly entitled "Modern History; or, the 
present State of all Nations" printed at Dublin in 
1739: "There are no mountains in Virginia, 
unless we take in the Apalachian mountains, 
which separate it from Florida." This, too, in 
a volume published twenty-nine years after 
Spottswood's expedition, and several years af- 
ter actual settlements had been made in the 
Valley. 

As early as 1732 adventurous emigrants from 
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania had 
made their way to the newly-explored region ; 
and during the reign of James the Second the 
Valley settlements received considerable acces- 
sions from the north of Ireland. 

Thus the Scotch-Irish and German elements 
form the basis of the Valley population, and the 
manners and characteristics of the people, al- 
though modified by the connection and inter- 
mixture with the lower country, still very much 
resemble those of the Middle States. 

In following our travelers on their interest- 
ing tour, we have traversed consecutively the 
counties of Berkeley, Frederick, Warren, Shen- 
andoah, Rockingham, and Augusta. Thence 
passing the North Mountain boundary at Jen- 
nings's Gap, we have visited Bath, Alleghany. 







XII K KMIOUANT8 HALT. 



160 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



and Greenbrier, in the Alleghany region ; and 
returning to the Valley by CJifton Forge, have 
passed through Rockbridge and Botetourt. In 
this last-mentioned county we again overtake 
the carriage, toiling slowly up the western slope 
of the Blue Ridge. The company, as usual, 
were on foot, and we find Porte Crayon in con- 
versation with some emigrants who had halted 
by the roadside to cook their mid-day meal. 
Addressing himself to the man of the party 
with jocular familiarity, he desired to know if 
people were getting too thick to thrive below 
the Ridge, or if he had fallen out with the Gov- 
ernor, that he was going to leave the Old Com- 
monwealth. The emigrant replied civilly that 
although there might be room for a few more in 
his county, yet while there he had only been a 
renter and not a proprietor. Having realized a 
few hundred dollars by his labor, he had invest- 
ed it in purchasing a homestead where lands 
were cheaper if not better than in his old neigh- 
borhood. He, moreover, informed Mr. Crayon 
that he by no means meditated giving up his 
allegiance to his native State, but was going to 
settle in Nicholas County, which he described as 
a land of promise — pleasant, fertile, and abound- 
ing in fish and game. 

Philosophy reasons, Prudence frowns, but In- 
stinct governs after all. " A rolling stone gath- 
ers no moss," says the wise grandam, giving her 
spinning-wheel a whirl. " A bird in the hand 
is worth two in the bush," observes grandpap, 
pulling his purse-strings close, and tying them 
in a hard knot. But who ever saw a stone that 
would not roll if it had an opportunity, or a 
youngster who would not cut up his little fish 
for bait to catch a big one with. 




KtTNNING A RISK. 

"My friend, may you prosper in your new 
home," said Crayon, with animation. " Indeed, 
I am half envious of your fortune, especially the 
hunting and fishing, for I would rather live in 
that country in a log-hut than dwell in marble 
halls ; I mean more particularly during the sum- 
mer and fall." 

"To be sure," rejoined the emigrant, "you 



might find the winter kind o' lonesome out 
thar." 

"I am glad to hear, however, that you are 
not going to leave Virginia, for," continued Mr. 
Crayon, "I don't like the idea of building up 
new States in the Ear West when the old ones 
are scarcely half finished. Why are men hur- 
rying away to the shores of the Pacific to seek 
for homes, while there exist extensive and fer- 
tile districts within our own borders, as pure 
and intact in their virginity as the vales of the 
Rocky Mountains, or the banks of the Colum- 
bia ? I believe the true secret of this restlessness 
is, that the dreamers are always in hopes of find- 
ing some El Dorado where they may live and 
get rich without work." 

"The stranger is right," interrupted the sal- 
low matron, who had overheard the conversa- 
tion, and who seemed particularly struck by the 
last observation. "I always was set agin the 
Fur West, for I've been told it's a mighty hard 
country on wimmin and bosses, and easy on 
men and dogs ; and I told him, thar, that I 
wouldn't agree to leave the State on no ac- 
count." 

Crayon did not fail to compliment Madam on 
this manifestation of her spirit and good sense, 
and remarked, further, that women in general 
were more sincere in their patriotism than men, 
and if it were not for the care of the children 
that kept them at home, they would, in all 
probability, make better soldiers. " I could tell 
you a story about one Sally Jones, in our part 
of the country, somewhat to the point. If all 
our Virginia girls were of the same stamp, these 
vacant- districts would soon be filled up, and the 
prosperity of the Old Commonwealth fixed on 
the most reliable and permanent basis." 

A story illustrating so important a principle 
in political economy could not be passed over, 
and Mr. Crayon was requested to continue his 
discourse, which he did as follows : 

"Nathan Jones, a small farmer in our vicin- 
ity, had a daughter, as pretty and buxom a lass 
as ever thumped buttermilk in a churn; and 
whether you saw her carrying eggs to market 
on the flea-bitten mare, or helping to stir apple- 
butter at a boiling frolic, or making a long reach 
at a quilting, or sitting demurely in the log 
meeting-house on a Sunday — in short, wherever 
you saw her she always looked as pretty, if not 
prettier, than she had ever done before. 

"Notwithstanding her attractions, it will 
scarcely be credited that Sally had reached the 
mature age of eighteen without an avowed suit- 
or. Admirers, nay lovers, she had by the score ; 
and whenever liquor was convenient, many a 
sober youth got drunk because of her, and many 
a sighing bachelor would willingly have given 
his riding-horse, or even his share in Dad's farm, 
for her. There was, indeed, no lack of will on 
their part; the difficulty was in mustering tip 
courage to make the proposal. Mankind seem- 
ed, for once, to be impressed with a proper sense 
of its own unworthiness. Now, far be it from 
any one to infer from this that Sally was prud- 



VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



161 



ish or unapproachable. On the contrary, she 
was as good-humored, as comely, and disposed 
to be as loving as she was lovable. Poor Sally ! 
it is a great misfortune for a girl to be too 
handsome: almost as great as to be too ugly. 
There she was, sociable and warm-hearted as a 
pigeon, amiable as a turtle-dove, looking soft 
encouragement, as plainly as maiden modesty 
permitted, to her bashful company of admirers, 
who dawdled about her, twiddling their thumbs, 
biting the bark off their riding-switches, and 
playing a number of other sheepish tricks, but 
saying never a word to the purpose. 

u ' Either he fears his fate too much, 
Or his desert is small, 
Who dares not put it to the touch, 
And win or lose it all.' 

" Sally was entering on her ninetCv^th year 
when she was one day heard to observe, that 
men were the meanest, slowest, cowardliest, 
or'nariest creatures ; in short, good for nothing 
but to lay under an apple-tree with their mouths 
open, and wait until the apples dropped into 
them. 

" This observation was circulated from mouth 
to mouth, and, like the riddle of the Sphinx, 
was deeply pondered by Sally's lovers. If any 
of them had wit enough to solve its meaning, 
certainly no one had pluck enough to prove the 
answer. 

"Not of this poor-spirited crowd was Sam 
Bates, a stalwart youth, who stood, in winter, 
six feet two inches in his stockings (in summer 
he didn't wear any). Sam was not handsome 
in the ordinary sense of the term. He was 
freckled, had a big mouth, and carroty hair. 
His feet — but no matter, he usually bought 
number fourteen and a half boots, because they 
fitted him better than sevens or eights. Sam 
was a wagon -maker by profession, owned a 
flourishing shop and several hundred acres of 
unimproved land, which secured to him the 
reputation of independence. For the rest, he 
was a roystcring blade, a good rider, a crack- 
shot with the rifle, and an accomplished fiddler. 
Bold to the confines of impudence, he was a 
favorite of the fair ; with a heart as big as his 
foot, and a fist like a sledge-hammer, he was the 
acknowledged cock of the walk, and prcnx cheva- 
lier of the pine-hill country. 

" Mr. Bates met Sally Jones for the first time 
at a quilting, and in sixty seconds after sight he 
had determined to court her. He sat beside her 
as she stitched, and even had the audacity to 
squeeze her hand under the quilt. Truth is 
mighty, and must be told. Although Sally did 
resent the impertinence by a stick with her 
needle, she was not half so indignant as she 
ought to have been. I dare not say she was 
pleased, but perhaps I should not be far from 
the truth if I did. It is undeniable that the 
more gentle and modest a woman is, the more 
she admires courage and boldness in the other 
sex. Sally blushed every time her eyes met 
those of her new beau, and that was as often as 
she looked up. As for Sam, the longer he gazed 
Vol . XII.— No. OS.— L 



the deeper he sunk in the mire of love, and by 
the end of the evening his heart and his confi- 
dence were both completely overwhelmed. As- 
he undertook to see Sally home, he felt a numb- 
ness in his joints that was entirely new to him. 
and when he tried to make known his senti- 
ments as he had previously determined, he 
found his heart was so swelled up that it closed 
his throat, and he couldn't utter a word. 

" 'What a darned,cussed sneak I was !' groaned 
Sam, as he turned that night on his sleepless pil- 
low. 'What's come over me that I can't speak 
my mind to a pretty gal without a-chokin'?— 
O Lord! but she is too pretty to live on this 
airth. Well, I'm a-going to church with her 
to-morrow; and if I don't fix matters afore I 
git back, then drat me.' 

"It is probable Sam Bates had never heark- 
ened to the story of ' Rasselas, Prince of Abys- 
sinia,' or he would have been less credulous 
Avhile thus listening to the whispers of fancy, 
and less ready to take it for granted that the 
deficiencies of the day would be supplied bv 
the morrow. To-morrow came, and in due 
time Mr. Bates, tricked off in a bran-new twelve- 
dollar suit of Jews' clothes, was on his way to 
meeting beside the beautiful Sally. His horse, 
bedecked with a new fair leather bridle, and a 
new saddle with brass stirrups, looked as gay 
as his master. As they rode up to the meet- 
ing-house door, Sam could not forbear casting 
a triumphant glance at the crowd of Sally's 
adorers that stood around filled with mortifica- 
tion and envy at his successful audacity. Sally's 
face was roseate with pleasure and bashfulness. 

" ' Stop a minute, now, Miss Sally ; I'll jisr 
git down and lift ye off!' 

" Sam essayed to dismount, but in so doing 
found that both feet were hopelessly fast in 
the stirrups. His face swelled and reddened 
like a turkey gobbler's. In vain he twisted and 
kicked ; the crowd was expectant ; Sally was 
waiting. ' Gosh darn the steerup !' exclaimed 
Sam, endeavoring to break the leathers with 
his desperate kicks. At this unwonted ex- 
clamation Sally looked up, and saw her beau's 
predicament. The by-standcrs began to snick- 
er. Sally was grieved and indignant. Boun- 
cing out of her saddle, in a twinkling she hand- 
ed her entrapped escort a stone. ' Here, Sam- 
my, chunk your foot out with this !' 

" Oh, Sally Jones, into what an error did your 
kind heart betray you, to dTer this untimely 
civility in the presence of the assembled coun- 
ty — admirers, rivals, and all! 

" Sam took the stone and struck a frantic blow 
at the pertinacious stirrup, but missing his aim. 
it fell with crushing force upon a soft corn thai 
had come from his wearing tight boots. ' Whoa. 
darn ye !' cried he, losing all control of himself. 
and threatening to beat his horse's brains out 
with the stone. 

"'Don't strike the critter, Sammy,' said old 
Jones; 'you'll gin him the poll evil; but jist 
let me ongirth the saddle, and we'll git you 
loose in no time.' 



162 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




SHUTTING VV SHOP. 



"In short, the saddle was unbuckled, and 8am 
dismounted with his feet still fast in the stir- 
rups, looking like a criminal in foot-hobbles. 
With some labor he pulled off his boots, 
squeezed them out of the stirrups, and pulled 
them on again. The tender Sally stood by, 
all the while manifesting the kindest concern ; 
and when he was finally extricated, she took 
his arm and walked him into church. But this 
unlucky adventure was too much for Sam ; he 
sneaked out of the meeting during the first 
prayer, pulled off his boots, and rode home in 
his stockings. Prom that time Sam Bates dis- 
appeared from society. Literally and meta- 
phorically he shut up shop, and hung up his 
fiddle. He did not take to liquor like a fool, 
but took to his ax and cleared I don't know 
how many acres of rugged, heavy timbered 
land, thereby increasing the value of his tract 
to the amount of several hundred dollars. 
Sally indirectly sent him divers civil messages, 
intimating that she took no account of that 
little accident at the meeting-house, and at 
length ventured on a direct present of a pair 
of gray yarn stockings, knit with her own hands. 
But while every effort to win him back to the 
world was unsuccessful, the yarn stockings were 
a great comfort in his self-imposed exile. Sam 
wore them continually, not on his feet, as some 
matter-of-fact booby might suppose, but in his 
bosom, and often, during the intervals of his 
work in the lonely clearing, would he draw 
them out and ponder on them until a big tear 
gathered in his eye. ' Oh, Sally Jones, Sally 
Jones ! if I had only had the spunk to have 
courted ye Saturday night, instead of waiting 
till Sunday morning, things might have been 
different !' and then he would pick up his ax, 



and whack it into the next tree with the energy 
of despair. 

"At length the whole county was electrified 
by the announcement that ' Farmer Jones had 
concluded to sell out and go West.' On the 
day appointed for the sale there could not have 
been less than a hundred horses tethered in his 
barn-yard. Sam Bates was there, looking as 
uneasy as a pig in a strange corn-field. Sally 
might have been a little thinner than usual, 
just enough to heighten rather than diminish 
her charms. It was generally known that she 
was averse to moving West. In fact, she took 
no pains to conceal her sentiments on the sub- 
ject, and her pretty eyes were evidently red 
with recent weeping. She looked mournfully 
around at each familiar object. The old home- 




IN A STKANGF OOBN-FirXI>. 



VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



ic:; 



stead, with its chunked and daubed walls ; the 
cherry-trees under which she had played in 
childhood ; the flowers she had planted ; and 
then to see the dear old furniture auctioned off 
— the churn, the apple-butter pot, the venerable 
quilting frame, the occasion of so many social 
gatherings. But harder than all it was when 
her own white cow was put up ; her pet that, 
when a calf, she had saved from the butcher — 
it was too much, and the tears trickled afresh 
down Sally's blooming cheeks. 'Ten dollars, 
ten dollars for the cow !' ' Fifty dollars !' shout- 
ed Bates. 

" 'Why, Sammy,' whispered a prudent neigh- 
bor, ' she hain't worth twenty at the outside.' 

" ' I'll gin fifty for her,' replied Sam, dog- 
gedly. 

" Now, when Sally heard of this piece of gal- 
lantry, she must needs thank the purchaser for 
the compliment, and commend Sukey to his es- 
pecial kindness. Then she extended her plump 
hand, which Sam seized with such a devouring 
grip that the little maiden could scarcely sup- 
press a scream. She did suppress it, however, 
that she might hear whether he had any thing 
further to say; but she was disappointed. He 
turned away dumb, swallowing, as it were, great 
hunks of grief as big as dumplings. When 
every thing was sold off, and dinner was over, 
the company disposed itself about the yard in 
groups, reclining on the grass or seated on bench- 
es and dismantled furniture. The conversation 
naturally turned on the events of the day and 
the prospects of the Jones family, and it was 
unanimously voted a cussed pity that so fine a 
girl as Sally should be permitted to leave the 
country so evidently against her will. 

" ' Hain't none of you sneaking whelps the 
sperit to stop her?' asked the white-headed 
miller, addressing a group of 
young bachelors lying near. - . ^ 

The louts snickered, turned 
over, whispered to each other, 
but no one showed any disposi- 
tion to try the experiment. 

"The sun was declining in 
the west. Some of those who 
lived at a distance were already 
gone to harness up their horses. 
To-morrow, the Belle of Caca- 
pon Valley would be on her way 
to Missouri. Just then Sally 
rushed from the house, with a 
face all excitement, a step all 
determination. Arrived in the 
middle of the yard, she mounted 
the reversed apple-butter kettle : 
'I don't want to go West — I 
don't — I don't want to leave Old 
Virginia ; and I won't leave, if 
there's a man among ye that has 
spunk enough to ask me to stay.' 

"But where is Southern Chiv- 
alry ? — withered beneath the 
sneers of cold-blooded malig- 
nity? — choked by the maxims 



of dollar-jingling prudence ? — distanced on the 
circular race-course of progress ? — bankrupt 
through the tricks of counterfeiting politicians ? 
Deluded querist, no! Like a strong and gen- 
erous lion it sleeps — sleeps so soundly that even 
apes may grimace and chatter insults in its face, 
and pull hairs from its tail with impunity ; but 
give it a good hard poke, and you will hear a 
roar that will make the coward tremble and the 
brave prudent. 

" Hearken to the sequel of Sally Jones : 

"Scarcely had she finished her patriotic ad- 
dress when there was a general rush. The 
less active were trampled over like puffed goat- 
skins at a bacchanalian festival: 'Miss Sally, ] 
axes you ;' ' Miss Sally, I spoke first ;' ' I be- 
speaks her for my son Bill,' squeaked an octo- 
genarian, struggling forward to seize her arm. 
To hide her confusion, Sally covered her face 
with her apron, when she felt a strong arm 
thrown round her, and heard a stentorian voice 
shout, 'She's mine, by Gauley!' 

" Sam Bates cleared a swath as if he had been 
in a grain-field, bore his unresisting prize into 
the house, and slammed the door on the cheer- 
ing crowd. 

" The wedding came off that night, and on the 
following morning Sam rode home, driving his 
white cow before and carrying his wife behind 
him." 

Porte Crayon took his leave, and hastened ur 
the road. He overtook his companions just as 
they were crossing a brook that came brawling 
down through a gorge in the mountains. 

As they tarried upon the bank, Minnie re- 
marked that the stream reminded her of Pas- 
sage Creek, in the Port Mountains. 

" Truly it does," said Crayon ; " and the re- 
semblance recalls a pretty allusion which yon 




THE MOUNTAIN IIKOOK. 



1G4 



HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



made at the time we crossed it to Undines, 
water-spirits, or some such animals, which I 
thought very poetic, and worthy of being ver- 
sified." 

" Ah, cousin ! do by all means write me some 
verses ; you know I adore poetry. The piece 
shall be set to music, and Fanny will sing it." 

" I never heard that Cousin Porte could write 
poetry," said Dora, innocently. 

Porte, who had hitherto made a show of re- 
sistance, appeared to be piqued by this remark, 
and seating himself upon a rock, he drew forth 
pencil and paper with an expression that seemed 
ro say, I'll show you, Miss, in a feAV minutes, 
whether I can write verses or not. Crayon 
whittled his pencil with a thoughtful and ab- 
stracted air. " This scene," said he, " does very 
much resemble the other in its general features, 
but the season is farther advanced, and nature 
wears a drearier aspect. Yet the fresh beauty 
which she has lost still blooms in your cheeks, 
my fair companions ; seat yourselves near me, 
therefore, that in your loveliness I may find in- 
spiration for an impromptu." 

The girls laughingly did as they were com- 
manded, while Porte Crayon alternately pinched 
his eyebrows and scribbled. Presently, with an 
air of great unconcern, he handed the results to 
Cousin Minnie, who read first to herself, and 
then, with some hesitation, aloud, the following 
verses : 

THE WATER-SPRITE. 
Bright flashing, soft dimpling, the streamlet is flowing ; 
A maiden trips over, with vermeil cheek glowing : 
In mirror of silver, once furtively glancing, 
.She marks a sweet shadow, 'mid cool wavelets dancing. 

'Twas a voice — is she dreaming ? — that rose from the water, 
Articulate murmuring, " Come with me, fair daughter, 
I'll lead thee to shades where the forest discloses 
Its green arching bowers, enwreathcd with wild roses. 



"When erst thou hast laved in my bosom, pure gushing, 
Immortal, unfading, in fresh beauty blushing, 
Young sister, forever we'll joyously wander 
Free through the mirk woodland, the shady boughs 
under.' 

Heed not, list'ning maiden, the Water-Sprite's song, 
For false her weird accents and murmuring tongue : 
No mortal heart throbs in her shivering breast, 
Ever sparkling and foaming, she never knows rest. 

When from summer clouds lowering the big rain de- 

scendeth, 
When the hemlock's spire towering the red levin rendeth. 
All turbid and foul in wild fury she hasteth, 
Rose, wreath, and green bower in madness she wasteth.. 

When stern winter cometh, with tyrannous hand 

His icy chain bindeth both water and land : 

The wanderer hastes over, no spirit-voice woos him ; 

White — white lies the snow-shroud on her frozen bosom. 

Then rest thee, loved maiden, where true hearts beat 

warm, 
And strong arms may guard thee through danger and 

storm; 
Where unchanging affection may sweeten thy tears, 
And love that can brighten the winter of years. 

The verses were highly commended, and 
Dora expressed herself greatly astonished that 
any one who could write such poetry had not 
written books of it, and become famous, like 
Milton and Lord Byron, or at least have pub- 
lished some in the newspapers. 

Crayon made a deprecatory and scornful ges- 
ture — "Trash !" said he, "mere trash, jingling 
nonsense ; versification is at best but a mere- 
tricious art, giving undue value to vapid thoughts 
and sentiments, serving to obscure and weak- 
en sense that would be better expressed in 
prose." 

"Why, cousin," exclaimed Minnie, "are 
these your real sentiments, or is it merely a way 
of underrating your own performance? Hear 
what Shakspeare says of poets : 




U4_jfa 'twist. 



fyptfA 










us<M. 




vQ lanrt vw frfrlr XJc^^f^M fwr^ -*&tof iulmaL oUju 





THE IMPROMPTU. 



VIKGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



165 



"'The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, 
And as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation, and a name.' " 

"Upon my word," said Dora, "one would 
think that Shakspeare had seen Cousin Porte 
writing verses." 

"Well, well," said our hero, shrugging his 
shoulders with an air of resignation, "when 
one has condescended to a business only fit for 
scribbling women — " 

" Scribbling women !" repeated Fanny ; " why, 
brother, you ought to be ashamed to talk so, 
when you have been at least a month writing 
this impromptu." 

" Truly, Miss, how came you to know what I 
have been studying for a month past? Is my 
skull so transparent, or have you more shrewd- 
ness than I have been accustomed to allow your 
sex?" 

" Indeed, Porte, it required no great shrewd- 
ness to make the discovery, for about three 
v\ eeks ago I found this bit of paper in the bottom 
of the carriage," 

Our hero examined the scrap to convince 
himself of its authenticity, which he acknowl- 
edged by immediately tearing it up. Observ- 
ing, however, that Minnie had secured his 
verses in that charming receptacle where a 
lady hides whatever she thinks too precious to 
be trusted in her pockets or work-basket, and 
consoled that they had thus reached their des- 
tination, he bore the laugh with reasonable for- 
titude. 

Repeating a harmless line from Martial, 
" Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est" our author 
turned his back on the pests, and starting up 
the road at a rapid pace, was soon out of sight. 



It was near sunset before the carriage overtook 
him. He was then standing, with folded arms, 
absorbed in the contemplation of a view which 
was presented for the first time through a vista 
in the forest. To the right of the road, and at 
an immense distance below, appeared a cham- 
paigne country, stretching away in endless per- 
spective, the line of whose horizon was lost in 
mist. In front rose a lofty conical peak, whose 
sharp forked apex was yet gilded by the rays of 
the declining sun, while its base was enveloped 
in misty shadows. As Crayon ascended the 
carriage, he informed the ladies that they saw 
to the right a portion of the map of Old Vir- 
ginia, and before them stood the South Peak of 
Otter, one of the twin-kings of the Blue Ridge, 
crowned with his diadem of granite — a diadem 
so grand and so curiously wrought withal, that 
it remains equally the admiration and the puz- 
zle of artists and philosophers. His brother, 
the Round Top, was then hidden by a spur of the 
Ridge, but would be visible shortly. The Peak 
loomed in the gathering twilight, and our trav- 
elers gazed in silence on his unique form and 
gloomy brow — a silence that was not broken 
until winding down the notch between the two 
mountains they halted at the gate of the Otter 
Peaks Hotel. This celebrated hotel might read- 
ily have been mistaken by the inexperienced 
traveler for a negro cabin, for it was nothing 
more than a log-hut, showing a single door and 
window in front. Yet, to the more knowing, its 
central and commanding position, amidst the 
group of outbuildings of proportionate size and 
finish, proved it unmistakably the dwelling of a 
landed proprietor — what the negroes call some- 
times, by excess of courtesy, the " Great House." 
Crayon's ringing halloo was answered by the 
appearance of a full pack of dogs and negroes. 




SOI'TH PEAK 0!' OTTER, KKOM THE MOTTX. 



1G6 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



whose barking and vociferation were equally un- 
i ntelligible. The travelers disembarked at a ven- 
ture, and were met at the door by a smiling moth- 
erly woman, who ushered them into the great 
parlor, reception-room, and chamber of the hotel. 
The bare log walls and cold yawning fire-place 
were made dimly manifest by the rays of a sin- 
gle tallow dip ; but the united labors of the land- 
lady, her little son and daughter, four negro 
children, and a grown servant- woman, soon rem- 
edied all deficiencies. 

An enormous fire roared and crackled in the 
spacious chimney, the rafters glowed with a 
cheerful ruddy light, and a genial warmth per- 
vaded the apartment, which soon restored our 
chilled and disappointed adventurers to their 
accustomed good-humor. The supper, which 
was excellent beyond all expectation, furnished 
Porte Crayon an occasion to lecture on "the 
deceitfulness of appearances in this sublunary 
sphere," and also to narrate a pleasant anec- 
dote concerning a supper that his friend Jack 
Rawlins and himself had eaten in this house, 
while they were on that famous pedestrian tour, 
so often alluded to heretofore. According to 
his statement, Jack had eaten twenty-two good- 
sized biscuit, duly relished with bear-steak, 
broiled ham, preserves, and buttermilk. Porte 
credited himself with sixteen biscuit only. Fan- 
ny, who understood something of domestic arith- 
metic, immediately did a sum in multiplication, 
based upon the supposition that twelve gentle- 
men had stepped in to supper at the Hall. 

"Two hundred and sixty-four biscuit!" ex- 
claimed she. " Porte, I don't believe a word of 
it." 

Dame Wilkinson, who had just entered, was 
appealed to by Crayon to verify his story. 

" Madam, do you recollect ever having seen 
me before ?" 

The hostess adjusted her cap and twisted her 
apron, but was finally forced to acknowledge 
her memory at fault. 

Porte then went on to give the date and de- 
tails of the transaction, when a ray of remem- 
brance lighted the good woman's perplexed 
countenance. 

" Well indeed, Sir, I do remember them boys. 
They come here a-foot and did eat enormous. 
Of that, Sir, I tuck no account, for I like to see 
folks eat hearty, especially young ones ; but when 
they come to pay their bill they said it was a 
shame to charge only three fourpenny bits for 
such a supper, and wanted to make me take 
double." 

" And you refused. My good woman, I was 
one of those boys." 

"God bless you, Sir! is it possible? Why 
your chin was then as smooth as mine, and I 
should have expected to have seen you looking 
fatter, or maybe something stouter than you are." 

"A very natural supposition," replied Mr. 
Crayon, with a sigh, " but these things are con- 
trolled by destiny — I must have been born under 
a lean star." 

Mrs. Wilkinson had come in to know if her 



guests desired to ascend the Peak in time to 
see the sun rise, that she might arrange her 
housekeeping accordingly. The idea was favor- 
ably received by the party, and it was unani- 
mously determined to carry it out. The coach- 
man was instructed to arouse Mr. Crayon at 
the proper hour; and then, by the landlady's 
advice, they all went to bed. 

What time the glittering belts of Orion hung 
high in the heavens and dim twinkling stars in 
the alborescent east gave token of approaching 
day, Porte Crayon started from his downy 
couch, aroused by a sharp tap at the window. 
" Mass' Porte ! Mass' Porte ! day is breakin' — 
roosters ben a crowin' dis hour !" 

" Begone, you untimely varlet ! Plow dare 
you disturb my dreams? Go help Apollo to 
get out his horses yourself — I'm no stable boy." 
And Mice's retreating footsteps were heard 
crunching in the hard frost as he returned to 
his quarters, not displeased with the result of 
his mission. Porte Crayon closed his eyes 
again, and tried to woo back a charming dream 
that had been interrupted by the unwelcome 
summons. What luck he met with in the en- 
deavor we are unable to say. 

Our friends were consoled for the loss of the 
sunrise view by a comfortable breakfast between 
eight and nine o'clock. In answer to their apol- 
ogies for changing their plans, the hostess in- 
formed them she had rather calculated on their 
not going, as most of her visitors did the same 
thing, especially in cold weather. 

The Peaks of Otter are in Bedford County, on 
the southeastern front of the Blue Ridge, and 
about sixteen miles distant from the Natural 
Bridge. Their height above the level country 
at their base is estimated at four thousand two 
hundred and sixty feet, and more than five 
thousand feet above the ocean tides. They 
have heretofore been considered the highest 
points in Virginia, but by recent measurements 
the Iron Mountains appear to overtop them. 
The North Peak, called the Round Top, has the 
largest base, and is said to be the highest, but 
the difference is not appreciable by the eye. 
From a distance, its summit presents an outline 
like a Cupid's bow. 

The South Peak is considered the greater 
curiosity, and receives almost exclusively the 
attention of visitors. Its shape is that of a 
regular cone, terminating in a sharp point or 
points formed by three irregular pyramids of 
granite boulders. The largest of these heaps is 
about sixty feet in height, and upon its apex 
stands an egg-shaped rock about ten feet in 
diameter. It seems so unsecurely placed that 
it would require apparently but little force to 
send it thundering down the side of the mount- 
ain. It has nevertheless resisted the efforts of 
more than one mischievous party. 

The remarkable regularity of this peak in all 
its aspects would give the impression that it owed 
its formation to volcanic action, but there is no- 
thing more than its shape to sustain the idea. 
The hotel is situated in the notch formed by 



VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



1C7 



the junction of the peaks, about midway be- 
tween their bases and summits, and travelers 
starting from this point have to ascend not 
more than two thousand or twenty-five hundred 
feet. To persons unaccustomed to such exer- 
cise this is no trifling undertaking, and horses 
are frequently in requisition to perform a part 
of the journey. Our friends, however, fresh 
from the Alleghanies, and vigorous from four 
weeks' previous travel, scorned all extraneous 
assistance, and started from the hotel on foot. 
As the fallen leaves had entirely obliterated the 
path, a negro boy was detailed to lead the way. 
Porte Crayon followed next, with his rifle slung 
and knapsack stuffed with shawls and comforts, 
to protect the ladies from the keen air of the 
summit. The girls straggled after in Indian 
file, with flying bonnets, each holding a light 
springy staff to steady her in climbing. Mice, 
armed with a borrowed shot-gun, brought up 
the rear. For a mile they tugged along with 
great resolution, pausing at intervals to rest on 
the sofas of rock and fallen timber so temptingly 
cushioned with moss. At length they arrived 
at a small plateau where the horse-path termin- 
ates, and as there seemed no further necessity 
for a guide, the boy was here dismissed. 

The ascent from this point is much more diffi- 
cult. The path becomes steeper and more rug- 
ged, a sort of irregular stairway of round rocks, 
that often shakes beneath the traveler's tread, 
and affords at best but an uncertain footing. 

" Now, girls, is the time to show your training. 
Forward — forward !" shouted Crayon, as he bent 
his breast to the steep ascent. 

" ' Non sotto l'ombra in piaggia molle 

Tra fonti e fior, tra Ninfe e tra Sirene, 
Ma in cima all' erto e faticoso colle 
Delia virtu, reposto e il nostro bene.' 










ASCENT OV TJIK PEAK. 



" ' The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." 
Poor things ! how they struggle," said Porte, 
looking back at his wards, who, with disheveled 
hair and purple cheeks, staggered up the diffi- 
cult pathway. 

" Ah !" cried Minnie, 

" ' Who can tell how hard it is to climb ;' " 
and she sunk exhausted and palpitating upon a 
rock. 

" This does seem like waging an unequal war 
indeed," said Porte. " Come, child, your hand ; 
the road to the Temple of Fame is nothing to 
this. In fact I've been led to suspect lately 
that there must be a railroad up to it, from the 
marvelous celerity with which some people have 
accomplished the ascent. Mice, help the hind- 
most." 

What with the assistance of the men and 
frequent rests, they at length reached the sum- 
mit. Here, between the granite pinnacles, they 
found a little level, carpeted with dried grass 
and protected from the wind by the rocks and 
stunted thickets. The shawls were immediate- 
ly produced, and the ladies nestled in a sunnv 
corner, while Crayon and his man kindled a 
brisk fire of dried sticks. 

A brief repose served to recruit the energies 
of our fair travelers. A rude ladder assisted 
them in the ascent of the largest pinnacle, which 
looks eastward ; and then (first carefully assur- 
ing themselves of their footing) they turned their 
eyes upon the glorious panorama that lay un- 
folded beneath them. The sensations produced 
by this first look would be difficult to describe. 
The isolation from earth is seemingly as com- 
plete as if you were sailing in a balloon — as if 
the rocks upon which you stood were floating in 
the air. For a few moments "the blue abovi* 
and the blue below" is all that is appreciable by 
the eye, until the lenses are 
adjusted properly to take cogni- 
zance of the details of the land- 
scape. 

Looking east, a vast plain 
rises like an ocean, its surface 
delicately pictured with alterna- 
ting field and woodland, thread- 
ed with silver streams, and dot- 
ted with villages and farm- 
houses. Sweeping from north 
to south, dividing the country 
with the regularity of an artifi- 
cial rampart, its monotonous 
length broken at intervals by 
conical peaks and rounded knobs, 
the endless line of the Blue 
Ridge is visible, until in either 
direction it fades out in the dis- 
tance. Westward, rising fron: 
the valley, are discovered the 
unique forms of the House 
Mountains ; and beyond them 
ridge peeps over ridge, growing 
dimmer and dimmer until you 
can not distinguish between the 
light clouds of the horizon and 



1G3 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




CUOW.N OF OTTEE. 



the pale outline of the Alleghany. On your 
left hand, in sublime proximity, the Round Top 
''lifts his awful form," like an uncouth giant, 
insolently thrusting his shaggy pate into the 
etherial company of the clouds. 

While our friends reveled in this illimitable 
feast, for a time silence reigned supreme, until 
Porte Crayon, who had been sitting apart upon 
the apex of the egg, slid down from his perch, 
and approached the group of ladies. 

" Girls, there must be something in our alti- 
tude calculated to produce a corresponding lofti- 
ness of sentiment. I am in a state of exalta- 
tion — overflowing with patriotism. I don't al- 
lude to the marketable staple produced by the 
combined stimulus of corn-whisky and lust of 
office, but the more common instinct of loyalty 
to kindred and country, vivified, perhaps, and 
intensified by this bracing air and magnificent 
prospect. I feel as if I should like to be Gov- 
ernor of Virginia ; not for the sake of gain — no, 
[ scorn emolument — but simply for the glorifi- 
cation ; to be enabled to do something great for 
the Old Commonwealth — to make her a great 
speech. For instance : 



"Looking down from this lofty height, over 
the length and breadth of the land, what en- 
larged and comprehensive views do I not take 
of her physical features and capacities. My in- 
tellectual vision penetrates the mists which dim 
the material horizon ; I can see the whole State, 
like a map unrolled, from the Big Sandy to Cape 
Charles ; from the Dismal Swamp to the Pan- 
Handle — that pragmatical bit of territory that 
sticks up so stiff and straight, like the tail of a 
plucky animal, Virginian to the very tip." 

" Porte, can we see Berkeley from here ?" in- 
quired Dora. 

"Certainly, child; look northward there, and 
you may even see the chimneys of the old Hall 
peering above the locust-trees." 

" To be sure, cousin, I can see it now; better, 
I think, with my eyes shut than open." 

"Your silly interruption has put me out. 1 
had a great deal more to say, that possibly might 
have been important to the State ; for you must 
know that in Virginia speeches are of more ac- 
count than food and raiment. It is all lost, 
however ; and I will conclude in the words of 
the most egotistical of bards : 



VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



169 



" ' Could I embody and unbosom now 

That which is most within me ; could I wreak 
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw 
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings strong and weak, 
All that I would have sought, and all I seek, 
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe into one word, 
And that one word were lightning, I would speak. 
But as it is, I live and die unheard, 
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.' " 

" I'm glad you've done it," said Dora. 
"I should not have commenced, perhaps. 
The effect of eloquence depends too much on 




THE ENCAMPMENT. 



adventitious circumstances. In this rarified at- 
mosphere the most sonorous voice seems weak 
and piping." 

Fanny suggested that this fact appeared like 
an intimation from Nature, that these sublime 
solitudes were fitter for reflection than noise. 

" I never could bear speeches any where," re- 
joined Dora. 

"Very naturally, Miss Dimple. Your sex 
prefers addresses." 

Having relieved his surcharged feelings to 
some extent by these straggling remarks, Mr. 
Crayon gave the ladies a peremptory invitation 
to get up on the egg. It was accepted without 
hesitation, although in fear and trembling. Mice, 
according to his own account, made " a lather" 
of himself, by means of which they were enabled 
to ascend with comparative ease and safety. 
On the rock they formed a group at once pic- 
turesque and characteristic. Every eye kindled 
as it swept the boundless horizon ; and, by a 
common impulse, Crayon took off his cap and 
the girls spread scarf and kerchief to the breeze 
— waving a proud, enthusiastic salute to that 
fair and generous land. Dead indeed must be 
his soul, who, standing on that peak, could not 
feel full justification for such enthusiasm. 



Cautiously descending from the airy pinnacle, 
our friends made their way back to their gipsy 
encainpment. As they tarried here, the com- 
fortable warmth of the fire by degrees led back 
their wandering thoughts to the common paths 
of life. Fancy, that, like the eagle spreading 
her wings from her eyry in the rocks, had soared 
away among the clouds, now began circling gen- 
tly downward — down, down, downward still — 
until suddenly, with pinions collapsed, she 
swooped upon a fat turkey — supposed, of course, 
to be roasted. 

" Then down their road they took 
Through those dilapidated crags, that 

oft 
Moved underneath their feet." 

Although the descent has its 
peculiar difficulties, it is accom- 
plished in a much shorter time 
than the ascent. Our travelers 
reached their place of sojourn 
in the vale about 2 o'clock p.m., 
where they found dinner had 
been waiting some time, and the 
turkey overdone. 

The descent from the hotel to 
the foot of the Peaks affords a 
number of striking views, well 
worthy of record by pen and 
pencil. As they rolled rapidly 
over the road toward Liberty, 
the signs of a milder climate 
became momentarily more evi- 
dent. The appearance of open, 
cultivated fields, of elegant res- 
idences surrounded by shrub- 
bery, and notwithstanding the 
lateness of the season, cottages 
embowered in fragrant roses and 
showy chrysanthemums, threw the girls into 
quite an excitement of pleasure, and for a time 
entirely diverted their thoughts from what they 
had left behind. 

But Porte Crayon, heedless or half scornful 
of these softer beauties, still cast his longing, 
lingering looks behind, where a blue mist was 






1 '» 




the vi> i I >;. 



170 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




SOUTH PEAK, FROM THE SPRING. 



gathering over the twin peaks, that stood like 
giant sentinels at the gates of the mountain 
land. 

" Au revoir, Messieurs /" and with this implied 
consolation he turned away. "A traveler's 
business is with the present, not the past. Our 
sketching henceforward will be more of life and 
character than of inanimate nature. Even while 
I speak, behold a victim !" 

Liberty, the county town of Bedford, is a 
pleasant, and to all appearance a thriving little 
town. The travelers passed the night at a very 



comfortable hotel kept by Leftwitch, and were 
introduced to the daughter of their host, a 
bright-eyed maiden of thirteen years, who had 
lately performed the feat of riding to the top of 
the South Peak on horseback. 

" Of the next day's journey from Liberty to 
Lynchburg," Mr. Crayon jocosely remarks, "we 
will have more to say than we could have wish- 
ed." The weather was delightful. An Indian- 
summer haze threw a softening vail over the 
landscape, and the Peaks, still in full view, 
loomed up grandly against the western sky. 




THE PEAKS OF OTTER — DISTANT VIEW. 



VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



171 



Of the road which they traveled that day Mr. 
C. declines undertaking any description ; "For," 
said he, "to use an expression of the orator 
Isocrates, if I were to stick to the truth I 
couldn't tell the half, and if I were to lie, I 
couldn't exceed the reality of its unspeakable 
abominations." 

In passing through the town of New London, 
Mr. C. remonstrated with the toll-gatherer, but 
to no purpose. About five miles and a half from 
Lynchburg our adventurers were descending a 
hill. The hill was very steep — so steep that 
the driver was obliged to zigzag his horses to 
check the impetus of the carriage. The road 
at that point was of good old conservative cor- 
duroy — corded with stout saplings of various 
diameters, a species of railroad much used in 
the Old Dominion. They had descended many 
such hills before, and as they neared the bot- 
tom, Mice, according to custom, let his horses 
out. Down they rattled at full speed. The 
corduroy terminated in a mud-hole — so did 
the carriage. With a. terrific crash the fore- 
axle broke sheer in two, the wheels rolled oft* 
to either side, and the dashboard plowed the 
mud. Porte Crayon, in a state of bewilder- 
ment, found himself astride of the roan with- 
out knowing precisely how he got there ; while 
Mice's bullet-head struck the unlucky sorrel 
such a blow on the rump that he squatted like 
a rabbit. Crayon, with that admirable presence 
of mind which characterizes him, immediately 
dismounted, and lost no time in rescuing his 
rifle from the wreck. Ascertaining to his satis- 
faction that it was unhurt, he gallantly rushed 
to the assistance of the ladies. He found them 
in the fore part of the carriage, mixed up in a 
sort of olla-podrida composed of shawls, bask- 
ets, bonnets, cold meat, geological specimens, 
apples, a variety of shrubbery more or less dried, 
biscuits and butter, skins and feathers, trophies 
of the chase, and other ingredients not remem- 
bered. 

"Are you all alive?" inquired he, anxiously. 

Three voices replied in a rather doubtful af- 



firmative. The door was with some difficulty 
forced open, and the living were delivered from 
their entanglement without further damage — a 
work that required no little delicacy and judg- 
ment. 

" Oh, my bonnet !" cried Fanny, as she limp- 
ed to the roadside; "it looks like a crow's 
nest." 

" Just look at mine!" screamed Dora; " some 
one's foot has been jammed through the crown." 

" Cousin Minnie, what are you looking for in 
all that rubbish ? Have you lost your breast- 
pin ?" 

" I've lost something," quoth she, blushing. 
Presently she snatched up a bit of folded paper, 
and adroitly slipping it into her bosom, remark- 
ed, "Well, no matter — it is of no importance 
whatever." 

Mice in the mean time had recovered his 
upright posture, and by dint of rubbing and 
scratching had righted his senses, which had 
been knocked topsy-turvy by the collision. The 
horses stood quietly in their tracks, evincing not 
the slightest sympathy in the perplexity of their 
fellow-travelers — seeming to say, " Good peo- 
ple, take your time to it ; this is your business, 
not ours." 

How different was the feeling of the kindly 
driver, who stood stroking and patting the sor- 
rel's hips ! 

"Mass' Porte, I'se glad to see him standin' 
up dis way, 'case I thought at fust he's back was 
broke." 

The women were left to exercise their in- 
genuity in repairing their damaged apparel, 
while a private consultation was held between 
the commander of the expedition and his lieu- 
tenant on the present state of the war. It was 
unanimously agreed that Mr. Crayon and the 
ladies should stroll on until they found some 
vehicle to take them into Lynchburg, thinking 
there could be no difficulty in finding one in the 
vicinity of so important and populous a town. 
Mice magnanimously undertook to remain on 
the ground until he could engage a passing 




JXAII.i;OM) VCCIDENT. 



172 



HAULER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



teamster to assist him in trans- 
porting the wreck. 

Porte mustered his company 
and started forthwith. 

For a short time they got along 
very well ; but the sun shone hot, 
the road was dusty, and before 
they had accomplished a mile 
the girls began to complain of 
exhaustion. In fact, they had 
scarcely recovered from the fa- 
tigue of the previous day. 

They sat down upon a bank 
beside the highway to wait until 
some vehicle should come in 
sight, but during the next half 
hour they saw no living thing. 
At length an old negro hobbled 
by with a staff and cloak, whose 
very gait seemed to mock their 
patience. By advancing a dime, 
Mr. Crayon obtained the import- 
ant information that his name 
was " Uncle Peter," and nothing 
further. 

Disheartened by these appear- 
ances, Crayon encouraged his 
wards to make another effort, 
holding forth vague promises of 
relief in some form or other that 
he could not exactly particular- 
ize himself. Once their hopes 
were excited by the appearance 
of a vehicle in the distance, but 
on a nearer approach the ladies 
determined not to take advantage of the oppor- 
tunity offered, because the animals did not 
match. 

Porte Crayon's inquiries at two or three farm- 
houses were likewise unsuccessful. There seem- 
ed to be no chance for any other mode of convey- 
ance than that which they had rightfully inherit- 
ed from Adam and Eve. What a pity that a mode 
so healthful, independent, graceful, and beauti- 
fying, should have fallen into such general dis- 




use 3LE PETEE, 

repute ! W 7 ith clouded countenances they ac- 
complished another mile, when the cousins de- 
clared they were about to faint, and Fanny said, 
decidedly, that she would net walk another 
step. 

It is universally conceded that romancers and 
historians are privileged to draw their charac- 
ters entirely from fancy, and may so arrange 
incidents as to exhibit their heroes and hero- 
ines as models of perfection. Unfortunately the 




KOX A MATCH. 



VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



173 







LYNCIHEUEG TEAM. 



editor of these papers enjoys no such license. 
The wings of his fancy have been clipped by 
stubborn fact, and conscience has hedged his 
way on either side with thorns. If persevering 
good-humor at length becomes wearisome, and 
the high-mettled steed of chivalry requires oc- 
casional repose, charge it up in the general ac- 
count against human nature, and not to your 
humble and faithful narrator. 

As the young ladies sunk down one after an- 
other by the roadside, murmurs ripened into re- 
proaches. Their gallant escort was blamed 
with all the inconveniences under which they 
were suffering. 

The heat — the dust — the distance to Lynch- 
burg — the leafless trees that afforded no shade 
— and above all, their fatigue. " Hadn't he 
forced them to climb the Peak the day before ?" 

"Instead of taking you up in the carriage," 
suggested he. 

" Then, would any one who had the sense 
of a—" 

" A woman," interrupted Crayon — 

" Or the least consideration, have started on 
such a journey in a carriage with a cracked 
axle?" 

"That has carried us some four hundred 
miles over hill and dale, rock and river," re- 
plied he, mildly. 

" Why, then, did you bring us over this nasty, 
hilly, muddy, dusty road?" 

"To get you to Lynchburg." 

"Was there no other way to Lynchburg?" 

"My children," replied the philosopher, with 
admirable calmness, " cultivate patience, and 
don't entirely take leave of your feeble wits ; 
and," cried he, with increasing fervor, " didn't 
you have an opportunity of riding just now, 



which you refused with one voice ! Am I re- 
sponsible for every thing, your whims included ? 
You may go to grass !" 

Whatever reply this abrupt conclusion might 
have elicited, was arrested by an extraordinary 
screeching that seemed to issue from a wood 
hard by. Presently a wagon hove in sight, 
whose ungreased axles made the distressing 
outcry. The attelage was likewise out of the 
common line. The yoke at the wheels consist- 
ed of a great ox and a diminutive donkey, with a 
single horse in the lead. The driver, a deform- 
ed negro boy, was a very good imitation of the 
baboon that rides the pony in a menagerie. 

"By blood!" exclaimed Crayon, knitting his 
brows, "here's a conveyance, and you shall ride 
whether you will or not. — Halloo, boy ! stop 
your team ! I want to engage you to carry 
these ladies to town." 

"Dey is done gone, Sir," answered the ba- 
boon, respectfully touching his hat. 

Our hero looked round, and to his astonish- 
ment saw the ladies already more than two 
hundred yards distant, footing it rapidly down 
the road. Such was their speed that it cost him 
some effort to overtake them. 

" Cousin Porte," said Minnie May, in a de- 
precating tone, "we have concluded to walk to 
Lynchburg; the distance is so small that it will 
be scarcely worth while to engage any convey- 
ance." 

Mr. Crayon affectionately desired the young 
ladies not to walk so rapidly, observing thnt 
they would the sooner exhaust themselves by 
undue haste. As it was, there was no occasion 
to be in a hurry, the town being only three 
miles distant. He then kindly offered an arm 
to each of his cousins, requesting them to lean 



174 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



as heavily as possible upon the support; at the 
same time he nodded to Fanny, regretting that 
he had not a third arm to offer, but promising 
her a turn presently. Fanny smilingly acknowl- 
edged the civility, and said that since the breeze 
had sprung up and cooled the air, she did not 
feel the slightest fatigue. 

" Cousin Porte," said Minnie, in gentle ac- 
cents, " we were very foolish to reproach you as 
we did." 

" No more, sweet cousin. I pray you do not 
recall my unphilosophic and ungallant behavior, 
which I would fain dismiss from my own mem- 
ory, as I hope it may be from yours, forever." 

Peace having been thus re-established, Miss 
Dora ventured to inquire "Why the people of 
this region, instead of using horses, harnessed 
such ridiculous menageries to their wagons?" 

Crayon, who never liked to acknowledge him- 
self at a loss, informed her that " it was done 
to encourage a spirit of emulation in the differ- 
ent quadrupeds, and thereby to get more work 
out of them." 

A number of handsome suburban residences 
indicated the proximity of a considerable town, 
and our friends at length paused upon the brow 
of the bluff, on the declivity of which Lynch- 
burg is built. As they stood here enjoying 
the view, they perceived a huge column of 
dust approaching, out of which proceeded a 
confusion of sounds, snorting, creaking, tramp- 
ling, shouting, cracking, and rumbling. As the 
cloud whirled by, a shadowy group was dimly 
visible, a carriage mounted on the running gear 
of a wagon, and drawn by four horses. A huge 
figure occupied the front seat, and "the driv- 
ing was like the driving of Jehu, the son of 
Nimshi." In the foaming leaders Crayon 
thought he recognized their much-enduring 
friends the roan and sorrel, and in the human 
figure the gigantic outline of the indomitable 
Mice. 

The pedestrians, all dusted and travel-worn, 
slipped quietly down a by-street, hoping to 
gain the Norvall House without observation, 
but the burly squire was in ahead of them. 



His odd-looking, hybrid vehicle was of itself 
sufficient to excite attention, but his gascon- 
ading account of the accident aroused the 
whole neighborhood. When our friends tim- 
idly glanced up the main street, they had the 
satisfaction of seeing all the managers, clerks, 
waiters, and chamber-maids of the hotel, out to 
receive them, and the side-walk lined with spec- 
tators. In the midst stood Mice, covered with 
dust and perspiration, looking as magnificent as 
Murat after a successful cavalry charge. The 
ladies clung closer to Crayon's arms, and drew 
their dusty vails over their faces. The valet 
took off his cap, and addressing himself to the 
head manager, said, in a low voice, but with 
marked emphasis, 

" Them's them, Sir !" 

The comforts of a first-rate hotel were need- 
ed to repair the fatigues of these eventful days. 
Nevertheless, next morning the ladies were able 
to stroll about and take some notes of the town 
and its surroundings. Lynchburg is the prin- 
cipal tobacco mart of Virginia, and the fifth 
town in importance in the State. It has a pop- 
ulation of six or seven thousand, is substantial- 
ly built, and contains a number of fine private 
residences, but no public buildings worthy of 
remark. It is rather unfortunately situated on 
the steep declivity of a James River bluff, and 
while the streets running parallel to the river 
are level, those leading to the water are for the 
most part impracticable to wheeled vehicles. 
During the afternoon, Crayon and Cousin Min- 
nie strolled over the long bridge, and ascended 
the cliffs on the opposite side, whence they had 
a fine view of the town and river. 

" There are no boats on the river now," ob- 
served our hero, with a sigh. "This cursed 
canal has monopolized all that trade, I suppose. 
I perceive, too, by that infernal fizzing and 
squealing, that they have a railroad into the bar- 
gain. Ah, me ! Twenty years ago these ene- 
mies of the picturesque had no existence. The 
river was then crowded with boats, and its 
shores alive with sable boatmen — such groups ! 
such attitudes ! such costume ! such character ' 







THK RANKS OF THE ■» A.MES EIVT.R. 



VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



175 



they would have been worthy subjects for the 
crayon of a Darley or a Gavarni ! When Jack 
Rawlins and myself arrived here on that never- 
to-be-forgotten tour, we were so fired by the ro- 
mantic appearance of these river boats, that we 
resolved to try the life for a while. Having en- 
gaged a passage with Uncle Adam, the com- 
mander of a boat freighted with tobacco, in the 
course of an hour we were afloat. A delight- 
ful change it was from the dusty, monotonous 
highway, to find ourselves gliding down the cur- 
rent of this lovely river, stretched at ease upon 
a tobacco hogshead, inhaling the freshness of 
the summer breezes, and rejoicing in the ever- 
changing beauty of the landscape. Then what 
appetites we had. The boatman's fare, of mid- 
dlings and corn-bread, was for a time a prime 
luxury. When in our idleness we grew capri- 
cious, we gave money to the first mate, Caleb, 
who, in addition to other accomplishments, had 
an extraordinary talent for catering. Caleb 
would pocket our cash and steal for us what- 
ever he could lay his hands on. An old gander, 
a brace of fighting-cocks, a hatful of eggs, or a 
bag of sweet potatoes. As he frequently brought 
us twice the value of our money, we did not 
trouble ourselves with nice inquiries into his 
mode of transacting business, but ate every 
thincr with undisturbed consciences. Occasion- 
ally we varied our fare by shooting a wild duck, 
or hooking a string of fish ; but fish, flesh, or 
fowl, all had a relish that appertains only to 
the omnivorous age of sixteen. The boat's 
crew consisted of Captain Adam and two assist- 
ants ; shoeless, hatless, half naked figures, whose 
massive chests and brawny limbs reminded one 
of the exaggerated figures of Michael Angelo 
done in bronze. A priceless lesson it would 
have been to painter and sculptor to watch the 
nervous play of muscle as the swarthy crew 
poled their battcau through the shallows, or 
bent to the sweeps on the long stretches of still 
water. 

"But, after all, night was the glorious time; 
when the boats were drawn along shore in some 
still cove beneath the spreading umbrage of a 
group of sycamores. A fleet of fifteen or twen- 
ty would sometimes be collected at the same 
spot. The awnings were hoisted, fires lighted, 
and supper dispatched in true boatman-like 
style. Then the fun commenced. The sly 
whisky jug was passed about, banjoes and fid- 
dles were drawn from their hiding-places, the 
dusky improvisatore took his seat on the bow of 
a boat and poured forth his wild recitative, 
while the leathern lungs of fifty choristers 
made the dim shores echo with the refrain. 

" The music and manner of singing were thor- 
oughly African, and as different from the negro 
music of the day as from the Italian opera. 
The themes were humorous, gay, and sad, 
drawn for the most part from the incidents of 
plantation life, and not unfrequently the spon- 
taneous effusion of the moment. The melo- 
dies were wild and plaintive, occasionally min- 
gled with strange, uncouth cadences that car- 



ried the imagination forcibly to the banks of 
the Gambia, or to an encampment of rollicking 
Mandingoes. 

"One song, of which I remember but a few 
lines, seemed to embody some tradition of the 
Revolution, and ran thus : 

'" Caesar! Csesar! 
Bring here my horse and saddle ; 

Caesar! Csesar! 
I'm gwine on a long journey ; 

Caesar! Caesar! 
Bring here my sword and pistol : 

Caesar! Csesar! 
I'm gwine on a long journey ; 

Csesar! Caesar! 
I'm gwine whar the guns rattU ; 

Csesar! Caesar! 
I'm gwine on a long journey ; 

Csesar! Caesar! 
Take care of my wife and children ; 

Caesar! Csesar! 
***** 

" Then Caleb had his song, which had cheered 
his labors between Lynchburg and Richmond 
ever since he had followed the river. When 
things went easy he merely hummed the air; 
but when the boat hung or lost her course in a 
rapid, he roared it out with the full power of 
his lungs. Some wiseacre has said 'Beware 
of the man of one book,' Caleb was the man 
of one song. Taking advantage of an oppor- 
tune moment one night, he seized the banjo 
and struck up — 

" ' I went to see Ginny when my work was done. 
And she put de hoe cake on, my love, 
And Ginny put de hoe cake on ; 
But master he saunt and called me awaj-, 

'Fore Ginny got de hoe cake done, my love, 
'Fore Ginny got her hoe cake done !' 

"Like the ballad of ' The Battle of the Nile,' 
this song had twenty-four verses in it, all pre- 
cisely alike. By the time the singer had got 
to the third verse Uncle Adam rose, and un- 
ceremoniously taking the instrument out of his 
hand, gave him a smart rap with it over the 
head. 'You fool nigger, hush up dat! I'se 
been 'noyed 'bout dat hoe cake for three year ; 
don't want to hear no more 'bout it !' 

" It often happened, during these perform- 
ances, that when the recitative became rather 
prosy, or mayhap some chorister got dry before 
his time, a sort of practical ditty was struck up, 
whose grunting chorus invariably stole away the 
voices from the regular singer ; and he, nothing 
loth, would throw down the banjo, and roar 
out: 

"'Juggityjug. 
"Whar's dat jug' 
Juggityjug 
Old stone jug; 
Juggity juj-'v 
Broken mouthed i mi ; 

Juggity jug, 

Old whisky jug • 

Juggityjug.' 

" When the subject of these eulogistic verses 
had circulated sufficiently, the song generally 
wound up with an antic dance performed by 
the juniors of the company; and when the 



176 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




MGHT ON TJ1E EIVEB. 



mirth began to border on the riotous, some old 
Nestor, like Uncle Adam, -would authoritatively 
order them all to bed, backing the order with a 
considerate remark — 'Hard work to-morrow, 
boys ; sleep while you can.' The couches, to 
which it was thought luxury to retire, were 
made of fence-rails, laid across the boats under 
the awnings. But I preferred to take my blank- 
et, and stretch myself upon the tobacco hogs- 
heads, from whence I could watch the twinkling 
of the mystic stars, listen to the roar of distant 
rapids, or catch, at intervals, the wild melody 
from some neighboring encampment, whose fires 
glowed beneath the shadow of a wooded bluff. 
In time the fires would die out, and all nature 
sink into profound silence — all, except the sul- 
len, soothing roar of the river, which wooed to 
sleep like a nurse's lullaby. Then the moon 
would roll up her broad disk of burnished gold 
from behind a hill, flinging a stream of fiery 
light over the trembling water, and sleep would 
be forgotten for a while in the enjoyment of 
this new glory. Ah ! cousin, of all the aimless, 
vagabond adventures of my boyhood, none has 
left so lively and agreeable an impression on 
my imagination as that old time boating on the 
James." 

On the morning of the 6th of November, our 
travelers again found themselves and carriage 
in condition to take the road. Their route lay 
northward through the county of Amherst, and 
at noon they dined at the Court House. Now 
we do not wish it understood literally, that they 
took their refreshment in the halls of justice. 
[n Virginia, the village, or collection of houses 
in which the seat of justice of each county is 
located, is called the Court House. Sometimes 
you find nothing more than a tavern, a store, 



and a smithy. Besides the county buildings 
Amherst Court House contains about a dozen 
houses, and probably has not yet attained the 
dignity of a corporate town. The soil of this, 
in common with many other of the piedmont. 
counties, is of a bright red in many places, gen- 
erally fertile, but poorly cultivated. The world 
down here seems to have been asleep for many 
years, and an air of loneliness pervades the 
whole region. As the roads were heavy, and 
the chances of finding places of entertainment 
but feAv, the driver stopped at an early hour in 
front of a house of rather unpromising exterior. 
Porte Crayon, who has a facility of making 
himself at home every where, went to the 
kitchen with a bunch of squirrels, the spoil of 
his German rifle. 

He returned in high spirits. 

" Girls, we will be well fed here ; we are for- 
tunate. I have just seen the cook: not merely a 
black woman that does the cooking, but one bear- 
ing a patent stamped by the broad seal of Nature ; 
the type of a class whose skill is not of books 
or training, but a gift both rich and rare — who 
flourishes her spit as Amphitrite does her tri- 
dent (or her husband's, which is all the same), 
whose ladle is as a royal sceptre in her hands, 
who has grown sleek and fat on the steam of 
her own genius, whose children have the first 
dip in all gravies, the exclusive right to all livers 
and gizzards, not to mention breasts of fried 
chickens — who brazens her mistress, boxes her 
scullions, and scalds the dogs (I'll warrant there 
is not a dog on the place with a full suit of hair 
on him). I was awed to that degree by the se- 
verity of her deportment when I presented the 
squirrels, that my orders dwindled into an hum- 
ble request, and throwing half a dollar on the 



VIEGINIA ILLUSTRATED. 



177 



table, as I retreated I felt my coat-tails to ascer- 
tain whether she had not pinned a dish-rag to 
them. In short, she is a perfect she-Czar, and 
may I never butter another corn-cake if I don't 
have her portrait to-morrow." 

The supper fully justified Crayon's prognos- 
cis ; and the sleep of our travelers, like that of 
the laboring man, " was sweet whether they ate 
little or much." 

In the morning our hero felt lightsome, and 
rose before the sun. Not finding his shoes at 
the chamber-door, he went down stairs in his 
stockings to seek them, and in a hall between 
the house and kitchen he found the boot-black. 

" Uncle ! I am looking for my shoes." 



" Master wears shoes ?" replied the old man, 
scanning our hero's person with an inquiring 
look. " Well, well, boots hain't no distinction 
now. Take a chair, young master ; I'll find 'em 
and polish 'em up in no time. Weddin' party 
stopped here last night — brung me an uncom- 
mon pile of work." 

Billy Devilbug was a specimen of his race 
that merited more than a casual glance. Time 
had made strong marks upon his face, but good 
temper and full feeding had kept out the petty 
wrinkles which indicate decrepitude. His broad 
forehead, fringed with grizzled wool, imparted 
an air of dignity to his countenance, his one 
eye beamed with honesty, while his quiet, def- 




THK OOOK. 



Vol. XII.— No. 68.— M 



178 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 





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A CONSERVATIVE PHILOSOPHER. 



erential manner inspired the respect it tend- 
ered. 

Porte Crayon's shoes were finished and deliv- 
ered, yet he still lingered. 

"Master," quoth Billy, "when I was young 
there was gentlemen then. They wore fa' top- 
boots them days ; to see a fa' top-boots was to 
see a gentleman. Nowadays, sence these store 
boots come in, under the new constitution, there 
hain't no distinctions ; every thing is mixed up, 
every thing w'ars boots now, and sich boots ! 
Look here, master," cried Billy, thrusting his 
fist into a boot-leg, and fixing his one eye upon 



it with ineffable scorn — "What sort a thing is 
that, master? Is that a boot? Yes, indeed, 
that's what they call a boot these times — Ke* 
chuck, ke-chuck, ke-chuck ! I'se afear'd to rub 
'em hard, for fear to rub the sole off 'em. 
Them's like gettflemen nowadays !" 

Porte Crayon recognized in his swarthy friend 
a brother philosopher and high conservative, and 
as he turned to depart a considerable gratflity 
chinked in Billy's hand. 

" Young master," said the boot-black, rising, 
and touching his forehead respectfully, "I'll be 
bound your father wore fa' top-boots, any h©w." 



THE SENSES. 



179 



THE SENSES. 

II. — TOUCH. 

PHILOSOPHERS have now and then fancied 
that the worm, weak, mean, and despised as 
it is, has many an advantage which the mon- 
arch's son, born in royal purple, can not claim. 
They say that the worm greets the light of day, 
snugly ensconced in a warm, cozy nest; fruit 
in abundance supports him without effort. He 
finds silk and thread in his own body, which he 
weaves into clothes and wrappings for his sea- 
son of rest. At last he changes into a brilliant 
winged insect, and his sole duty in life is to 
perpetuate his race, without care or remorse. 
But the king's first-born, called to rule over 
millions, comes into the world naked and help- 
less, amidst tears and loud complaints, to lead a 
life ever threatened by others, and yet ever de- 
pending on the assistance of others. Surely 
if we were, as these philosophers imagine, no- 
thing more than the children of dust, it would 
have been better to be born an insect than the 
heir of an empire. 

But man has been abandoned to the lowest 
misery only in order that he might ever look up 
for aid to the very highest power in the uni- 
verse. Blind in the very abundance of his intel- 
ligence, he can only learn to see by directing 
his gaze without ceasing to that source whence 
cometh the light that is our salvation. Helpless, 
though endowed with almost marvelous bodily 
powers, he must ever look for aid to his fellow- 
beings ; and thus arose, from our very misery, 
the two great commandments of love to God 
and love to our brethren. 

Thus we find that even our senses, the hand- 
maids of the soul within, are but so many sources 
of suffering, until we have learned to guide and 
protect them. And here, also, it would at first 
sight appear as if animals had an advantage 
over man, in precise proportion as they stand 
lower in the scale of apparent perfection. No 
point, for instance, exhibits this difference be- 
tween him and other beings more strikingly 
than his nakedness. The whole of his wonder- 
ful body, with its delicate skin, its thousand 
finely-traced veins, and its countless, invisible 
nerves, is endowed with exquisite sensitiveness, 
and yet left exposed to the fatal influences of 
wind and weather. It is not so with animals. 
The lowest among them seem to be utterly with- 
out sensibility. In some infusoria irritation 
from without produces not the slightest effect. 
Neither violent concussion, nor a sudden light, 
nor overwhelming pressure, seem to make any 
impression. As their physical structure im- 
proves, the sense of touch also is gradually de- 
veloped ; though in the lower classes it is as yet 
diffused generally over the whole body, and so 
intimately connected with the organs of motion, 
that science has not yet been able to distinguish 
between them. 

Soon, however, special organs become visible, 
mostly projecting from the body, in which the 
perceptions of this sense are peculiarly active. 
This is, of course, mainly the case with those 



animals whose body is covered Avith hair, scales, 
bony and horny plates, or shells and spines, and 
thus becomes insensible not only to the mere 
contact, but even to weaker chemical agents. 
Fishes have but one sense in certain parts, 
which is at the same time touch, taste, and 
hearing. The Crustacea, like lobsters and crabs, 
on the other hand, carry their solid skeleton out- 
side of their quaint bodies, and lack, of course, 
this higher, sensitive life altogether. In birds, 
touch is strangely blended with the sense of 
taste ; the tip of their bill is generally endowed 
with an exquisite sensitiveness ; and in sea-fowl 
and others, who plunge their bill into soft mud 
in search of food, it is even covered with a 
skin approaching in structure that of our race. 
Serpents make, in like manner, use of their 
tongue for the purposes of touch ; and snails 
employ their curious tentacles to examine ob- 
jects around them. In other animals the ex- 
tremities are made the principal, and soon the 
sole organs of this sense, and often in a manner 
which we would little expect. The tender sole 
of the lizard's foot, and the prehensile tail of 
the chameleon, possess a remarkable power of 
this kind, while the oddly-shaped toe of the 
frog is gifted with like perception only at the 
time of sexual excitement. Where hands and 
feet are encased in horn and hoof, the sense is 
tranferred, as it were, to the lips and the parts 
around the mouth, especially when the latter is 
prolonged into a snout or proboscis. The trunk 
of the elephant is a perfect organ of touch. 

In many higher animals hairs become ex- 
tremely delicate instruments in the service of 
this sense. Not that they can feel or perceive 
contact themselves — the substance of which 
they are made prevents any such ability — but 
they are planted with delicate though bulky 
roots below the skin, in the midst of tender text- 
ures and crowds of highly sensitive nerves. 
Hence the slightest touch, an almost impercep- 
tible vibration finds an instantaneous and vio- 
lent echo beneath in the ever-watchful world of 
nerves. This makes the whiskers so important 
to the whole cat-tribe and to the strange race 
of seals. The sensitive hair of rabbits and 
hares is so indispensable to their existence, 
that when it is cut off they lose in a measure 
the power of guiding their movements in dark- 
ness. 

But the most perfect of the special organs of 
touch in animals are the antenna*, the jointed 
appendages to the head of insects. As a blind 
man judges of the nearness and the general na- 
ture of an object by what he feels and perceives 
through the medium of a stick, with which he 
touches it, so these animals receive impressions 
on the nerves, situated at the base of their long 
thread-like antenna), though these are them- 
selves insensible and unfeeling. To multiply 
the points of contact, and to increase the deli- 
cacy of movement to be communicated by their 
means, the ends are often furnished with tiny, 
but beautiful tufts and plumes, and they thus 
be ome not merely safe guides in the movements 



180 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



of the insect, but also valuable aids in the selec- 
tion of food. 

As yet unexplained is the truly marvelous 
sensibility of the whole membraneous expansion 
of the bat's wing to the slightest undulations of 
air. It is well known that the poor animals 
have been deprived of sight, smell, and hearing, 
and then let loose in a room across which nu- 
merous threads had been stretched, yet they fly 
about as safely and surely as if they had eyes 
to see and ears to hear, never touching a thread, 
never striking against the wall. The very large 
external ear, and the peculiar repulsive " nose- 
leaf " of some of those bats that are most averse 
to light, have been thought to aid them in this 
wonderful accuracy of flight. By such assist- 
ance, and the remarkably developed sense of 
touch alone, could they be guided in the grottoes 
and natural caves in which they are found fly- 
ing and enjoying a gloomy solitude, to which 
no perceptible ray of light ever gains access. 

In man this sense is most perfectly developed ; 
his skin is free of all animal covering — a few se- 
lect places only excepted — and the delicate ends 
of countless nerves touch the very world with- 
out, unimpeded in their restless, beautiful activ- 
ity by wool, scales, or feathers. His body be- 
comes thus, to the farthest extremity, to the 
most minute outward particle, the property and 
the faithful servant of the soul within. Nor is 
this, as has been sometimes contended, merely 
the result of long cultivation, and the effect of 
a delicacy produced by artificial coverings, for 
even the half-civilized inhabitants of the tropics, 
whose skin has been for generations unprotect- 
ed and exposed to all the hardships of savage 
life, possess the same exquisite sensibility. We 
can only dream of men in their " natural condi- 
tion," standing like statues of bronze amidst the 
wealth of the tropics, unhurt and unharmed by 
all influences from without. Reality shows us 
the thousand often most curious means to which 
they resort for the protection of their skin. 
Fragrant oils serve the refined ; disgusting odors, 
or even innumerable scars, produced by tatoo- 
ing, help the more barbarous races to make the 
skin less sensitive and open to danger. To 
what extreme remedies they are sometimes 
driven we may learn from one whose skin 
would apparently have been proof against all 
things. The famous buccaneer, Raveneau de 
Lussuan, who in 1688 crossed the Isthmus of 
Panama, returning from the South Sea, tells us 
of the Indians near the Cape of Gracias a Dios, 
"that when they go to sleep they make a hole in 
the sand, in which they lie down, and then cov- 
er themselves carefully all over with the same 
sand. And all this to avoid the mosquitoes, 
with which the air is filled — little flies, rather 
felt than seen, whose sting is so sharp and ven- 
omous, that when it enters the skin it seems to 
be a flash of living fire." 

The same circumstance, however, apparently 
so fatal to health and life, the want of an orig- 
inal covering, gives man a facility of evapora- 
tion by means of innumerable, ever-open pores, 



which no animal possesses, and which enables 
him, above all living things, to dwell safely in 
the most different climates and heights on this 
great globe. Nor ought we to forget that the 
delicate sense, extended over so vast a surface, 
and, as we shall see, so wonderfully developed 
and refined in man, gives that transparency and 
beauty to his skin, which is the effect of the 
thousand gates through which, unconsciously 
though it be, the heaven-born soul shines bright- 
ly and clearly. 

Touch is, in certain respects, the most import- 
ant of all our senses, for by it alone is the first 
impression of matter made upon man, and with- 
out it he would not be able truly and fully to 
commune with the outer world. The other 
senses can, at best, only perceive certain quali- 
ties of objects around us; touch alone and at 
once convinces us of their existence. For this 
reason, also, is this first and greatest of senses 
spread, by the God in whose image we are made, 
over the whole soft surface of our body, and 
perhaps even over certain parts of the inner 
organs. The other senses have, with special 
powers, also special localities ; the organ that is 
given for the purpose of testing our food, lies in 
the immediate vicinity of the place where food 
enters ; that which examines the air we breathe 
stands guard over the gates through which we 
receive it. The subtle rays of light are gather- 
ed in deep, securely-hidden cavities of the face, 
and the curious organs on which fall the almost 
imperceptible waves of the air, are actually con- 
cealed in the far interior of the head. It is not 
so with that sense, which is so important for our 
whole organism. Touch is every where, and 
the most open of all, because most directly and 
constantly in contact with the great world 
around us. Thanks to our bountiful Maker, it 
is not, like other senses, limited to one or two 
special organs, by whose loss man would be de- 
prived of his first and main channel, through 
which he can commune with the world over 
which he rules, to stand in the midst of an 
abundance of blessings, wholly helpless and iso- 
lated. It spreads, on the contrary, over his 
whole body, and, therefore, even in the most 
violent diseases, is never entirely lost, but un- 
der all circumstances forms-* the ever-ready 
bridge over which the immortal soul holds in- 
tercourse with fellow-souls and all creation. 

The precise mechanism by which the sense 
of touch operates is yet concealed in that se- 
crecy which hides all the more delicate opera- 
tions of our nervous system. But its extreme 
beauty, ,the rapidity with which it works, and 
its never-failing accuracy, are as surpassing as 
they are familiar. We walk in the dark doubt- 
fully through a room, and the outstretched hand 
comes in contact with a solid substance. What 
happens ? With the rapidity of thought — per- 
haps even quicker — the nerves of sensation, 
whose delicate ends dwell in the tips of our fin- 
gers, telegraph the occurrence up to the great 
central hall of the brains, wherever the God-in- 
spired soul may reside. Instantly our mind 



THE SENSES. 



181 



knows that it is a chair which caused the sen- 
sation, that a certain spot of a certain finger 
came in contact with it, and that the sharp edge 
of the back of the chair touched our hand. As 
quickly, however, the same nerves telegraph 
back that the mind has resolved to withdraw 
the arm, and the arm obeys at the moment. 
Thus sensation, thought, will, and action follow 
each other with marvelous quickness. And is 
this not a daily, constant miracle ? A material 
pressure on our skin or a nerve makes us trem- 
ble — imperceptibly perhaps to human senses — 
the motion is transferred to the head ; it there 
calls forth a resolve, and the nerves of volition 
cause another trembling, which compels the 
ever-ready muscles to raise the arm with the 
rapidity of lightning. A wooden, lifeless chair 
produces a whole series of spiritual actions ; the 
material gave birth to the spiritual, and the 
thought changed as quickly back again into ma- 
terial effect ! 

But we should err much if we fancied that 
touch consisted merely in a certain sensibility 
to shocks or to pressure, or even that it was 
concerned only in distinguishing substances that 
come in contact with the body as to their solid- 
ity and dimensions. The true sense of touch 
has nobler ends to fulfill, and is therefore gifted 
with higher capacities than these ; it has, be- 
sides, the power to discern qualities of which 
no other sense gives any perception. Its duty 
and its power may be said to be four-fold. By 
mechanical means only it gives us the knowl- 
edge of size and shape, so that we distinguish, 
by its aid, the volume and form, the bluntness 
or sharpness, the hardness or softness of the ob- 
ject with which we are in contact. By a dy- 
namic power, touch informs us next of thenn- 
ical changes, and makes us aware of the most 
delicate features in climate and temperature. 
The third class of impressions is both of rare 
occurrence and of unexplained nature : it is^ the 
sensation caused by tickling, and the voluptuous 
feelings peculiar to certain parts of the body. 
Touch makes us, lastly, aware of changes, how- 
ever minute, in the magnetic, galvanic, and 
electric currents that surround us on all sides. 

The principal organ of this great sense is the 
skin, giving thus, apparently, the simplest organ 
to the simplest sense. The second layer under 
the immediate surface contains the reversed 
ends of primitive nerves in millions of minute 
elevations or warts, called papilhz. These raise 
the outer skin more or less, and through it ob- 
tain their impressions. In the extremities these 
tiny eminences are regularly arranged, and pro- 
duce thus, in the finger-tips for instance, the 
beautifully rounded lines with which we are all 
familiar. Under the microscope they reveal an 
astounding variety of curves and lines, in ac- 
cordance with the minute subdivision of these 
so-called sensory nerves. The power and the 
accuracy of their activity depend, therefore, 
partly on the relative position of skin and nerves, 
and partly on the greater or smaller number of 
nerves assembled in any one place. To these 



conditions must be added the thickness of the 
outer skin — which, of course, varies much, from 
the hard-working laborer to the delicate lady — 
and the general sensitiveness of each person. 
Much, however, is here also left that is curious 
and unexplained. 

Not all surfaces in our body are equally able 
to perceive impressions by means of touch ; the 
inner surfaces of the cavities in our body es- 
pecially, are, by a peculiar arrangement of the 
nervous system, at best only able to feel a dull, 
indistinct sensation of sharp or burning pain 
under extraordinary circumstances. Hence we 
can not, by any sense, perceive the continuous 
motion of our organs of digestion, the coursing 
of the blood through vein and artery, the secre- 
tions of glands, and similar operations. But 
even in the sensitive places of our skin a strik- 
ing difference prevails between certain parts of 
the body. This has been ascertained by the 
beautiful experiments of Professor Weber, who 
first discovered that two distinct pressures on 
our skin will be felt as one only, unless they are 
at a certain distance from each other, and this 
distance increases, of course, with the dimin- 
ished sensitiveness of the surface. A simple 
compass, whose points have been covered with 
cork, suffices to prove this, and careful measure- 
ments have given to every inch of our body its 
own precise power of touch. The tip of the 
tongue is by far the most sensitive part Ave pos- 
sess; hence blind men are often seen to carry 
objects there which they wish to examine with 
more than ordinary precision. Next follows 
the inner side of the ends of our fingers, which 
we commonly use for the purpose ; then the 
sensitiveness diminishes rapidly from the tip to 
the base of each finger, and from the index to 
the little finger. The red part of the lips far 
surpasses the white, as from the extremities to 
the rump of the body touch becomes gradually 
less and less active. The knee and the elbow, 
however, are very sensitive ; but the back pos- 
sesses but a fiftieth part of the power of the 
tongue, and here the two points of the compass 
must be two inches apart in order to produce 
two distinct impressions ! 

This striking difference in the endowment of 
our skin with the sense of touch, is not ascribed 
to the thickness of the skin in different parts so 
much as to the varying number of nerves which 
are there accumulated. Various opinions are. 
however, entertained on this subject ; and so 
much only is certain, that the peculiar, roundish 
formation found at the most sensitive parts of 
the surface, the tongue, lips, and fingers, con- 
sists of piled-up layers of bundles of nerves. 
Thanks to the clothing we wear, and most of 
all to habit, we employ our hands mainly for 
the purposes of touch. Here, moreover, resides 
a special faculty, as the hand is not only en- 
dowed with peculiar tact, but, owing to the dis- 
position of the fingers and the thumb, is capa- 
ble of moulding itself around objects so as to 
multiply vastly the points of contact. No an- 
imals — monkeys, perhaps, excepted — have such 



182 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



peculiar power given to their hands, and hence 
the natural disposition to consider Touch an ex- 
clusive attribute of our race. The epidermis 
itself is here not without importance; for when 
it is taken off, the lower skin, in which the sense 
more properly resides, is very tender and sus- 
ceptible of pain, but it possesses no longer an 
accurate sense of touch, while the true sense is 
preserved, and often surprisingly fine, even in 
the coarse hands of mechanics. 

Motion increases the power, and is indispens- 
able to the accuracy of this sense. The mere 
contact conveys to us merely the idea of resist- 
ance, and consequent hardness ; by moving 
sensitive parts of the body over the object, we 
can alone obtain information as to its size and 
shape ; hence we see the blind always glide over 
and gently rub the surfaces with which they wish 
specially to become acquainted. They multiply 
thus the impressions produced by contact, and 
obtain at the same time means of comparison. 
Swiftly-repeated impressions, on the other hand, 
become soon dull, and touch may, like the oth- 
er senses, exhaust its power of distinction. A 
wheel with sharp teeth moved rapidly on our 
skin, makes at first every point of contact dis- 
tinctly felt, but soon the accuracy is lost, and 
the nerves only convey the impressions made by 
a smooth, polished surface. 

In diseases the sense of touch maybe entire- 
ly suspended ; the same effect is produced by 
the application of ether and chloroform, and in 
times of very great excitement, as in religious 
ecstasy. Then, although all the organs may be 
not only extant but even active, no effect is 
produced by contact. A sufferer of catalepsy 
had sealing-wax dropped on the skin, from 
which the epidermis had been taken by the ef- 
fects of a blister ; it produced no effect — not 
the slightest sign of pain, nor even a trace of 
burning. But as soon as consciousness return- 
ed, the power of reaction in the body also re- 
appeared, and with it a red spot on the skin and 
pain in the burnt place. Such is the marvel- 
ous, as yet completely unknown connection be- 
tween body and soul! In some diseases the 
sense is so heightened that the slightest touch 
becomes exquisitely painful ; the melancholic 
and the hypochondriac patients bear the most 
violent pain without complaint, and often muti- 
late themselves with the utmost indifference. 

Practice improves this sense as well as the 
others, and the results thus obtained are both 
startling and instructive. The French embas- 
sador, Chardin, found blind men in Persia 
tracing geometrical figures with their fingers in 
the sand, and able to judge of the value of 
watches by touching the delicate inner works. 
The women of Bengal, who weave the famous 
tissues of that country, can distinguish with their 
hands more than twenty kinds of different fine- 
ness in the threads of cocoons, and this with a 
precision perfectly marvelous to the inexperi- 
enced. In Europe, also, blind men are known 
to have developed the sense of touch to the very 
highest degree, although it is as yet doubted 



whether they can really, as has been contended, 
by its aid alone, discern different colors. That 
they can distinguish by touch even shades im- 
perceptible to the sound eye is well established, 
but this power is usually ascribed to correspond- 
ing differences in the texture of the dyed mate- 
rial. Such a development of the sense is per- 
haps most astonishing in parts which are not 
originally intended for the purpose, but which 
have been trained for it, as in the feet of hand- 
less men, where constant care and practice often 
have made the toes as delicate and skillful as 
our hands usually are. But it is a matter of 
doubt yet whether, in these cases, an actual 
material improvement of the sense has taken 
place, or whether the mental power is only 
sharpened, by which the blind, for instance, 
reason more accurately from touch, and distin- 
guish more readily. We who see probably feel, 
in touching a coin, all the little elevations of 
the head and the letters as well as the blind 
man, but we are not, like him, accustomed to 
note them and to draw conclusions, nor to com- 
bine many minute impressions at once into a 
whole. 

We become often aware of the carelessness 
with which Ave treat the daily impressions of 
this sense, when Ave use it Avithout the aid of 
other senses. With bandaged eyes it is very 
difficult to distinguish the precise place which 
Ave touch, and the difficulty increases, of course, 
with the greater dullness of the spot in contact. 
Thus Ave err constantly when avc attempt to 
kill a troublesome insect, or to catch it on our 
shoulders, because it is so small that it easily 
escapes Avithin the circle of two inches, to which 
our perceptions there are confined. We may 
thus learn to appreciate the Irishman's asser- 
tion of one of these blood-thirgty enemies, that 
"Avhen you have your hand upon him, he is 
not there." But the deceptions of this sense 
arise often from still other causes. A shower- 
bath in drops produces, on the back, the im- 
pression of little rills running up and doAA'n, 
though the water flows only in one direction. 
In some diseases parts of the upper or lower 
lip lose not unfrequently the sense of touch, 
and produce, in drinking, the impression as if 
a piece of the glass or cup Avhich we use was 
broken out ; so prone are Ave here, as in spirit- 
ual life, to seek the cause of our OAvn defects 
not in us but in others ! This deception ex- 
tends also to the other senses, Avhen touch serves 
vicariously for such as have been lost. It is 
often very difficult to* ascertain if a man be 
really deaf or not. Though perfectly Avithout 
hearing, he will still perceive very distinctly 
that somebody steps hard on the floor behind 
him ; often even Avhen a bell rings, or the 
strings of a violin have been touched. Teach- 
ers of deaf-mutes sometimes call their pupils to 
order by striking upon the table by Avhich they 
are seated, and they feel as unpleasantly as we 
do when somebody scratches with a hard pencil 
on a slate. In all these cases the deaf perceive 
by touch the concussion and the vibrations of 



THE SENSES. 



183 



the air, just as we do ; but we hear in addition, 
which they can not. Hence charlatans often 
profess to cure deafness; they are received with 
open arms, and their cures are apparently suc- 
cessful, because the deaf are themselves ready 
to believe those perceptions of touch to be real 
effects of hearing. With such touch has be- 
come the great sense to which at times all others 
have been ascribed, and by which they have 
been supplied. These men tell us that their 
patients can, with their skin, see and hear, 
smell and taste ; and most wonderful stories 
are told to confirm the assertion. There is no 
doubt that these perceptions can be heightened 
and increased, like those of other senses, in 
certain extraordinary conditions of the nervous 
system. The skin may then feel delicate cur- 
rents of air and changes of temperature which, 
under ordinary circumstances, would not be per- 
ceived, and thus obtain sensations in the brain 
which we can not explain, because we see not 
from whence they first came. Thus the blind 
can undoubtedly feel the vicinity of a wall or 
other solid object. But it is well known that 
even the modern father of this so-called clair- 
voyance, Mesmer, was compelled to leave Vi- 
enna in 1777, after he had rendered a blind 
girl seeing in three weeks ; Mesmer said so, her 
parents believed it, the poor girl herself was 
convinced, and yet she never saw, except when 
his " miraculous power" was employed, and the 
sense of touch lent its assistance. Persons un- 
der magnetic or somnambulist influences are 
said, even now, to be able to read by this sense 
with bandaged eyes, by having a book or letter 
placed upon distant parts of the body. But a 
sum of 2000 francs, which Dr. Burdin deposited 
with the Academy of Sciences in Paris, with 
the offer of the sum to him who could read 
the contents of the sealed letter that contain- 
ed the bank notes, has never yet been claim- 
ed. 

The mechanical power of the sense of touch 
serves also to give us an idea of weight, when a 
solid substance rests on a susceptible part of the 
body. It can do this, of course, only with small 
objects, and never accurately unless when mo- 
tion is added, so that the contraction of muscles 
required to hold it up enables us better to judge 
of its weight. This power, however, which re- 
sides mainly in the hand, remains always more 
or less uncertain, however it may have been im- 
proved by practice. 

The second great duty of the sense of touch 
in the household of our body is to inform us of 
outward changes of temperature. The heat of 
the blood and of the whole system remains, as 
is well known, essentially the same, and hence 
our perceptions of heat, especially, are almost 
all only relative. They become very indistinct 
after a few experiments, and are easily deceived, 
because they result only from comparison. Met- 
als appear naturally of different temperature, ac- 
cording to their being good or bad conductors ; 
hence copper and brass seem warmer than lead ; 
and mercury is, of all, the coldest. Returning 



from a long brisk walk, even an unheated room 
appears pleasantly warm, while to pass from a 
hot bath to a high temperature even, makes us 
shiver. A cellar, deep enough to have through- 
out the year one and the same temperature, 
will seem to us cool in summer and warm in 
winter; and the great Humboldt was shiver- 
ing with cold in Caracas when the thermometer 
had fallen ten degrees, though it still stood at 
blood heat; while the Arctic explorers com- 
plained of heat with the thermometer near 
zero. 

In the two extremes of excessive heat and 
cold the sensations thus caused are well known. 
In the former case, the hot solid body coming 
in contact with the skin instantly dries up all 
the tiny vessels and delicate tissues around the 
spot it has touched. This sudden change, and 
the pressure of violent contraction, causes the 
pain we feel from a " burn ;" dipping the in- 
jured part in water and holding it there relieves 
us, because the water softens and enlarges the 
skin again to its natural condition. As hot 
fluids have the same effect, however, we see 
that it is not the mechanical pressure only, 
which produces pain, but the influence of heat 
on the nerves themselves. The various parts 
of our body are very differently sensitive to such 
influence, nor does this difference agree with 
the general scale of development of the sense 
of touch ; the elbow, for instance, being much 
more susceptible than even the fingers. 

Excessive cold, applied to the skin, produces 
like pain, because the fine tissues of the skin be- 
come stiff and rigid by contraction. The sensa- 
tions here vary from the so-called goose-skin, 
where certain vessels are literally felt to con- 
tract and to thicken, to a stinging, painful feel- 
ing when the marrow of the nerves is said to 
curdle. We can trace this effect of great cold 
easily and distinctly along the nerves, for when 
the elbow is placed in ice and thoroughly chilled, 
it lasts but a little while before all the fingers 
are stiffened. At last the sense of touch be- 
comes completely exhausted ; the limbs are be- 
numbed. Modern surgeons often avail them- 
selves of this state of utter indifference to pain 
for important surgical operations. 

Far less familiar are the countless and in- 
cessant impressions which the sense of touch 
conveys to us as the great guardian of our 
health. In this respect it becomes all-import- 
ant to our general comfort, however indistinct 
its operations, and however unconscious we may 
be of their causes. It is by its means that we 
perceive the proper or improper state of the 
atmosphere and all the varied influences of 
climate, so that in fact this sense, more than all 
oihers, decides on the comfort we are to enjoy 
in our earthly existence. Nor is it less import- 
ant that the sense of touch, generally so dull 
and sluggish, exhibits in this direction often a 
peculiar sensitiveness. Many persons possess 
an exquisite acuteness with which they can not 
bear certain states of the atmosphere ; and the 
instance of English spleen, returning oven in 



184 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



its saddest excesses of suicide with astounding 
regularity whenever the autumnal fogs and 
winds appear, suffices to explain the extent to 
which such influences may be carried. An 
atmosphere heavily laden with electricity is, in 
like manner, oppressive and often intolerable to 
certain constitutions, while others feel for hours 
the coming of a distant thunder-storm. Equally 
striking is the influence of climate in connection 
with a peculiar state of the atmosphere in the 
effect which high valleys often have upon so- 
called Cretins, from the mere disfiguring goitre 
to the utter incapacity for mental development 
of the more painful cases. For children born 
in Alpine valleys, and already bearing upon 
them all the signs of Cretinism, have recovered 
and grown to perfect health in body and mind, 
when transferred in time to more genial, sunny 
heights. The instances of persons who become 
ill and faint when a cat or certain persons are 
in the same room with them, are as rare and 
probably as exceptional as those of others who 
feel, by some strange effort of touch, coal or 
metal beneath their feet, and are by both pecul- 
iarly affected. 

It is, however, in this general way mainly 
that men become aware of changes in the tem- 
perature, and the beneficial or injurious effects 
of certain countries and climates. They show 
in this sometimes a marked sensitiveness for 
the slightest changes, as when the good people 
of Rio begin to shiver and look for their wrap- 
pings as soon as the thermometer falls a few de- 
grees, although it may still mark a heat intoler- 
able to the children of temperate zones. At 
other times we are called upon to marvel at 
the remarkable power of adaptation granted to 
man, and his ability to bear sudden and extraor- 
dinary transitions. Thus we have but recently 
again heard of travelers who came from the 
fierce heat of Sierra Leone, and then wintered 
amidst the ice of Baffin's Bay without harm or 
hurt. 

And yet we esteem this sense perhaps less, 
and acknowledge more rarely its high value, 
because, in reality, it fills and penetrates our 
existence at every instant of our life, and thus 
becomes one of those many blessings for which 
we are but too often wanting in thankfulness, 
unless it is too late, and we can enjoy them no 
longer. This is particularly true with a sense 
which is, so literally, the watchful and faithful 
guardian of our general system. For we must 
not forget that all the great processes of life 
are seen to take place on the surface of our 
body. There the continual evaporation of 
fluid is carried on in the form of perspiration, 
and there every kind of absorption is received 
by means of its countless pores. They all de- 
pend, moreover, on the state of the atmosphere. 
We perspire more in warm, and less in cold 
weather; in the latter case we absorb with great- 
er difficulty, in the former with comparative 
ease. Thus there arises a necessity to main- 
tain an equal activity of both under all circum- 
stances, and hence the employment of appro- 



priate covering and artificial heat ; for man 
needs a regulator, which animals have given 
them by our great mother Nature, in the pecul- 
iar formation of the hair, feathers, or scales 
with which they are covered. Some animals, 
it is true, wrap themselves up in cocoons and 
nests, but the material is always provided with- 
in their body, and the precaution is taken not 
for the protection of their own existence, but 
for a coming generation. 

Man is the only being whose whole body is 
freely exposed to all the influences of tempera- 
ture and climate. Hence the necessity of hav- 
ing clothing and dwellings arises properly and 
wholly from the impressions derived through the 
sense of touch, and we need not add what im- 
mense progress we have made under such im. 
pulse toward culture and civilization. Man 
could not live in the different parts of the earth 
— he could not claim the whole globe as his 
kingdom, and be a true cosmopolite, if the deli- 
cate organ of this sense did not ever unfailing- 
ly tell him how to protect the surface of his 
body so as to keep those vital and indispensable 
functions in regular order and unceasingly ac- 
tive. Thus, to satisfy the impulses given by 
this little known, and less esteemed sense, have 
we adopted the airy, fluttering dress of the South, 
together with its light but shady architecture, 
and the warm furs of the North with the heavy, 
heat-retaining houses of colder regions. So 
powerful is the sense of touch in its influence 
on our physical welfare, and through that on the 
development of our mind ; so suggestive and able 
to produce thorough changes in the mode of life 
and the civilization of our race ! 

A more striking, though not a greater, effect 
is produced by this sense when it is either sub- 
stituted for others, or even serves, as in some 
most remarkable cases, as the only means of 
intercourse between a human soul and its breth- 
ren. It is well known that nature admits of a 
so-called compensation of senses and their vi- 
carious activity; for when one sense is lost, 
others are apt to acquire increased powers of 
perception. Even under ordinary circumstances 
the senses have, like loving sisters, to work in 
gentle harmony and serve one another. Taste 
is impossible without touch, and so is sight, at 
least in childhood. To the infant, as well as to 
those who have recovered their eye-sight only 
late in life, the world appears as if on a plane, 
and only after having touched all outward ob- 
jects do they become aware of size and distance. 
Does not, even to us, a railroad or an avenue of 
trees appear to run into a point after a couple 
of miles or sooner? But in the mysterious sub- 
stitution of one sense for another, we learn, still 
more pointedly, the great lesson, that man's 
heaven-born soul is not bound to special organs, 
but can, when called upon, use all the body's 
tools and instruments. If one is spoiled or lost, 
it takes up and trains another. Our system is, 
after all, but the soul's servant, not the master 
himself, endowed with innate power. Hence 
one side of the lungs sometimes answers for both, 



HALF A LIFETIME AGO. 



18! 



and a small part of the brain for the whole sub- 
stance. 

The sense of touch is, of all others, most fre- 
quently called upon to supply the Avant of sight, 
and then is capable of almost marvelous powers. 
All of us use it when we are groping our way in 
the dark, and, by careful training, it enables the 
blind to feel when they approach walls or large 
buildings. An indistinct, but familiar sensation, 
nearly akin to oppression and anxiety, seizes 
them in such cases. Others, again, develop the 
touch of their fingers so as to be enabled to 
distinguish colors, like Robertson's blind girl in 
Liverpool, by the different effect they have upon 
the material. Cardinal Albani, though feeble by 
old age and blind, passed in Rome for the best 
judge of coins and cut stones, merely by the ex- 
quisite fineness of his touch. The Arabic poet, 
Abu el Itella, who was born blind, employed, 
perhaps, the oddest means ever used to learn to 
read : he had the letters written with cold water 
between his shoulders at the moment when he 
left his warm bath ! The most remarkable case 
on record of this class, is probably that of a rich 
Corsican nobleman, who, while high in office, 
lost one sense after another, until at last, to fill 
the measure of his sufferings, even the sense of 
touch was paralyzed on the whole surface of his 
body. He could only eat and speak, and strange- 
ly enough, enjoyed good health. He was, how- 
ever, fast sinking under such heavy calamity, 
feeling the utter separation from those he loved, 
and from the world at large, most keenly, when, 
quite accidentally, his devoted wife discovered 
that one cheek was still slightly sensitive. With 
great quickness of mind, and marvelous mem- 
ory, the stricken man learned to understand 
letters written there by the finger, and soon 
guessed from the first syllable the whole word. 
When seen by the reporter he was thus convers- 
ing with a friend, and soon after the whole speech 
made by Louis XVIII., upon his entry into Paris, 
was communicated to him through the sense of 
touch only, being written on his cheek ! 

The remarkable case of Laura Bridgman is 
as generally known as the admirable manner in 
which, through Dr. Howe, the missing senses of 
sight, hearing, smell, and taste were all re- 
placed, or at least supplied, by the sense of 
touch, even so far that she could understand 
the words of others and reply in writing. It is 
true, that this would have been impossible but 
for her having been, by God's mercy, surrounded 
by enlightened men, feeling for her more than 
common pity and brotherly love. What in her 
rase warm-hearted Christian men did, is, in 
ordinary cases, in children, done by the other 
senses. For one educates the other ; but touch 
remains always the true and final standard by 
which alone our ideas of space and time espe- 
cially can be correctly obtained. 

We have already observed that touch is also 
the medium of many mysterious and indescrib- 
able electric or magnetic stimuli, especially 
when we come in contact with living beings. 
Thus we know the lips to be possessed of a ren 
Voi-. XII.— No. C8.— N 



peculiar sensitiveness, so that when they touch 
each other, in the kiss, they infuse into our 
hearts the greatest delight. This, as well as the 
many obtuse but often decisive impressions we 
derive upon first meeting certain persons, or the 
dislike some^of us bear to one or the other ani- 
mal, have of late been most generally ascribed 
to the influence of electricity, of which every 
living being is a huge generating machine. The 
same agency has been called in to explain the 
more or less marvelous powers of the sense of 
touch, developed in cases of so-called magnet- 
ism and clairvoyance. Too little, however, has 
as yet been ascertained of these anomalous 
symptoms to furnish a satisfactory explanation, 
though we are inclined to think that the easy 
credulity of laymen is hardly more to be blamed 
than the haughty and willful disregard of science. 
One fact, especially, ought not to be overlooked. 
The weather affects our systems, not only in its 
great changes from cold to warm and dry to 
wet, but even the most delicate alterations, as a 
slight increase of electric matter, pass in the 
same manner through the healthy as well as the 
sickly, and leave an impression upon the dullest 
skin as well as upon the most sensitive. But in 
health they come and go without our knowl- 
edge; when we are sick, or even only apprehen- 
sive, we feel them at once quite distinctly. 
Babbage has shown us, with mathematical ac- 
curacy, how an explosion must affect the whole 
atmosphere of our globe, though finally in an 
incalculable and, of course, imperceptible man- 
ner. So it is with these electric and magnetic 
currents. That they exist, no one can any 
longer doubt, although we do not ordinarily feel 
them ; but it is equally sure that, when we are 
sick, or when under the influence of magnetism' 
the regular order of our system is interrupted, 
we become highly, though unhealthily, sensi- 
tive, and then do not fail to perceive what is 
commonly disregarded. We shall probably not 
be able to explain this and other startling symp- 
toms until we have solved the great mystery by 
which body and soul are bound to each other. 
Do we not know that as the fragile glass can be 
broken by the loud tone of the voice, if the 
note be discordant with that which dwells in 
the glass, so the fragile body of man may also 
be instantly loosened from its bondage by the 
spirit, when fright and anger, or exuberant joy. 
cause a deep, too sudden emotion ? 

HALF A LIFETIME AGO. 

I. 
Half a lifetime ago there lived a single 
woman, of the name of Susan Dixon, in one 
of the Westmoreland dales. She was the own- 
er of the small farm-house where she resided, 
and of some thirty or forty acres of land by 
which it was surrounded. She had also a 
hereditary right to a sheep-walk, extending to 
the wild fells that overhang Blea Tarn. In 
the language of the country, she was a States- 
woman. Her house is yet to be seen on the 
Oxenfell road, between Skelwith and Coniston* 



186 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



You go along a moorland track, made by the 
carts that occasionally come for turf from the 
Oxenfell. A brook babbles and brattles by the 
wayside, giving you a sense of companionship 
which relieves the deep solitude in which this 
way is usually traversed. Some miles on this 
side of Coniston there is a farmstead — a gray 
stone house and a square of farm-buildings sur- 
rounding a green space of rough turf, in the 
midst of which stands a mighty, funereal, um- 
brageous yew, making a solemn shadow, as of 
death, in the very heart and centre of the light 
and heat of the brightest summer day. On 
the side away from the house this yard slopes 
down to a dark-brown pool, which is supplied 
with fresh water from the overflowings of a 
stone cistern, into which some rivulet of the 
brook before mentioned continually and melo- 
diously falls and bubbles. The cattle drink 
out of this cistern. The household bring their 
pitchers and fill them with drinking water by a 
dilatory, yet pretty, process. The water-car- 
rier brings with her a leaf of the hound's-tongue 
fern, and, inserting it in the crevice of the gray 
rock, makes a cool, green spout for the spark- 
ling stream. 

The house is no specimen, at the present 
day, of what it was in the lifetime of Susan 
Dixon. Then, every small diamond pane in 
the windows glittered with cleanliness. You 
might have eaten off the floor; you could see 
yourself in the pewter plates and the polished 
oaken awmry, or dresser, of the state kitchen 
into which you entered. Few strangers pene- 
trated further than this room. Once or twice, 
wandering tourists, attracted by the lonely pic- 
turesqueness of the situation, and the exquisite 
cleanliness of the house itself, made their way 
into this house-place, and offered money enough 
(as they thought) to tempt the hostess to receive 
them as lodgers. They would give no trouble, 
they said ; they would be out rambling or sketch- 
ing all day long; would be perfectly content 
with a share of the food which she provided for 
herself; or would procure what they required 
from the Waterhead Inn at Coniston. But no 
liberal sum — no fair words — moved her from 
her stony manner, or her monotonous tone of 
indifferent refusal. No persuasion could in- 
duce her to show any more of the house than 
that first room ; no appearance of fatigue pro- 
cured for the weary an invitation to sit down 
and rest ; and if one more bold and less delicate 
sate down without being asked, Susan stood by, 
cold and apparently deaf, or only replying by 
the briefest monosyllables, till the unwelcome 
visitor had departed. Yet those with whom 
she had dealings in the way of selling her cat- 
tle or her farm produce, spoke of her as keen 
after a bargain — a hard one to have to do with ; 
and she never spared herself exertion or fatigue, 
at market or in the field, to make the most of 
her produce. She led the haymakers with her 
swift steady rake, and her noiseless evenness 
of motion. She was about among the earliest 
in the market, examining samples of oats, pric- 



ing them, and then turning with grim satisfac- 
tion to her own cleaner corn. 

She was served faithfully and long by those 
who were rather her fellow-laborers than her 
servants. She was even and just in her deal- 
ings with them. If she was peculiar and si- 
lent, they knew her, and knew that she might 
be relied on. Some of them had known her 
from her childhood; and deep in their hearts 
was an unspoken — almost unconscious — pity for 
her ; for they knew her story, though they never 
spoke of it. 

Yes ; the time had been when that tall, 
gaunt, hard-featured, angular woman — who 
never smiled, and hardly ever spoke an un- 
necessary word — had been a fine-looking girl, 
bright-spirited and rosy; and when the hearth 
at the Yew Nook had been as bright as she, 
with family love and youthful hope and mirth. 
Fifty or fifty-one years ago, William Dixon and 
his wife Margaret were alive ; and Susan, their 
daughter, was about eighteen years old — ten 
years older than the only other child, a boy, 
named after his father. William and Margaret 
Dixon were rather superior people, of a char- 
acter belonging — as far as I have seen — exclu- 
sively to the class of Westmoreland and Cum- 
berland statesmen — just, independent, upright ; 
not given to much speaking; kind-hearted, but 
not demonstrative; disliking change, and new 
ways, and new people ; sensible and shrewd : 
each household self-contained, and having little 
curiosity as to their neighbors, with whom they 
rarely met for any social intercourse, save at 
the stated times of sheep-shearing and Christ- 
mas ; having a certain kind of sober pleasure 
in amassing money, which occasionally made 
them miserable (as they call miserly people up 
in the north) in their old age ; reading no light 
or ephemeral literature, but the grave, solid 
books brought round by the peddlers (the Par- 
adise Lost and Regained, the Death of Abel, 
the Spiritual Quixote, and the Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress) were to be found in nearly every house : 
the men occasionally going off laking, i. e., play- 
ing, i. e., drinking for days together, and having 
to be hunted up by anxious wives, who dared 
not leave their husbands to the chances of the 
wild, precipitous roads, but walked miles and 
miles, lantern in hand, in the dead of night, to 
discover and guide the solemnly-drunken hus- 
band home ; who had a dreadful headache the 
next day, and the day after that came forth as 
grave, and sober, and virtuous-looking as if 
there were no such things as malt and spirit- 
uous liquors in the world ; and who were sel- 
dom reminded of their misdoings by their wives, 
to whom such occasional outbreaks were as 
things of course, when once the immediate anx- 
iety produced by them was over. Such were 
— such are — the characteristics of a class now 
passing away from the face of the land, as their 
compeers, the yeomen, have done before. Of 
such was William Dixon. He was a shrew.;, 
clever farmer, in his day and generation, when 
shrewdness was rather shown in the breed! (-^ 



HALF A LIFETIME AGO. 



187 



and rearing of sheep and cattle than in the cul- 
tivation of land. Owing to this character of 
his, statesmen from a distance from beyond 
Kendal, or from Borrowdale, of greater wealth 
than he, would send their sons to be farm-serv- 
ants for a year or two with him, in order to 
learn some of his methods before setting up on 
land of their own. When Susan, his daughter, 
was about seventeen, one Michael Hurst was 
farm-servant at Yew Nook. He worked with 
the master and lived with the family, and was 
in all respects treated as an equal, except in the 
field. His father was a wealthy statesman at 
Wythburne, up beyond Grasmere ; and through 
Michael's servitude the families had become ac- 
quainted, and the Dixons went over to the High 
Beck sheep-shearing, and the Hursts came down 
by Red Bank and Loughrig Tarn and across the 
Oxenfell when there was the Christmas-tide 
feasting at Yew Nook. The fathers strolled 
round the fields together, examined cattle and 
sheep, and looked knowing over each other's 
horses. The mothers inspected the dairies and 
household arrangements, each openly admiring 
the plans of the other, but secretly preferring 
their own. Both fathers and mothers cast a 
glance from time to time at Michael and Susan, 
who were thinking of nothing less than farm 
or dairy, but whose unspoken attachment was 
in all ways so suitable and natural a thing that 
each parent rejoiced over it, although with char- 
acteristic reserve it was never spoken about — 
not even between husband and wife. 

Susan had been a strong, independent, healthy 
girl ; a clever help to her mother, and a spirited 
companion to her father ; more of a man in her 
(as he often said) than her delicate little brother 
ever would have. He was his mother's darling, 
although she loved Susan well. There was no 
positive engagement between Michael and Su- 
san — I doubt if even plain words of love had 
been spoken — when one winter- time Margaret 
°*ixon was seized with inflammation consequent 
apon a neglected cold. She had always been 
strong and notable, and had been too busy to 
attend to the earliest symptoms of illness. It 
would go off, she said to the woman who helped 
in the kitchen ; or if she did not feel better 
when they had got the hams and bacon out of 
hand, she would take some herb-tea and nurse 
up a bit. But Death could not wait till the 
hams and bacon were cured : he came on with 
rapid strides, and shooting arrows of portentous 
agony. Susan had never seen illness — never 
knew how much she loved her mother till now, 
when she felt a dreadful instinctive certainty 
that she was losing her. Her mind was thronged 
with recollections of the many times she had 
slighted her mother's wishes ; her heart was 
full of the echoes of careless and angry replies 
that she had spoken. What would she not now 
give to have opportunities of service and obe- 
dience, and trials of her patience and love for 
that dear mother who lay gasping in torture! 
And yet Susan had been a good girl and an 
affectionate daughter. 



The sharp pain went off, and delicious ease 
came on ; yet still her mother sunk. In the 
midst of this languid peace she was.dying. She 
motioned Susan to her bedside, for she could 
only whisper; and then, while the father was 
out of the room, she spoke as much to the eager, 
hungering eyes of her daughter by the motion 
of her lips, as by the slow feeble sounds of her 
voice. 

" Susan, lass, thou must not fret. It is God's 
will, and thou wilt have a deal to do. Keep 
father straight if thou canst ; and if he goes out 
Ulverstone ways, see that thou meet him before 
he gets to the Old Quarry. It's a dree bit for 
a man who has had a drop. As for lile Will'' 
— here the poor woman's face began to work, 
and her fingers to move nervously as they lay 
on the bed-quilt — "lile Will will miss me most 
of all. Father's often vexed with him because 
he's not a quick, strong lad ; he is not, my poor 
lile chap. And father thinks he's saucy, be- 
cause he can not always stomach oat-cake and 
porridge. There's better than three pound in 
th' old black tea-pot on the top shelf of the cup- 
board. Just keep a piece of loaf-bread by you, 
Susan dear, for Will to come to when he's not 
taken his breakfast. I have, maybe, spoilt him : 
but there'll be no one to spoil him now." 

She began to cry a low feeble cry, and cover- 
ed up her face that Susan might not see her. 
That dear face ! those precious moments while 
yet the eyes could look out with love and intel- 
ligence. Susan laid her head down close by 
her mother's ear. 

" Mother, I'll take tent of Will. Mother, do 
you hear? He shall not want ought I can give 
or get for him, least of all the kind words which 
you had ever ready for us both. Bless you 
bless you ! my own mother." 

"Thou'lt promise me that, Susan, wilt thou r 
I can die easy if thou'lt take charge of him. 
But he's hardly like other folk ; he tries father 
at times, though I think father'll be tender of 
him when I'm gone, for my sake. And, Susan, 
there's one thing more. I never spoke on it for 
fear of the bairn being called a tell-tale, but 1 
just comforted him up. He vexes Michael at 
times, and Michael has struck him before now. 
I did not want to make a stir; but he's not 
strong, and a word from thee, Susan, will go a 
long way with Michael." 

Susan was as red now as she had been pale 
before ; it was the first time that her influence 
over Michael had been openly acknowledged by 
a third person, and a flash of joy came athwart 
the solemn sadness of the moment. Her moth- 
er had spoken too much, and now came on the 
miserable faintness. She never spoke again co- 
herently ; but when her children and her hus- 
band stood by her bedside, she took lile Will's 
hand and put it into Susan's, and looked at her 
with imploring eyes. Susan clasped her amis 
round Will, and leaned her head upon his cur- 
ly pate, and vowed to herself to be as a mother 
to him. 

Henceforward she was all in all to her broth 



188 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



er. She was a more spirited and amusing com- 
panion to him than his mother had been, from 
her greater activity, and perhaps also from her 
originality of character, which often prompted 
her to perform her habitual actions in some new 
and racy manner. She was tender to lile Will 
when she was prompt and sharp with every body 
else — with Michael most of all; for somehow 
the girl felt that, unprotected by her mother, 
she must keep up her own dignity, and not al- 
low her lover to see how strong a hold he had 
upon her heart. He called her hard and cruel, 
and left her so ; and she smiled softly to her- 
self when his' back was turned to think how 
little he guessed how deeply he was loved. For 
Susan was merely comely and fine-looking; Mi- 
chael was strikingly handsome, admired by all 
the girls for miles round, and quite enough of a 
country coxcomb to know it and plume himself 
accordingly. He was the second son of his fa- 
ther; the eldest would have High Beck farm, 
of course, but there was a good penny in the 
Kendal bank in store for Michael. When har- 
vest was over, he went to Chapel Langdale to 
learn to dance ; and at night, in his merry moods, 
he would do his steps x>n the flag-floor of the 
Yew Nook kitchen, to the secret admiration of 
Susan, who had never learned dancing, but who 
flouted him perpetually, even while she admired, 
in accordance with the rule she seemed to have 
made for herself about keeping him at a distance 
so long as he lived under the same roof with 
her. One evening he sulked at some saucy re- 
mark of hers ; he sitting in the chimney-corner 
with his arms on his knees and his head bent 
forward, lazily gazing into the wood-fire on the 
h earth, and luxuriating in rest after a hard day's 
labor; she sitting among the geraniums on the 
'long, low window-seat, trying to catch the last 
slanting rays of the autumnal light, to enable 
her to finish stitching a shirt-collar for Will, 
who lounged full length on the flags at the oth- 
er side of the hearth to Michael, poking the 
burning wood from time to time with a long 
hazel-stick to bring out the leap of glittering 
sparks. 

"And if you can dance a threesome reel, 
what good does it do ye ?" asked Susan, looking 
askance at Michael, who had just been vaunting 
iiis proficiency. "Does it help you plow, or 
reap, or even climb the rocks to take a raven's 
nest. If I were a man I'd be ashamed to give 
in to such softness." 

" If you were a man you'd be glad to do any 
thing which made the pretty girls stand round 
and admire." 

" As they do to you, eh ! ho ! Michael ! that 
would not be my way o' being a man." 

" What would then ?" asked he, after a 
pause, during which he had expected in vain 
that she would go on with her sentence. No 
answer. 

" I should not like you as a man, Susy. You'd 
be too hard and headstrong." 

"Am I hard and headstrong?" asked she 
with as indifferent a tone as she could assume, 



but which yet had a touch of pique in it. His 
quick ear detected the inflexion. 

" No, Susy ! You're willful at times, and that's 
right enough. I don't like a girl without spirit. 
There's a mighty pretty girl comes to the dan- 
cing-class ; but she is all milk-and-water. Her 
eyes never flash like yours when you're put out ; 
why, I can see them flame across the kitchen 
like a cat's eyes in the dark. Now, if you were 
a man, I should feel queer before those looks 
of yours; as it is, I rather like them, be- 
cause — " 

"Because what?" asked she, looking up and 
perceiving that he had stolen close up to her. 

"Because I can make all right in this way," 
said he, kissing her suddenly. 

" Can you?" said she, wrenching herself out 
of his grasp, and panting half with rage. "Take 
that, by way of proof that making right is none 
so easy." And she boxed his ears pretty sharp- 
ly. He went back to his seat discomfited and 
out of temper. She could no longer see to look, 
even if her face had not burnt and her eyes 
dazzled, but she did not choose to move her 
seat, so she still preserved her stooping attitude, 
and pretended to go on sewing. 

"Eleanor Hebthwaite may be milk-and-wa- 
ter," muttered he, " but — Confound thee, 
lad! what art doing?" exclaimed Michael, as 
a great piece of burning wood was cast into his 
face by an unlucky poke of Will's. "Thou 
great lounging, clumsy chap, I'll teach thee bet- 
ter!" and with one or two good round kicks he 
sent the lad whimpering away into the back- 
kitchen. When he had a little recovered him- 
self from his passion, he saw Susan standing be- 
fore him, her face looking strange and almost 
ghastly by the reversed position of the shadows 
arising from the fire-light shining upward right 
under it. 

" I tell thee what, Michael," said she, " that 
lad's motherless, but not friendless." 

" His own father leathers him, and why should 
not I, when he's given me such a burn on my 
face," said Michael, putting up his hand to his 
cheek as if in pain. 

"His father's his father, and there is nought 
more to be said. But if he did burn thee, it 
was by accident, and not o' purpose, as thoii 
kicked him ; it's a mercy if his ribs are net 
broken." 

"He howls loud enough, I'm sure. I might 
a kicked many a lad twice as hard and they'd 
ne'er ha' said ought but damn ye; but yon lad 
must needs cry out like a stuck pig if one touches 
him," replied Michael, sullenly. 

Susan went back to the window-seat, and 
looked absently out of the window at the drift- 
ing clouds for a minute or two, while her eyes 
filled with tears. Then she got up and made 
for the outer door which led into the back- 
kitchen. Before she reached it, however, she 
heard a low voice, whose music made her thrill, 
say, 

" Susan, Susan !" 

Her heart melted within her, but it seemed 



HALF A LIFETIME AGO, 



189 



like treachery to her poor boy, like faithlessness 
to her dead mother to turn to her lover while 
the tears which he had caused to flow were yet 
unwiped on Will's cheeks. So she seemed to 
take no heed but passed into the darkness, and, 
guided by the sobs, she found her way to where 
Willie sat crouched among disused tubs and 
churns. 

" Come out wi' me, lad ;" and they went into 
the orchard, where the fruit-trees were bare of 
leaves, but ghastly in their tattered covering of 
gray moss ; and the soughing November wind 
came with long sweeps over the fells till it rat- 
tled among the crackling boughs, underneath 
which the brother and sister sate in the dark ; 
he in her lap, and she hushing his head against 
her shoulder. 

" Thou shouldst na' play wi' fire. It's a 
naughty trick. Thou'lt suffer for it in worse 
nays nor this before thou'st done, I'm afeared. 
I should ha' hit thee twice as lungeous kicks 
as Mike, if I'd been in his place. He did na' 
hurt thee, I am sure," she assumed, half as a 
'jupstion. 

" Yes ! but he did. He turned me quite 
sick." And he let his head fall languidly down 
on his sister's breast. 

" Come lad ! come lad !" said she anxiously, 
" be a man. It was not much that I saw. 
Why, when first the red cow came she kicked 
me far harder for offering to milk her before 
her legs were tied. See thee! here's a pepper- 
mint drop, and I'll make thee a pasty to-night ; 
only don't give way so, for it hurts me sore to 
think that Michael has done thee any harm, my 
pretty." 

Willie roused himself up, and put back the 
wet and ruffled hair from his heated face ; and 
he and Susan rose up and hand-in-hand went 
toward the house, walking slowly and quietly 
except for a kind of sob which Willie could not 
repress. Susan took him to the pump and 
uashed his tear-stained face, till she thought 
she had obliterated all traces of the recent dis- 
turbance, arranging his curls for him, and then 
she kissed him tenderly, and led him in, hoping 
to find Michael in the kitchen, and make all 
straight between them. But the blaze had 
dropped down into darkness ; the wood was a 
heap of gray ashes in which the sparks ran 
hither and thither; but even in the groping 
darkness Susan knew by the sinking at her 
heart that Michael was not there. She threw 
another brand on the hearth and lighted the 
candle, and sate down to her work in silence. 
Willie cowered on his stool by the side of the 
lire, eying his sister from time to time, and 
sorry and oppressed, he knew not why, by the 
sight of her grave, almost stern face. No one 
came. They two were in the house alone. 
The old woman who helped Susan with the 
household work had gone out for the night to 
<ome friend's dwelling. William Dixon, the 
father, was up on the fells seeing after his 
sheep. Susan had no heart to prepare the 
evening meal. 



" Susy, darling, are you angry with me ?" 
said Willie, in his little piping gentle voice. 
He had stolen up to his sister's side. " I won't 
never play with fire again ; and I'll not cry if 
Michael does kick me. Only don't look so like 
dead mother^-don't — don't — please don't !" he 
exclaimed, hiding his face on her shoulder. 

"I'm not angry, Willie," said she. "Don't 
be feared on me. You want your supper, and 
you shall have it; and don't you be feared on 
Michael. He shall give reason for every hair 
of your head that he touches — he shall !" 

When William Dixon came home, he found 
Susan and Willie sitting together, hand in hand, 
and apparently pretty cheerful. He bade them 
go to bed, for that he would sit up for Michael ; 
and the next morning, when Susan came down, 
she found that Michael had started an hour be- 
fore with the cart for lime. It was a long day's 
work ; Susan knew it would be late, perhaps 
later than on the preceding night, before he re- 
turned — at any rate, past her usual bedtime; 
and on no account would she stop up a minute 
beyond that hour in the kitchen, whatever she 
might do in her bedroom. Here she sate and 
watched till past midnight ; and when she saw 
him coming up the brow with the carts, she 
knew full well, even in that faint moonlight, 
that his gait was the gait of a man in liquor. 
But though she was annoyed and mortified to 
find in what way he had chosen to forget her, 
the fact did not disgust or shock her as it would 
have done many a girl, even at that day, who 
had not been brought up as Susan had, among 
a class who considered it as no crime, but rather 
a mark of spirit in a man to get drunk occa- 
sionally. Nevertheless, she chose to hold her- 
self very high all the next day when Michael 
was, perforce, obliged to give up any attempt to 
do heavy work, and hung about the out-build- 
ings and farm in a very disconsolate and sickly 
state. Willie had far more pity on him than 
Susan. Before evening Willie and he were 
fast, and on his side, ostentatious friends. Wil- 
lie rode the horses down to water ; Willie helped 
him to chop wood. Susan sate gloomily at her 
work, hearing an indistinct, but cheerful con- 
versation going on in the shippon, while the 
cows were being milked. She almost felt irri- 
tated with her little brother, as if he were a 
traitor, and had gone over to the enemy in the 
very battle that she was fighting in his cause. 
She was alone with no one to speak to, while 
they prattled on, regardless if she were glad or 
sorry. 

Soon Willie burst in. "Susan! Susan! come 
with me ; I've something so pretty to show you. 
Round the corner of the barn — run ! run !" 
(He was dragging her along, half reluctant, 
half desirous of some change in that weary 
day.) Round the corner of the barn ; and 
caught hold of by Michael, who stood there 
awaiting her. 

"Oh, Willie!" cried she, "you naughty boy. 
There is nothing pretty — what have you brought 
me here for? Let me go ; I won't be held !" 



1 90 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



M Only one word. Nay. if you wish it so 
much, you may go," said Michael, suddenly 
loosing his hold as she struggled. But now 
>he was free, she only drew err" a step or two. 
murmuring something about "Willie. 

••You are going, then?" said Michael, with 
seeming sadness. "You won't hear me say a 
word of what is in my heart." 

•• How can I tell whether it is what I should 
like to hear?" replied she. still drawing back. 

••That is just what I want you to tell me; I 
want you to hear it. and then to tell me if you 
like it or not." 

••Well, you may speak." replied she. turning 
her back, and beginning to plait the hem of her 
apron. 

He came close to her ear. 

■•I am sony I hurt "Willie the other night. 
He has forgiven me. Can you ?" 

"You hurt him very badly." she replied. 
" But you are right to be sorry. I forgive you." 

•• Stop, stop!" said he. laying his hand upon 
her arm. "There is something more I've got 
to say. I want you to be my — what is it they 
call it. Susan ?'' 

"I don't know." said she, half-laughing, but 
trying to get away with all her might now ; and 
?he was a strong girl, but she could not manage 
it. 

"You do. Mv — what is it I want vou to 
be?" 

" I tell you I don't know, and you had best 
be quiet, and just let me go in. or I shall think 
you're as bad now as you were last night." 

"And how did you know what I was last 
night ? It was past twelve when I came home. 
Were you watching? Ah. Susan! be my wife, 
and you shall never have to watch for a drunken 
husband. If I were your husband, I would 
come straight home, and count every minute an 
hour till I saw your bonny face. Now you 
know what I want you to be. I ask you to be 
my wife. "Will you. my own dear Susan ?"' 

She did not speak for some time. Then she 
only said. "Ask father." And now she was 
really off like a lapwing round the corner of the 
I >arn. and up in her own little room, crying with 
all her might, before the triumphant smile had 
left Michael's face where he stood. 

The "Ask father"' was a mere form to be 
gone through. Old Daniel Hurst and William 
Dixon had talked over what they could respect- 
ively give their children long before this : and 
that was the parental way of arranging such 
matters. WTien the probable amount of world- 
ly gear that he could give his child had been 
named by each father, the young folk, as they 
said, might take their own time in coming to 
the point which the old men, with the pre- 
science of experience, saw that they were drift- 
ing to; no need to hum- them, for they were 
both young, and Michael, though active enough, 
was too thoughtless, old Daniel said, to be 
trusted with the entire management of a farm. 
Meanwhile, his father would look about him, 
and see after all the farms that were to be let. 



Michael had a shrewd notion of this prelim- 
inary understanding between the fathers, and 
so felt less daunted than he might otherwise 
have done at making the application for Susan's 
hand. It was all right, there was not an ob- 
stacle ; only a deal of good advice, which the 
lover thought might have as well been spared, 
and which it must be confessed he did not much 
attend to. although he assented to every propo- 
sition. Then Susan was called down stairs, and 
slowly came dropping into view down the steps 
which led from the two family apartments into 
the house-place. She tried to look composed 
and quiet, but it could not be done. She stood 
side by side with her lover, with her head droop- 
ing, her cheeks burning, not daring to look up 
or move, while her father made the newly-be- 
trothed a somewhat formal address in which he 
gave his consent, and many a piece of worldly 
wisdom beside. Susan listened as well as she 
could for the beating of her heart ; but when 
her father solemnly and sadly referred to his 
own lost wife, she could keep from sobbing no 
longer; but throwing her apron over her face, 
she sate down on the bench by the dresser, and 
fairly gave way to pent-up tears. Oh, how 
strangely sweet to be comforted as she was 
comforted, by tender caress, and many a low- 
whispered promise of love ! Her father sate by 
the tire, thinking of the days that were gone : 
Willie was still out of doors ; but Susan and 
Michael felt no one's presence or absence — they 
only knew they were together as betrothed hus- 
band and wife. 

In a week or two they were formally told 
of the arrangements to be made in their favor, 
A small farm in the neighborhood happened to 
fall vacant ; and Michael's father offered to take 
it for him, and be responsible for the rent far 
the first year, while William Dixon was to con- 
tribute a certain amount of stock, and hot;* 
fathers were to help toward the furnishing of 
the house. Susan received all this information 
in a quiet, indifferent way; she did not care 
much for any of these preparations, which were 
to hurry her through the happy hours ; she 
cared least of all for the money amount of 
dowry and of substance. It jarred on her to be 
made the confidant of occasional slight repin- 
ing* of Michael's as one by one his future fa- 
ther-in-law set aside a beast or a pig for Susan's 
portion, which were not always the best animals 
of their kind upon the farm. But he also com- 
plained of his own father's stinginess, which 
somewhat, though not much, alleviated Susan's 
dislike to being awakened out of her pure dream 
of love to the consideration of worldly wealth. 

But in the midst of all this bustle Willie 
moped and pined. He had the same chord of 
delicacy running through his mind that mado 
his body feeble and weak. He kept out of the 
way, and was apparently occupied in whittling 
and caning uncouth heads on hazel sticks in an 
out-house. But he positively avoided Michael, 
and shrunk away even from Susan. She wa* 
too much occupied to notice this at firs-« 



HALF A LIFETIME AGO. 



191 



Michael pointed it out to her, saying, with a 
laugh, 

"Look at Willie! he might be a cast-off 
lover and jealous of me, he looks so dark and 
downcast at me." Michael spoke this jest out 
loud, and Willie burst into tears, and ran out 
of the house. 

" Let me go. Let me go !" said Susan (for 
her lover's arm was round her waist). " I must 
go to him if he's fretting. I promised mother 
1 would!" She pulled herself away, and went 
in search of the boy. She sought in byre and 
barn, through the orchard, where indeed in this 
leafless winter-time there was no great conceal- 
ment, up into the room where the wool was 
usually stored in the later summer, and at last 
she found him, sitting at bay, like some hunted 
creature, up behind the wood-stack. 

" What are ye gone for, lad, and me seeking 
vou every where?" asked she, breathless. 

" I did not know you would seek me. I've 
been away many a time, and no one has cared 
to seek mc," said he, crying afresh. 

" Nonsense !" replied Susan, " don't be so 
foolish, ye little good-for-nought." But she 
crept up to him in the hole he had made under- 
neath the great brown sheafs of wood, and 
squeezed herself down by him. " What for 
should folk seek after you, when you get away 
from them whenever you can ?" asked she. 

" They don't want me to stay. Nobody wants 
me. If I go with father, he says I hinder more 
than I help. You used to like to have me with 
you. But now you've taken up with Michael, 
and you'd rather I was away ; and I can just 
bide away; but I can not stand Michael jeering 
at me. He's got you to love him, and that might 
serve him." 

"But I love you too, dearly, lad!" said she, 
putting her arm round his neck. 

"Which on us do you like best?" said he, 
wistfully, after a little pause, putting her arm 
away, so that he might look in her face, and see 
if she spoke truth. 

She went very red. 

" You should not ask such questions. They 
are not fit for you to ask, nor for me to an- 
swer." 

"But mother bade you love me," said he, 
plaintively. 

" And so I do. And so I ever will do. Lover 
nor husband shall come betwixt thee and me, 
lad, ne'er a one of them. That I promise thee, 
.1- I promised mother before, in the sight of God 
and with her hearkening now, if ever she can 
hearken to earthly word again. Only I can not 
abide to have thee fretting, just because my 
heart is large enough for two." 

"And thou'lt love me always?" 

"Always, and ever. And the more — the 
more thou'lt love Michael," said she, dropping 
her voice. 

" I'll try," said the boy, sighing, for he re- 
membered many a harsh word and blow of 
which his sister knew nothing. She would have 
risen up to go away, but he held her tight, for 



here and now she was all his own, and he did 
not know when such a time might come again. 
So the two sate crouched up and silent, till they 
heard the horn blowing at the field-gate, which 
was the summons home to any wanderers be- 
longing to the farm, and at this hour of the 
evening signified that supper was ready. Then, 
the two went in. 

II. 

Susan and Michael were to be married in 
April. He had already gone to take possession 
of his new farm, three or four miles away from 
Yew Nook — but that is neighboring, according 
to the acceptation of the word, in that thinly- 
populated district — when Willitfm Dixon fell ill. 
He came home one evening, complaining of 
headache and pains in his limbs, but seemed to 
loathe the posset which Susan prepared for him ; 
the treacle-posset which was the homely coun- 
try remedy against an incipient cold. He took 
it to his bed, with a sensation of exceeding 
weariness, and an odd, unusual-looking back to 
the days of his youth, when he was a lad living 
with his parents, in this very house. 

The next morning, he had forgotten all his 
life since then, and did not know his own chil- 
dren, crying, like a newly-weaned baby, for his 
mother to come and soothe away his terrible 
pain. The doctor from Coniston said it was the 
typhus fever, and warned Susan of its infectious 
character, and shook his head over his patient. 
There were no friends near to come and share 
her anxiety ; only good, kind old Peggy, who 
was faithfulness itself, and one or two laborers' 
wives, who would fain have helped her, had not 
their hands been tied by their responsibility to 
their own families. But, somehow, Susan neither 
feared nor flagged. As for fear, indeed, she had 
no time to give way to it, for every energy of 
both body and mind was required. Besides, the 
young have had too little experience of the dan- 
ger of infection to dread it much. She did iru 
deed wish, from time to time, that Michael had 
been at home to have taken Willie over to his 
father's at High Beck ; but then, again, the lad 
was docile and useful to her, and his feckless- 
ness in manv things might make him be harshlv 
treated by strangers, so perhaps it was as well 
that Michael was away at Appleby fair, or even 
beyond that ; gone into Yorkshire after horses. 

Her father grew worse ; and the doctor in- 
sisted on sending over a nurse from Coniston. 
Not a professed nurse — Coniston could not ha\ <• 
supported such a one — but a widow who was 
ready to go where the doctor sent her for the 
sake of the payment. When she came, Susan 
suddenly gave way; she was felled by the fevei 
herself, and lay unconscious for long week^. 
Her consciousness returned to her one sprinir 
afternoon; early spring; April — her wedding- 
month. There was a little fire burning in the 
small corner-grate, and the flickering of the 
blaze was enough for her to notice in her weak 
state. She felt that there wafl some one sitting 
on the window side of her bed, behind the cur- 
tain, but she did not care to know who it was ; 



192 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



it was even too great a trouble to her languid 
mind to consider who it was likely to be. She 
would rather shut her eyes, and melt off again 
into the gentle luxury of sleep. The next time 
she wakened, the Coniston nurse perceived her 
movement, and made her a cup of tea, which 
she drank with eager relish ; but still they did 
not speak, and once more Susan lay motion- 
less — not asleep, but strangely, pleasantly con- 
scious of all the small chamber and household 
sounds ; the fall of a cinder on the hearth, the 
fitful singing of the half-empty kettle, the cattle 
tramping out to field again after they had been 
milked, the aged step on the creaking stair — old 
Peggy's, as she* knew. It came to her door, it 
stopped ; the person outside listened for a mo- 
ment, and then lifted the wooden latch, and 
looked in. The watcher by the bedside arose 
and went to her. Susan would have been glad 
to see Peggy's face once more, but was far too 
weak to turn, so she lay and listened. 

" How is she ?" whispered one trembling, 
aged voice. 

"Better," replied the other. "She's been 
awake, and had a cup of tea. She'll do now." 

" Has she asked after him ?" 

" Hush ! No; she has not spoken a word." 

"Poor lass ! poor lass !" 

The door was shut. A weak feeling of sor- 
row and self-pity came over Susan. What was 
wrong? Whom had she loved? And dawn- 
ing, dawning slowly, rose the sun of her former 
life, and all particulars were made distinct to 
her. She felt that some sorrow was coining to 
her, and cried over it before she knew what it 
was, or had strength enough to ask. In the 
dead of night — and she had never slept again — 
she softly called to the watcher, and asked, 

" Who ?" 

" Who what ?" replied the woman, with a 
conscious affright, ill vailed by a poor assump- 
tion of ease. "Lie still; there's a darling! and 
go to sleep. Sleep's better for you than all the 
doctor's stuff." 

" Who ?" repeated Susan. " Something is 
wrong. Who ?" 

"Oh, dear!" said the woman. "There's no- 
thing wrong. Willie has taken the turn, and is 
doing nicely." 

"Father?" 

"Well! he's all right now," she answered, 
looking another way, as if seeking for some- 
thing. 

" Then it's Michael ! Oh me! oh me!" She 
set up a succession of weak, plaintive, hyster- 
ical cries before the nurse could pacify her by 
declaring that Michael had been at the house 
not three hours before to ask after her, and look- 
ed as well and as hearty as ever man did. 

"And you heard of no harm to him since ?" 
inquired Susan. 

" Bless the lass ! no, for sure ! I've ne'er 
heard his name named since I saw him go out 
of the yard as stout a man as ever trod shoe- 
leather." 

It was well, as the nurse said afterward to 



Peggy, that Susan had been so easily pacified 
by the equivocating answer in respect to her 
father. If she had pressed the questions home 
in his case as she did in Michael's, she would 
have learnt that he was dead and buried more 
than a month before. It was well, too, that in 
her weak state of convalescence (which lasted 
long after this first day of consciousness) her 
perceptions were not sharp enough to observe 
the sad change that had taken place in Willie. 
His bodily strength returned, his appetite was 
something enormous, but his eyes wandered 
continually, his regard could not be arrested, 
his speech became slow, impeded, and incohe- 
rent. People began to say that the fever had 
taken away the little wit Willie Dixon had ever 
possessed, and that they feared that he would 
end in being a natural, as they call an idiot in 
the Dales. 

The habitual affection and obedience to Susan 
lasted longer than any other feeling that the boy 
had had previous to his illness ; and perhaps 
this made her be the last to perceive what every 
one else had long anticipated. She felt the 
awakening rude when it did come. It was in 
this wise : 

One June evening she sat out of doors under 
the yew-tree, knitting. She was pale still from 
her recent illness; and her languor, joined to 
the fact of her black dress, made her look more 
than usually interesting. She was no longer 
the buoyant, self-sufficient Susan, equal to every 
occasion. The men were bringing in the cows 
to be milked, and Michael was about in the 
yard, giving orders and directions with some- 
what the air of a master ; for the farm belonged 
of right to Willie, and Susan had succeeded to 
the guardianship of her brother. Michael and 
she were to be married as soon as she was strong 
enough — so, perhaps, his authoritative manner 
was justified ; but the laborers did not like it, 
although they said little. They remembered 
him a stripling on the farm, knowing far less 
than they did, and often glad to shelter his ig- 
norance of all agricultural matters behind their 
superior knowledge. They would have taken 
orders from Susan with far more willingness : 
nay, Willie himself might have commanded 
them, and for the old hereditary feeling toward 
the owners of land they would have obeyed him 
with far greater cordiality than they now show- 
ed to Michael. But Susan was tired with even 
three rounds of knitting, and seemed not to no- 
tice, or to care, how things went on around her: 
and Willie — poor Willie ! there he stood loung- 
ing against the door-sill, enormously grown and 
developed, to be sure, but with restless eyes and 
ever-open mouth, and every now and then set- 
ting up a strange kind of howling cry, and then 
smiling vacantly to himself at the sound he had 
made. As the two old laborers passed him, 
they looked at each other ominously, and shook 
their heads. 

"Willie, darling!" said Susan, "don't make 
that noise- — it makes my head ache." 

She spoke feebly, and Willie did not seem to 



HALF A LIFETIME AGO. 



193 



hear ; at any rate, he continued his howl from 
time to time. 

"Hold thy noise, wilt 'a?" said Michael, 
roughly, as he passed near him, and threaten- 
ing him with his fist. Susan's back was turned 
to the pair. The expression of Willie's face 
changed from vacancy to fear, and he came 
shambling up to Susan, and put her arm round 
him, and, as if protected by that shelter, he be- 
gan pulling faces at Michael. Susan saw what 
was going on, and, as if now first struck by the 
strangeness of her brother's manner, she looked 
anxiously at Michael for an explanation. Mi- 
chael was irritated at Willie's defiance of him, 
and did not mince the matter. 

" It's just that the fever has left him silly — he 
never was as wise as other folk, and now I doubt 
if he will ever get right." 

Susan did not speak, but she went very pale, 
and her lip quivered. She looked long and 
wistfully at Willie's face, as he watched the mo- 
tion of the ducks in the great stable-pool. He 
laughed softly to himself from time to time. 

" Willie likes to see the ducks go overhead," 
said Susan, instinctively adopting the form of 
speech she would have used to a young child. 

" Willie, boo ! Willie, boo !" he replied, clap- 
ping his hands, and avoiding her eye. 

" Speak properly, Willie," said Susan, making 
a strong effort at self-control, and trying to ar- 
rest his attention. 

"You know who I am — tell me my name!" 
She grasped his arm almost painfully tight to 
make him attend. Now he looked at her, and, 
for an instant, a gleam of recognition quivered 
over his face ; but the exertion was evidently 
painful, and he began to cry at the vainness of 
the effort to recall her name. He hid his face 
upon her shoulder with the old affectionate trick 
of manner. She put him gently away, and went 
into the house into her own little bedroom. She 
locked the door, and did not reply at all to Mi- 
chael's calls for her, hardly spoke to old Peggy, 
who tried to tempt her out to receive some home- 
ly sympathy, and through the open casement 
there still came the idiotic sound of "Willie, 
boo ! Willie, boo !" 

III. 

After the stun of the blow came the realiza- 
tion of the consequences. Susan would sit for 
hours trying patiently to recall and piece to- 
gether fragments of recollection and conscious- 
ness in her brother's mind. She would let him 
go and pursue some senseless bit of play, and 
wait until she could catch his eye or his atten- 
tion again, Avhen she would resume her self-im- 
posed task. Michael complained that she never 
had a word for him, or a minute of time to 
spend with him now; but she only said, she 
must try, while there was yet a chance, to bring 
back her brother's lost wits. As for marriage, 
in this state of uncertainty, she had no heart to 
think of it. Then Michael stormed, and absent- 
ed himself for two or three days; but it was of 
no use. When he came back he saw that she 
had been crying till her eyes were all swollen 



up, and he gathered from Peggy's scoldings 
(which she did not spare him) that Susan had 
eaten nothing since he went away. But she 
was as inflexible as ever. 

" Not just yet. Only not just yet. And don't 
say again that I do not love you," said she, sud- 
denly hiding herself in his arms. 

And so matters went on through August. 
The crop of oats was gathered in ; the wheat- 
field was not ready as yet, when one fine day 
Michael drove up in a borrowed shandry, and 
offered to take Willie a ride. His manner, 
when Susan asked him where he was going 
to, was rather confused; but the answer was 
straight and clear enough. 

" He had business in Ambleside. He would 
never lose sight of the lad, and have him back 
safe and sound before dark." So Susan let 
him go. 

Before night they were at home again ; Willie 
in high delight at a little rattling paper wind- 
mill that Michael had bought for him in the 
street, and striving to imitate this new sound 
with perpetual buzzings. Michael, too, looked 
pleased. Susan knew the look, although after- 
ward she remembered that he had tried to vail 
it from her, and had assumed a grave appear- 
ance of sorrow whenever he caught her eye. 
He put up his horse ; for, although he had three 
miles further to go, the moon was up — the bonny 
harvest-moon — and he did not care how late he 
had to drive on such a road by such a light. 
After the supper which Susan had prepared for 
the travelers was over, Peggy went up stairs to 
see Willie safe in bed ; for he had to have the 
same care taken of him that a little child of four 
years old requires. 

Michael drew near to Susan. 

" Susan," said he, " I took Will to see Dr. 
Preston, at Kendal. He's the first doctor in 
the county. I thought it were better for us — 
for you — to know at once what chance there 
were for him." 

" Well !" said Susan, looking eagerly up. 
She saw the same strange glance of satisfac- 
tion, the same instant change to apparent re- 
gret and pain. " What did he say ?" said she. 
" Speak ! can't you ?" 

" He said he would never get better of his 
weakness." 

" Never !" 

" No ; never. It is a long word, and hard to 
bear. And there's worse to come, dearest. The 
doctor thinks he will get worse from year to 
year. And he said, if he was us — you — he 
would send him off in time to Lancaster Asy- 
lum. They've ways there both of keeping such 
people in order and making them happy. I 
only tell you what he said," continued he, see- 
ing the gathering storm in her face. 

"There was no harm in his saying it," she 
replied, with great self-constraint, forcing her- 
self to speak coldly instead of angrily. "Folk 
is welcome to their opinions." 

They sate silent for a minute or two, her 
breast heaving with suppressed feeling. 



104 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" He's counted a very clever man," said Mi- 
chael, at length. 

" He may be. He's none of my clever men, 
nor am I going to be guided by him, whatever 
he may think. And I don't thank them that 
went and took my poor lad to have such harsh 
notions formed about him. If I'd been there, I 
could have called out the sense that is in him." 

"Well! I'll not say more to-night, Susan. 
You're not taking it rightly, and I'd best be 
gone, and leave you to think it over. I'll not 
deny they are hard words to hear, but there's 
sense in them, as I take it ; and I reckon you'll 
have to come to 'em. Any how, it's a bad way 
of thanking me for my pains, and I don't take 
it well in you, Susan," said he, getting up, as if 
offended. 

"Michael, I'm beside myself with sorrow. 
Don't blame me if I speak sharp. He and me 
is the only ones, you see. And mother did so 
charge me to have a care of him ! And this is 
what he's come to, poor lile chap !" She began 
to cry, and Michael to comfort her with ca- 
resses. 

i 

"Don't!" said she. "It's no use trying to 
make me forget poor Willie is a natural. I 
could hate myself for being happy with you, 
even for just a little minute. Go away, and 
leave me to face it out." 

"And you'll think it over, Susan, and re- 
member what the doctor says ?" 

"I can't forget it," said she. She meant she 
could not forget what the doctor had said about 
the hopelessness of her brother's case ; he had 
referred to the plan of sending Willie away to 
an asylum, or mad-house, as they were called in 
that day and place. The idea had been gath- 
ering force in Michael's mind for long ; he had 
talked it over with his father, and secretly re- 
joiced over the possession of the farm and land 
which would then be his in fact, if not in law, 
by right of his wife. He had always considered 
the good penny her father could give her in his 
catalogue of Susan's charms and attractions. 
But of late he had grown to esteem her as the 
heiress of Yew Nook. He too should have land 
like his brother — land to possess, to cultivate, 
to make profit from, to bequeath. For some 
time he had wondered that Susan had been too 
much absorbed in Willie's present, that she 
never seemed to look forward to his future 
state. Michael had long felt the boy to be a 
trouble ; but of late he had absolutely loathed 
him. His gibbering, his uncouth gestures, his 
loose shambling gait, all irritated Michael inex- 
pressibly. He did not come near the Yew Nook 
for a couple of days. He thought that he would 
leave her time to become anxious to see him 
and reconciled to his plan. They were strange, 
lonely days to Susan. They were the first she 
had spent face to face with the sorrows that had 
turned her from a girl into a woman, for hith- 
erto Michael had never let twenty-four hours 
pass by without coming to see her since she had 
had the fever. Now that he was absent it seem- 
ed as though some cause of irritation was re- 



moved from Will, who was much more gentle 
and tractable than he had been for many weeks. 
Susan thought that she had observed him mak- 
ing efforts at her biddings and there was some- 
thing piteous in the way in which he crept up 
to her, and looked wistfully in her face, as if 
asking her to restore him the faculties that he 
felt to be wanting. 

"Ineverwilllettheego, lad. Never! There's 
no knowing where they would take thee to, or 
what they would do with thee. As they say in 
the Bible, 'Nought but death shall part thee 
and me!'" 

The country-side was full, in those days, of 
stories of the brutal treatment offered to the in- 
sane ; stories that were, in fact, only too well 
founded, and the truth of one of which only 
Avould have been a sufficient reason for the 
strong prejudice existing against all such places, 
Each succeeding hour that Susan passed alone, 
or with the poor, affectionate lad for her sole 
companion, served to deepen her solemn reso- 
lution never to part with him. So, when Mi- 
chael came, he was annoyed and surprised by 
the calm way in which she spoke, as if follow- 
ing Dr. Preston's advice was utterly and entirely 
out of the question. He had expected nothing 
less than a consent, reluctant it might he, but 
still a consent; and he was extremely irritated. 
He could have repressed his anger, but he chose 
rather to give way to it, thinking that he could 
so best work upon Susan's affection to gain his 
point. But, somehow, he overreached himself ; 
and now he was astonished in his turn at the 
passion of indignation that she burst into. 

" Thou wilt not bide in the same house with 
him, say'st thou ? There's no need for thy bid- 
ing, as far as I can tell. There's solemn reason 
Avhy I should bide with my own fiesh and blood, 
and keep to the word I pledged my mother on 
her death-bed; but, as for thee, there's no tie 
that I know on to keep thee fra going to Amer- 
ica or Botany Bay this very night, if that were 
thy inclination. I will have no more of your 
threats to make me send my bairn away. If 
thou marry me, thou'lt help me to take charge 
of Willie. If thou doesn't choose to marry me 
on those terms — why ! I can snap my fingers 
at thee, never fear. I'm not so far gone in love 
as that. But I will not have thee, if thou say'st 
in such a hectoring way that Willie must go out 
of the house — and the house his own too — before 
thou'lt set foot in it. Willie bides here, and I 
bide with him." 

" Thou hast maybe spoken a word too much," 
said Michael, pale with rage. " If I am free, 
as thou say'st, to go to Canada or Botany Bay, 
I reckon I'm free to live where I like, and that 
will not be with a natural, who may turn into a 
madman some day, for aught I know. Choose 
between him and me, Susy, for I swear to you, 
you shan't have both !" 

"I have chosen," said Susan, now perfectly 
composed and still. "Whatever comes of it, I 
bide with Willie." 

" Very well," replied Michael, trying to as- 



HALF A LIFETIME AGO. 



10." 



sume an equal composure of manner. " Then 
I'll wish you a very good-night." He went out 
of the house-door half-expecting to be called 
back again ; but, instead, he heard a hasty step 
inside, and a bolt drawn. 

"Whew !" said he to himself, "I think I must 
leave my lady alone for a week or two, and give 
her time to come to her senses. She'll not find 
it so easy as she thinks to let me go." 

So he went past the kitchen-window in non- 
chalant style, and was not seen again at Yew 
Nook for some weeks. How did he pass the 
time ? For the first day or two he was unusu- 
ally cross with all things and people that came 
across him. Then wheat-harvest began, and he 
was busy and exultant about his heavy crop. 
Then a man came from a distance to bid for 
the lease of his farm, which had been offered 
for sale by his father's advice, as he himself was 
so soon likely to remove to the Yew Nook. He 
had so little idea that Susan really would remain 
firm to her determination, that he at once be- 
gan to haggle with the man who came after his 
farm, showed him the crop just got in, and man- 
aged skillfully enough to make a good bargain 
for himself. Of course the bargain had to be 
sealed at the public-house ; and the companions 
he met with there soon became friends enough 
to tempt him into Langdale, where again he met 
with Eleanor Hebthwaite. 

How did Susan pass the time ? For the first 
day or so she was too angry and offended to 
cry. She went about her household duties in a 
<[uick, sharp, jerking, yet absent way; shrink- 
ing one moment from Will, overwhelming him 
with remorseful caresses the next. The third 
day of Michael's absence she had the relief of 
a good fit of crying; and after that she grew 
softer and more tender; she felt how harshly 
she had spoken to him, and remembered how 
angry she had been. She made excuses for 
him. " It was no wonder," she said to herself, 
' ; that he had been vexed with her ; and no won- 
der he would not give in, when she had never 
tried to speak gently or to reason with him. 
She was to blame, and she would tell him so, 
and tell him once again all that her mother 
had bade her be to Wiliie, and all the horrible 
stories she had heard about mad-houses, and 
he would be on her side at once." 

And so she watched for his coming, intend- 
ing to apologize as soon as ever she saw him. 
She hurried over her household work, in order 
to sit quietly at her sewing, and hear the first 
distant sound of his well-known step or whistle. 
But even the sound of her flying needle seemed 
too loud — perhaps she was losing an exquisite 
instant of anticipation; so she stopped sewing, 
and looked longingly out through the geranium 
leaves, so that her eye might catch the first stir 
of the branches in the wood-path by which he 
generally came. Now and then a bird might 
spring out of the covert; otherwise the leaves 
were heavily still in the sultry weather of early 
autumn. Then she would take up her sewing, 
and with a spasm of resolution, she would de- 



termine that a certain task should be fulfilled 
before she would again allow herself the poign- 
ant luxury of expectation. Sick at heart was 
she when the evening closed in, and the chances 
of that day diminished. Yet she staid up longer 
than usual, thinking that if he were coming — 
if he were only passing along the distant road — 
the sight of a light in the Avindow might encour- 
age him to make his appearance even at that 
late hour, while seeing the house all darkened 
and shut up might quench any such intention. 

Very sick and weary at heart, she went to 
bed ; too desolate and despairing to cry, or 
make any moan. But in the morning hope 
came afresh. Another day — another chance ! 
And so it went on for weeks. Peggy understood 
her young mistress's sorrow full well, and re- 
spected it by her silence on the subject. Willie 
seemed happier now that the irritation of Mi- 
chael's presence was removed; for the poor idiot 
had a sort of antipathy to Michael, which was 
a kind of heart's echo to the repugnance in 
which the latter held him. Altogether, just at 
this time, Willie was the happiest of the three. 

As Susan went into Corniston, to sell her 
butter, one Saturday, some inconsiderate per- 
son told her that they had seen Michael Hurst 
the night before. I said inconsiderate, but I 
might rather have said unobservant; for any 
one who had spent half an hour in Susan Dix- 
on's company might have seen that she disliked 
having any reference made to the subjects near- 
est to her heart, were they joyous or grievous. 
Now she went a little paler than usual (and she 
had never recovered her color since she had had 
the fever), and tried to keep silence. But an 
irrepressible pang forced out the question — > 

" Where ?" 

"At Thomas Applethwaite's, in Langdale. 
They had a kind of harvest-home, and he were 
there among the young folk, and very thick wr 
Nelly Hebthwaite, old Thomas's niece. Thou'lt 
have to look after him a bit, Susan !" 

She neither smiled nor sighed. The neigh- 
bor who had been speaking to her was struck 
with the gray stillness of her face. Susan her- 
self felt how well her self-command was obeyed 
by every little muscle, and said to herself in her 
Spartan manner, " I can bear it without cither 
wincing or blenching." She went home early, 
at a tearing, passionate pace, trampling and 
breaking through all obstacles of briar or bush. 
Willie was moping in her absence — hanging 
listlessly on the farm-yard gate to watch for 
her. When he saw her, he set up one of his 
strange, inarticulate cries, of which she was now 
learning the meaning, and came toward her 
with his loose, galloping run, head and limbs all 
shaking and wagging with pleasant excitement. 
Suddenly she turned from him, and hurst into 
tears. She sate down on a stone by the wayside, 
not a hundred yards from home, and buried 
her face in her hands and gave way to a passion 
of pent-up sorrow; so terrible and full of agony 
were her low fries, that the idiot stood by her, 
aghast and silent, All his joy gone for the 



196 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



time, but not, like her joy, turned into ashes. 
Some thought struck him. Yes ! the sight of 
her woe made him think, great as the exertion 
was. He ran, and stumbled, and shambled 
home, buzzing with his lips all the time. She 
never missed him. He came back in a trice, 
bringing with him his cherished paper wind-mill, 
bought on that fatal day when Michael had 
taken him into Kendal, to have his doom of 
perpetual idiotcy pronounced. He thrust it into 
Susan's face, her hands, her lap, regardless of 
the injury his frail plaything thereby received. 
He leapt before her, to think how he had cured 
all heart -sorrow, buzzing louder than ever. 
Susan looked up at him, and that glance of her 
sad eyes sobered him. He began to whimper, 
he knew not why; and she now, comforter in 
her turn, tried to soothe him by twirling his 
wind-mill. But it was broken ; it made no noise ; 
it would not go round. This seemed to afflict 
Susan more than him. She tried to make it 
right, although she saAV the task was hopeless ; 
and while she did so, the tears rained down un- 
heeded from her bent head on the paper toy. 

"It won't do," said she, at last. "It will 
never do again." And, somehow, she took the 
accident and her words as omens of the love 
that Avas broken, and that she feared could 
never be pieced together again. She rose up 
and took Willie's hand, and the two went in 
slowly to the house. 

To her surprise, Michael Hurst sate in the 
house-place. House-place is a sort of better 
kitchen, where no cookery is done, but which 
is reserved for state occasions. Michael had 
gone in there because he was accompanied by 
his only sister, a woman older than himself, 
who was well married beyond Keswick, and 
who now came for the first time to make ac- 
quaintance with Susan. Michael had primed 
iiis sister with his wishes with regard to Will, 
and the position in which he stood with Susan ; 
and arriving at Yew Nook in the absence of the 
latter, he had not scrupled to conduct his sis- 
ter into the guest-room, as he held Mrs. Gale's 
worldly position in respect and admiration, and 
therefore wished her to be favorably impressed 
with all the signs of property, which he was be- 
ginning to consider as Susan's greatest charms. 
He had secretly said to himself, that if Eleanor 
Hebthwaite and Susan Dixon were equal as to 
riches, he would sooner have Eleanor by far. 
He had begun to consider Susan as a termagant ; 
and when he thought of his intercourse with 
her, recollections of her somewhat warm and 
hasty temper came far more readily to his 
mind than any remembrance of her generous, 
loving nature. 

And now she stood face to face with him ; 
her eyes tear-swollen, her garments dusty, and 
here and there torn in consequence of her rapid 
progress through the bushy by-paths. She did 
not make a favorable impression on the well- 
clad Mrs. Gale, dressed in her best silk gown, 
and therefore unusually susceptible to the ap- 
pearance of another. Nor were her manners 



gracious or cordial. How could they be, when 
she remembered what had passed between Mi- 
chael and herself the last time they met? For 
her penitence had faded away under the daily 
disappointment of these last weary weeks. 

But she was hospitable in substance. She 
bade Peggy hurry on the kettle, and busied her- 
self among the tea-cups, thankful that the pres- 
ence of Mrs. Gale, as a stranger, would prevent 
the immediate recurrence to the one subject 
which she felt must be present in Michael's 
mind as well as in her own. But Mrs. Gale 
was withheld by no such feelings of delicacy. 
She had come ready-primed with the case, and 
had undertaken to bring the girl to reason. 
There was no time to be lost. It had been pre- 
arranged between the brother and sister that 
he was to stroll out into the farm-yard before 
his sister introduced the subject ; but she was so 
confident in the success of her arguments, that 
she must needs have the triumph of a victory as 
soon as possible ; and, accordingly, she brought 
a hail-storm of good reasons to bear upon 
Susan's. Susan did not reply for a long time ; 
she was so indignant at this intermeddling of a 
stranger in the deep family sorrow and shame. 
Mrs. Gale thought she was gaining the day, and 
urged her arguments more pitilessly. Even 
Michael winced for Susan", and wondered at her 
silence. He shrunk out of sight, and into the 
shadow, hoping that his sister might prevail, 
but annoyed at the hard way in which she kept 
putting the case. 

Suddenly Susan turned round from the occu- 
pation she had pretended to be engaged in, and 
said to him in a low voice, which yet not only 
vibrated itself, but made its hearers vibrate 
through all their obtuseness : 

" Michael Hurst! does your sister speak truth, 
think you ?" 

Both women looked at him for his answer; 
Mrs. Gale without anxiety, for had she not said 
the very words they had spoken together be- 
fore ; had she not used the very arguments 
that he himself had suggested ? Susan, on the 
contrary, looked to his answer as settling her 
doom for life ; and in the gloom of her eyes 
you might have read more despair than hope. 

He shuffled his position. He shuffled in his 
words. 

"What is it 'you ask? My sister has- said 
many things." 

" I ask you," said Susan, trying to give a 
crystal clearness both to her expressions and 
her pronunciation, "if, knowing as you do how 
Will is afflicted, you will help me to take that 
charge of him that I promised my mother on 
her death-bed that I would do ; and which 
means, that I shall keep him always with me, 
and do all in my power to make his life happy. 
If you will do this, I will be your wife ; if not, 
I remain unwed." 

"But he may get dangerous; he^can be but 
a trouble ; his being here is a pain to you, 
Susan, not a pleasure." 

"I ask you for either yes or no," said she, 



HALF A LIFETIME AGO. 



H>7 



a little contempt at his evading her question 
mingling with her tone. He perceived it, and 
it nettled him. 

"And I have told you. I answered your 
question the last time I was here. I said I 
would ne'er keep house with an idiot ; no more 
.1 will. So now you've gotten your answer." 

" I have," said Susan. And she sighed deeply. 

"Come now," said Mrs. Gale, encouraged 
by the sigh; "one would think you don't love 
Michael, Susan, to be so stubborn in yielding 
to what I'm sure would be best for the lad." 

"Oh! she does not care for me," said Mi- 
chael. " I don't believe she ever did !" 

" Don't I ? Have not I ?" asked Susan, her 
eyes blazing out fire. She left the room di- 
rectly, and sent Peggy in to make the tea; and 
catching at Will, who was lounging about in the 
kitchen, she went up stairs with him and bolted 
herself in, straining the boy to her heart, and 
keeping almost breathless, lest any noise she 
made should cause him to break out into the 
howls and sounds which she could not bear that 
those below should hear. 

A knock at the door. It was Peggy. 

" He wants for to see you, to wish you good- 
by." 

"I can not come. Oh, Peggy, send them 
away !" 

It was her only cry for sympathy ; and the 
old servant understood it. She sent them away, 
somehow ; not politely, as I have been given to 
understand. 

" Good go with them !" said Peggy, as she 
grimly watched their retreating figures. "We're 
rid of bad rubbish, any how." And she turned 
into the house with the intention of making 
ready some refreshment for Susan, after her 
hard day at the market, and her harder even- 
ing. But in the kitchen, to which she passed 
through the empty house-place, making a face 
of contemptuous dislike at the used tea-cups 
and fragments of a meal yet standing there, she 
found Susan with her sleeves tucked up and her 
working apron on, busied in preparing to make 
clap-bread, one of the hardest and hottest do- 
mestic tasks of a Daleswoman. She looked up, 
and first met and then avoided Peggy's eye; it 
was too full of sympathy. Her own cheeks 
were flushed, and her own eyes were dry and 
burning. 

" Where's the board, Peggy? We need clap- 
bread, and I reckon I've time to get through 
with it to-night." Her voice had a sharp dry 
tone in it, and her motions had a jerking angu- 
larity in them. 

Peggy said nothing, but fetched her all that 
she needed. Susan beat her cakes thin with 
vehement force. As she stooped over them, re- 
gardless even of the task in which she seemed 
so much occupied, she was surprised by a touch 
on her mouth of something — what she did not 
see at first. It was a cup of tea, delicately 
s-m eetened and cooled, and held to her lips when 
e k actly ready by the faithful old woman. Susan 
hold it off a hand's-breadth, and looked into 



Peggy's eyes, while her own filled with the 
strange relief of tears. 

"Lass!" said Peggy, solemnly, "thou hast 
done well. It is not long to bide, and then the 
end will come." 

" But you are very old, Peggy," said Susan r 
quivering. 

" It is but a day sin' I were young," replied 
Peggy; but she stopped the conversation by 
again pushing the cup with gentle force to Su- 
san's dry and thirsty lips. When she had drunk- 
en she fell again to her labor, Peggy heating 
the hearth, and doing all that she knew would 
be required, but never speaking another word. 
Willie basked close to the fire, enjoying the ani- 
mal luxury of warmth, for the autumn evenings 
were beginning to be chilly. It was one o'clock 
before they thought of going to bed on that 
memorable night. 

IV. 

The vehemence with which Susan Dixon 
threw herself into occupation could not last 
forever. Times of languor and remembrance 
would come — times when she recurred with a 
passionate yearning to past days, the recollec- 
tion of which was so vivid and delicious, that it 
seemed as though it were the reality, and the 
present bleak bareness the dream. She smiled 
anew at the magical sweetness of some touch or 
tone which in memory she felt and heard, and 
drank the delicious cup of poison, although at 
the very time she knew what the consequence 
of racking pain would be. 

"This time, last year," thought she, "we 
went nutting together — this very day last year; 
just such a day as to-day. Purple and gold 
Avere the lights on the hills ; the leaves were 
just turning brown ; here and there on the sun- 
ny slopes the stubble-fields looked tawny: down 
in a cleft of yon purple slate-rock the beck fell 
like a silver glancing thread ; all just as it is to- 
day. And he climbed the slender swaying nut- 
trees, and bent the branches for me to gather: 
or made a passage through the hazel copses, 
from time to time claiming a toll. Who could 
have thought he loved me so little? — who? — 
who?" 

Or, as the evening closed in, she would al- 
low herself to imagine that she heard his com- 
ing step, just that she might recall the feeling 
of exquisite delight which had passed by with- 
out the due and passionate relish at the time. 
Then she would wonder how she could have 
had strength, the cruel, self-piercing strength, 
to say what she had done; to stab herself with 
that stern resolution, of which the scar would 
remain till her dying day. It might have been 
right ; but, as she sickened, she wished she had 
not instinctively chosen the right. How lux- 
urious a life haunted by no stern sense of duty 
must be ! And many led this kind of life ; why 
could not she? Oh, for one hour again of hi- 
sweet company ! If he came now, she would 
agree to jvhatever he proposed. 

It was a fever of the mind. She passed 
through it, and came out healthy, if weak. 



198 



HAEPEE'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



She was capable once more of taking pleasure 
in following an unseen guide through briar 
and brake. She returned with ten-fold affec- 
tion to her protecting care of Willie. She ac- 
knowledged to herself that he was to be her all- 
in-all in life. She made him her constant com- 
panion. For his sake, as the real owner of Yew 
Nook, and she as his steward and guardian, she 
began that course of careful saving, and that 
love of acquisition, which afterward gained for 
her the reputation of being miserly. She still 
thought that he might regain a scanty portion 
of sense — enough to require some simple pleas- 
ures and excitement, which would cost money. 
And money should not be wanting. Peggy 
rather assisted her in the formation of her par- 
simonious habits than otherwise ; economy was 
the order of the district, and a certain degree 
of respectable avarice the characteristic of age. 
Only Willie was never stinted or hindered of 
any thing that the two women thought could 
give him pleasure for want of money. 

There was one gratification which Susan felt 
was needed for the restoration of her mind to 
its more healthy state, after she had passed 
through the whirling fever, when duty was as 
nothing, and anarchy reigned ; a gratification — 
that somehow was to be her last burst of un- 
reasonableness ; of which she knew and recog- 
nized pain as the sure consequence. She must 
see him once more — herself unseen. 

The week before the Christmas of this mem- 
orable year she went out in the dusk of the early 
winter evening, wrapped up close in shawl and 
cloak. She wore her dark shawl under her 
cloak, putting it over her head in lieu of a 
bonnet; for she knew that she might have to 
wait long in concealment. Then she tramped 
over the wet fell-path, shut in by misty rain 
for miles and miles, till she came to the place 
where he was lodging ; a farm-house in Lang- 
dale, with a steep stony lane leading up to it : 
this lane was entered by a gate out of the main 
road, and by the gate were a few bushes — thorns ; 
but of them the leaves had fallen, and they of- 
fered no concealment : an old wreck of a yew- 
tree grew among them, however, and under- 
neath that Susan cowered down, shrouding her 
face, of which the color might betray her, with 
a. corner of her shawl. Long did she wait; 
cold and cramped she became, too damp and 
stiff to change her posture readily. And after 
all, he might never come ! But she would 
wait till daylight, if need were ; and she pulled 
out a crust, with which she had providently 
supplied herself. The rain had ceased — a dull 
still brooding weather had succeeded ; it was a 
night to hear distant sounds. She heard horses' 
hoofs striking and plashing in the stones, and in 
the pools of the road at her back. Two horses ; 
not well-ridden, or evenly guided, as she could 
tell. 

Michael Hurst and a companion drew near ; 
not tipsy, but not sober. They stopped at the 
gate to bid each other a maudlin farewell. 
Michael stooped forward to catch the latch 



with the hook of the stick which he carried ; 
he dropped the stick, and it fell with one end 
close to Susan — indeed, with, the slightest 
change of posture, she could have opened the 
gate for him. He swore a great oath, and 
struck his horse with his closed fist, as if that 
animal had been to blame ; then he dismount- 
ed, opened the gate, and fumbled about for his 
stick. When he had found it (Susan had touch- 
ed the other end), his first use of it was to flog 
his horse well, and she had much ado to avoid 
its kicks and plunges. Then, still swearing, he 
staggered up the lane, for it was evident he was 
not sober enough to remount. 

By daylight Susan was back and at her daily 
labors at Yew Nook. When the spring came, 
Michael Hurst was married to Eleanor Heb- 
thwaite. Others, too, were married, and chris- 
tenings made their fireside merry and glad ; or 
they traveled, and came back after long years 
with many wondrous tales. More rarely, per- 
haps, a Dalesman changed his dwelling. But 
to all households more change came than to 
Yew Nook. There the seasons came round 
with monotonous sameness ; or, if they brought 
mutation, it was of a slow, and decaying, and 
depressing kind. Old Peggy died. Her silent 
sympathy, concealed under much roughness, 
was a loss to Susan Dixon. Susan was not 
yet thirty when this happened, but she looked 
a middle-aged, not to say an elderly woman. 
People affirmed that she had never recovered 
her complexion since that fever, a dozen years 
ago, which killed her father, and left Will Dix- 
on an idiot. But besides her gray sallowness, 
the lines in her face were strong, and deep, and 
hard. The movements of her eyeballs were 
slow and heavy ; the wrinkles at the corners of 
her mouth and eyes were planted firm and s.ure ; 
not an ounce of unnecessary flesh was there on 
her bones — every muscle started strong and 
ready for use. She needed all this bodily 
strength to a degree that no human creature, 
now Peggy was dead, knew of: for Willie had 
grown up large and strong in body, and, in gen- 
eral, docile enough in mind ; but, every now 
and then, he became first moody, and then vio- 
lent. These paroxysms lasted but a day or 
two ; and it was Susan's anxious care to keep 
their very existence hidden and unknown. It 
is true that occasional passers-by on that lonely 
road heard sounds at night of knocking about 
of furniture, blows, and cries, as of some tear- 
ing demon within the solitary farm-house ; but 
these fits of violence usually occurred in the 
night; and whatever had been their conse- 
quence, Susan had tidied and redd up all signs 
of aught unusual before the morning. For, 
above all, she dreaded lest some one might find 
out in what danger and peril she occasionally 
was, and might assume a right to take away her 
brother from her care. The one idea of taking 
charge of him had deepened and deepened with 
years. It was graven into her mind as the ob- 
ject for which she lived. The sacrifice she had 
made for this object only made it more pre- 



HALF A LIFETIME AGO. 



199 



eious to her. Besides, she separated the idea 
of the docile, affectionate, loutish, indolent Will, 
and kept it distinct from the terror which the 
demon that occasionally possessed him inspired 
her with. The one was her flesh and her blood 
— the child of her dead mother ; the other was 
some fiend who came to torture and convulse 
the creature she so loved. She believed that 
she fought her brother's battle in holding down 
those tearing hands, in binding whenever she 
could those uplifted restless arms prompt and 
prone to do mischief. All the time she sub- 
dued him with her cunning or her strength, she 
spoke to him in pitying murmurs, or abused the 
third person, the fiendish enemy, in no unmeas- 
ured tones. Toward morning the paroxysm 
was exhausted, and he would fall asleep, per- 
haps only to waken with evil and renewed vig- 
or. But when he was laid down she would 
sally out to taste the fresh air, and to work off 
her wild sorrow in cries and mutterings to her- 
self. The early laborers saw her gestures at a 
distance, and thought her as crazed as the idiot- 
brother who made the neighborhood a haunted 
place. But did any chance person call at Yew 
Nook later, or in the day, he would find Susan 
Dixon cold, calm, collected ; her manner curt, 
her wits keen. 

Once this fit of violence lasted longer than 
usual. Susan's strength both of mind and body 
was nearly worn out ; she wrestled in prayer 
that somehow it might end before she, too, was 
driven mad ; or, worse, might be obliged to give 
ip life's aim, and consign Willie to a mad-house. 
From that moment of prayer (as she afterward 
iuperstitiously thought) Willie calmed — and 
then he drooped — and then he sank — and, last 
of all, he died, in reality from physical exhaus- 
tion. 

But he was so gentle and tender as he lay on 
his dying bed ; such strange childlike gleams of 
returning intelligence came over his face long 
after the power to make his dull inarticulate 
sounds had departed, that Susan was attracted 
to him by a stronger tie than she had ever felt 
before. It was something to have even an idiot 
loving her with dumb, wistful, animal affection ; 
something to have any creature looking at her 
with such beseeching eyes, imploring protection 
from the insidious enemy stealing on. And 
yet she knew that to him death was no enemy 
but a true friend, restoring light and health to 
his poor clouded mind. It Avas to her that 
death was an enemy ; to her, the survivor, when 
Willie died : there was no one to love her. 
Worse doom still, there was no one left on earth 
for her to love. 

You now know why no wandering tourist 
could persuade her to receive him as a lodger ; 
why no tired traveler could melt her heart to 
give him rest and refreshment; why long hab- 
its of seclusion had given her a moroseness of 
manner, and care for the interests of another 
had rendered her keen and miserly. 

But there was a third act in the drama of her 
life. 



In spite of Peggy's prophecy that Susan's life 
should not seem long, it did seem wearisome 
and endless as year by year slowly uncoiled 
their monotonous circles. To be sure, she 
might have .made change for herself, but she 
did not care to do it. It was, indeed, more 
than " not caring" which merely implies a cer- 
tain degree of vis inertia? to be subdued before 
an object can be attained, and that the object 
! itself does not seem to be of sufficient import- 
ance to call out the requisite energy. On the 
contrary, Susan exerted herself to avoid change 
and variety. She had a morbid dread of new 
faces, which originated in her desire to keep 
poor dead Willie's state a profound secret. 
She had a contempt for new customs; and in- 
deed her old ways prospered so well under her 
active hand and vigilant eye, that it was diffi- 
cult to know how they could be improved upon. 
She was regularly present in Coniston market 
with the best butter and the earliest chickens 
of the season. Those were the common farm 
produce that every farmer's wife about had to 
sell ; but Susan, after she had disposed of the 
more feminine articles, turned to on the man's 
side. A better judge of a horse or cow there 
was not in all the country round. Yorkshire 
itself might have attempted to jockey her, and 
would have failed. Pier corn was sound and 
clean ; her potatoes well preserved to the 
latest spring. People began to talk of the 
hoards of money Susan Dixon must have laid 
up somewhere; and one young ne'er-do-well 
of a farmer's son undertook to make love to 
the woman of forty, who looked fifty-five, if a 
day. He made up to her by opening a gate 
on the road-path home, as she was riding on a 
bare-backed horse, her purchase not an hour 
ago. She was off before him, refusing his ci- 
vility ; but the remounting was not so easy, and 
rather than fail she did not choose to attempt 
it. She walked, and he walked alongside, im- 
proving his opportunity, which, as he vainly 
thought, had been consciously granted to him. 
As they drew near Yew Nook, he ventured on 
some expression of a wish to keep company 
with her. His words were vague and clumsily 
arranged. Susan turned round and coolly ask- 
ed him to explain himself. He took courage, 
as he thought of her reputed wealth, and ex- 
pressed his wishes this second time pretty plain- 
ly. To his surprise the reply she made was in 
a series of smart strokes across his shoulders, 
administered through the medium of a supple 
hazel-switch. 

"Take that!" said she, almost breathless, '• to 
teach thee how thou darest make a fool of an 
honest woman, old enough to be thy mother. 1 f 
thou com'st a step nearer the house, there's a 
good horse-pool, and there's two stout fellows 
who'll like no better fun than ducking thee. Be 
off wi' thee !" 

And she strode into her own premises, never 
looking round to see whether he obeyed her in- 
junction or not. 



200 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Sometimes three or four years would pass 
over without her hearing Michael Hurst's name 
mentioned. She used to wonder at such times 
whether he were dead or alive. She would sit 
for hours by the dying embers of her fire on a 
winter's evening, trying to recall the scenes of 
her youth ; trying to bring up living pictures of 
the faces she had then known — Michael's most 
especially. She thought that it was possible, 
so long had been the lapse of years, that she 
might now pass by him in the street unknowing 
and unknown. His outward form she might 
not recognize, but himself she should feel in the 
thrill of her whole being. He could not pass 
her unawares. 

What little she did hear about him all testi- 
fied a downward tendency. He drank — not at 
stated times when there was no other work to 
be done, but continually, whether it was seed- 
time or harvest. His children were ill at one 
time; then one died, while the others recovered, 
but were poor sickly things. No one dared to 
give Susan any direct intelligence of her for- 
mer lover; many avoided all mention of his 
name in her presence ; but a few spoke out ei- 
ther in indifference to, or ignorance of, those 
by-gone days. Susan heard every word, every 
whisper, every sound that related to him. But 
her eye never changed, nor did a muscle of her 
face move. 

Late one November night she sate over her 
fire ; not a human being besides herself in the 
house ; none but she had ever slept there since 
Willie's death. The farm-laborers had foddered 
the cattle and gone home hours before. There 
were crickets chirping all round the warm 
hearth-stones, there was the clock ticking with 
the peculiar beat Susan had known ever since 
childhood, and which then and ever since she 
had oddly associated with the idea of a mother 
and child talking together, one loud tick, and 
quick — a feeble sharp one following. 

The day had been keen, and piercingly cold. 
The whole lift of heaven seemed a dome of iron. 
Black and frost-bound was the earth under the 
cruel east wind. Now the wind had dropped, 
and as the darkness had gathered in, the weath- 
er-wise old laborers prophesied snow. The 
sounds in the air arose again, as Susan sate 
.still and silent. They were of a different char- 
acter to what they had been during the preva- 
lence of the east wind. Then they had been 
shrill and piping; now they were like low dis- 
tant growling; not unmusical, but strangely 
threatening. Susan went to the window, and 
drew aside the little curtain. The whole world 
was white, the air was blinded with the swift 
and heavy downfall of snow. At present it 
came down straight, but Susan knew those dis- 
tant sounds in the hollows and gullies of the 
hills portended a driving wind and a more cruel 
storm. She thought of her sheep ; were they all 
folded? the new-born calf, was it bedded well? 
Before the drifts were formed too deep for her 
to pass in and out — and by the morning she 
judged that they would be six or seven feet 



deep — she would go out and see after the com- 
fort of her beasts. She took a lantern, and tied 
a shawl over her head, and went out into the 
open air. She cared tenderly for all her ani- 
mals, and was returning, when borne on the 
blast as if some spirit-cry — for it seemed to 
come rather down from the skies than from any 
creature standing on earth's level — she heard a 
voice of agony ; she could not distinguish words ; 
it seemed rather as if some bird of prey was be- 
ing caught in the whirl of the icy wind, and 
torn and tortured by its violence. Again ! up 
high above! Susan put down her lantern, and 
shouted loud in return; it was an instinct, for 
if the creature were not human, which she had 
doubted but a moment before, what good could 
her responding cry do ? And her cry was seized 
on by the tyrannous wind, and borne farther 
away in the opposite direction to that from 
which that call of agony had proceeded. Again 
she listened ; no sound : then again it rang 
through space ; and this time she was sure it 
was human. She turned into the house, and 
heaped turf and wood on the fire, which, care- 
less of her own sensations, she had allowed to 
fade and almost die out. She put a new can- 
dle in her lantern ; she changed her shawl for 
a maud, and leaving the door on latch, she sal- 
lied out. Just at the moment when her ear 
first encountered the weird noises of the storm, 
on issuing forth into the open air, she thought 
she heard the words, "O God! Oh, help!" 
They were a guide to her, if words they were, 
for they came straight from a rock not a quar- 
ter of a mile from Yew Nook, but only to be 
reached, on account of its precipitous character, 
by a round-about path. Thither she steered, 
defying wind and snow ; guided by here a thorn- 
tree, there an old doddered oak, which had not 
quite lost their identity under the whelming 
mask of snow. Now and then she stopped to 
listen ; but never a word or sound heard she, 
till right from where the copse-wood grew thick 
and tangled at the base of the rock, round which 
she Avas winding, she heard a moan. In to the 
brake — all snow in appearance, almost a plain 
of snow looked on from the little eminence 
where she stood — she plunged, breaking down 
the bush, stumbling, bruising herself, fighting 
her way; her lantern held between her teeth, 
and she herself using head as well as hands to 
butt away a passage, at whatever cost of bodily 
injury. As she climbed or staggered, owing to 
the unevenness of the snow-covered ground, 
where the briars and weeds of years were tan- 
gled and matted together, her foot felt some- 
thing strangely soft and yielding. She lowered 
her lantern ; there lay a man, prone on his face, 
nearly covered by the fast-falling flakes; he 
must have fallen from the rock above, as not 
knowing of the circuitous path, he had tried to 
descend its steep, slippery face. Who could 
tell ? it was no time for thinking. Susan lifted 
him up with her wiry strength ; he gave no help 
— no sign of life : but for all that he might 1 e 
alive; he was still warm: she tied her maud 



HALF A LIFETIME AGO. 



201 



round him; she fastened the lantern to her 
apron-string ; she held him tight : half-drag- 
ging, half-carrying — what did a few bruises sig- 
nify to him, compared to dear life, to precious 
life ! She got him through the brake, and down 
tjie path. There for an instant she stopped to 
take breath ; but as if stung by the Furies, 
she pushed on again with almost superhuman 
strength. Clasping him round the waist and 
leaning his dead weight against the lintel of 
the door, she tried to undo the latch ; but now, 
just at this moment, a trembling faintness came 
over her, and a fearful dread took possession of 
her — that here, on the very threshold of her 
home, she might be found dead, and buried un- 
der the snow, when the farm-servants came in 
the morning. This terror stirred her up to 
one more effort. She and her companion were 
in the warmth of the quiet haven of that kitch- 
en ; she laid him on the settle, and sank on the 
floor by his side. How long she remained in 
swoon she could not tell ; not very long she 
judged by the fire, which was still red and sul- 
lenly glowing when she came to herself. She 
lighted the candle, and bent over her late bur- 
den to ascertain if indeed he were dead. She 
stood long gazing. The man lay dead. There 
could be no doubt about it. His filmy eyes 
glared at her, unshut. But Susan was not one 
to be affrighted by the stony aspect of death. 
It was not that; it was the bitter, woeful recog- 
nition of Michael Hurst. 

She was convinced he was dead ; but after a 
while she refused to believe in her conviction. 
She stripped off his wet outer-garments with 
trembling, hurried hands. She brought a blank- 
et down from her own bed ; she made up the 
fire. She swathed him up in fresh, warm wrap- 
pings, and laid him on the fags before the fire, 
sitting herself at his head, and holding it in her 
lap, while she tenderly wiped his loose, wet 
hair, curly still, although its color had changed 
from nut-brown to iron-gray since she had seen 
it last. From time to time she bent over the 
face afresh, sick and fain to believe that the 
flicker of the fire-light was some slight convul- 
sive motion. But the dim, staring eyes struck 
chill to her heart. At last she ceased her deli- 
cate busy cares, but she still held the head soft- 
ly, as if caressing it. She thought over all the 
possibilities and chances in the mingled yarn of 
their lives that might, by so slight a turn, have 
ended far otherwise. If her mother's cold had 
been early tended so that the responsibility as 
to her brother's weal or woe had not fallen upon 
her; if the fever had not taken such rough, 
cruel hold on Will; nay, if Mrs. Gale, that hard, 
worldly lister, had not accompanied him on his 
last vi.>it to Yew Nook— his very la.st before this 
fatal stormy night; if she had heard his cry — 
cry uttered by those pale, dead lips with such 
wild, despairing agony, not yet three hours ago ! 
Oh! if she had but heard it sooner, he might 
have been saved before that blind, false step 
had precipitated him down the rock ! In going 
over this weary chain of unrealized possibilities 
Vol. Xlf.— No. 68.— 



Susan learnt the force of Peggy's words. Life 
was short, looking back upon it. It seemed but 
yesterday since all the love of her being had 
been poured out, and run to waste. The inter- 
vening years — the long monotonous years that 
had turned her into an old woman before her 
time — were but a dream. 

The laborers coming in the dawn of the win- 
ter's day were surprised to see the fire-light 
through the low kitchen window. They knock- 
ed, and hearing a moaning answer, they enter- 
ed, fearing that something had befallen their 
mistress. For all explanation they got these 
words : 

"It is Michael Hurst. He was belated, and 
fell down the Raven's Crag. Where does Elea- 
nor, his wife, live ?" 

How Michael Hurst got to Yew Nook no one 
but Susan ever knew. They thought he had 
dragged himself there with some sore internal 
bruise sapping away his minuted life. They 
could not have believed the superhuman ex- 
ertion which had first sought him out, and then 
dragged him hither. Only Susan knew of that. 

She gave him into the charge of her servants, 
and went out and saddled her horse. Where 
the wind had drifted the snow on one side, and 
the road was clear and bare, she rode, and rode 
fast ; where the soft, deceitful heaps were massed 
up, she dismounted and led her steed, plunging 
in deep, with fierce energy, the pain at her heart 
urging her onward with a sharp, digging spur. 

The gray, solemn, winter's noon was more 
night-like than the depth of summer's night ; 
dim purple brooded the low skies over the white 
earth, as Susan rode up to what had been Mi- 
chael Hurst's abode while living. It was a small 
farm-house, carelessly kept outside, slatternly 
tended within. The pretty Nelly Hebthwaite 
was pretty still; her delicate face had never 
suffered from any long-enduring feeling. If 
any thing, its expression was that of plaintive 
sorrow ; but the soft, light hair had scarcely a 
tinge of gray, the wood-rose tint of complexion 
yet remained, if not so brilliant as in youth ; 
the straight nose, the small mouth were un- 
touched by time. Susan felt the contrast even 
at that moment. She knew that her own skin 
was weather-beaten, furrowed, brown — that her 
teeth were gone, and her hair gray and ragged. 
And yet she was not two years older than Nel- 
ly — she had not been in youth, when she took 
account of these things. Nelly stood wonder- 
ing at the strange-enough horsewoman, who 
stood and panted at the door, holding her 
horse's bridle, and refusing to enter. 

" Where is Michael Hurst ?" asked Susan, at 
last. 

"Well, I can't rightly say. He should have 
been at home hist night, but he was off seeing 
after a public-house to be let at Ulverstone, for 
our farm does not answer, and we were think- 
ing-" 

"He did not come home last night?" said 
Susan, cutting short the story, and half-affirm- 
ing, half-questioning by way of letting in a ray 



202 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



of the awful light before she let it full in, in its 
consuming wrath. 

" No ! he'll be stopping somewhere out Ul- 
verstone ways. I'm sure we've need of him at 
home, for I've no one but lile Tommy to help 
me tend the beasts. Things have not gone 
well with us, and we don't keep a servant now. 
But you're trembling all over, ma'am. You'd 
better come in, and take something warm, while 
your horse rests. That's the stable-door, to 
your left." 

Susan took her horse there ; loosened his 
girths, and rubbed him down with a wisp of 
straw. Then she looked about her for hay ; but 
the place was bare of food, and smelt damp and 
unused. She went to the house, thankful for 
the respite, and got some clap-bread, which she 
mashed up in a pailful of lukewarm water. 
Every moment was a respite, and yet every 
moment made her dread the more the task that 
lay before her. It would be longer than she 
thought at first. She took the saddle off, and 
hung about her horse, which seemed somehow 
more like a friend than any thing else in the 
world. She laid her cheek against its neck, 
and rested there, before returning to the house 
for the last time. 

Eleanor had brought down one of her own 
gowns, which hung on a chair against the fire, 
and had made her unknown visitor a cup of hot 
tea. Susan could hardly bear all these little 
attentions; they choked her, and yet she was 
so wet, so weak with fatigue and excitement 
that she could neither resist by word or by ac- 
tion. Two children stood awkwardly about, 
puzzled at the scene, and even Eleanor began 
to wish for some explanation of who her strange 
visitor was. 

"You've maybe heard him speak of me? 
I'm called Susan Dixon." 

Nelly colored, and avoided meeting Susan's 



"I've heard other folk speak of you. He 
never named your name." 

This respect of silence came like balm to 
Susan; balm not felt or heeded at the time it 
was applied, t>ut very grateful in its effects for 
all that. 

" He is at my house," continued Susan, de- 
termined not to stop or quaver in the operation 
— the pain which must be inflicted. 

"At your house? Yew Nook?" questioned 
Eleanor, surprised. "How came he there?" 
half-jealously. " Did he take shelter from the 
coming storm? Tell me — there is something 
— tell me, woman !" 

"He took no shelter. "Would to God he 
had P 

"Oh! would to God! would to God!" shrieked 
out Eleanor, learning all from the woeful im- 
port of those dreary eyes. Her cries thrilled 
through the house ^ the children's piping wail- 
ings and passionate cries on "Daddy ! Daddy !" 
pierced into Susan's very marrow. But she 
remained as still and tearless as the great round 
face upon the cloek. 



At last, in a lull of crying, she said — not ex- 
actly questioning — but as if partly to herself — 

" You loved him, then ?" 

"Love him! he was my husband! He was 
the father of three bonny bairns that lie dead 
in Grasmere Church-yard. I wish you'd go, 
Susan Dixon, and let me weep without your 
watching me ! I wish you'd never come near 
the place." 

" Alas ! alas ! it would not have brought him 
to life. I would have laid down my own to 
save his. My life has been so very sad ! No 
one would have cared if I had died. Alas! 
alas !" 

The tone in which she said this was so utter- 
ly mournful and despairing that it awed Nelly 
into quiet for a time. But by-and-by she said, 
" I would not turn a dog out to do it harm ; 
but the night is clear, and Tommy shall guide 
you to the Red Cow. But, oh ! I want to be 
alone. If you'll come back to-morrow, I'll be 
better, and I'll hear all, and thank you for every 
kindness you have shown him — and I do be- 
lieve you've showed him kindness — though I 
don't know why." 

Susan moved heavily and strangely. 

She said something — her words came thick 
and unintelligible. She had had a paralytic 
stroke since she had last spoken. She could 
not go, even if she would. Nor did Eleanor, 
Avhen she became aware of the state of the case, 
wish her to leave. She had her laid on her 
own bed, and weeping silently all the while for 
her lost husband, she nursed Susan like a sis- 
ter. She did not know what her guest's worldly 
position might be ; and she might never be re- 
paid. But she sold many a little trifle to pur- 
chase such small comforts as Susan might need. 
Susan, lying still and motionless, learnt much. 
It was not a severe stroke; it might be the 
forerunner of others yet to come, but at some 
distance of time. But for the present she re- 
covered, and regained much of her former 
health. On her sick bed she matured her 
plans. When she returned to Yew Nook, she 
took Michael Hurst's widow and children with 
her to live there, and fill up the haunted hearth 
with living forms that should banish the ghosts. 

And so it fell out that the latter days of Su- 
san Dixon's life were better than the former. 



THE WAY TO GET BLOWN UP. 

IT may be as well to state at once that the 
writer, being intensely practical and above 
a joke, uses the words " blown up" in a literal 
and not in a figurative sense. He makes the 
avowal in this place, lest any disappointed read- 
er, who had expected to find herein a discourse 
on wrath, should hereafter feel inclined to blow 
him up. 

It is with the physical operation of blowing 
people into air that he proposes to deal. The 
thing can be done, as the reader is doubtless 
aware, in a variety of ways. A man may take 
a state-room on board a Mississippi steamboat 
on a race day, and get blown up in the most 



THE WAY TO GET BLOWN UP. 



203 



thorough and satisfactory manner. Or he may- 
go to Sebastopol, and put his foot on a Russian 
Jbngasse, in which case the result, so far as his 
feelings are concerned, would be pretty much 
the same. Or he may imitate Jean Bart, and 
smoke a pipe on an open powder-keg, taking 
care to do what the Frenchman took care to 
avoid, namely, to drop a spark into the keg, 
which is a very neat and emphatic way of get- 
ting blown up. Or he may allow a little chlo- 
rine to be absorbed in a solution of sal ammoni- 
ac, and amuse himself by poking with a bit of 
India-rubber or a warm poker the yellow drops 
which are formed, and he will be blown a very 
long way up in a remarkably short space of 
time. Or he may throw a wine-glass of water 
into the stream of molten copper which pours 
from a smelting furnace, and hold his head over 
the stream to see the effect; in which case he 
may not go far, but he is likely to travel several 
ways at once in detachments. Or he may try 
the experiment of holding a lighted candle to 
a jet of carbureted hydrogen in some subter- 
ranean cave, which is perhaps the poorest way 
of getting blown up, though it has been known 
to answer very thoroughly. 

Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that the 
art of blowing men up has been brought to its 
final perfection. Quite the contrary. The ex- 
plosive science is yet in its infancy, though phi- 
losophers have studied it for centuries. The 
walls of Jericho were blown up, or rather blown 
down in the year before Christ one thousand 
four hundred fifty-one ; in the year of grace 
one thousand eight hundred fifty-six the Rus- 
sians and the Allies do not seem able to blow 
each other up, blow they never so strongly. 

It is perhaps a mistake to allude to the case 
of Jericho, as many of the most orthodox com- 
mentators reject the idea of Joshua's having 
been favored by a revelation of an explosive 
agent, and consider the catastrophe as a naked 
miracle. Happily we do not need to rely on 
this case to prove the antiquity of the explosive 
business. Long before Joshua, nay, before the 
flood, before the time when Adam and his hap- 
py family were the sole tenants of the earth, the 
explosive power of gunpowder was thoroughly 
tested and proved. Any incredulous person 
who may feel disposed to question this in- 
dubitable fact, the writer begs to refer to the 
chronicle of the wars of the angels, by that ve- 
racious historian, Mr. John Milton. His testi- 
mony is precise. Speaking of Satan and his 
engineers, he says : 

"Sulphurous and nitrous foam 
They found, they mingled, and with subtle art 
Concocted and adusted, they reduced 
To blackest grain, and into store conveyed" — 

The proportions are not given, but the method is 
unexceptionable. Then as to the tools, they had 

"hollow engines, long and round, 

Thick rammed, at the other bore with touch of fire 
Dilated and infuriate." 

Something like the old bell-mouthed bombards, 
probably. Their projectiles were a 



" devilish glut, chained thunder-bolts and hail 

Of iron globes." 

In other words, round-shot, grape, and chain- 
shot. It may be a question whether the some- 
what loose expression, "devilish glut," will 
cover shells ; the epithet is undeniably appro- 
priate, but " glut" is very vague. The Right 
Reverend Dr. Pangloss has argued with great 
force that shells were unknown to the Satanic 
artillerymen, and that they blew up nothing but 
an occasional gun of their own by over-charg- 
ing it. 

The antediluvian origin of the explosive art 
being thus established, it becomes proper to in- 
quire how far it was understood and practiced 
by the profane nations of antiquity. Within 
the memory of persons not extravagantly aged, 
it was usual to say that explosions dated from 
the discovery of gunpowder by old Bartholet 
Schwartz, the Cordelier, who lighted upon the 
"devilish secret" when he ought to have been 
reading his breviary. But latterly the skeptical 
spirit of the age has rebelled against the claims 
of the black monk, and of his contemporaries 
generally. Mr. Ewbank, among others, has ar- 
gued very ingeniously that the bulk of the myth- 
ological heroes may have been nothing more 
than men of unusual scientific attainments, and 
the mythological monsters mere machines con- 
trived by them for the purpose of levying black- 
mail, and rendered formidable by the use of 
explosive and combustible compounds. It is 
quite easy to understand how, in a barbarous 
age, a slender knowledge of chemistry may have 
enabled a shrewd knave to appear to work mir- 
acles, and terrify the rest of mankind. The 
Colchian bulls, for instance, which belched 
flame and dashed to pieces with a roaring noise 
all who attempted to ravish the golden fleece, 
what were they but a rude species of spring-gun 
or infernal machine ? So Typhon, the monster 




***** 

FIEE-I5EHATIIING MONSTEB. 



204 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




A CYCLOP. 



with many heads, from whose eyes and mouth 
gushed hissing streams of devouring fire, may 
have been nothing more than a mortar of ec- 
centric form, charged with some explosive sub- 
stance, and fired off at the great warriors, 
Jupiter, Mercury, Apollo, etc., by their more 
scientific adversaries. The Cyclops, who are 
represented as men of gigantic stature, with 
misshapen limbs and a single eye in the centre 
of the forehead, were killed by Apollo, we are 
told, because they hurled Jove's thunder-bolts 
at Esculapius and killed him ; shall we say that 
Vulcan, or some other ingenious mechanic or 
wizard of the ante-historical age, made huge 
fire-blowing automata, whose vent was com- 
pared by the terrified men of that day to a 
round eve, and that they dealt death to all 
who opposed them, till Captain Apollo, of 
the Olympic Voltigeurs, captured and broke 
them up? 

This is a simpler way, at all events, of ex- 
plaining these monsters than to regard them as 
mere creatures of the imagination. Men who, 
like the Egyptian magicians, could by sleight 
of hand appear to turn rods into serpents, may 
certainly be supposed to have known something 
about chemistry; and the contrivers of so as- 
tute a swindle as the oracle at Delphi, must 
have been quite competent to pass off a hand 
grenade for a god. The notion that the myth- 
ical king of Rome — Numa Pompilius — was ac- 
quainted with gunpowder, and that his succes- 
sor, Tullus Hostilius, blew himself up in trying 
to make it, may be destitute of truth ; but in 
later times, when the art of cookery was car- 



ried to such perfection, both at Athens and 
Rome, it is not reasonable to suppose that no 
one of the many known explosive compounds 
was brought to light. 

Still, it appears certain that none of them 
were used by the Greeks or Romans in war. 
The terrible machines which frightened the 
Romans at Syracuse and enabled Archimedes 
to defend the city for so many months, were 
prodigies of mechanical science ; but chemistry 
seems to have had no part in their construction. 
Nor would any writer have circulated the story 
that Hannibal blew up the rocks on the Alps 
by heating them and pouring cold vinegar on 
them, if the military uses of explosive com- 
pounds had been known. 

In this respect the barbarians of the Middle 
Ages seem to have been in advance of their 
more civilized predecessors. Prester John, we 
are told, practiced the art of blowing men up 
with marked success. He had a number of 
"copper images of men" cast, and mounted 
upon horses, probably of the same material. 
Within the image was concealed a quantity of 
combustible and explosive materials, which, 
when ignited, emitted deadly fumes, and pos- 
sibly solids. When Prester John was attacked 
by the Mongols, he marshaled his brazen men 
in front of their flesh-and-blood comrades ; at 
the word of attack the match was applied, and 
they charged furiously into the Mongol ranks, 
spitting flame and poisonous gas on all sides. 
"Whereby," says the naif old chronicler, " many 
were slain, others took to sudden flight, and 
great numbers were burnt to ashes." 



THE WAY TO GET BLOWN UP. 



205 




A similar contriv- 
ance is said by Saxo 
Grammaticus to have 
been used by a king 
of the Goths, against 
whom his two sons 
had rebelled. The 
old Goth, it seems, 
dispensed with the 
brazen men, and stuff- 
ed his " infernal mix- 
tures" into the belly 
of horses mounted on 
wheeled platforms. 
These horses had 
holes in their heads 
to represent eyes, 
nostrils, and mouth, 
through which flames 
and smoke issued. 
When the two rebel- 
lious youths appear- 
ed, their cunsing old 

parpnt gave them a hot reception by driving 
these animals at them; they could not endure 
the scorching blast, and fled in dire confusion, 
leaving many of their men asphyxiated or 
burnt to death on the field of battle. 

We know nothing of the nature of the " in- 
fernal mixtures" with which these automata 
were charged. It has been suggested that 
Greek fire was used in this way. It seems 
pretty certain that the ships of war in the Mid- 
dle Ages were provided with immense squirts, 
which were used to deluge the adversary's ves- 
sel with streams of this terrible liquid ; and occa- 
sionally tubes for spitting it were used by soldiers 
on land. Yet Greek fire could hardly be classed 
as an explosive, if the recipes given by the old 
writers for its manufacture were authentic. One 
of them is in Latin verse. It runs thus : 

"Aspaltum, nepta, dragantum, pix quoque Grseca, 
Sulphur, vernicis, de petrolio quoque vitro, 
Mercurii, sal gemmae Graeci dicitur ignis." 




GOTUIC FIEE-HOE8E8. 



PEE8TEE JOHN'S aetilleey. 

Another, very similar, reads as follows : 

" Take of pulverized rosin, sulphur, and pitch, equal 
parts: one-fourth of opopanax and of pigeon's dung well 
dried, dissolved in turpentine water, or oil of sulphur ; 
then put into a strong close glass vessel, and heat for fif- 
teen days in an oven ; after which distill the whole after 
the manner of spirits of wine, and keep for use." 

A mixture of this kind burnt all the better 
when brought into contact with water, and must 
have been a fearful missile. Vitriol bottles, of 
Milesian notoriety, could not compare with it. 

Greek fire led naturally to gunpowder, which 
must, of course, have been invented independ- 
ently by scores of chemists, if it was not im- 
ported into Europe by the navigators who visit- 
ed China. Not a few sedulous seekers for the 
philosopher's stone must have blown themselves 
up long before the siege of Algeciras, or the 
wars of the Genoese. It might have been sup- 
posed that this new explosive agent would have 
met with great success among people who had 

been used to scorch, 
burn, and asphyxiate 
one another. But so 
far from this being the 
case, the priests de- 
nounced gunpowder as 
cruel, and an obvious 
invention of the devil ; 
and kings and gener- 
als fought shy of it. 
Champions dared each 
other with the naked 
steel. So much pre- 
judice of one kind or 
another was arrayed 
against it that it was 
not till nearly two 
hundred years after 
its discovery tliat salt- 
petre became the god 
of war. Huge can- 
non, firing stone balls 



206 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



of a couple of hundred pounds weight, and 
muskets which were very likely to be the death 
of their bearer, and very unlikely to harm any 
one else, were for a long time the only adapta- 
tion of the new discovery. 

At last, in the year of the discovery of Ja- 
maica by Columbus, a Dutchman invented the 
bomb — the crowning achievement of the explo- 
sive art. Petards, grenades, and mines follow- 
ed, and people began to be blown up on scien- 
tific principles. Guy Fawkes became possible, 
in a word. 

It was in 1605 that he demonstrated the pos- 
sibility of blowing up a government, and indi- 
rectly a nation, with thirty barrels of the " devil's 
snuff." And whether his little experiment was 
held to demonstrate that the explosive proper- 
ties of nitre, sulphur, and saltpetre were equal 
to the demand — or people turned their attention 
to more useful pursuits — for nearly another 
couple of centuries the explosive art remained 
stationary. 

Gunpowder was not, even in Guy Fawkes's 
time, the only explosive agent known. Beck- 
man assures us that the fulminate of gold was 
discovered by a monk in the fifteenth century. 
This substance, which explodes more rapidly, 
and with greater local force than gunpowder, is 
made by precipitating a solution of chloride of 
gold by an excess of ammonia. It was handed 
down by tradition from chemist to chemist ; 
the memory of it being kept alive by an oc- 
casional explosion from time to time, which 
established the power of the compound at the 
expense of the life of the philosopher. If the 
chemists and professional man-killers had pre- 
served a monopoly of it, it would never have 
done much damage. But, unfortunately, it fell 
into the hands of the clergy about the beginning 
of this century, and was, of course, turned to 
account. The Rev. Mr. Forsyth discovered that 
by treating mercury as the old monk had treat- 
ed gold, an equally powerful, and far less ex- 
pensive, fulminate might be made. This he 
mixed with six times its weight of nitre, and 
the result was the percussion powder, which, in 
the form of paste, constitutes the essential por- 
tion of percussion-caps. 

Public attention thus directed once more to 
the business of blowing men up, Sir William 
Congreve invented his rockets, and tried them 
on the French. He proposed to burn and blow 
up cities, forts, ships, regiments. Shells and 
shot, ball and carcasses, he could project them 
all, and so forcibly — the rocket itself containing 
the projecting agent — that for a time it seemed 
that rockets were going to supersede cannon. 
At the siege of Flushing, where he tried his 
rockets, the French commandant's feelings were 
so much hurt by the unfair advantage they gave 
to the enemy, that he sent to the English gen- 
eral to remonstrate against the use of such in- 
fernal weapons. The Englishman replied, and 
rightly too, that if the object of war was man- 
killing, the speediest and most comprehensive 
mode of attaining that end was the best. So 



he persevered in firing rockets, and in course 
of time the French and all other nations adopt- 
ed them. Now they are one of the most use- 
ful branches of ordnance— though Sir William 
Congrcve's idea of firing rockets weighing half 
a ton, and containing six barrels of gunpowder, 
which would make a breach in a wall in half a 
dozen shots, has never been realized. 

It was the age of the Napoleon wars, and in- 
genious men were intent on finding new modes 
of extinguishing life by wholesale. Robert Ful- 
ton announced that he could blow up a ship, 
with all hands, by means of a patent nautilus. 
He did, in fact, construct a species of diving- 
boat, which could be propelled under water ; in 
this he proposed to sail at a considerable depth 
below the surface to the bottom of the ship he 




A TOEPEDO EXPLODING UNDER A SHrP. 

intended to destroy. When he touched he? 
keel his plan was to fasten to it a machine fill- 
ed with the most terrible explosive substances 
known, to which fire was to be communicated 
by means of a fuse. The plan was tried, but 
never succeeded, from obvious reasons. Ful- 
ton made various experiments in France ; then 
returned home, and published a tract on the 
subject, which has served as a guide-book to all 
subsequent manufacturers of torpedoes. 

In the last war with England they were tried 
here. Before the war broke out, Congress had 
voted $5000 to Fulton to enable him to make 
them ; and during the cruise of the British fleet 
on the coast, frequent attempts were made to 
blow it up with similar weapons. They inva- 
riably failed from the impossibility of steering 
them to the vessel they were intended to de- 
stroy. 

More recently the Russians, at Cronstadt t 
have tried various kinds of marine torpedoes. 
Some of them have been fished up and exam- 
ined ,• a ship or two has received a shock now 
and then from venturing too near the batteries j 



THE WAY TO GET BLOWN UP. 



207 



one of the machines nearly cost an over-curi- 
ous British Admiral his life. They all, so far 
as they are known, resemble Fulton's, inas- 
much as they are vessels filled with explosive 
substances, which require to be placed in con- 
tact with the ship to do mischief; and all have 
failed from the same cause as his — the im- 
possibility of directing them with accuracy. It 
is understood that the commonest form of Rus- 
sian torpedo is submerged and connected with 
a wire, or trigger, against which the allied ves- 
sels must necessarily strike if they attempt to 
sail toward Cronstadt. Pressure on the wire will 
explode the torpedo, and if the ship happens to 
be within reach, it may receive a rude shock. 
Another Russian torpedo is said to be connected 
with an electric battery ; it would be exploded, 
by means of a spark, as soon as the enemy's keel 
touched it. But neither of these projects ap- 
pears very formidable. Nothing would be easier 
than to blow up a ship by means of a submarine 
shell : this the recent submarine blasting oper- 
ations prove conclusively; but, like the salt 
which little boys try vainly to put on the tails of 
cocksparrows, the difficulty is to fasten the shell. 

Some ten or twelve years ago, Captain War- 
ner announced that he had invented a shell 
which would blow up any ship at a distance of 
five miles. The British government gave him 
a ship to try, and he blew her up very com- 
pletely. Unfortunately he had thought fit to 
visit her a few minutes before the explosion ; 
and the presumption was very strong that he 
had quietly lit a long fuse which communicated 
with a couple of barrels of gunpowder on board. 
The experience of the present war proves pretty 
decisively that so far as naval operations are 
concerned nothing better than the old powder, 
ball, and shells — improved and amended, ac- 
cording to our modern lights — has yet been dis- 
covered; painful as the reflection is, we must 
acknowledge that we are not much ahead of 
Guy Fawkes. 

On land various new explosive apparatuses 
have been invented. Monsieur Jobard, of 
Brussels, some time since devised a shell, 
which was to be filled with fulminate of mer- 
cury, and was to explode with such force as to 
knock a tower to pieces. But it has so often 
happened that these extra-terrible explosives 
have victimized their friends instead of their 
enemies, that we need not be surprised to find 
that M. Jobard's destroyer does not figure in 
the list of ordnance used at Sebastopol. In 
the heat and hurry of a bombardment it would 
be in the highest degree dangerous to use these 
fearful fulminates in quantities sufficient to pro- 
duce any startling results. 

When the Russians evacuated Sebastopol, 
they undermined their principal works, and 
laid fougasses to blow up the invaders. One 
of these terrible mines exploded on the 28th 
September, and tore a hole in the earth twenty 
feet deep and as many wide, killing and wound- 
ing a vast number of the allied soldiers. The 
catastrophe led to a close examination of other 



localities, and a large number of similar fou- 
gasses were discovered in time to save the Allies 
from their effects. In all of them, it appears 
the explosive agent used was gunpowder. A 
quantity of gunpowder was buried in the usual 
manner ; from this a train was laid to a depos- 
it of mixed chlorate of potash and pulverized 
white sugar ; and above this was placed a very 
thin glass vessel containing sulphuric acid. In 
contact with the vessel, and resting upon it, was 
a wooden peg, the end of which protruded 
above the soil, and offered an inviting resting- 
place for the foot. But woe to him who trod 
on it! The peg broke the glass vessel; the 
sulphuric acid poured down upon the chlorate 
of potash and sugar ; combustion took place, 
and in less time than it takes to read these 
lines the mine exploded, and all who were 
within 200 yards of the spot were either blown 
up or saluted with a fragment of stone or wood. 

It will at once occur to those who take an 
interest in such subjects, that the improvements 
to be made in the explosive art will be wrought 
by means of the electric fluid. Isolated elec- 
tric wires can now be laid for any distance, 
either in the earth or under water ; with their 
aid mines may be exploded at far greater dis- 
tances than can ever be required in actual war- 
fare. For instance, it would have been quite 
possible for the Russians to lay submarine wires 
across the bay of Sebastopol, and by their means 
to explode mines under every building in the 
city, while the authors of the explosion were 
securely under cover in the northern forts at 
three or four miles' distance. The experiment 
was tried on a small scale at the Malakoff; but 
the French providentially happened to scrape up 
the earth in order to extinguish a fire which had 
been kindled too near the magazine, and thus 
the wires were brought to light and cut. Had 
Prince Gortschakoff foreseen in time his retreat 
from the city, it is hardly to be doubted but he 
would in every case have substituted mines 
communicating with electric batteries for the 
common fougasses. In future, it may be ex- 
pected that this mode of destroying fortresses 
which are evacuated will be universally em- 
ployed. A few barrels of powder, and a few 
miles of wire, carefully laid at a safe depth be- 
neath the surface of the soil, will suffice to make 
the capture of any fort a loss rather than a gain 
to the captors. 

Where no previous communication has been 
had with the place to be destroyed, electricity 
can hardly be of much service. An army en- 
camped before a city, or a fleet riding before a 
seaport, is reduced to the old process of bom- 
bardment with rocket, shell, and ball, to be fol- 
lowed by an assault with immense loss of life. ' 
To facilitate matters in this class of cases, some 
improvement on Jobard's shell may possibly be 
looked for. None of the fulminates can be 
used in a gun as a substitute for powder, for 
the simple reason that their explosive power 
radiates equally on all sides whatever be the re- 
sistance, and would thus blow the gun itself to 



208 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



atoms without projecting the ball very far. But 
there seems to be no good reason why they 
should not be used in rocket-heads, or even in 
shells of enormous size. Jobard stated that 
two pounds of fulminate of mercury, or ful- 
minate silver, lodged in the side of a ship, would 
infallibly blow her to pieces ; and half a dozen 
such shots lodged in the stoutest earth-work, 
would knock it completely out of shape. If 
the European war continues, we may expect to 
hear that experiments, at all events, have been 
made with these terrible weapons. 

Lord Dundonald says he has a scheme by 
means of which he can take Cronstadt without 
losing a man. It is supposed that it consists in 
the use of a shell on the plan of the globes in- 
vented by Professor Bunsen some ten years ago. 
Bunsen's globes were made of glass, and con- 
tained a liquid called cacodyl, of which the 
component parts were the same as those of 
common alcohol, except that arsenic was substi- 
tuted for oxygen. The calculation was, that 
when one of these globes was thrown into the 
port-hole of a vessel, the glass would break, 
the liquid would ignite and burn every thing 
it touched ; while from the flame arsenical 
fumes would be generated, which it would be 
certain death to inhale. It is conjectured 
that Lord Dundonald has invented a shell, 
loaded with cacodyl or some analagous sub- 
stance, and that he calculates to poison the 
defenders of Cronstadt with its fumes. Hither- 
to the British Government have declined his 
patriotic offers ; possibly, the moderate results 
which the two last expeditions to the Baltic 
have attained may induce the allied chiefs to 
give Lord Dundonald a little more attention 
this winter. If the Russians are to be killed, it 
matters not whether the killing be done with 
shot, steel, or arsenic ; the most effective weap- 
on is, in every case, the most humane in the end. 



BABY BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS. 

L— CHARLES FORREST, ESQ., ATTORNEY-AT- 
LAW. 

AT the close of a freezing December day, 
Charles Forrest, Esq., Attorn ey-at-Law and 
Commissioner of Deeds for the States of, etc., 
etc., was sitting in his fourth-story office be- 
fore a meagre fire, engaged in the profitable or 
unprofitable occupation of reflecting. The ob- 
long strip of blue-sanded board upon which the 
above-mentioned indication of the young gen- 
tleman's profession was furnished in gilt letters, 
appeared by no means to prove that he had 
been for a lengthy period "at the bar;" and 
yet the " shingle," in professional parlance, was 
not entirely new. It was much such a sign as 
might have been expected under the circum- 
stances ; had indeed hung there exposed to the 
weather just six months ; and this was the ex- 
act and actual term of Mr. Charles Forrest's 
legal experience. 

As the wind blew more and more drearily, 
making the sign creak upon its hinges, and 
threatening every moment to precipitate it into 



the white bed of fast-falling snow upon the 
door-step, the occupant of the chamber rose 
from his seat and looked around him. It was 
a pleasant face to look upon, the face of Charles 
Forrest, Esq., with its open, frank expression, 
the short chestnut curls framing the healthful 
cheeks, and the smile which seemed habitually 
to dwell upon the lips. This smile became very 
distinctly marked as the young man looked 
around him, dwelling for a moment upon each 
article of furniture in the bare and comfortless 
apartment ; on the dusty table, piled with law- 
books displayed with ostentatious intrusiveness, 
and the bundles of doubtful-looking papers tied 
carefully with red tape, and the forlorn broom 
reposing in a corner beside the plain case con- 
taining a few old volumes and newspapers. 

The gaze of the young man rested curious- 
ly upon these objects one after another, and 
then with a laugh which terminated in some- 
thing very like a sigh, he resumed his seat 
again — which seat was the sole and only rock- 
ing-chair in the apartment — and betook him- 
self anew to a contemplation of the gradually 
expiring fire in the old grate. 

"Well," he said at last, in a half-audible 
tone, " matters are growing complicated, and it 
seems to me that prospects for the future are 
not brilliant. This is certainly not precisely 
what I imagined for myself when I left Shady 
Oaks and came to town. I thought at that re- 
mote period of my existence that the world was 
a place uncommonly full of flowers, and that 
my chief occupation in life— in fact, the duty 
to which I was called — was simply to pluck the 
flowers. I had unusually splendid visions ; real 
Arabian Nights' visions ! I thought the Grand 
Vizier would come and tell me that the Caliph 
requested me to accept, as a personal favor to 
himself, the hand of his only daughter, the 
Princess Beautiful 1" 

The smile with which these words com- 
menced here gave place to an undeniable sigh. 

" The Princess Beautiful !" he continued. "I 
am acquainted with a young lady answering to 
that description, but it really does seem to me 
that I am neither expected nor desired to es- 
pouse her !" 

The young man paused in his soliloquy, and 
a sad shadow passed over his brow and dimmed 
the light of his eyes. He remained for a time 
silent and motionless, paying no attention ap- 
parently to the wind cutting its antics without, 
or to the driving snow, or the forlorn creaking 
of the melancholy sign. He was aroused at 
last, however, by the sound of martial music, 
proceeding probably from a band returning after 
committing to earth some member of the order 
of masons or other fraternity. The music was 
loud and jubilant ; and when the wind shifted 
and blew from the proper quarter, the tune 
played by the band was distinctly heard, like a 
loud gush of harmony. 

" Good news from home !" said Mr. Charles 
Forrest, sighing. " What have I got to do with 
any thing of that sort? They're all well at 



BABY BEKTIE'S CHRISTMAS. 



209 



Shady Oaks I know, and that's very good news 
from home ; but beyond that there is nothing. 
If I could only get some good news from what 
1 home' used to be, when Helen and myself had 
not had our unhappy misunderstanding ! Every 
thing was bright between us then, and if any 
body had said we would now be on terms of ac- 
tual constraint, I would have laughed at them. 
I love her more than ever — and I have the right 
to love her! She has been more to me than 
any one but my mother, and there is not a love- 
lier character in the wide world. Oh, why has 
this miserable society made us change toward 
each other! I will not let myself think for a 
moment that the lovely girl who made every 
one devoted to her when she came to see us at 
Shady Oaks, can have had her feelings changed 
toward me by my ill success in my profession. 
Yet I could not blame her," continued the young 
man sighing, and looking round at the cheerless 
apartment; "this would be a pretty place to 
bring a delicate and tenderly nurtured girl. I 
am like the poor poet I read about in a news- 
paper the other day, sitting on his stool, 'poor 
fool, on his three-legged stool,' in his freezing 
garret. The writer says he was destitute and 
sorrowing, though 

' His great thoughts had moved them, 
Moved millions to tears, 
Through years, 
To joy and to tears.' 

I have never yet given utterance to any ' great 
thoughts' that I am aware of, and therefore I 
am worse off than the poor poet !" 

Having come to this melancholy conclusion, 
Mr. Charles Forrest smiled, in spite of the sad re- 
sult of his logic, and looked out of the window. 

As he did so, a knock at the door attracted 
his attention, and the next moment a note was 
handed him, the bearer of which disappeared 
with a bow. He opened it and found that it 
contained a request on the part of Miss Helen 
Burnaby, that he would come up that evening 
and spend the same with a few friends — social- 
ly. Mr. Charles Forrest turned the note over 
and over, smiled, sighed, re-read, read it again, 
folded it, opened it a second time, again read 
it, and ended by placing it in his private port- 
folio, among his most precious archives. The 
manner in which he performed these different 
ceremonies would have clearly indicated to an 
astute observer, that any thing upon which the 
hand of the fair writer had rested was hence- 
forth sacred in his eyes. 

The young man at once proceeded to the 
small adjoining room, which served as his bed- 
chamber; and making an elaborate toilet, which 
nevertheless dealt in nothing gaudy, or ex- 
ceeding the bounds of the most severe good 
taste, wrapped his cloak around him, went out, 
and took his way toward the residence of Miss 
Helen Burnaby. 

II.— THE COUNSEL FOR THE PLAINTIFF URGES 
HIS SUIT. 

About a dozen persons were assembled at 

Mr. Burnaby 's elegant mansion on Street, 



and Mr. Charles Forrest counted almost the 
whole company among his intimate friends. 
He very soon found himself, after paying nu- 
merous compliments in his passage, by the side 
of Helen Burnaby. She was a fresh-looking 
and attractive young lady, with fine dark eyes, 
hair like the wing of a raven, and " coral lips," 
which had a great tendency, it would seem, to 
satirize the object of their mistress's dislike. 
Helen seemed to be one of those sensible and 
rational young ladies who look at things in 
their real light without the least inclination to- 
ward romance and poetry ; and yet there was a 
world of good feeling and kindness in her eyes, 
which indicated a warm and affectionate na- 
ture. Charles Forrest and herself were cousins, 
and had been brought up together, it might al- 
most be said. Helen had gone every year, 
from her earliest childhood, to spend the sum- 
mer months at Shady Oaks, the estate of the 
Forrests, and Charles had frequently accom- 
panied her back to town, and staid for several 
weeks at Mr. Burnaby's. They had been com- 
panions in all the merry sports of childhood in 
the country, and were called " sweethearts" by 
the town children when Charles visited Helen's ; 
and at last this verdict of the little town misses 
became very nearly the fact. Helen certainly 
had a very great affection for her young cousin 
and playmate, whose arm had supported her so 
often in their rambles, and whose frank and 
open character was perfectly well known to her. 
As he grew into a fine young fellow, and she 
ripened more and more into a blooming maiden, 
this affection increased, and finally when the time 
for Charles to go to college arrived, the feelings 
of the young man became the deep and earnest 
passion of the lover. They parted without any 
mutual explanations, however, and Charles had 
only chance looks and affectionate words to build 
implicit hopes upon. That he had not " spoken" 
was attributable to his modest and unpretending 
nature — in truth, he had not had the courage to 
place his whole happiness upon one throw of 
the dice. He felt that if he were mistaken in 
attributing to Helen an affection for himself 
such as he felt for her, and she were to listen 
to his avowal, and declare herself unable to 
return his love, that from this moment every 
thing would be changed between them, their 
old intimacy and familiarity be destroyed, and 
their relations all cooled and injured. He had, 
therefore, gone away with a last look, in which 
he endeavored to tell her, as far as possible, his 
feelings, and a last clasp of her hand, which he 
made very tender ; and so had betaken himself 
to his studies. He chose the law for his profes- 
sion on leaving college, and came to practice in 
the city where Mr. Burnaby resided. 

Helen met him with all her old cordiality 
and affection, and for a time the young man 
reveled in the idea that she returned his own 
feelings perfectly. He was soon doomed to see 
a change, however, in Helen's demeanor to- 
ward him. As interview after interview took 
place, and he grew wanner and warmer in his 



210 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



feelings and the exhibition of them, Helen 
grew cooler and cooler. She was no longer 
the same affectionate and familiar companion ; 
and, one by one, she denied him all the priv- 
ileges he had begun to enjoy. When he asked 
her to accompany him to a concert, she had 
some ready excuse to offer for refusing ; if he 
asked her to permit him to escort her to a party 
which he knew she meant to attend, she had 
already secured a cavalier; finally, he fojmd 
himself received as a stranger, with a " not at 
home" when he made a call in the morning. 
Helen seemed resolutely bent upon not seeing 
him alone, and met him as seldom as possible 
in the presence of others. We have heard the 
comments of the young man upon this state of 
affairs between them ; and this was the position 
of the parties toward each other on the evening 
when she invited him to her father's, doubtless 
from a sentiment of propriety, and the fear 
that an opposite course would seem strange. 

When the young man approached her, she 
was talking with a fashionably-clad gentleman, 
of foppish manners and elaborate elegance. 
Tom Vane was decidedly a dangerous rival, 
with his ten thousand a year, his assiduous at- 
tentions, and studied elegances of conversation 
and deportment. Charles found himself en- 
gaged in the despondent amusement of compar- 
ing himself with this brilliant light of fashion, 
and was obliged to make an effort to look and 
speak in a tone of self-possession and uncon- 
cern. 

"Mr. Vane and myself were talking of the 
weather," said Helen, after returning the young 
man's salutation ; " it is a very useful subject to 
commence with." 

"I'm sure I am delighted to converse with 
you on any subject," said the elegant Tom Vane, 
in a gallant tone. 

Helen smiled in recognition of this obvious 
compliment, and said : 

" You were well wrapped up, I hope, cousin 
Charles ; this weather is terrible for influenzas 
and sore throat." 

" I hope to escape them," was the smiling re- 
ply. "I have a very warm over-coat, which 
serves me excellently in default of better ways 
of keeping warm," 

" Are there better ways ?" 

The young man nodded, and said : 

" I was thinking of an old sawyer I met near 
your door, an acquaintance of mine, who seem- 
ed to suffer from the heat, inasmuch as his coat 
was off." 

"Oh yes ! old Obadiah ! I know him very 
well — do you?" 

"He makes my fires, and attends to the of- 
fice?" 

" Does he ? He is a very pleasant old man, 
and I like him very much. He saws a good 
deal of wood for us, as papa likes an old-fash- 
ioned country log-fire in his study." 

Helen turned to Mr. Vane as she thus term- 
inated the matter-of-fact conversation, in which 
that elegant gentleman in vain tried to intro- 



duce a word. Old Obadiah was apparently out 
of his sphere ; and his ideas, accustomed to re- 
volve around parties, concerts, waltzes, and the 
beau-monde generally, with difficulty descended 
to the subject of wood-sawyers and shirt-sleeves. 
A few minutes afterward Mr. Tom Vane had 
glided to the side of a new acquaintance, asked 
her to favor him with a song, and led her in 
triumph to the piano, which she immediately 
attacked in the most furious manner, accom- 
panying the assault with a torturing scream, 
degenerating occasionally into a growl. 

Helen and Charles were left alone, as it were, 
and as every one knows, the music increased the 
solitude. We need not say that it is possible to 
say the most private things in the largest as- 
sembly, if there is noise enough around the 
speakers. 

"You referred to the old-fashioned log-fires 
of the country, Helen," said the young man; 
" don't you like them too ?" 

" Oh yes, very much !" said the young lady, 
arranging her sleeve. 

"Do you ever recollect the happy days we 
spent at Shady Oaks a long time ago?" con- 
tinued Charles, gazing with sad tenderness on 
the face of his companion. 

"Yes," she replied, looking him tranquilly in 
the eyes, " of course I recollect the merry times 
we had there, all of us — Anna Clayton and all 
of us. Have you spoken to her this evening? 
You know she is staying with me now. She is 
very pretty ; look as she turns her head." 

The young man sighed. It seemed impossi- 
ble to make a chord in Helen's bosom respond 
to his touch. His own heart was filled with 
happy and tender recollections of old days, 
when they sported at Shady Oaks ; and when 
he endeavored to communicate some of this 
feeling to Helen she began to talk upon indif- 
ferent subjects — to divert the conversation to 
Miss Anna Clayton and her head-dress. 

Miss Anna Clayton was indeed looking to- 
ward them, and now exchanged a smiling salu- 
tation with Charles — after which, as he turned 
again to Helen, she continued to look at them, 
The young man sat for some moments silent, 
gazing at the floor absently : then he said, witli 
an imperceptible sigh, 

" Helen, I am afraid you have lost all your 
regard for me, and forgotten our friendship. 
Our relations have in some way changed since 
my return from college, and you seem to look 
upon me as an ordinary acquaintance, and al- 
most as a stranger at times." 

" Oh no, indeed I do not !" said the young 
lady, with a sudden animation which seemed 
to indicate that the accusation gave her pain. 
But this animation disappeared almost imme- 
diately, and she added, almost coldly, 

" You have no reason to think that our friend- 
ship has diminished — at least on my part." 

"No reason! Oh, Helen! how can you be 
so cruel as to tell me that you never did like my 
society? You almost repulse me when I ap- 
proach you, and when I complain, you say that 



BABY BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS. 



211 



you never had for me any sentiment warmer 
than this would indicate. You pain and wound 
me." 

There was so much earnestness and sadness 
in the tone of these words, that a slight blush 
came to the young girl's cheeks, and for a mo- 
ment she gazed at her companion with an ex- 
pression which made his heart leap. 

" Oh, Helen !" he said, as the music again 
rose, drowning his voice, " what has happened 
to cause this misunderstanding between us? 
It makes me unhappy and wretched to think 
that our kindness and good feeling — our friend- 
ship, which has lasted from our very childhood, 
should be interrupted." 

" It is not interrupted, I hope," she said, in a 
low voice, and turning away with a flush in her 
cheeks as she spoke. 

" Why then treat me thus ?" he said, with an 
expression of pain. 

"It is your imagination; that is — " she said, 
in an altered voice — "you must not think that 
any thing has occurred to change my feelings 
toward you." 

"But something must have occurred," he 
said, obstinately ; "you no longer meet me and 
speak to me as you used to. Helen, this has 
been the cause of more unhappiness to me than 
any other event of my life. Oh ! I can not bear 
to think that you have lost your regard for your 
old playmate. You do not know my feelings 
toward you," the young man added, carried 
away by his feverish emotion; "I have never 
spoken of them ; but you must have known that 
you were more to me than any other woman in 
the world — " 

As he spoke the young girl turned completely 
away from him, and had not the attention of 
the company been absorbed by the performer 
at the piano, they must have observed and won- 
dered at the deep blush which suffused the coun- 
tenance of Helen. 

Charles felt that he had now advanced too 
far to recede ; and in spite of the unfitness of 
the occasion, his emotion drove him onward, 
and compelled him to give utterance to his 
thoughts and feelings. 

"I thought at one time," he said, in a low 
voice of great emotion, " that you felt toward 
me as I did toward you, Helen. We had been 
friends and playmates so long, and had shared 
every feeling so constantly, that I thought you 
shared this too. Since I have been back from 
college your demeanor has changed ; you treat 
me almost coldly. Helen, I can not endure 
this any longer — it makes me wretched. I can 
not think of any one but you, and I am losing 
all my spirits. Oh, Helen, tell me if there is 
any hope of my winning your affection! I 
must speak, or this uncertainty will kill mel 
If you can never love me, tell me so and let me 
go away and hide my shame and misory, where 
you will not see it or be annoyed by it. I feel 
what madness it is for me to risk my happiness 
thus upon a sudden avowal for which you are 
not prepared ; but this suspense is killing me. 



Helen ! tell me if there is any hope of my win- 
ning your heart — I only ask one word! It is 
madness, but I can not help it ! Tell me, Helen, 
and make me happy or miserable — but I must 
hear from your own lips something !" 

Carried' away by his emotion, the young man 
uttered these latter words with feverish rapidity, 
bending toward her and endeavoring to look into 
her downcast eyes. Helen's cheeks were cov- 
ered with blushes, and she in vain tried to speak. 
At last she said, in a low voice, which trembled 
and scarcely was audible : 

"This is wrong — you ought not to speak 
thus to me here — the company will look at us, 
and—" 

" One word then, Helen — but a word ! I love 
you dearly — as no man ever loved you or can 
love you ! Tell me if you can ever return — M 

" Oh, I can not, Charles — I can not — " 

Suddenly the music stopped, and the agitat- 
ed and broken voice of the young girl mingled 
itself with the concluding crash of the base, and 
died away with it. 

Charles drew back pale and silent, and Helen 
passed her white handkerchief over her face to 
cool the burning of her cheeks. He rose and 
changed his seat, and as soon as common po- 
liteness would permit, made his bow and retired. 
She scarcely looked at him as he inclined be- 
fore her; and then the whole assembled com- 
pany disappeared from his eyes, and the door 
closed upon him. 

"What madness it was for me to think of 
speaking to her then !" he muttered, with pale 
lips and gloomy eyes. " What demon got into 
me ! To pass over a thousand occasions when 
we were alone together, and might have been 
uninterrupted — to fix at last upon this evening 
— in public — on an occasion when every one was 
looking at her and wondering at me, no doubt ! 
What a savage she must think me ! But I 
couldn't help it !" the young man added, with a 
cruel groan. "I could not keep silent ! I have 
lost nothing by making a fool of myself, after 
all, for she cares nothing for me. She cares 
nothing for my groans or my agony ! I am no- 
thing to her ! I was a simpleton to think that 
there was any thing in a poor country boy like 
myself to touch her heart, when she has around 
her a dozen others, any one of them more wor- 
thy of attention ! What a madman I was to 
speak so ! I hope I have it all plain, and clear, 
and satisfactory now!" he said, bitterly. "I 
asked if she could ever return my love, and she 
declared she could not! It distressed her, I 
suppose, as she no doubt has some slight recol- 
lection of having once known me and seen me 
often ; and I suppose it will make her feel un- 
pleasantly for the next half hour — after which 
she will forget me, and laugh at me for my coun- 
try bumpkin folly !" 

The young man ground his teeth and groaned 
as he spoke. 

"No!" he said, wiping his forehead, which 
was bathed in perspiration in spite of the hitter 
cold of the night — "no, I will not do her that 



212 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



injustice ! I will not let my wretchedness car- 
ry me away and blind me. She is a noble, ten- 
der girl, and it's not for me to say a word against 
her. What right have I to find fault with her 
for not loving me ! I thought I had touched 
her heart in all these years, but I am mistaken, 
wretchedly mistaken, and it was ridiculous for 
me to speak as I did — unfeeling, for I know she 
is feeling pain now at my unhappiness! Oh, 
why couldn't I leave this terrible question for 
some other occasion, or never ask it ! All is 
now ended between us — things are changed. I 
am now her persecutor, and she will always 
dread a recurrence to the subject. She need 
not — I will annoy her no longer with my trouble- 
some affection. \ I can at least break my heart 
with her image where she can not look upon my 
agony !" 

And hurrying along the young man reached 
his apartment, threw himself into a chair, and 
resting his face upon his hand, remained for 
hours enduring that agony which happens but 
once in a lifetime. 

III.— THE CONFESSION. 

The company had all left Mr. Burnaby's, and 
Helen and her friend, Anna Clayton, who, as 
we have seen, was staying with her, had retired 
to their chamber. 

Helen was standing half disrobed before the 
tall mirror, on each side of which two gas burn- 
ers protruded their arms, lighting up her fresh- 
looking and attractive head. The face of the 
young lady was, however, dimmed by an ex- 
pression of grief and disquiet, and as she combed 
out her long dark hair, preparatory to binding 
it up again for slumber, she paused more than 
once, and a sigh agitated her lips, coming appa- 
rently from the bottom of her heart. 

Anna Clayton, who was sitting reading by the 
fire, looked round at her two or three times as 
she was thus engaged, and at last said, 

" Helen, I wish you would be more commu- 
nicative of your feelings, and tell me what grieves 
you so much." 

" Grieves me !" replied Helen ; " why do you 
think any thing grieves me ?" 

" Because you have been sighing as if your 
heart would break." 

A slight blush came to Helen's cheek, but 
she said nothing. 

"I know very well that something has oc- 
curred this evening to trouble you," said her 
friend, "and I think Charles Forrest knows 
what it is." 

Helen turned round and looked at her com- 
panion so sadly that it was very plain she had 
not missed the truth. 

"Why do you treat him so coldly, Helen? 
I should think you had been friends long enough 
to throw aside ceremony. I thought you even 
were colder to him than others, and when he 
bowed to you on going away you scarcely looked 
up. You are certainly doing him injustice." 

Helen's head drooped, and for a time she 
made no reply to these words. Finally she left 
the glass, and with her long hair hanging on 



her white dress, came and sat down by her 
friend, and gazed for some minutes into the fire. 

" I have been thinking, Anna," she said at 
last, " that perhaps it would be better for me to 
tell you what the relations between Charles and 
myself are, and explain my conduct toward 
him. You are not an idle gossip, and no one 
will know any thing of it. I have been cold 
toward him, and I have been so because I 
thought it was my duty. You know how we 
were brought up together, and I am afraid 
Charles has been led to think of me differently 
than in old times. Indeed I know it. I could 
not help it, and I did not come to the knowl- 
edge of his feelings before he returned from col- 
lege. I then saw that he was becoming at- 
tached to me, and I tried in every way to dis- 
courage this attachment." 

"Why, Helen? I am sure you could not 
have a better husband. I forewarn you that I 
am going to take Charles's part. Why did you 
discourage him ?" 

"Because I did not love him," said Helen, 
with a slight color in her cheeks. " I could not 
return his feelings, and it was cruel in me to go 
on treating him with the same familiarity and 
affection I used to. Gentlemen have a right to 
think that such a course indicates partiality on 
our part, and I did not wish to encourage feel- 
ings which I could not return. They say I am 
unromantic and matter-of-fact, Anna; and I 
am glad this is true so far, that in order to in- 
dulge my foolish feeling of pride, I would never 
consent to deceive or mislead an honorable gen- 
tleman like Charles. But I could not love him. 
I tried, Anna, and I could not. You can not 
think that I was wrong in denying him occa- 
sions of seeing me and continuing to think of 
me." 

There was deep feeling in the tone of these 
words ; and after a moment Helen went on : 

" I saw that he was growing more and more 
attached to me, or I thought I saw it ; and I 
reflected deeply upon what it was proper for me 
to do under the circumstances. It was plain to 
me that I ought not to see him any more, and 
that I ought, if possible, to make him forget me. 
This is the explanation of my coldness. You 
will not say I was wrong." 

Helen spoke now with a sort of craving agi- 
tation which changed her whole countenance, 
and tears quivered on her eyelids. 

Anna seemed however to be unconvinced by 
her logic. 

"Why, then, did you invite him this even- 
ing?" she said. 

" I could not help it." 

"Well, that is true; but when you do see 
him, Helen, I declare you ought not to be so 
cold to him. You make him suffer more than 
he would if you were kind ; and you might give 
him an affectionate word, I think, in return for 
his own affection when you do see him." 

"An affectionate word!" 

" Yes. I mean you ought to be what you al-. 
ways were to him — familiar and kind." 



BABY BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS. 



213 



Helen's cheeks flushed, and she said, in an 
agitated voice : 

" Familiar and kind ! How can you advise 
me to be so, under the circumstances, Anna? 
It would be wrong ! Oh, I never could recon- 
cile it with my ideas of duty ! Familiar and 
kind! Encourage him!" she said, in a voice 
of excitement ; " do you know that I was so 
this evening, Anna, and can you guess what the 
result was ?" 

Anna turned with great eagerness toward her 
companion. 

" He—" 

"Addressed me! Yes," said Helen, trem- 
bling and blushing, " while the singing was go- 
ing on. It is wrong in me to tell it, but I can 
not help it. He said he loved me; and he 
never would — no, never — if I had done my 
duty!" 

A burst of tears followed these words, and in 
an agitated and broken voice Helen added : 

"I could not say any thing but Avhat I did 
say. I had to tell him that I could not return 
his love ! And now he is gone away, and I 
shall not see him any more. Every thing is 
changed. He is unhappy, and so am I — the 
most unhappy girl that ever lived !" 

The agitated face, streaming with tears, was 
buried in her friend's bosom, and Helen cried 
like a child, and seemed not to hear the sooth- 
ing words addressed to her. 

The agony of the young man, sitting in his 
chamber, was scarcely greater than her own ; 
but he was pale and still. 

IV.— GOOD NEWS FROM HOME. 

For some days Charles seemed to be living a 
dream-life in an unreal and unsubstantial world, 
with which he had nothing to do, and whose 
pursuits had no connection with himself or his 
life. The sunshine seemed black to him, and 
he wandered about scarcely returning the nods 
of his acquaintance, and muttering to himself 
as forlorn lovers have done in all ages. Like 
others who had passed through the same emo- 
tions before him, he was growing older, hour 
by hour, and his careless character becoming 
serious and gloomy. 

Sleep did not seem to refresh him, and he 
would sit hour after hour with but one thought, 
one image in his heart, obliterating, every oth- 
er. It seemed to him that he had monopolized 
the whole suffering of the world, and that com- 
pared with his agony all the grief, and want, and 
poverty, and pain which he had read of in books 
sunk into insignificance, and was unworthy of 
attention. 

Day after day passed thus, and at last his 
pain began gradually to decrease, and better 
thoughts to come to him. Suffering had puri- 
fied him, and he was destined soon to see that 
others besides himself were unfortunate, and to 
profit by it. 

One morning old Obadiah, the wood-sawyer, 
who, among his various occupations, attended 
to numerous offices, making the fires and put- 
ting things to rights — old Obadiah appeared be- 



fore Charles, cap in hand, and begged a small 
loan of money, which he said he needed to 
buy some comforts for his grand-daughter, who 
was sick. As Christmas came on every thing 
was high, he said, and the prices had taken all 
his savings. If Mr. Forrest would advance 
him a small sum, he would soon repay it, and 
his grand-daughter would not suffer. Charles 
promptly supplied him with what he needed, 
and then entered into conversation with him 
on his means of living. The old man drew so 
curious a picture of his "ways and means," and 
especially of his household with the little sick 
grand-daughter, that Charles found himself 
deeply interested, and, what was better, divert- 
ed from his possessing and absorbing thought. 

He promised to come and see the old man, 
whose humble dwelling was not far from his 
office, and then they parted. 

Charles had dispatched all the business of 
the day early on the forenoon, and then he be- 
thought him of the promise he had made. He 
proceeded toward the spot designated, and soon 
found the obscure hut in which Obadiah lived. 

In reply to his knock at the door a feeble but 
perfectly self-possessed little voice bade him 
come in, and pulling the leather string, the 
door opened and he entered. The room was 
very poor and mean, but scrupulously neat, and 
in a small bed in the corner lay a child appar- 
ently six or seven years of age. 

Charles stood for a moment gazing in silence 
at the countenance of the child, which wore an 
expression of extraordinary sweetness and sim- 
plicity. Her hair was long and curling, of a 
brilliant auburn, and lying in profuse masses 
upon the poor pillow. The large blue eyes 
were set like stars in a thin pale face, and the 
whole expression of the countenance was spir- 
itual and dreamy, as if the owner of it did net 
busy herself about earthly things, but thought 
of more important issues. 

" Did you want to see grandfather, Sir," said 
the child quite easily ; "he isn't here. He left 
me here — I am Baby Bertie — and is coming 
back in the evening." 

Charles smiled and closed the door, and came 
and sat down by the child, who gazed at him 
quite tranquilly with her large eyes — indeed 
almost seemed to smile too. 

Between certain persons there seems to be a 
species of magnetical attraction, by means of 
which they recognize each other, and which dis- 
penses with words. From the first moment 
Charles and Baby Bertie were on the best pos- 
sible terms with each other; and they began to 
converse quite easily, as if they had known each 
other all their lives. The child's voice, like 
her face and expression, was of extraordinary 
sweetness, and she seemed always to be smil- 
ing. She related, in the simplest and most 
contented tone, all their poverty, and her sick- 
ness, and ended by saying quite simply and 
tranquilly, that she didn't think she would "last 
longer than Christmas." 

"What, Baby Bertie!" said Charles, look- 



214 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ing sadly at the child's face, "you don't think 
of dying ?" 

"Yes, I do, Sir. I think I will not last to 
the New Year." 

"Pshaw, Baby!" said Charles, taking the 
thin hand lying half out of the covering, " you 
must not be thinking so." 

He found the hand resist his grasp, and the 
child said : 

" If you shake hands, Sir, you will make me 
lose my place." 

In fact, the finger which Charles had tried 
to capture was inserted between the leaves of 
an old Bible, which was concealed by the coarse 
counterpane of the poor bed. 

"I was reading about the daughter of Jairus," 
said Baby, by way of introducing a new topic 
of conversation ; " I like that very much." 

"It is very interesting," said the young man, 
gazing sadly at the thin face of the child. 

" It is very sweet," was the reply ; " they 
thought that the Saviour could not do it, but 
he said, 'Be not afraid, only believe.' How 
sweet that is, ' Only believe !' and that is all he 
asks." 

After uttering these words Baby Bertie 
seemed to reflect for a time. At last she said, 
with a smile, 

" It is all the same." 

" What is all the same, Baby ?" 

"I was thinking that the daughter of Jairus 
was twelve years old, Sir." 

"What of that?" 

" Nothing. I am seven on Christmas-day." 

After this Baby Bertie closed her book and 
looked through the low window with a smile. 
This smile, however, disappeared in a few min- 
utes, and the thin lips were contracted painfully. 
The child at the same moment raised her hand 
to her breast, and breathed with difficulty. 

"If you will please give me that tumbler 
with the drink in it," she said, in a lew voice, and 
pointing to the table. 

Charles hastened to hold it to the child's lips, 
and she slowly drank the contents, after which 
she seemed much relieved. 

"Mrs. Johnson sits with me when grand- 
father's away," she said at length, " but she 
was called home. I'll ask her next time to 
leave the tumbler near me. I feel better now — 
I felt as if I was choking." 

And Baby smiled quite happily and tran- 
quilly. 

Charles remained for an hour after this until 
Mrs. Johnson came back, conversing with the 
child, and feeling as if a charm were acting 
upon his wounded spirit. He then went away, 
with a promise to call again, leaving Baby Ber- 
tie in charge of the old woman, with whom she 
seemed to be a great favorite. 

"I wish you would come again, Sir," said 
Bertie, with a smile. " I like you, for you are 
good." 

Charles went away with the words in his 
ears, and shaking his head dissentingly. 

" I have learned a lesson, at least," he mut- 



tered, " from this child ; and if I do not profit 
by it, it will be my own fault. Poor human 
nature ! How prone we are to think that our 
own case is the hardest, that the rest of the 
world are happy and easy while we are suffer- 
ing ! What is my disappointment in compari- 
son with this child's lot? There she lies, as 
feeble and frail as a lily, which the least wind 
will snap — racked with pain, and looking for- 
ward to a few weeks, almost a few days, of life 
only ; and she is happy. I have health, and 
strength, and competence, and am miserable ! 
She is poor, and sick, and tranquil under all. 
I am well and hearty, and think that no suffer- 
ing is like my own! I must have been led 
there by the hand of Providence, that I might 
see that others besides myself suffer, and far 
more deeply. Well, I will try to profit by the 
lesson. Dear child! she shall at least have 
every comfort I can give her, and I pray God 
to make me as happy as she is." 

The young man entered his lonely room with 
a lighter heart than he had done for days ; it 
no longer seemed to be a sort of refuge for his 
despair, leading him to avoid ihe face of man. 
Henceforth it was lighted up by Baby Bertie's 
smile — by her large blue eyes, full of sweetness 
and tranquillity : he felt the contact of her heart 
with his, and his life was no longer full of gloom. 
As he closed the door, he heard the band of 
music again, loud and rejoiceful, and it was 
playing the same old tune, " Good news from 
home." It now seemed to him infinitely sweet, 
no longer sad, and in some way it seemed con- 
nected with Baby Bertie. 

V.— BABY BERTIE'S OTHER FRIEND. 

Charles manfully carried out his resolution ; 
and from that time forth Baby Bertie wanted 
for nothing. They grew to be fast friends, and 
he would go and sit by her bedside for hours, 
and often read to her, not only from the Bible, 
but such tales as she liked to hear. In the 
child's presence he seemed to forget much of 
his grief, and he never left her without feeling 
a sensation of purity and content, which enabled 
him to go back to the performance of his duties 
cheerfully and willingly. 

" Mr. Charles," said Baby one day — this was 
her manner of addressing him — "I think you 
do not look happy, and something troubles you 
often." 

"What makes you think that, Baby?" said 
the young man, smiling. " Do I ever groan ?" 

" I don't know if you groan, but you look 
sorry. I wish you would not look sorry." 

" Suppose I have reason to." 

"Then you ought to pray more, and you will 
not be sorry." 

Charles sighed. 

" I hardly know how to pray," he said, " and 
it does not do me much good." 

"Oh yes, it does!" said Baby. "Every 
prayer does good, and it must. God, you know, 
would not tell us to ask for what we want and 
we should have it, if he did not mean to give it 
to us." 



BABY BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS. 



21; 



The young man looked at the sweet face of 
the child, and felt a pang at the thought that he 
did not possess her faith. 

" Does God give us what we pray for though, 
Baby?" he could not help saying; "why do 
you not pray for health and strength ?" 

"I do," said Baby, tranquilly; "but I pray 
'Thy will, not mine, be done,' too. It would 
not be right for every body to have what they 
want, because we often want what is bad for us, 
and it would not be love in God to give it to us, 
because we ask for it." 

" But your health, Baby — " 
" I know what you mean, Mr. Charles. You 
mean it is not wrong to pray for health and 
strength. I don't think it is ; but if God does 
not give it to me, I ought not to think he has 
not heard me. Dying, you know, may be the 
best thing for us." 
"The best thing?" 

"You know what Paul said — don't you re- 
member : ' Having a desire to depart and to be 
with Christ, which is far better.' I think it is 
far better." 

And Baby looked as if she were thinking of 
heaven, tranquilly and happily. After such 
conversations, in which the child stated her feel- 
ings with so much simplicity, Charles would 
turn away, and ponder sadly, but hopefully too. 
He almost began to share Baby Bertie's feelings, 
and his whole nature felt the salutary influence 
of the child's purity. 

Baby Bertie seemed to be not long destined 
to affect him, however, for her form became 
thinner, and the light in her eyes waned day by 
day. She could scarcely take any nourishment 
now, and seemed to need none. She appeared 
to be fading softly away like an autumn even- 
ing, and the thread upon which her life hung 
was so frail that all felt that it might at any 
moment gently part asunder, and the child pass 
from them. 

At this time a lady came frequently to see 
Baby, whom she grew to love and look for, as 
much as for her grandfather or Charles. This 
lady made her delicate dishes and draughts — 
bathed her brows with cooling liquids, and 
smoothed her bed and pillow. 

Baby talked much with her, and told her all 
about her friend Mr. Charles — how attentive 
and kind he had been — what good friends they 
were, and how he had read to her, and told her 
stories, and scarcely missed a day in calling to 
see her. 

The lady listened to all this prattle of the child 
with evident pleasure, and when she related some 
instance of delicate kindness on the part of her 
friend, the lady's cheek colored slightly, and she 
would be more tender than ever to Baby. She 
only endeavored to find the hours when Mr. 
Charles was expected, and at these times she 
never made her appearance. 

Christmas drew on thus, and the streets be- 
gan to be more and more filled with merry way- 
farers — the houses of relations began to roar 
with huge fires, and nnell of roasted meats — 



children every where rejoiced and made merry 
with toys, and candy, and noisy trumpets, and 
snow-balling ; and finally, Christmas eve came, 
and the whole town thrilled with laughter and 
rejoicing. 

Charles determined that Baby Bertie too 
should have a merry Christmas, and he busied 
himself to procure a little cedar-tree, which he 
hung with all sorts of variegated paper, baskets 
full of toys, and candies, and nice things — and 
this magical tree made its appearance at Baby's, 
and was erected nobly there, decked out with 
tapers for the illumination. 

VI.— THE CHRISTMAS-TREE. 

Charles had been invited by Mr. Burnaby to 
dine with him on Christmas-day, and this in- 
vitation he had accepted, though he doubted 
about the propriety of again annoying Helen 
with his presence. 

He determined, however, to put it off to the 
last possible moment, and the fore-part of the 
afternoon he dedicated to Baby Bertie, whose 
pale face and loving smile were now a part of 
his daily life. 

He accordingly made his appearance at the 
child's bedside before the shades of evening be- 
gan to descend. As he entered, a lady who 
had been sitting by Baby's side rose, and ab- 
ruptly dropped her vail, thereby concealing her 
features. She then made a movement to retire, 
but the child's voice arrested her. 

"You must not go yet, if you please, Miss 
Helen," she said, "I want you to know Mr. 
Charles — this is Mr. Charles." 

Baby's face was so full of pleasure as she 
uttered these words in her feeble and broken 
voice, that Charles remained gazing upon her 
almost with tears in his eyes. She resembled 
an angel more than a mortal child, and the voice 
sounded like the breathing of an ^Eolian harp. 

Helen had raised her vail to look at the child, 
and now as Charles turned toward her their 
eyes met, and Helen's were full of tears like his 
own. Baby was a common link between them, 
and in her presence the old affection of their 
childhood seemed to revive — the old kindness 
and love. 

Baby extended her thin pale hand and took 
Helen's; and the young lady sat down beside 
her, and covering her face, cried in silence. 

"Are you crying? What are you crying 
for?" said Baby. "Please don't. Mr. Charles, 
tell her not to cry." 

Charles only gazed from Baby to Helen with 
suffused eyes. 

"I thought from the way you looked you 
were friends," said the child feebly — "are you ?" 

"We were." 

"Oh, you must not feel bad toward each 
other," said Baby, in a weak voice ; "you must 
love each other, for I love you." 

And taking Helen's hand, she placed it in 
Charles's. The young girl did not withdraw 
it — she only covered her face more closely, and 
continued to cry, looking now and then at the 
pale, thin face of Baby Bertie. 



216 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



The child seemed to be looking with her 
faint, dim eyes for her grandfather. Very soon 
the old man came in, and a smile, like a beam 
from heaven, lit up Baby Bertie's countenance. 

"Please light the tree, grandfather," said she, 
faintly. 

The old man, with a heavy and foreboding 
heart, did as she asked, and soon the brilliant 
tapers threw their light upon the occupants of 
the room and the bed — lighting up the pale 
sweet face of the child as with a glory. As 
the tapers flamed out, Baby seemed to be listen- 
ing, and soon from the distance came the music 
of the band — the odd old band — playing as be- 
fore, " Good news from home." 

Baby's thin hand beat time to the music as 
it approached, and then died away, and her 
large blue eyes seemed to be fixed upon an- 
other land, where there is neither snow, nor 
cold, nor poverty, nor suffering. Her gaze then 
returned to the weeping faces round her bed, 
and slowly made the circuit. She smiled faint- 
ly, and her wan lips moved. 

" ' Good news from home !' " she murmured, 
"from my home in heaven! I dreamed that I 
was — going — Jesus spoke to me — " 

And the frail thread parted gently, and Baby 
Bertie was in heaven. Her Christmas was there, 
not upon this cold earth ; and having made her- 
self the link which bound the hearts of Helen 
and Charles forever, she passed away, pure and 
beautiful, in the holy light of the Christmas- 
tree, whose leaves are for the healing of the 
nations. 



ENGLISH WIGS AND GOWNS. 

BY A BARRISTER WITHOUT WIG OR GOWN. 

IT was a dull London morning in July. I 
was sitting in the coffee-room of Morley's 
Hotel, fronting on Trafalgar Squnre, now looking 
toward the National Gallery, that poor casket 
full of rich jewels, now across the Strand at 
the gloomy portal of Northumberland House, 
where " the Percy lion stands in state as in his 
proud departed days," now gazing upward at the 
statue of Nelson, wondering what he thought of 
the French alliance, and revolving in my mind, 
meanwhile, how I should occupy the next fort- 
night before I was to meet my friend X at 

B , when in listlessly turning over the Times 

newspaper, my eye fell among the legal items, 
on the announcement that "Mr. Justice 

the newly-appointed judge of the 

holding the criminal side of the assizes at the 

town of ■ ." 

This intelligence speedily determined my 
plans. I had had the satisfaction of knowing 
the said " newly-appointed judge" in the United 
States, and feeling very sure of his kindness 
and courtesy, I determined to gratify a wish 
that I had long entertained. I had seen Scar- 
let and Thesiger at the bar, and Brougham on 
the bench, in Westminster Hall ; I had wandered 
in the Salle des Pas Perdus at Paris, and fol- 
lowed the various fortunes of the great trial of 
Marie Capelle Lafarge ; I had seen Poerio and 



was 



his sad companions brought out from the damp 
dungeons of the Tribunali at Naples to receive 
their fate from the hands of the Italian Jeffries, 
Navarra ; but I had never seen and studied the 
working of the English system of the trial of 
causes in the country, on the circuits or assizes, 
and I determined not to lose so good an oppor- 
tunity of gratifying my inclination. 

My arrangements were not long in making, 
and a day or two afterward, after the inter- 
change of a short but very satisfactory corres- 
pondence, I found myself spinning along by 
rail toward the ancient town of Derby, a hun- 
dred and fifty miles from London. Pour hours 
brought me there. When the Pretender entered 
it, a hundred years ago, Derby, was nearly a 
week's journey distant from the metropolis. 

This was the commencement of a fortnight, 
spent on the different circuits ; at Derby, on 
the Midland Circuit, where Mr. Justice Willes 
was holding the criminal side and Mr. Justice 
Coleridge the civil side. Hence I went to 
Ipswich, on the Norfolk Circuit, where Baron 
Parke was holding the criminal, and Baron 
Alderson the civil side. Thence to Croydon, 
on the Home Circuit, where Mr. Justice Cress- 
well was holding the criminal, and Mr. Justice 
Wightman the civil court; and thence finally 
back to London, where Baron Martin was sit- 
ting at Sergeant's Inn, at chambers, hearing 
motions and making orders in causes pending 
in all the courts, as in vacation the sitting judge 
is authorized to do. 

There is no harm in giving the names of 
these gentlemen — they are all well known to 
fame, and I received from them all, and from 
the members of the bar generally, a degree of 
attention and courtesy, not only very gratifying 
in itself, but a valuable illustration of the in- 
creased cordiality which exists between the two 
countries. 

During this fortnight my time was most 
agreeably, and it is my OAvn fault if it was not 
usefully, spent. Every courtesy of social life 
was extended to me ; and what I valued even 
more, every facility for the understanding of 
the working of their system, so that if the narra- 
tive of the result of my experiences be a source 
of a tithe of the pleasure to my readers which 
I enjoyed at the time, I shall be quite satis- 
fied. 

Twice in the year the judges of Westminster 
Hall issue from that ancient and august tribu- 
nal to dispense justice to the people of England 
in the provinces. The counties are classified 
and arranged into eight circuits. The work is 
distributed among the judges by mutual ar- 
rangement, seniority giving certain privileges, 
and the division of labor being agreed upon, a 
paper is then published, a copy of which is given 
on the opposite page. 

This was the order for the Summer Assizes 
of the year 1855. The commission day is that 
on which the commissions are opened and the 
assize or circuit begins. 

With the judges, or in their suite, go the 



ENGLISH WIGS AND GOWNS. 



217 



Circuits of 1 1} e Snoges. 

(Mr. Bakon Martin trill remain in Town.) 



SUMMER 

CIRCUITS, 

1855. 


S. Wales. N. Wales. 

| 


Oxford. 


Norfolk. 


Midland. 


Home. 


Northern. 


Western. ( 


Last Days 

for full 

Notice of 

Trial. 


Commission 
Days. 


Ld. Campbell. L.CJ. Jervia. 


L. CB. Pollock. 
J. Erie. 


B. Parke. 
B. Alder son. 


J. Coleridge. 
J. Willes. 


J. Wightman. 
J. Cresswell. 


B. Piatt. 
J. Crowder. 


J. Williams. : 
J. Crompton. ! 


June 30 
" 30 

July 2 
" 3 
« 4 

" 6 
ii 7 

" 7 
" 9 
" 10 
" 11 
" 13 
" 14 
" 14 
" 16 
" 18 
" 20 

■i s] 

" 23 
" 25 
" 27 
" 28 

Aug. 1 


July 

Tues., 10 
Wed, 11 
Thurs., 12 
Friday, 13 
Satur., 14 
Mon., 16 
Tues., 17 
W T ed., 18 
Thurs., 19 
Friday, 20 
Satur., 21 
Mon., 23 
Tues., 24 
Wed., 25 
Thurs., 26 
Satur., 28 
Mon., 30 

Aug. 
Wed., 1 
Thurs., 2 
Satur., 4 
Mon., 6 
Wed., 8 
Satur., 11 


Cardigan . 
Haverford 


.... 




Aylesbury 


Northampton 


Hertford . 


York & City 


! 
Winchester 

Dorchester 
Exeter & City 

Bodmin . \ 
Wells' '. '. 




Bedford . 


Leicester &B. 










Oakham . 
Lincoln & 

[City 

Nottingham 
[& Tn. 

Derby . . 


Chelmsford 
Lewes . . 


Durham. 


Carmarthen 


Newtown . 

Dolgelly . 


[City 
Stafford . . 


Huntingdon 
Cambridge 


Cardiff . . 
Brecon . . 


Carnarvon. 

Beaumaris. 
Ruthin . . 






Shrewsbury . 
Hereford . . 


Norwich & 
[City 


Ipswich . 


Warwick . 


Maidstone . 


Newcastle 
[& Tn. 


Presteign . 
Chester & City 


Mold. . . 


















Carlisle . 
Appleby 


Devizes 

Rristnl . . 


Chester&City 


Glo'ster & City 












Croydon 









































Published by A. PATTEN, Porter to the Honorable Society of Sergeants' Inn, Chancery Lane, London, and Sold 

at the Lodge of the said Inn. 



lawyers or barristers of Westminster Hall, for 
there is no provincial bar in England. Attor- 
neys and solicitors abound in the counties and 
provincial towns ; but the barristers, the advo- 
cates, or counsel, as we call them, are all Lon- 
don men. On being called to the bar, the bar- 
rister selects his circuit, according as his inter- 
est or inclination dictates, and to the courts of 
that circuit he remains attached for the remain- 
der of his professional life. One change is, I 
believe, permitted, but with that exception, the 
barrister, unless on some particular engagement 
or retainer, when " he goes down special," does 
not quit his circuit. The judges change con- 
stantly, but the lawyers remain the same. 

In the days before railways were known, the 
judges traveled in their OAvn carriages, and the 
barristers posted down. Now the leveling rail- 
car conveys judge and counsel, juryman' and 
witness to the common destination. 

The judges are attended by their clerks and 
marshals. Each judge has one of these officers. 
The clerk of an English barrister is a very im- 
portant functionary ; he arranges his appoint- 
ments, settles and collects his fees, receives and 
ushers in his clients — in short, is something 
between an aid-de-camp and a gentleman-in- 
waiting. "I can tell yon," said my friend, 

Mr. , himself a leading barrister, "my 

clerk thinks he is a good deal more of a per- 
sonage than I imagine that I am." When the 
barrister becomes a judge, the clerk retains the 
same confidential position, while, of course, his 
duties vary. The marshal is a different sort 
of character. He is a sort of page of honor, 
generally a young barrister or special pleader 
(though not necessarily so), who from connec- 
tion, friendship, or otherwise, accompanies the 
judge for a year or more on his circuits, to 
familiarize himself with this branch of business. 
I believe their only official functions are to 
Vol. XIL— No. G8.—P 



swear in the grand jury, and to prepare for the 
judges an abstract of the pleadings, or nisiprius 
records (which word, for the benefit of my New . 
York brethren, is in England pronounced re- 
cord, as they pronounce it in Virginia). They 
sit at the ends of the judges' dinner-table when 
the county magistrates and the bar are invited. 
They make tea for them. They write notes to 
thank the neighboring gentry for haunches of 
venison. They are particularly kind and po- 
lite to American gentlemen. Several of those 
whom I saw bore names illustrious in the law, 
and I shall not soon forget the pleasant day 
which I spent at Chatsworth with the "judges' 
marshals." 

The county is obliged to find lodging for the 
judges while on the circuit. At Derby these 
quarters are permanent, in a building attached 
to the court-house, or county 'all; at Ipswich 
and Croydon I found the magistrates establish- 
ed in private dwelling-houses, which the owners 
had vacated for the purpose, and I venture to 
believe, for — a consideration. Here they install 
themselves, with a retinue of servants, cooks, 
waiters, etc., and here at every assize town they 
remain in the seclusion of a private house, un- 
broken except by the entertainments which they 
give to the bar and the county magistrates, or 
by the unfrequent irruption of a vagrant Amer- 
ican into their orbit. 

The barristers are differently disposed of; 
the notion of the English system is, that the 
barrister must be kept distinct and aloof from 
all the other instruments of justice. He is un- 
derstood to have no familiar associations with 
attorneys, and least of all with mortals still 
more profane. He is supposed never to speak 
to a witness till the cause is heard — never to 
lay eyes on him except in open court. So the 
barrister is prohibited from taking up his quar- 
ters on the circuits at any inn or public-house, 



218 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



where he might meet the ol nolloi. He must 
have private lodgings, which, however, are not 
provided for at the county's expense. Accord- 
ingly, at every assize town you find in the inn 
a list of the counsel on the circuit, with their 
respective places of temporary abode. 

But barristers must dine — English barristers 
will dine together, and no private lodgings being 
sufficient for the purpose, the bar mess dines 
every day, at six or seven o'clock, at the prin- 
cipal inn in the town. Of this pleasant insti- 
tution more hereafter. 

And so you have the picture of a county- 
town where the assizes are being held. The 
judges installed in their lodgings, the barristers 
in their private quarters, and the profane rout 
of attorneys, Avitnesses, and jurymen crowding 
the coffee-rooms of the various inns. Erom 
time to time the echo of the bugles announces 
that the judges are going to or from the court; 
and if, as at Croydon, the court-house is in the 
heart of the town, you will see the barristers in 
full wigs and gowns trotting about the street, 
and even entering the precincts of the inns 
themselves. 

Each circuit embraces several counties. On 
entering each county the judges are met and 
received by the sheriff of that county, some- 
times in lace ruffles and breeches, sometimes 
in the uniform of a Deputy Lord-Lieutenant, 
sometimes in plain black. He (the sheriff) 
brings with him his retinue, for justice is hon- 
ored in England with all sorts of form and 
paraphernalia, and outward observance. This 
retinue used to consist of the sheriffs own ten- 
antry — they were then wont to be endowed with 
certain saddles and bridles for the purpose — 
and an old statute declares, no doubt to prevent 
any offensive display of feudal power, that no 
sheriff, on these occasions, should turn out with 
more than twenty-four of his vassals. 

But, tempora mutantur 1 the feudal power is 
on the wane. Pomps and shows are dying out, 
and saddles and bridles cost money; so that 
now the tenantry of the sheriff are superseded 
by a band of pensioners, or outside invalldes as 
they would be termed in France, who, in a uni- 
form of blue coat and pantaloons, scarlet vest and 
white cravat, and with javelins in their hands 
— such was the uniform at Derby, elsewhere 
they wear different trappings — escort the judges 
to and from their lodgings, wait on them to 
and from the Court, and preserve order in the 
tribunal. 

With the sheriff comes the sheriff's chaplain ; 
and the first act of the performance, in each 
assize town, is for the judge to robe himself in 
the official scarlet, and then attend service in 
the principal church of the place. I was pres- 
ent at the opening ceremony in All Saints' 
Church, in Derby, where many of the great 
Cavendish family repose, and heard a sermon 
preached for the benefit of the excellent Mr. 
Justice Coleridge on the words, "The powers 
that be are ordained of God." It appeared to 
me a double-edged sort of a text, and to be sus- 



ceptible of a construction much less conserva- 
tive than the worthy and reverend gentleman 
gave to it. 

Erom the church the judges go to the court 
and enter on their duties. But I must first de- 
scribe an English court-room, for nothing can 
be more different in its aspect from ours. The 
three I saw were a good deal alike. I heard 
Mr. Justice Crcsswell say, in no very dulcet 
tones, in open court at Croydon, that the one 
there "was the worst in the kingdom." I am 
not sure that I saw the best, but the one at Ips- 
wich was a new one, and I think there can be 
no very great difference between them. 

The bar is ranged round a large square or 
oblong table covered with green baize ; from 
this table the seats rise amphitheatre-Avise on 
three sides; on the fourth overhangs the for- 
midable figure of the judge. The first effect is 
something like that of a cockpit, or a small cir- 
cus, where from all sides von look down on the 
performers. The central table varies. I saw 
no one able to accommodate more than twenty 
people, and these not comfortably. In fact, 
any thing less comfortable than the whole af- 
fair I never saw. The barristers, all attired in 
wigs and gowns, are ranged round this table on 
long wooden benches or settles with high rect- 
angular or perpendicular backs ; and, if they 
desire to go out, they must either crawl along 
on the seat behind their brethren, who lean for- 
ward, or else stalk, across the table, as I saw 
frequently done. There is no such thing as a 
chair in the whole arena. Into this delightful 
Pomcerium no one but barristers are allowed 
to enter, save when an attorney or a client is 
called in for conference or suggestion. 

The gown of the barrister is stuff or silk. 
God forbid that I should attempt to state on 
what terms and conditions the one toga is ex- 
changed for the other, and what privileges are 
dependent thereon: it is an awful and complex 
subject. The wig is, I believe, a little more in- 
telligible ; that is to say, easier to get through 
one's hair. A dingy gray peruke, with three 
horizontal and parallel rows of curls behind, 
twisted as tight as hot iron can friz them, with 
a tail dangling below that is always getting un- 
der the collar of the gown (one hand of several 
counsel that I saw, while speaking, being prin- 
cipally occupied in keeping the queue clear of 
the robe), constitutes the capillary ornament of 
the English bar. The only distinction, I be- 
lieve, is that the sergeant's wig bears on its top a 
small black patch or coif, which, at a little dis- 
tance, to a short-sighted person, suggests the 
idea of some unpleasant disease of the head 
— to such dimensions has shrunk the coiffure 
which we see in the old pictures and engravings 
of the Cokes and Plowdens of three hundred 
years ago ! I think the merits of this legal 
uniform are easily disposed of. The gown is a 
graceful dress, which conceals the angularity 
of our modern attire, and gives dignity to the 
speaker. The wig is a detestable disguise and 
deformity : it gives every face a heavy, wooden 



ENGLISH WIGS AND GOWNS. 



219 



air, and most effectually conceals the play of 
the features ; though, I suppose, as about every 
thing, there are two sides to the question. " If 

you were to see old without his wig," said 

my friend Mr. , while I was declaiming 

against the ugliness of the thing, "you would 
think the wig was not such a had head-dress 
after all." 

The attire of the judges is a still more com- 
plex subject, and I approach it with a profound 
sense of my utter incapacity to deal with it. I 
only know that one day they appear in a scar- 
let robe, and one day in a black ; that one day 
they wear a full-bottomed wig, and the next a 
Ramilies peruke ; but the order of these vicis- 
situdes, their symbolical meaning, hidden cause, 
or practical effect, I confess myself entirely in- 
capable of explaining. I venture, however, to 
express my opinion, that in England the day of 
the costumer is past; and that the masculine 
sense and great practical ability of the English 
bench could not be better shown than by throw- 
ing oft these trappings, which, it is true, make the 
groundlings stare, but which are only infinitely 
ludicrous to the eye of common sense. 

On one side of the four-sided amphitheatre 
are the seats for the jury, and on the others the 
small audience are arranged. The judge occu- 
pies a seat by himself; on either side of him 
are places for the sheriff, chaplain, and county 
magistrates, and for any casual observer who, 
like myself, was thought worthy of the honor. 
At one side of the judge is the witness-box, a 
little further off is the crier. At the door, and 
in different parts of the house are stationed the 
javelin-men to preserve order. Directly under 
the judge sits the clerk, also in wig or gown, 
acting under the directions of the presiding of- 
ficer. It will be borne in mind that there are 
two court-rooms of this kind at each assize town, 
the one for the civil, and the other for the crim- 
inal business. 

I saw the entry of the judges into Derby. 
The little inn where I was overlooked the court- 
yard. Two buglers on horseback preceded the 
sheriff's carriage. The governor of the jail 
headed the procession, also mounted. The 
javelin-men paraded in front of the lodgings ; 
and the sheriff's carriage, with the sheriff and 
judges in it, drew up. The judges retired to 
their private apartments, entered the court-room 
in plain clothes, attended by the sheriff and chap- 
lain, ascended the tribunal, and then the clerk 
opened and read the commissions under which 
the judges discharge their duties ; for they hold 
these circuits, not as judges of Westminster, but 
by virtue of commissions regularly made out for 
every circuit. In these commissions there are 
frequently, if not usually, joined prominent bar- 
risters, sergeants, etc., who may, and often do 
hold the court. So at Croydon, where the work 
on the home circuit was very heavy, Mr. Bram- 
well, Q.C., was sitting, with full judicial powers, 
to help in clearing off the calendar. 

The commissions under which they act are, I 
think, five : Justices of the Peace ; of Assize, 



for old real actions, etc. ; of Nisi Prius, for the 
civil business ; of Jail Delivery, for the criminal 
business ; of Oyer and Terminer. 

The judge and all present stand while they 
are read, the judge with his hat on; and when 
the Queen names in the commission "our trusty 
and well beloved," the hat is raised in token of 
the compliment. The judges are the represent- 
atives of royalty; so, when they receive the 
county magistrates or bar at dinner, they walk 
in before their guests, to preserve their true 
vice-regal position. 

The forms are now nearly over. One of the 
judges takes the cases on the criminal side, and 
the other the causes on the civil side, and they 
go to work. 

On the civil side they plunge at once in me- 
dias res; on the criminal side the matter is 
more laborious. 

First, the roll of the county magistrates, the 
justices of the peace — the Great Unpaid — is 
called over, each present rising and answering 
to his name. Then the judge inclines his full- 
bottomed wig from the bench, and gravely in- 
vites the magistrates to do him and his learned 
brother the honor of dining with them at their 
lodgings on that day. 

Secondly, the grand jury (generally composed 
of the county magistrates) is sworn in, charged 
by the judge, and withdraws ; for as yet there is 
no criminal business before the court, unless 
something stands over from the last circuit: 
that is to say, on coming to each assize town the 
judge receives copies of the depositions on which 
commitments have been made by magistrates 
during the interval since the last assize ; on 
these depositions his charge to the grand jury 
is based, and on the charges contained in these 
depositions the grand jury forthwith deliberate ; 
so that the bills are found and brought in while 
the court is sitting, and as it is a great object 
with judge and jurors, counsel and attorneys, to 
push on the business as rapidly as possible, the 
grand jury are not permitted to let the grass 
grow under their heels. At Derby I heard the 
clerk, in a pause when the court was idle, say 
to the under-sheriff to tell the grand jury to 
send in more bills; and to expedite matters, the 
indictments there were handed over from the 
gallery of the court-room, which communicated 
with the grand jury-room, in the end of a long 
cleft wand, while the round and eminently En- 
glish face of the honorable Mr. X , foreman 

of the jury, peeped round the pillar to see how 
the work went on. The moment the indictment 
reaches the hand of the clerk the accused party 
is arraigned, and the trial proceeds. In some 
cases he has counsel, in others not, but the trial 
proceeds instantly. 

This dispatch in criminal business strikes one 
unpleasantly. To be sure the party accused has 
previously had copies of the depositions on 
which he is arrested, and he may have employ- 
ed an attorney, but no time is given him to con- 
fer with counsel, and the proceeding is certainly 
more rapid than we should think necessary for, 



220 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



or conducive to, the ends of justice. The an- 
swer to the complaint of extreme haste is, that 
as the assizes are held only twice a year, if not 
tried instantly, parties without bail may be kept 
in prison six months, to the next assizes. But 
even this alternative, assuming it to be indis- 
pensable, would probably be preferable to being 
wrongfully sent to Botany Bay. It is something 
like the Texas judge, who hung the prisoner be- 
cause the jail windows were out, and there was 
no comfortable place to keep him in. 

Again : The grand jury is in main composed 
of the county magistrates. Now it needs no 
very profound experience of human nature to 
teach us that a body of country gentlemen who 
dine together, hunt together, sit at petty sessions 
together, will, when they meet as a grand jury, 
be very apt to confirm whatever any one of them 
has done as a magistrate. The esprit de corjjs 
would be very cold that did not produce this as 
a general result; and I can not but think more 
indictments are found than if the grand jury was 
a body wholly separate and distinct from the 
county magistrates. 

Again : There is no public prosecutor. The 
complainant is bound over to prosecute the 
charge and the witnesses to testify. The com- 
plainant selects the attorney for the prosecution, 
and the attorney selects the barrister. This 
practice is obviously open to great abuse. It 
may make the prosecution too lax or too severe 
according to the disposition of the prosecutor or 
of the attorney he employs. The appointment 
of officers analogous to our district attorneys 
and the Erench procureurs du roi has been re- 
cently and strongly urged, but it encounters a 
vigorous opposition from the young barristers, to 
whom the straggling criminal business often af- 
fords tl^3 first, and for years the only opportu- 
nity, of making their appearance on the forensic 
stage. It seems to me clear, however, on prin- 
ciple, that the criminal functions of the govern- 
ment should never be intrusted to private hands 
— that as, on the one hand, the sword of justice 
should never be whetted by private rancor, so, 
on the other, it should never be blunted by pri- 
vate indifference or personal favor. 

Per contra: Such are the objections which 
struck me, and struck me forcibly, to the pres- 
ent English system. In times of public excite- 
ment, when party spirit ran high, or worse 
still, when, as so frequently happens in our age, 
class rivalries and social animosities are stirred 
up, I should think the English system might 
lead to frequent injustice ; but I saw many cases 
tried of all grades, from petty larcenies up to 
capital felonies, and they were all not only well 
but fairly tried, humanely tried, carefully tried. 
The judges were patient, attentive in the last 
degree ; the summing-up was full, laborious, 
and just, in the strongest sense of the words ; 
and the prosecuting barrister was kept under 
strict and constant surveillance. Once I heard 
a leading and important question asked by the 
prosecuting counsel, and the desired answer ob- 
tained before he could be chocked. But he was 



instantly reprimanded. The judicial Jove shook 
his full-bottomed curls, and uttered the words, 
" I regret extremely that the question was ask- 
ed," with a growl that kept the barrister clear 
of leading interrogatories for the rest of the day. 
The leaning of an indifferent spectator of ordi- 
nary humanity must in these cases generally be 
for acquittal, but I saw no case of conviction in 
which it did not appear to be right. 

I have omitted to state that after the grand 
jury are sworn in and have retired, a long 
and most ludicrous proclamation is read, which 
dates, I believe, from the time of Elizabeth. It 
prohibits and denounces all kinds and species 
of vice and immorality in general and in detail, 
and must certainly exercise a very valuable influ- 
ence on the national morals. 

The run of the criminal business is very like 
ours, but I may mention one very interesting 
case which I saw tried at Croydon. A poor 
woman was put to the bar charged with the 
murder of her own illegitimate child. The 
killing was pretty clear, though resting entirely 
on circumstantial evidence and that of experts. 
The inquiry occupied a whole day; surgeons, 
midwives, relatives were examined. I shall 
not soon forget the looks of the dark-browed 
sister, the beautiful contradictions (as usual) of 
the scientific witnesses, the fair and humane sum- 
ming up of Mr. Garth for the Crown, the clear, 
careful, well-balanced charge of Mr. Justice 
Cresswell, the intense attention of the prisoner 
to the proceedings, nor the thrill that every man 
in the crowded court room felt to run through 
it when the verdict of acquittal was pronounced : 
" Discharge the prisoner," said the judge. But 
she had fainted dead away, and her sense- 
less form was carried out of the room in the 
arms of her father. I saw several cases tried 
upon charges of the horrid crime against nature. 
Mr. Justice told me they occurred at al- 
most every circuit, and I saw at least one con- 
viction on testimony which left no doubt that 
the revolting offense had been committed. 

Let us go now to the civil side of the court. 
The differences here between our practice and the 
English are much less striking. Special juries are, 
however, more frequent. On paying a guinea 
per head you have a special jury as a matter of 
right; and that special jurymen are a different 
class of mortals from common jurymen was very 
plainly proved to me in the course of a very 
capital opening made by Mr. Sergeant Byles at 
IpsAvich, for the defense of an action brought 
for compensation by a land-owner against a 
railway company. He was addressing a special 
jury, and desirous at one part of his speech 
to resort to a familiar illustration, he began : 
" Gentlemen, you are no doubt frequently in 
the habit of seeing your wives making bread, 
and you have no doubt also observed that the 
bread has a trick of rising — " Here he was in- 
terrupted by his associate counsel, who whisper- 
ed something in his ear, whereupon the judi- 
cious tactician immediately corrected himself. 
" Gentlemen, I had for the moment forgotten 



ENGLISH WIGS AND GOWNS. 



221 



that this was a special jury — I had intended to 
say you have no doubt seen your servants make 
bread." So sensitive are the feelings of caste 
in England, and so offensive would it be to a 
special juryman to have it thought that his wife 
ever made bread. The speech was an excellent 
one, and capitally illustrated the eccentricities 
of trial by jury. It was an opening for the de- 
fense; not a witness had the counsel called, but 
the moment the learned sergeant sat down, one 
of the jurymen rose and said the case seemed to 
him very clear, and he hoped they need not be 
troubled by any farther investigation of the 
plaintiff's demand. So cleverly had the thing 
been done, the jury actually thought that all 
that had been stated had been proved. 

I saw several cases tried illustrating the ap- 
plication of the new rule permitting the party 
to testify in his own cause. Of six judges with 
whom I conversed on the subject, five told me 
that they were satisfied it was an improvement 
on the old system, and several of them origin- 
ally opposed to it, had been converted by see- 
ing its operation. 

I saw one cause tried where the plaintiff, a 
footman, brought his action against the execu- 
tors of his deceased master to recover a £100 
note, which he said his master had put away in 
his writing-desk in an envelope, and told him 
(the plaintiff) that he should have it after his 
death, if he would remain in his service until 
that time. The plaintiff was put on the stand. 
The note was found in the envelope, but there 
was no other corroborating proof, and no third 
person was present at the interview. The plain- 
tiff told his story on the direct in a plain and 
intelligible way ; he was subjected to a long and 
severe cross examination, but he stood it so 
perfectly, that the counsel for the executors, as 
soon as his examination had closed, withdrew 
all opposition, and the plaintiff had his verdict.* 

Another case I saw tried at Ipswich for the 
value of some turnip or rape seed, and the de- 
fense was a failure of consideration in conse- 
quence of defect in the seed. The plaintiff and 
defendent were both called, and swore terribly 
in each other's teeth ; but the jury found, in 
conformity to the clear opinion of the experi- 
enced Alderson. 

I am not now to argue the general merits of 
the question, or whether to arrive at the truth 
of certain controverted state of facts, it is really 
wiser to ask, or to refuse to ask those who un- 
questionably know most about the matter. But 
one advantage of the English system had not 
before occurred to me, and when stated will, I 
think, appear considerable to every practical 
lawyer. 

The permission to call a party becomes a 
compulsion to do so, because the omission to 
do it opens the door for a fatal attack, so that 
in practice the plaintiff and defendant are al- 

* The counsel was Mr. Hayes, the author of an uncom- 
monly clever jew d'e<?2?n't, called Crogate's Case, in which 
the venerable system of pleading is very roughly han- 
dled. 



ways called, and, what is more, they are always 
Jirst called. This puts, at once, an end to all 
finessing about the order of testimony. There 
is no arrangement of witnesses; no putting this 
one forward because he is more favorable ; no 
keeping that one back because he knows a little 
too much. The plaintiff or defendant is first 
called ; he states his case. If he breaks down on 
cross-examination, the case is pretty much up — 
as it ought to be — if not, you corroborate as best 
you may. The practice undoubtedly simplifies 
the trial of causes. 

The leading diversity between the English 
courts at Nisi Prius and our own is the dif- 
ference in the dispatch of business; and the 
difference is greatly in their favor. It is diffi- 
cult to make any accurate chronological esti- 
mate, but I think they do not consume one- 
fourth part of the time in the trial of causes 
that we do. This was the point that I had 
most in my mind when I first entered their 
court-rooms, and was that to which my atten- 
tion was most directed. The secret is easily 
explained. 

The great reason of the English dispatch of 
business, is owing to the fact that a trial at Nisi 
Prius is confined in practice, as it is only in 
theory with us, to ascertaining the facts of 
the case ; all legal arguments are really and 
truly reserved for the court above. No argu- 
ment, or any thing approaching to an argument, 
is allowed. A question is put and objected to ; 
the judge intimating his opinion sometimes by 
a nod, sometimes by a grunt, sometimes by a 
growl, but the decision is made, if considered 
objectionable, excepted to, and the cause in- 
stantly proceeds. There are no elaborate dis- 
cussions of questions of law which ought to be 
reserved for the court above ; no ingenious of- 
fers of testimony, made only as the texts of 
captivating harangues to the jury, in order to 
induce them to believe a thing proved that the 
counsel has no means on earth of establishing. 

That this is the true theory of our system 
of jurisprudence seems to me very clear; that 
our American practice, which permits the judge, 
jurymen, and witnesses to be kept waiting hours 
during the elaborate discussion of questions of 
law, offers of evidence, etc., is a vicious inno- 
vation, appears to me susceptible of no serious 
doubt. 

Nor would it be difficult, I think, with us to 
return to the good old ways. Lawyers are an 
eminently practical race. They sutler more 
than any others by the intolerable delay which 
now takes place in the trial of causes, and they 
would, I am satisfied, cheerfully submit to the 
control of an able bench. 

I saw the same thing exemplified in their 
Chamber work. By a very sensible rule, du- 
ring the vacation one judge is authorized to 
make orders in causes in all the courts, and 
Baron Martin, of the Exchequer, who was sit- 
ting at Serjeant's Inn this year, very obligingly 
gave me every facility for witnessing the oper- 
ation. The judge, unincumbered by wig or 



222 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



gown, occupies a small, quiet room. Outside 
congregate the attorneys and their clerks, for 
most of this work is done by the latter class. The 
indie's clerk calls on one motion after another as 
they are respectively disposed of, and the parties 
engaged enter the judge's room as they are called. 
This prevents all confusion and disorder. I had 
the honor of sitting beside Judge Martin for up- 
ward of an hour, and saw him dispose of all sorts 
of applications — motions for time to plead, for 
commissions, to change the venue, justification 
of bail, all opposed motions, and I am very sure 
that, on an average, they did not take over five 
minutes each. Several of them with us would 
have taken the whole morning. There is a right 
to appeal in each case, but I saw none taken, and 
the decisions appeared satisfactory. There was 
no superfluous form, and no want of respect or 
courtesy on either side. The judge was rapid 
and peremptory, but perfectly tranquil and ur- 
bane. It would be difficult to see work of the 
kind done better. 

To be sure the thorough discipline and sub- 
mission of the English bar we can not expect 
to have. It grows out of the English character 
and English social organization. We can not 
expect our barristers to say without a struggle, 
" Of course your lordship's right ;" " Just as your 
lordship pleases ;" " I'm quite in your lordship's 
hands." There is a little too much of this at 
the English bar, and on young and timid men 
— although the English judges are eminently 
accomplished lawyers and courteous gentlemen 
— I am persuaded that the judicial frown may 
exercise a chilling if not a blighting influ- 
ence. 

I saw but one offensive instance of this kind 
of thing. A Queen's counsel proposed to ask 
some question on cross-examination. The ju- 
dicial wig shook horizontally. That is enough 
generally to check the most adventurous bar- 
rister; but it did not at once succeed on this 
occasion. 

"But, my Lord— " 

" It's not evidence, Mr. X ." 

"But, my Lord, the Counsel on the direct 
went into this branch of the case, and — " 

" Mr. X , I shall not interrupt a gentle- 
man of your rank in the profession, and you 
may go on if you please ; but I tell you, Sir, it's 
r-r-rubbish !" uttered with an asperity of man- 
ner that no pen or paper can convey. I need 

hardly say that Mr. X did not pursue his 

cross-examination. 

But this was the only instance of the kind 
that I saw in many days of attendance on the 
courts ; and I am quite sure that the causes 
are, as a general rule, fully tried, fairly tried, 
satisfactorily tried, with as, I say, certainly not 
an expense of one-fourth of the time we con- 
sume ; and that simply owing to the fact that 
the counsel does not attempt to offer, and the 
judge will not listen to any argument whatever 
during the trial of a cause. The question is 
asked, the point made, the exception taken, the 
decision given, and the cause instantly pro- 



ceeds. How superior this is to our system I 
need not say. 

In the arts of oratory, as a general rule, the 
English barristers can not boast supremacy. 
They have nothing of the incredible fluency of 
our counsel, who are born at ward meetings, 
live on the stump, and die in the halls of legis- 
lation, and who flow on, like shining rivers, 
with equal ease, whether they have much, little, 
or nothing to say. 

Their style of speech is in general embar- 
rassed and inelegant, and they have neither the 
Celtic vivacity nor, as I have said, our uninter- 
ruptible fluency. Their speech is too often de- 
formed by the perpetual recurrence of common 
colloquialisms : " Oh, yes, Tear-well ;" and "You 
know ;" ad nauseam. To this there are, how- 
ever, very striking exceptions, to which it would 
be invidious for me to refer nominatim. 

One very peculiar and very unsatisfactory 
feature of the system is the great number of 
barristers, who do literally nothing but sit round 
the green table at the bottom of the cockpit, 
look on, and amuse themselves with cutting 
paper or drawing caricatures. The bulk of the 
business goes to the leader of the circuit, as the 
most prominent counsel is called ; a portion of 
it is divided between some three or four other 
counsel ; and the rest, in the language of the 
turf, "are nowhere." And this goes on for 
years : for years these briefless barristers per- 
ambulate these country towns ; for years they sit 
round this same everlasting green table ; for 
years they sec others doing every thing, and 
they do nothing till a lucky accident throws 
business in their way. 

The work on the circuits is, as I have said, 
on the whole well done; but I think the tend- 
ency is to undue haste. The appointments 
are all made before leaving London, and the 
great object of the judge is to leave nothing 
behind him. This gives him a strong induce- 
ment to press on the business as much as pos- 
sible, while the counsel have barely time to 
confer with their attorneys before the cause 
is called on. On both the criminal and civil 
side I think, as I say, that the tendency is to 
too great dispatch. 

As a general rule, there are no provincial 
libraries on these circuits. Of course, the 
judges and counsel have a few vade mecums 
with them ; but there is really no time for 
study or consultation : the counsel can hardly 
have time to read his brief, much less for con- 
sultation or conference, before he is called on. 

The examination of witnesses is not mate- 
rially different from ours. But the preparation 
of a complete narrative of the cause, and a 
statement of what each witness will swear to, 
being put into the counsel's hands to examine 
by, tends to the putting of more leading ques- 
tions than we are inclined to permit. The rule 
prohibiting them is the same as with us; but 
they somehow or other slip in, and are less fre- 
quently objected to than they would be here. 

I can not but think — and I may as well here 



ENGLISH WIGS AND GOWNS. 



223 



express the opinion — that the etiquette of the 
English system, which separates the barrister 
from his client and his witnesses, is illogical 
flnd absurd. It is difficult to conceive that a 
counsel who knows his case only from inter- 
views with an attorney, or more probably only 
from his brief, can try it as well as if he had 
conferred freely with his client and personally 
with the witnesses. It seems almost self-evi- 
dent that the cause will not be any better un- 
derstood for coming to the counsel exclusively 
through the medium of the attorney. The En- 
glish lawyers have an idea that it will lead in 
some way or other to perjury, to the suggestion 
to the witness of what he is wanted to swear — 
as if an unscrupulous attorney could not take 
a hint. In fact, I don't think I ever understood 
the arguments in favor of the system, and I don't 
think any one can understand them well enough 
to reply to them. 

They were well answered, to my mind, at that 
curious place called the " Judge and Jury" at 
the Coal-hole, in the Strand, where, in a sort 
of a garret, half-lighted, through the smoke of 
cigars and the fumes of brandy, you may any 
night see a not very decent but most ludicrous 
caricature of the English courts of justice, and 
sometimes hear very pungent criticisms on their 
social organization. One of the standing jokes 
there is this separation of witness and counsel. 
The witness takes the stand, and the first thing 
is for him to recognize the counsel as an old 
friend and acquaintance. " How do you do, 
Sir? I hope you are quite well, Sir!" Where- 
upon the indignant counsel at once ferociously 
bristles up. "What! you fellow, you don't mean 
to insinuate that you ever saw me before!" "Oh 
no, Sir !" says the rebuked witness ; " of course 
not, Sir/" This is pretty good proof how much 
the rule is really adhered to, or at least sup- 
posed to be by the knowing ones. 

The business on the circuits varies very much. 
At Derby there were twenty-six cases on the 
criminal calendar, and only five causes on the 
civil side. At Croydon Mr. Justice Wightman 
was struggling, like Enceladus, under a civil cal- 
endar of upward of two hundred causes. And 
the great Northern Circuit, embracing York and 
Liverpool, generally exceeds the Home in its 
amount of work. 

I have left myself little room for the social 
part of my theme, not the least pleasant division 
of labor in the circuits. As I have said, on 
each circuit the judges give two dinners — one to 
the county magistrates, and one to the bar; 
sometimes, when numerous, dividing them into 
two classes for convenience. The magistrates 
are the gentlemen of the county. The topics of 
conversation are the general character of the 
business of the court, the state of the crops and 
of the weather, with a few necessary toasts ; nor 
did I hear any more cordially drunk than that 
of "The President of the United States," given 
at Derby by Mr. Justice Coleridge. 

The judicial dinners to the bar are more 
genial and conversational meetings. Lawyers, 



all over the world, are social animals, and En- 
glish lawyers form no exception to the rule. 
The toasts are technical and de rigueur. First 
comes "The Queen," next "Prince Albert," 
then "The Lord Chancellor;" next any of the 
judges who have, while at the bar, gone that 
particular circuit; then follows "Prosperity to 
the circuit;" and finally, on the summer circuit ; 
as a close, " Cras omnium Animarum" or " The 
Morrow of All-Soul's Day," on which day, before 
the recent statutory changes, the term usually 
began in London. 

To look at these matters financially, these 
dinners are not given, it is surmised, without 
expense ; and I heard the traveling charges of 
the judges on the circuit estimated, for each 
magistrate, at five hundred pounds, or twenty- 
five hundred dollars per annum, which, in most 
parts of our economical country, would be con- 
sidered a pretty fair salary. As it is, it is a 
serious deduction from the English salary of 
five thousand pounds. 

Those were pleasant days that I spent at 
Derby. Immediately after breakfast I joined 
the judges, went into the court-rooms by their 
private entrance, and looked on the panorama of 
justice as it was unrolled, first on the civil, then 
on the criminal side. This filled the working 
part of the day. Then came the dinner witli 
the judges, with the magistrates, or with the 
bar, and after dinner the obligatory cup of 
tea, quietly taken with the judges and their 
marshals. Then we went over the events of 
the day, discussed this counsel's argument, and 
reviewed that verdict, and from time to time 
drew comparisons between the judicial organiza- 
tion of the Ancient Monarchy and of the Great 
Republic beyond the seas. The cordial respect 
that was at all times shown to our people, and 
the familiarity with her prominent names, were 
not among the least pleasant features of these 
social hours. 

Nor have I yet spoken of the bar dinners, 
held at the principal inn in the assize town ; 
nor can I speak properly of them without in- 
fringing that salutary rule which prohibits all 
revelation of the fun, and the freedom, and the 
folly of the social hour. And yet, I wish I 
could, without indiscretion, as our French friends 
say, give a notion of the pleasant dinner which 
we had at the Grayhound, at Croydon. Good 
company there was, and plenty of it. Mr. 
Bramwell, of the Common Law Bar, who has 
gained fame and influence both as a lawyer and 
a law reformer; Mr. Sergeant Shee, who won 
his spurs in a great forensic fight with Lord Ab- 
inger; Mr. Sergeant Gazeley; Mr. Creasy, the 
author of the "Fifteen Decisive Battles of the 
World" (for literature and law do sometimes gc 
hand in hand); Mr. Montagu Chambers, coun- 
sel at the Bar and in Parliament, and id genu c 
omne. But how can I, without committing tin 
crimen hrscc societatis record the fun, the frolics, 
the sense, the nonsense of those pleasant hours. 
I wish I could daguerreotype them. I \\\A\ I 
could tell how Mr. Senior, at the head of the 



!24 



HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



table, supported the dignity of the elder brethren ; 
how well Mr. Junior, at the lower end of the 
table, represented the lawless freedom of the 
younger sons; how Mr. Solicitor General sus- 
tained his indictment against Mr. , "for 

that on a certain day, at the town of Lewes, 
when the bar were invited to dine with Her 

Majesty's judges of assize, he, the said , 

did willfully and maliciously entertain a private 
] >arty at dinner elsewhere ;" how witnesses were 
called ; how one after another the solemn officers 
of justice arose; how they were stultified by the 
party calling them ; and how grave historians, 
Members of Parliament, philosophical writers, 
ex-colonial judges, joined in the high jenks till 
the " wee sma' hours ayont the twal." 

I bade my friends of the English bar farewell 
at Croydon early in August. The circuits were 
then mostly over, and in a few days they were 
about to scatter like boys out of school on the 
long vacation ; some to Ireland, some to Scot- 
land, some to the Continent. Nearly three 
blessed months they give to rational amusement, 
or equally rational exercise. In November and 
December they meet again for the wear and 
tear of the winter's work. One can not but 
envy such a disposition of time. 

Such is a hurried picture of the English cir- 
cuits — such a brief sketch of the manner, the wise 
manner, in which the lawyers of England weave 
the business of life with its pleasures. I hope 
it may induce some better observer — some more 
profound philosopher to study the subject. We 
are in many ways closely bound to the English 
bar. They are taking many things in their legal 
reforms from us — we can borrow many things 
from them. If we could make mutual exchanges 
of energy on the one side, and discipline on the 
other — if, above all things, we could ingraft 
some social pleasures on our work-horse exist- 
ence, most desirable results might be obtained. 

And so end the experiences of an Honorary 
Member of the Home Circuit. 

PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 

BY AN AMERICAN. 

T was on the first day of October, in the year 
of grace one thousand eight hundred and 
fifty-five, that the good steamer Nubia lay in 
the outer harbor of Valetta, in the island of 
Malta, waiting her passengers for the far East, 
while the (any thing but good) steamer Valetta 
was steaming up the harbor from Marseilles, 
having on board fifty passengers wearied out 
with a sirocco that had been blowing for nearly 
three days, and glad to be exchanged to any 
floating vessel that did not ship three seas to 
the minute, and carry a load of fleas, flies, and 
cockroaches. The Nubia had sailed from South- 
ampton, in England, on the 20th of September, 
and was therefore already partially loaded. In 
point of fact she was already full, and it was a 
trick upon travelers to add any more to her 
list; but the Oriental Company has no more 
of a conscience than most corporations ; and is 
(X all events pretty sure of a long delay before 



they hear the curses of outward-bound passen- 
gers, and, accordingly, it is not to be wondered 
at that they were willing to crowd more than 
two hundred persons into accommodations fit 
for only three-fourths of that number, and at 
the same time receive their passage-money for 
the various ports along the route of the over- 
land mail to India. 

The transfer from the Valetta was rapidly 
effected. The harbor of Malta is crowded with 
small boats, numbered as are the carriages in 
New York ; and in one of these — number for- 
gotten, or I would recommend the old boatman 
to future travelers; his name was John, possibly 
that will answer as well — we were taken, «bag, 
baggage, bandbox, and bundle, to the Nubia, 
where the Captain, a most excellent specimen 
of the English sea-dog, welcomed us frankly 
and heartily, and the purser showed us to the 
poop-cabin, the best room on the ship. When 
one considers that we had paid our passages 
only to Malta, and had no tickets for the Nubia, 
and that she was already so crowded as to have 
a number of passengers sleeping on sofas in the 
main saloon, it is not to be doubted that we did 
honor to the proverbial sagacity of Americans 
in thus providing ourselves with the best ac- 
commodations on board the ship. We found 
little difficulty, however, in arranging it, and 
having deposited our luggage in the quarters 
assigned us, we went on shore to look at the 
harbor of Valetta and the city itself. 

Malta is, of course, an interesting spot to all 
Christians. To the traveler eastward it pos- 
sesses the additional interest of being the step- 
ping-stone from the New to the Old world. 
Here he begins to see the East, half-clothed in 
the garb of the West. Here he stands for the 
first time on holy ground, and treads for the 
first time the footsteps of the apostles of the 
Lord. You may call it imagination, but I tell 
you that I could not help it, in the gray twilight 
of that morning as we rolled heavily along the 
coast of Malta — I could not help it, I say, when 
the mists along the shore curled upward in the 
air, and I thought they formed a gorgeous can- 
opy over a temple, and that I could hear from 
it the voice of the Apostle of the Gentiles. It 
might have been the sea on the shore. It 
might have been the sirocco over the island 
hills. It might have been ; but why waste con- 
jectures ? It was in my soul the voice of Paul, 
as clear, as loud, as firm, as it fell on the ear 
of the startled islanders in the first century; 
and if you call it imagination, I have no objec- 
tion to your believing it was so. As for me, I 
have some belief in the idea that the voices of 
the great dead linger in the air that was wont 
to be moved by them, and reach the ears of 
later ages with audible accents. 

We went on shore at Malta. Twenty drago- 
men offered their services on the stone steps at 
the boat landing; but we selected none of them, 
having no occasion for them. A drive of half 
an hour finished our business, which consisted 
in getting certain stores for use on the Nile, 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



225 



and we then looked at the remains of the old 
splendor of this residence and possession of the 
Knights of the Cross. No man, howsoever pre- 
judiced he may be, can avoid doing reverence 
to the valor and faith of those gallant men who 
fought and died to redeem the land of Judea 
and the sepulchre of our Lord from the hands 
of the accursed Saracens. The brief and event- 
ful history of the kingdom of Jerusalem is full 
of interest, full of the deepest and most thrill- 
ing interest, and all the glory of the Crusades 
sheds lustre on the hills of Malta. But there 
is little left of the ancient magnificence of the 
place. Here and there some broken memorials 
exist, and St. John stands as of old, but the 
rocks and the sea are the most solemn and 
faithful witness-bearers of men and deeds of 
renown, to which the thoughtful traveler turns 
with veneration, while he shrinks with undis- 
guised horror from a museum in which they 
exhibit arms and tombs as curious relics. But 
in the crypts under the Cathedral, standing 
by the tombs of the Grand Masters, it is not 
difficult to rouse one's enthusiasm — to recall 
the grandeur of the order to which kings and 
princes did honor, and before whose strong 
arms the Saracens were driven like the wind. 
In those dark vaults one could see the tall form 
of Villars start from the dust, and could hear 
the Dens Yult ring as of old it rang in the ears 
of the flying hordes of Egypt. The will of 
God has overcome the princely order of the 
Temple, and silken knights and modern women- 
at-arms wear the cross of Villars. It is strange 
that the dead sleep so well when men so defile 
their memory, and abuse their legacies. 

A hundred boats swarmed around the Nubia, 
through which, with much swearing and under 
an astounding storm of curses, our boatmen 
worked their way to the side of the ship. We 
paused an instant to buy a stock of grapes, ap- 
ples, and pomegranates from a boat that was 
loaded with them at the foot of the ship's lad- 
der, and then climbed to the deck and looked 
around at our fellow-passengers. 

They were a motley company, such as nowhere 
gathers on a vessel except in the Mediterranean. 
English, of course, predominated. A hundred 
and fifty of the subjects of her Britannic Majes- 
ty, bound to her Indian possessions, composed 
the body of the group on deck, while the other 
fifty were Turks, Arabs, Maltese, Italian, Por- 
tuguese, Nubian, Lascar, and, ourselves, Amer- 
ican. The crew and cabin waiters increased 
the number of persons on the ship to three hun- 
dred and fifty, and a number of second-class pas- 
sengers made it nearly or quite four hundred. 

The scene had already become Oriental in 
character when the vessel left the harbor. It 
was a beautiful afternoon. The storm which 
we had suffered on the Valetta having followed 
us to the entrance of the port, left us there, so 
that when we came out again on the other 
steamer we found a calm sea, a cloudless sky, 
and that deep blue haze which characterizes 
the Mediterranean in the latter part of the sum- 



mer. The English ladies on board seemed to 
vie with each other in the elegance of their 
afternoon dresses, and no hotel at Saratoga or 
Newport ever presented a gayer appearance 
than did the quarter-deck of the Nubia on that 
day. Hereiay on a pile of cushions a lady of 
rare and delicate beauty, dressed in white from 
head to foot, her dress the finest lawns and 
laces of exquisite texture; while, by way of 
contrast or foil to her beauty, an Indian serv- 
ant, black as an African, and dressed in crim- 
son, with a long piece of yellow cloth wound 
around his head and shoulders, stood fanning 
his mistress. There stood a group of young 
ladies, all in black, but all richly dressed and 
every neck gleaming with jewels ; while a half 
dozen young men, officers and civilians inter- 
mingled, were making the neighborhood intol- 
erable by their incessant flow of nonsense. Two 
English generals with their families were on 
deck, and a Portuguese Governor-General with 
his suite, outward-bound to the possessions of 
Portugal in the Indies. Children were playing 
every where, and officers hastening hither or 
thither found themselves constantly entangled 
in the games of the young ones, or lost in a cir- 
cle of laughing girls, or actually made fast by 
the endless questions of some elderly mother 
of a family. 

And so the sun went down ; and as he went 
down in the waters of the sea, one man, our 
companion from Marseilles, an Oriental of im- 
mense wealth, but a Parsee, might have been 
seen on the distant forecastle, standing calmly 
with folded arms and steadfast eyes fixed on his 
descending god, and following his course with 
fixed countenance long after he had disappear- 
ed, as if he could penetrate the very earth it- 
self with that adoring gaze. And it did not 
seem strange here that he should worship that 
orb. I, too, began to feel that there was some- 
thing grand, majestic — almost like a god — in 
the everlasting circuit of the sun above these 
seas. Day by day — day by day — for thousands 
of years, the eye of his glory had seen the 
waves of the Great Sea. The Phoenician sail- 
ors, Cadmus, Jason — all the bold navigators 
that are known in song and story- — he had 
watched and guided to port or destruction. Is 
it the same great sun that looks down on Amer- 
ican forests? Is it the same sun that has shone 
on me when I slept at noonday on the rocky 
shores of the Delaware, or whose red depart- 
ure I have watched from the hills of Minne- 
sota? The same sun that beheld the glory of 
Nineveh, the fall of Persepolis, the crumbling 
ruins of the Acropolis? In such lands, on such 
seas as this, he is a poor man, poor in imagina- 
tion and the power of enjoyment, who docs not 
have new ideas of the grandeur of the sun that 
has shone on the birth, magnificence, burial, 
and forgotten graves of so many nations. Well 
as men have marked them, tall as they have 
builded their monuments, broad and deep as 
they have, laid their foundations, none know 
them now save the sun and stars, that have 



226 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



marked them day by day with un forgetful visit- 
ation. Think it not strange, then, when I say 
I began to feel that it was not so strange that 
men should worship the sun. But while I was 
thinking thus, the day was gone, and the night, 
with its deep blue filled with ten thousand more 
stars than I had ever seen before, was around 
us, and I wrapped my plaid around me, and 
disdaining any other cover than that glorious 
canopy, I slept on deck and dreamed of home. 

I say I slept and dreamed. It was pleasant 
though fitful sleep, and I woke at dawn. It 
could not be otherwise. From my childhood I 
had one longing desire in my soul, and that was, 
to visit Egypt and the Holy Land. It grew on 
me with my growth. It entered into all my 
plans of life — all my prospects for the future. I 
talked of it often, thought of it oftener, dreamed 
of it nightly for years. One and another ob- 
stacle was removed, and I began to see before 
me the immediate realization of my hopes. 
It would be idle to say my heart did not beat 
somewhat faster when I saw the blue line of 
the American horizon go down behind the sea. 
It would still be more idle to say, that I did not 
weep sometimes — tears that were not childish — 
when I remembered the silent parting from 
those dear lips that had taught me for thirty 
years to love the land that God's footsteps had 
hallowed, and whose eves looked so longingly 
after me as I hastened away. (God grant me 
again those dear embraces !) It would be idle 
to deny that in my restless sleep on the At- 
lantic in the narrow cabin, my gentle May, who 
slept less heavily, heard me sometimes speak 
strange words that might have puzzled others, 
but that she, as the companion of my studies, 
recognized as the familiar names of holy 
places. 

But notwithstanding all this, I did not, in 
my calm, waking hours, feel that I was ap- 
proaching Eastern climes and classic or sacred 
soil until I had left Malta, and felt the soft 
north wind coming down from Greece. That 
first night on the Nubia was full of it. I could 
not sleep more than half an hour at a time, and 
then I would start up wide awake, with the idea 
that some one had spoken to me ; and once, I 
could not doubt it, I heard as plainly as if it 
were real, my father's voice — as I have heard it 
often and often — reading from the old prince 
and father of song. 

Just before daybreak I crossed the deck and 
bared my forehead to a soft, faint breeze that 
stole over the sea. The moon lay in the west. 
The night was clear, and I could read as if it 
were day. I leaned on the rail, and looked up 
to windward, where, here and there, I could see 
the white caps of the thousand waves, silvered 
in the light of the purest moon I ever saw, and 
yielding to the temptation of a quotation, where 
no one was near to hear me and to call it pe- 
dantic, I began to recite that splendid passage 
from the Prometheus, which was born in the 
poet's brain on this identical water which now 
rolled around me : 



u> dioc aidrip ical ra^vTrrepoL irvotai 

TTOTdjUUV TE 7T7]yal, TTOVTIUV TE KVjUUTUV 

dvTjpiOjuov -yiXaojua, Tza/ijuyrop te y?/ 
Kal rbv iravoTTTTjv kvkXov ?]?uov, /taAdi. 

" And what's the use of calling on them ?" 
said a clear, pleasant voice behind me, as I 
started around to recognize one of the English 
generals whom I have mentioned as with us on 
the ship. 

"I say what's the use of calling on them 
when they won't come? Times are changed. 
There arc no gods in Greece now, and, by Ju- 
piter, no men either, and the river nymphs are 
all gone ; and the smiles of the Avaves, look at 
them — they come when they will, and go where 
they will, but the good old days of poetry are 
gone, gone, gone !" 

"You speak as if you lamented it, General?" 

"Well, I do. I have wasted a lifetime in 
hard work, and I am old enough to wish I could 
find rest, and talk with something besides men." 

"How with the women? Mrs. Harleigh is 
certainly the best of companions. You need 
none more beautiful and winning." 

"God bless her! yes. She is a gem. Ah.' 
she learned her sweetest tones in the woods of 
America. I often tell her she learned to sing 
from the wild birds when she was there." 

"You have been in America?" 

"Never. But she was there three years, and 
when I tell her any large stories of India and 
our campaigning out there, she takes me down 
with America, and I can't say another word. 
But here comes one of those dogs of Arabs. 
They have been lying on the floor of the main- 
deck, close to the engines, all night. They 
must enjoy the smells of the oil." 

The Bedouin advanced, muttering something 
to which the General replied in the same gut- 
tural dialect. 

" Do you know that the Persians and other 
nations of Asia consider Arabic too vile a lan- 
guage to speak or to understand ? They ignore 
it absolutely and entirely, and will never allow 
it to be supposed they know any thing about it. 
Some years ago, after a heavy storm on the coast 
of the Persian Gulf, a box came on shore which 
puzzled the Persians not a little, as they them- 
selves relate it. They said it was a large box 
made with slats like a prison, and containing a 
biped such as had never before been seen in Per- 
sia. He was tall, and looked like a bird ; he had 
feathers on all but his head ; but they could 
make nothing out of him, and so they carried 
box and animal some hundred miles up the 
country to one of the chief men, and a very 
learned man he was too. He inspected it. He 
pronounced it not a bird. It Avas human ; but 
the head Avas Avhat puzzled him. It Avas bright 
scarlet, and the scarlet flesh hung down the 
neck. But he had a beard groAving out of his 
breast, and that Avas horrible ; but it must be a 
man. So they formed a ring and opened the 
box, and waited the result. He came out. He 
looked around, raised his head, dropped his 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



227 



scarlet head-covering, dragged his wings on the 
ground and expanded his feathers, while he 
swelled to an alarming size, and walked around 
with an exceedingly proud manner, and then, 
Sir — if you will believe it — then, Sir, he be- 
gan to talk Arabic !" 

"And they installed him Professor of Arabic 
in their principal university ?" 

"Doubtless. But day is breaking yonder. 
You can see the flush all along the horizon." 

"And this land on the starboard bow. What 
is that?" 

"We will ask." 

The first officer was on deck, and we learned 
from him that it was Cape Arabat. This was 
our first view of Africa. Here were the cities 
of the Heptapolis. Here in old days Avas Ber- 
enice the beautiful ! Here was Ptolemais, and 
here Cyrene. 

That long line of sand, desolate and deserted, 
was all that remained of that old grandeur. It 
already becomes tiresome to record, as we have 
in our journals, the miserable relics that Ave be- 
hold of ancient magnificence. 

The sun came up again, and in the forenoon 
we lost sight of the land, and Avere left to our 
own resources in the ship for means to Avhile 
aAvay the sixty hours yet remaining before Ave 
could expect to reach Alexandria. 

Our friend the General proved a most inter- 
esting companion. He Avas a veteran in her 
Majesty's service, having been in active duty for 
forty-six years, always in India, Avith only one 
leave of absence during that entire period. He 
Avas a man of extensive reading and rare con- 
versational ability. His A T ery lovely young Avife 
lay on a sofa on deck all the afternoon, en- 
joying the conversation, and listening to the 
capital stories which the General told. The 
sun Avent AvestAvard again. The afternoon Avas 
Avarm, and the ladies, Avho Avere all lounging on 
cushions or sofas, one by one fell asleep, Avhile 
the Genera], my friend and companion Jacques, 
and I sat talking cozily and quietly under the 
aAvning. I never heard a more curious mingling 
of subjects of conA r ersation than he and Ave made, 
and it Avas by a sIoav lapse from one subject to 
another that Ave at length arrived at Avhat I will, 
by your leave, call 

THE GENERAL'S STORY. 

" I Avas telling you hoAv to make a cony. My 
old friend and comrade, Bolton, was perhaps the 
best hand at it in India. A rare dog he Avas in 
his younger days, and full of that devil that 
possessed young officers in her Majesty's service 
in India forty years ago. We Avere friends from 
boyhood, and together to the last. Poor fellow ! 
poor fellow ! I can not believe that it is tAventy 
years since he Avas lost! 

" He Avas one of those men Avhose good luck 
Avas proverbial. He never needed to make prep- 
aration for any thing. All Avcnt Avell with him. 
He Avas always in the nick of time — always suc- 
cessful. I recollect one of the most remarkable 
instances of this that perhaps ever occurred, or 
was ever remembered if perchance it did occur. 



Bob Avas on his Avay to join the regiment, and 
had somehoAV got separated from his baggage 
and servants, and Avas left at nightfall alone in 
a small hut, on the borders of one of the Avorst 
districts for tigers that Ave have in Bengal. 
There was one spot in particular on his route 
Avhich always abounded in them, and Avhere 
they lay in Avait for travelers, and Avere pretty 
sure once a month or so to get a mouthful of 
humanity. Bob kneAv his road, and Avhat com. 
pany he was likely to fall into, but he had no 
arms, and nothing but his usual good luck to 
trust to. So he paused at the hut to rest 
aAvhile before entering the dangerous district. 

"The hut Avas already occupied by a traveler 
bound the other way, and it could not contain 
much more, for the proprietor of it, Avho fur- 
nished food and lodgings for man and beast, 
had a family of children and dogs abundantly 
sufficient to fill all his accommodations. The 
travelers thought it a little too close an arrange- 
ment for sleeping, and so they took cheroots 
and made themselves comfortable under a 
tree at the door. The night Avas still ; a light 
burned clearly and steadily in the open air. 
'Let us play,' said Bolton's companion. Bob 
declined. The other insisted. Bob Avas firm. 
The curiosity of his neAV acquaintance Avas 
aroused, and on learning that Bolton's reason 
for refusing Avas his inevitable good luck, the 
other insisted on the ivories, and produced 
them. 

"In half an hour he Avas cleaned out. But 
he was an inveterate hand at the dice, and Bob's 
game Avas up. The man had a cloak, or a sort 
of huge dressing-goAvn, Avhich he put up, and 
Avhich Bob examined, tried on, and Avon. He 
had nothing left but his pistols, and he offered 
those. Bob told him to load them, and he did 
so. Then he Avon them too, and his companion 
Avas broken. It Avas a cool, chilly night, and 
Bolton Avrapped his neAV goAvn around him, 
thrust the pistols into the pockets of it, and 
Avent on his lonesome Avay. Day Avas breaking 
in the east, and he was nodding himself into a 
half doze, Avhen — before he could shake open 
his eyelids, before he could stir hand or foot — a 
tiger Avas on his back, and off with him as if he 
Avere a child. By the time he Avas aAvake to 'a 
sense of his position' he Avas in the jungle. The 
next moment, as the thought flashed on him, 
he felt Avith his free hand for the pocket of his 
gown and dreAv a pistol, and the next instant 
fired it in the very jaws of his gigantic captor. 
The tiger, with a roar of astonishment and 
madness, shook him furiously out of the loose 
garment, and left him lying on the turf, un- 
harmed, unscratched, Avith an empty pistol in 
1) is hand, Avhile his adversary plunged into the 
thicket Avith the goAvn in his shattered jaAvs. 
Never tell me there was not a special providence 
in all that, from the very first throw of the dice! 
You may laugh. Yes, I see you think it a little 
profane to talk of a special providence in gam- 
bling; but, my friend, Avhen you are as old as 1 
am, which may you live to be, you will learn 



228 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



that if men will play cards, and will rattle the 
bones, there's an overruling God that will take 
care how they lie. 

But the turn of luck always will come. That's 
the same providence. I call it luck, because the 
word is more familiar to most men's minds. 
Men have their day. God has his clay. Men 
waste their hours, squander them, game them 
away, always losing never winning time, until 
the hour comes, when, if it be not an irreverent 
expression, God takes the game into his own 
hands, and the stakes are fearful — life against 
death, and there is literally no chance whatever 
for the man. 

His time came, and this was the way of it. 
We had been away from home twenty years. 
A long score they were, and we had grown 
brown and grown old. The sun of India had 
written all over our faces the stories of our 
service, and it was time for us to rest. We had 
a pleasant voyage home. It was long but not 
tedious, for we had capital company, and I had 
with me my wife and one child, a full-grown 
girl, to whom all day long I told stories of her 
father's home, the hills and valleys of old En- 
gland. 

We had been out more than a hundred days, 
and the captain told us we were near the shores 
of England. We looked out then more steadily 
for the white cliffs, and day after day strained 
our eyes to catch a glimpse of fatherland. At 
length, one pleasant morning, a fishing-boat 
came up to us. We were still out of sight of 
land, but they told us we were not fifty miles 
from Deal, and that they were bound to South- 
ampton. Our destination was London. I 
thought it as well to be put on shore four days 
earlier, and I bargained with the fishermen to 
charter their boat, which I succeeded in doing. 
Bolton yielded to none of my pleas. I tried 
hard to persuade him to join us, but he resisted 
firmly. His fate so willed it. He Avas a doomed 
man. We parted at the side of the ship, ap- 
pointing a meeting ten days ahead. I saw him 
standing there as the little craft sprang off on 
the waves, and I fancied there was a melan- 
choly look in his attitude. It must have been 
all fancy, for the day was clear and beautiful, 
and the wind blowing freshly up the channel. 
We ran on all day and all night. I can not 
tell you all I thought, or half the rushing flood 
of emotion, when next morning I beheld the 
land once more — the land where I was born, and 
of which my father's dust formed part and 
parcel. I lay on the little half deck watching 
the coast as it grew more and more distinct, 
and trying to recognize objects familiar to my 
young eyes, while I explained all that I saw to 
my daughter, who was opening hers for the first 
time on the land of her fathers. 

" The breeze was constantly increasing. 
Clouds came over the sun. The sea ran 
higher and higher, but I did not know it till 
the men disturbed me in their efforts to shorten 
sail, and then I saw that the storm had become 
fearfully violent. The laughter of the waves 



that you were this morning talking about had 
become terrible. Still, in the good stout boat 
which we were in, one of a class best fitted of 
any for such weather, there was not the slight- 
est occasion for fear, and I rather enjoyed the 
scene. Or I should have enjoyed it, but for my 
poor wife, who lay in the stern sheets very ill, 
and in awful dread of the inhospitable shores 
before us. 

"The men at length began to talk of laying 
to, or running for a shelter under one of the 
headlands. I opposed it firmly, determined, if 
it were possible, to be on shore that night in the 
good house of my old friend Thompson, who 

kept the inn at , or at least of his successor; 

and so we held on. 

u I have seen tempests, but seldom one like 
that. It was as if the old gods of the winds 
were out in company. Now it blew east, now 
west, now north. It was unsteady, but always 
furious. The entrance to the harbor was visible 
in the distance, and the rocky point which we 
must weather. The reef put out apparently 
across our course, and we were lying as close to 
the wind as was possible. It was at this mo- 
ment that we saw a government cruiser, a reve- 
nue cutter, well off to windward of us, and it 
was very evident by her actions that we were 
seen. 

"'What the deuce can she want?' said, the 
skipper, as she fell off three points and ran 
down toward us. She ought to have enough to 
do with taking care of herself to-night.' 

"Ten minutes more and we neared each 
other, both running for the point of the reef. 

" ' What bunting is that, Tom ?' demanded 
the skipper, as a signal-flag went up to the main- 
top-mast. 

"Tom, who was an old man-of-war's man, 
seemed puzzled. 

" 'It means "heave to," Sir, but damme if I 
know how he expects us to heave to in a sea- 
way like this.' 

"The skipper was evidently uneasy. An 
idea struck me. 

" ' What if he mistakes you for a smuggler, 
hey, Mr. Bunsen ?' 

"'That's it, Sir, by the powers! Well, I 
suppose we must do it. Hillo there, forward !' 

" ' Stop a moment, my friend. What are 
you about now.' 

" ' Government ship, Sir.' 

" ' Very likely, but she hasn't shown her colors 
yet ; and who gave a government ship the right 
to stop an officer in her Majesty's service, 
bound home with dispatches, especially in a 
place like this. Suppose you come into the 
wind for sixty seconds, where will you be in the 
next thirty ?' and I pointed to the ledge of rocks 
under our lee, which we were running along 
side of. 

" 'But she will fire into us.' 

" ' Let her fire ! There's a chance for us 
then, but none at all if you don't hold your 
course, and very steady at that.' 

" ' I believe you are right, Sir ; so here goes. 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



229 



Lie down there forward, <aveiy man of you, and 
hold on hard.' 

"He had scarcely spoken when a ball came 
over the rolling waves, jumping from wave to 
wave, but very wide of the mark. Five minutes 
more, and a second followed. The vessels were 
not five hundred yards apart, and this one was 
better aimed. It struck the block of the jib- 
sheets, and away went the sail on the wind, and 
the little craft came up in a twinkling and was 
all standing. The skipper was as pale as a 
ghost. I caught his eye and saw what he want- 
ed. I sprang to the main-sheets and hauled aft 
with all my strength. One of the men joined 
me. The cutter was silent, watching our move- 
ments. ' Damn him !' muttered the fisherman 
through his clenched teeth, 'Damn him! I'll 
show liim a trick worth knowing.' 

"By this time we were on our course again. 

" ' Stand by the main-sheet to ease off.' 

"I was as ready as if under his orders. We 
kept on a hundred fathoms more at a plunging 
speed, when suddenly he put up his helm hard 
to starboard, and shouted to us to ease off on 
the sheet. We obeyed, though it looked like 
madness. The reef was boiling, roaring before 
us, and we were driving right on it. The next 
moment we were in the raging surf, and the 
next beyond it in smooth sailing, where the 
worst disturbance was the balls from the cutter 
that fell flashing on the water around us. Two 
hours afterward, as the sun was setting in a red 

sky, we dropped anchor in the harbor of Y , 

and I made ready to go on shore. The half hour 
occupied in getting my baggage up and arranged, 
and packing those articles we had been using, 
sufficed to bring up the revenue cutter, and an 
officer came on board of us in a fury. I heard 
him blowing up the skipper, and when he was 
out of breath I walked into him. 

" 'Do you belong to that cutter, Sir?' 

" ' Yes, I do.' 

" ' What the devil do you mean by firing into 
me as you did to-day? By Jove, Sir! you will 
find it a costly piece of business when I reach 
London. I have been twenty years away from 
my native country, on my King's service, and 
the first time I return to see home I am fired 
into as if I were a pirate or a smuggler ! Go on 
board your vessel, Sir, and tell your chief officer 
that Colonel Harleigh, of the — th Regiment, 
on his way home with dispatches, swears, by all 
that is holy, that if there is any law in England 
he'll have it on him for such treatment.' But 
see how I am forgetting my story. The revenue 
chap apologized handsomely, and paid the fish- 
erman for his damages. But I never met Bob 
Bolton. He went down that night in the Chan- 
nel, with a hundred others, in the old ship 
Bengal. There was the providence again that 
took me off the ship the night before she was 
lost." 

With such company as we had, it was not 
difficult to keep Op our spirits and while away 
the time on the ship. Another night came 
over us with its wealth of beauty, and another 



dawn and sunrise woke me from deep slumber 
on the deck of the vessel. Thursday evening 
came. At midnight the deck was deserted, 
and I was alone. In that soft air and exquisite 
climate I preferred the deck to my cabin, and 
had made my bed every night on the planks 
under the sky. This night I could not sleep. 
The restlessness of which I have spoken had 
increased as we approached the shore of Egypt, 
and I walked the deck steadily for an hour, and 
then threw myself into one of the dozen large 
chairs which, in the day time, were the private 
property of as many English ladies. At one 
o'clock I heard the officer of the deck discussing 
the power of his eyesight, and springing to the 
rail, I saw clearly, on the starboard bow, the 
light of the Pharos at Alexandria. 

I shall not pause to speak of emotion now. 
I did not then pause to think of the magnifi- 
cence of the old Pharos which this one replaces, 
or of the grandeur that made it one of the seven 
wonders of the world. The great mirror that 
exhibited vessels a hundred miles at sea; the 
lofty tower that shone in the nights of those old 
centuries, almost on the rocky shores of Crete ; 
the palaces that lined the shore and stretched 
far out into the blue Mediterranean ; none of 
these were in my mind. Enough to say that, 
before I thought of this as the burial-place of 
the mighty son of Philip ; before I thought of 
it as the residence of the most beautiful of 
queens ; the abode of luxury and magnificence 
surpassing all that the world had seen or will 
see ; before the remembrance of the fabled Pro- 
teus, or even the great Julius came to my mind, 
I was seated in my chair, my head bowed down 
on my breast, and before my vision SAvept a 
train of old men of lordly mien, each man king- 
ly in his presence and bearing, yet each man in 
his life poor, lowly, if not despised. I saw the 
old Academician, his white locks flowing on the 
wind, and the Stagyrite, the mighty man of 
all old or modern philosophy, and a host of the 
great men of learning, whose names are lost 
now. And last in that visionary procession — 
calmer, more stately than the rest, with clear, 
bright eye fixed on the heaven where last of all 
he saw the flashing footsteps of the angels that 
bore away his Lord, with that bright light around 
his white forehead that crowned him a prince 
and king on earth and in heaven — I saw Ma?*k, 
the Apostle of Him whom Plato longed to see 
and Aristotle died ignorant of. 

With daybreak came the outlines of the shore 
and the modern city of Iskendereych, conspicuous 
above all being the Pillar of Diocletian, known 
to modern fame as Pompey's Pillar. We lay 
outside all night waiting for a pilot. The only 
benefit to be derived from the modern light- 
house at Alexandria is its warning not to ap- 
proach the harbor, which is entered by a wind- 
ing channel among innumerable reefs and rocks. 
We threw rockets, burned blue-lights, and fired 
cannon ; but an Egyptian pilot is not to be 
aroused before sunrise, and it was, therefore, 
two hours after daylight before he came off to 



230 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



us, and we entered the old port on the west side 
of the city. 

The instant that the anchor was dropped, a 
swarm, like the locusts of Egypt, of all manner 
of specimens of the human animal, poured up 
the sides of the ship and covered the decks from 
stem to stern. It would be vain to attempt to 
describe them. Moors, Egyptians, Bedouins, 
Turks, Nubians, Maltese, nondescripts — white, 
black, yellow, copper-colored, and colorless — to 
the number of two or three hundred, dressed in 
as many costumes, convinced us that we were 
in a new country for us. There were many 
who wore elegant and costly dresses, but the 
large majority were of the poorest sort, and 
poverty here seems to make what we call pov- 
erty at home positive wealth. Of a hundred or 
more of this crowd, the dress of each man con- 
sisted of one solitary article of clothing — a shirt 
of coarse cotton cloth, reaching not quite to the 
knees, and this so thin as to reveal the entire out- 
line of the body, while it was usually so ragged 
as to leave nothing to be complained of in the 
way of extra clothing. They went to work like 
horses, and I never saw men exhibit such feats 
of strength. The cargo of the ship was to be 
got out as rapidly as possible. Three or four 
dollars is ample pay for a hundred of these men. 
A penny will keep them alive a week, and five 
to ten cents a day is large wages. 

We escaped the croAvd as rapidly as possible ; 
and, having hurried our baggage down the side 
of the ship, we followed it into the small boat 
of a Coptic boatman, dressed as aforesaid, and 
in ten minutes we were at the landing-place, 
and I set my foot on the shore of Egypt. 

If the invasion of the ship astonished us, how 
much more the spot where we now found our- 
selves and its occupants. If from all the nations 
that border on the Mediterranean Sea you were 
to select specimens of every grade and class in 
society, and of every beast of burden and vehicle 
for man and merchandise, and throw all into a 
confused mass to the number of a thousand, and 
let each man and animal shout in his own dia- 




l-ANDING-l'LACE AT ALEXANDRIA. 



lect to the loudest of his ability, and each car, 
cart, and carriage shriek with its greaseless 
axles, you might have an idea, not one iota 
exaggerated, of the scene and sounds in the 
Custom-house Square at the landing-place of 
Alexandria. Conspicuous in and over the crowd 
are the patient faces of the camels, coming down 
to the water's edge with goat-skins piled, on 
their backs to receive water for sprinkling streets, 
or kneeling here and there to take heavy loads 
of merchandise. The donkeys and donkey-boys 
throng the square. They are the well known 
substitute for cabs in Egypt. Among all this 
crowd imagine our astonishment at finding our- 
selves seated in an omnibus, and driving at a 
furious rate through the mass, that yielded right 
and left, while our horses kept up a tremendous 
trot or gallop for a mile, through narrow streets 
in which the upper stories of the houses pro- 
jected so as almost to meet overhead, until we 
emerged in the splendid square of the Franks — 
the grand square of the city, and brought up 
with a regular European dash and jerk at the 
door of the Hotel cV Europe. 

I think that out of ten books on Egypt and 
travel hereabouts, you will not find one in which 
the writer does not speak of the exquisite ludi- 
crousness of the scene in this square to the eyes 
of a Western person. It was impossible to keep 
away from the windows, and impossible to re- 
sist the inclination to laughter. We actually 
shouted with merriment. And this mainly from 
the appearance of the donkeys and their riders. 
The Egyptian donkey is the smallest imag- 
inable animal of the species. The average height 
is from three feet and a half to four feet, though 
large numbers of them are under three feet. 
These little fellows carry incredible loads, and 
apparently with ease. In the square were scores 
of them. Here an old Turk, fat and shaky, his 
feet reaching to within six inches of the ground, 
went trotting across the square ; there a dozen 
half naked boys, each perched between two goat- 
skins of water. Four or five English sailors, full 
of wonderment at the novel mode of travel, were 

plunging along at a fast 
gallop, and got foul of 
the old Turk. The boys, 
one of whom always fol- 
lows his donkey, how- 
ever swift the pace, be- 
laboringhimwithastick 
and ingeniously poking 
him in the ribs or under 
the saddle-strap, com- 
menced beating each 
other. Two ladies and 
two gentlemen, India 
passengers taking their 
first donkey ride, be- 
came entangled in the 
group. Twenty long- 
legged, single-skirted 
fellahs rushed up, some 
with donkeys and some 
with long rods. A row 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



231 



of camels stalked slowly by and looked with 
quiet eyes at the increasing din, and when the 
confusion seemed to be inextricable, a splendid 
carriage dashed up the square, and fifty yards 
in advance of it ran, at all the speed of a swift 
horse, an elegantly-dressed runner, waving his 
silver rod, and shouting to make way for the 
high and mighty Somebody, and forthwith, in 
a twinkling, the mass scattered in every direc- 
tion, and the square was free again. The old 
Turk ambled along his way, and the sailors sur- 
rounded one of their number who had managed 
to lose his seat in the hubbub, and whose curses 
were decidedly homelike. 

Such was our introduction to the Land of 
Misraim. I have said that I did not sleep on 
board the ship the night before. Neither did I 
sleep on shore that first night in Egypt. But 
the cause of my wakefulness was different. We 
have been here nearly a week at the time of my 
present writing, and we have not yet learned to 
endure the noises of the nights. Dogs abound 
in all places. They have no special owners, and 
are a sort of public property, and always respect- 
ed. But such infernal dog-fights as occur once 
an hour under our windows no one elsewhere 
has known or heard of. I counted fifteen dogs 
in one melee the first evening, each fighting — 
like an Irishman in a fair — onliis own account. 
Besides this, the watchmen of the city are a 
nuisance. There are a large number of them, 
and I believe some twenty are stationed in and 
around the grand square. Every quarter of an 
hour the chief of a division enters the square 
and shouts his call, which is a prolonged cry, to 
the utmost extent of his breath. As he com- 
mences each watchman springs into the square, 
and by the time he has exhausted his breath 
they take up the same shout in a body, and re- 
ply. He repeats it, and they again reply ; and 
all is then still for fifteen minutes, excepting 
the voice of one ta\\ fellah, who, either for fun 
or by order, I know not which, shouts under the 
windows of the hotel, in a voice that shakes the 
glass, u All right r and once I heard him add, 
in the same thundering tones, "d — n the ras- 
cals !" 

One sound there is in the night time that 
reaches my ears with a sweetness that I can not 
find words to express. In a moment of the ut- 
most stillness, when I was falling quietly asleep, 
when all the earth and air and sky was calm 
and peaceful, a voice fell through the solemn 
night, clear, rich, prolonged, but in a tone of 
rare melody that thrilled through my ears, and 
I needed no one to tell me that it was the mu- 
ezzin's call to prayer. "There is no God but 
God !" said the voice, in the words of the Book 
of the Law given on the mountain of fire, and 
our hearts answered the call to pray. 

My first business in Alexandria was to get 
on shore from the steamer the various articles 
which we had purchased at Marseilles and Malta 
for a winter on the Nile. One of these, a quar- 
ter cask of Marsala wine — Woodhouse's best — 
must necessarily pass through the custom- 



house, and I was not sorry to have an oppor- 
tunity of witnessing the fashion of collecting the 
revenue of the Viceroy of Egypt. The cask had 
been landed from the Nubia, and, as all the 
other goods here landed, was in the public 
stores of the^ custom-house. Business is trans- 
acted in Arabic or in Italian, or in the mixed 
Arabic and Italian which forms the Maltese. 
We — that is, Jacques and I — accompanied by 
our servant and interpreter, went first to look 
for the wine. Having found it, I was amused 
at the simple fashion of getting it through the 
business which in other countries is made so 
needlessly tedious. A tall Nubian, black as 
night, looked at the barrel, weighed it with his 
eye (it was over three hundred weight), twisted 
a cord around it and wound the cord around his 
head, taking the strain on his forehead, and 
then, with a swing of his giant body, he had it 
on his back, and followed us to the inspector. 
This gentleman, an old Turk, with a beard not 
quite as heavy as my own but much more gray, 
addressed me very pleasantly in Italian, and 
passed me along to his clerk, who sat by his 
side, each with his legs invisible under him. 
The proper certificate of the contents was here 
made, and sealed — for a Turk or Copt never 
writes his name, impressing it on the paper with 
ink on a seal — and the black carried the wine to 
the scales to be weighed. This was done in an 
instant, the weight noted, and another man re- 
ceived the duty, whereupon it was ready to be 
carried up to the hotel. All this was done in 
fifteen minutes or less, and the majesty of the 
Viceroy and ourselves were equally well sat- 
isfied. 

My next business was with the Viceroy him- 
self, and this was to procure a firman, which 
should enable me to make such investigations 
in the tombs and temples of the upper country 
as I might think proper for the furtherance of 
my objects in visiting Egypt. I shall be par- 
doned for saying that I have in view the prose- 
cution of studies, in which I have for some years 
been engaged, into the history of ancient Egypt, 
and it is my intention — solely for my personal 
gratification, in the first place, and with some 
slight hope that I may light on matters of in- 
terest to science and the world — to make ex- 
plorations as far as possible in the unopened 
fields which abound from Alexandria to the 
Second Cataract. For this purpose I was aware 
that a firman, or permission under the seal of 
the Viceroy, would be necessary, and for this I 
applied, and with success. This firman obtain- 
ed, I was prepared to commence my work and 
pleasure in Egypt, beginning here at Alexan- 
dria, where most travelers pause but a single 
day. 

Here indeed but little of the very ancient 
was to be expected. It was in the later years 
of Egypt, when the glory of the Pharaohs had 
departed, and kings that knew not the Pharaoh 
who knew not Joseph had erased his name, and 
substituted their own on his monuments; it was 
when Memphis was old and Thebes was crum- 



232 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



bling, that the Alexandrian splendor filled the 
Eastern, though it was then called the Western 
world. I had no desire to spend time or mon- 
ey here, farther than to take one step backward 
in time before I found myself treading the halls 
of Barneses. 

The Pillar of Diocletian, and the obelisk 
known as Cleopatra's Needle, were of course the 
first objects to be visited. Then we took don- 
keys and made a circuit of the ruins of the old 
city, which lie underground, excavated here 
and there by the fellahs in search of stone for 
lime and building purposes. 

Within a short time past some new catacombs 
have been discovered or uncovered on the shore 
of the Mediterranean, two miles east of the 
city, and thither we directed our donkeys on 
the morning of the third day. You would have 
supposed that we were used to riding them all 
our lives, had you seen the four which we 
mounted, and the speed at which we dashed 
down the long street that leads to the Rosetta 
Gate, followed by our four boys, shouting and 
screaming to the groups of people walking be- 
fore us. We raised a cloud of dust all the way, 
and elicited not a few Mohammedan curses from 
women with vailed faces, whose black eyes flash- 
ed contempt on the bare faces of Amy and 
May. Now working to windward of a long row 
of camels laden with stone, now to leeward of a 
gathering of women around a fruit-stall, now 
passing a funeral procession that went chanting 
their songs along the middle of the way — we 
dashed in a confused heap, donkeys and boys, 
through the arched gateway, to the terror of 
the Pasha's soldiers who sat smoking under the 
shade, across the draw-bridge with a thunder 
that you would not have believed the donkey's 
hoof could have extracted from the plank, 
through the second arch, and out into the des- 
olate, barren tract of land, Avithout grass or tree 
or living object for miles, where once stood the 
palaces of the city of Cleopatra. 

Winding our way over the mounds of earth 
that conceal the ruins, catching sight here and 
there of a projecting cornice, a capital, or a slab 
of polished stone, we at length descended to the 
shore at the place where the men are now en- 
gaged in digging out stone for lime and build- 
ings in the modern city. 

Formerly the shore for a mile or more must 
have been bordered by a great Necropolis, all 
cut in solid rock. During a thousand years the 
entire shore has sunk, I have no means of esti- 
mating how much, but not less than thirty feet, 
as I judge from a rough observation ; it may 
have been fifty, or even more. By this many 
of the rock-hewn tombs have been submerged 
entirely, and those on the shore have been de- 
pressed, and many of them thrown out of per- 
pendicular, while the rock has been cracked, 
and sand has filled the subterranean chambers. 
Of the period at which these tombs were com- 
menced we have no means now of judging. It 
is sufficiently manifest, however, that they have 
served the purposes of successive generations of 



nations, if I may use the expression ; and have 
in turn held Egyptians, who were removed to 
make room for Romans, who themselves slept 
only until the Saracens needed places for their 
long sleep. 

No one has examined them with special care, 
and now from day to day they are disappearing, 
as the ignorant fellahs blow them to pieces with 
gunpowder. 

Selecting a spot where the workmen had gone 
deepest, and hiring half a dozen men to work 
under our direction, Jacques and I proceeded 
to open carefully some of the tombs, hoping to 
find some indication of their period. May and 
Amy sat in a niche of an open tomb, shaded 
from the sun, and looking out at the sea, which 
broke with a grand surf at their very feet. 

After breaking into three in succession of the 
unopened niches, we at length struck on one 




TOMR IN THE CATACOM15S OF ALEXANDRIA. 

which had evidently escaped Saracen invasion. 
It was in the lowest tier of three on the side of 
an arched chamber, protected by a heavy stone 




ALABASTER VASE. 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



233 



slab inlaid in cement. It required gunpowder 
to start it. The tomb was about two feet six 
inches wide by the same height, and extended 
seven feet into the rock. The others on all 
sides of the room were of the same dimensions. 
There were in all twenty-four. 

Upon opening this and entering it, we found 
a skeleton lying at full length, in remarkable 
preservation, and evidently that of a man in the 
prime of life. At his head stood an alabaster 
vase, plainly but beautifully cut, in perfect 
preservation, and as pure and white as if carved 
but yesterday. The height of the vase is sev- 
enteen and a half inches, the greatest diameter 
nine and a half inches. 

It consisted of four different pieces — the 
pedestal, the main part of the vase, the cover, 
and the small knob or handle on the top : not 
broken, but so cut originally. 

Pursuing our success, we removed the bones 
of the dead man, reserving only a few to go 
with the vase, and then searched carefully the 
floor of the tomb, which was covered with fine 
dust and sand. Here we at length hit on the 
top of another vase; and after an hour of care- 
ful and diligent work, we took out from a deep 
sunk hole in the rock, scarcely larger than it- 
self, an Etruscan vase, which on opening we 
found to contain burned bones and ashes, as 
fresh in appearance as if but yesterday de- 
posited. 

This vase Or urn is fifteen inches high, and its 
largest diameter is eleven inches. It is of fine 
earthenware, ornamented with flowers and de- 
vices, as I have shown in the accompanying 
drawing. 




FUNEREAL VASE. 

The next tomb contained nothing but bones 

and dust ; and in the bottom of the next we 

found another alabaster urn let into the floor, as 

I have described the second, but of the mo3t 

Vol. XII.— No. G8.— Q 



common shape, being a simple tub with a cover. 
We were disappointed in finding no inscriptions, 
coins, or other indications of the precise period 
of the sepulture of these relics, and the reader, 
with the drawings before him, has precisely the 
same means of conjecture that we had, and 
may guess as well as we. 

By this time the evening was coming on, and 
we all went down to the sea-shore, and saw the 
sun set behind the buildings which occupy the 
site of the old Pharos, and then mounting our 
donkeys, we came into the city at a slower pace 
than before, carrying our vases and sundry little 
pieces of broken pottery in our hands. 

The next morning we were up and away at 
an earlier hour, but fearing to fatigue the ladies 
too much by a second long ride, we took a car- 
riage to drive out as near as possible to the 
catacombs. It was not the Oriental fashion. 
We had no right to try it. The driver said he 
could do it easily, he had been before, and lied 
like an Italian about it, so that Ave trusted him. 
But we had hardly got out of the Rosetta Gate, 
and turned up the first hill over the ruins of the 
ancient city, when one of the horses baulked, 
and the carriage began backing, but instead of 
backing straight, the forewheels cramped, and 
the first plunge of the baulky horse forward 
took him and us over the side of the bank and 
down a steep descent into an excavation. The 
pole of the carriage snapped short off, and the 
other horse, dragged into the scrape by his com- 
panion, fell down, and the carriage ran directly 
over him, and rested on his body. The ladies 
sprang out as it stopped, and we all reached 
the ground safely; but there was another ruin 
on the top of the old ruins. It was, in point of 
fact, what we call in America a total smash, 
and we sent back for donkeys, while Ave amused 
ourselves Avith Avandering over the site of the 
old city. 

This day I was determined to go deeper into 
the vaults of the catacombs, if possible, than be- 
fore, and I commenced on the side of the sea 
where an opening existed into a room that AA r as 
painted in the brilliant colors of the Egyptians, 
but arched over by Romans at a later period. 
Setting my men at Avork here by the light of 
candles, I Avas not long in penetrating the bot- 
tom of the chamber by a hole Avhich opened 
into the roof of a similar room beloAv. I thrust 
myself through the hole as rapidly as possible, 
but found that the earth had filled it to within 
three feet of the top. Two hours' work cleared 
it out; but I found nothing, for the dampness 
of the sea had reached it, and all was destroyed 
except the solid walls. 

Here May, who had watched my progress 
with anxious interest, became discouraged, and 
followed Jacques and Amy, who had previously 
deserted the catacombs and gone down to the 
sea-shore to gather shells, which lay in bushels 
all along the sand. A few moments later 
one of the men came to tell me that they had 
opened a iicav gallery of tombs, and I hastened 
to see it. Though not what I expected from 



234 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



their description, it was sufficiently strange to 
be worth examining. 

Crawling on my hands and knees about twenty 
feet through an arched passage cut in the stone, 
and measuring thirty-two inches in width by 
thirty-six in height at the centre, I found my- 
self in a chamber twenty-one feet long by fifteen 
broad. The roof was a plain arch. Its height 
it was impossible to tell, for the earth had sift- 
ed into it through huge fissures in the rock, and 
by the slow accumulation of two thousand years 
or less, had filled it on one side to within eight 
feet of the roof. But the earth had come in 
only on that side, and had run down in a 
steep slope toward the other side, which was 
not so full by fifteen feet. Nevertheless there 
was no floor visible there, but the lowest stones 
in that wall were huge slabs of granite, and on 
lying down I could see that the slope of the 
earth ran under them, into what I have no 
doubt was a stone staircase, arched with granite, 
leading down into the catacombs below. The 
room was plastered plainly with a smooth whit- 
ish-gray plaster, on three sides. The fourth 
aide, that over the granite stairway, and, as I 
have explained, the side where the earth was 
lowest, was solid rock, with two immense shelves 
of rock, one six feet above the other, left there 
in the excavation, and evidently intended as 
places on which to stand funereal urns and vases. 
But what struck me as most remarkable, was 
that a rough projecting cornice was left across 
the chamber, corresponding with the fronts of 
the shelves, in which were five immense iron 
nails, or spikes, with heads measuring two inch- 
es across. The heads of but two were left, the 
others having rusted off. I could not imagine 
any other object to which these nails were ap- 
plied unless to hold planks Avhich may at some 
time have covered these shelves. 

Upon the shelves were lying masses of broken 
pottery and vases; but nothing perfect or valu- 
able. I then proceeded to strike the plastered 
walls with my hammer, and at length found a 
place that sounded hollow. Two fellahs went to 
work instantly, and soon opened a niche which 
had been Availed up and plastered over. It was in 
the usual shape, two feet eight inches wide, by 
three feet high in the centre, and seven feet 
deep. In it lay a skeleton and the dust of a 
dead man, nothing more. I proceeded, and in 
an hour I had opened twelve similar niches, or 
openings, some larger, and containing as many 
as three skeletons each. It was a strange sen- 
sation that of crawling into these resting-places 
of the dead of long ago, on my hands and knees, 
feeling the soft and moss-like crush of the bones 
under me, and digging with my fingers in the 
dust for memorials of its life and activity. My 
clothes, my eyes, my throat, were covered and 
filled with the fine dust of the dead, and I came 
out at length more of an ancient than modern 
in external appearance. 

During the process of my investigations the 
passage-way by which we had entered was dark- 
ened, and I soon saw May on her hands and 



knees, guided by an Egyptian boy, creeping into 
the cavern to see what was going on. Hav- 
ing opened all of three tiers of graves that were 
above ground, I found between the tops of the 
niches smaller niches, plastered over like the 
others, and containing broken unis and the re- 
mains of burned bones. I found nothing in all 
this gloomy series of graves but a few lamps of 
earthenware, blackened about the hole for the. 
wick, sad emblem of departed light and life. 

We came out from the vaults and walked 
down to the beach, where the cool wind revived 
us. Four hundred feet from the shore was a 
curious rocky island, and Jacques and I went 
out to it. It was full' of open tombs, a part of 
the great necropolis sunken in the sea, and all 
the way from the shore we found traces of the 
same great burial-place. 

We left the catacombs again at sunset, and 
rode home slowly over the hills. As we enter- 
ed the gate of the city we met a marriage pro- 
cession, the bride surrounded by her female 
friends on the way to her husband's house. She 
carried on her head a huge box, or chest, con- 
taining all her dower, and her friends shouted 
and sang as they passed us. We quickened 
our speed as we approached the great square 
until it was a fast gallop, and we came up to the 
hotel at a pace that evidently astonished the 
score or more of English people on the balcony, 
who are waiting the departure of the steamer 
for England that will carry this article. This 
is a fast world. Eight weeks ago I was swim- 
ming in Lake Erie by the side of my old friend 
W , and to-day I have bathed in the Medi- 
terranean among the tombs of the Greeks and 
Egyptians. 




BY CHARLES DICKENS. 



CHAPTER I.— SUN AND SHADOW. 

THIRTY years ago, Marseilles lay burning in 
the sun, one day. 
A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was 
no greater rarity in southern France then, than 
at any other time, before or since. Every 
thing in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had 
stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at m 
return, until a staring habit had become uni- 
versal there. Strangers were stared out of couii- 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



235 



tenancc by staring white houses, staring white 
walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid 
road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt 
away. The only things to be seen not fixedly 
staring and glaring were the vines drooping un- 
der their load of grapes. These did occasional- 
ly wink a little, as the hot air barely moved their 
faint leaves. 

There was no wind to make a ripple on the 
foul water within the harbor, or on the beautiful 
sea without. The line of demarkation between 
the two colors, black and blue, showed the point 
which the pure sea would not pass ; but it lay 
as quiet as the abominable pool, with which 
it never mixed. Boats without awnings were too 
hot to touch ; ships blistered at their moorings ; 
the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or 
day, for months. Hindoos, Russians, Chinese, 
Spaniards, Portuguese, Englishmen, Frenchmen, 
Genoese, Neapolitans, Venetians, Greeks, Turks, 
descendants from all the builders of Babel, come 
to trade at Marseilles, sought the shade alike — 
taking refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too 
intensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of pur- 
ple, set with owe great flaming jewel of fire. 

The universal stare made the eyes ache. To- 
ward the distant line of Italian coast, indeed, it 
was a little relieved by light clouds of mist, 
slowly rising from the evaporation of the sea; 
but it softened nowhere else. Far away the 
staring roads, deep in dust, stared from the hill- 
side, stared from the hollow, stared from the in- 
terminable plain. Far away the dusty vines 
overhanging wayside cottages, and the monot- 
onous wayside avenues of parched trees without 
shade, drooped beneath the stare of earth and 
sky. So did the horses with drowsy bells, in 
long files of carts, creeping slowly toward the in- 
terior; so did their recumbent drivers, when 
they were awake, which rarely happened; so 
did the exhausted laborers in the fields. Every 
thing that lived or grew was oppressed by the 
glare ; except the lizard, passing swiftly over 
rough stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his 
dry hot chirp, like a rattle. The very dust was 
scorched brown, and something quivered in the 
atmosphere as if the air itself were panting. 

Blinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all 
closed and drawn to keep out the stare. Grant 
it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a 
white-hot arrow. The churches were the freest 
from it. To come out of the twilight of pillars 
and arches — dreamily dotted with winking lamps, 
dreamily peopled with ugly old shadows piously 
dozing, spitting, and begging — was to plunge 
into a fiery river, and swim for life to the near- 
est strip of shade. So, with people lounging and 
lying wherever shade was, with but little hum 
of tongues or barking of dogs, with occasional 
jangling of discordant church bells, and rattling 
of vicious drums, Marseilles, a fact to be strong- 
ly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one 
day. 

In Marseilles that day there was a villainous 
prison. In one of its chambers, so repulsive a 



place that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, 
and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it 
could find for itself, were two men. Besides the 
two men, a notched and disfigured bench, im- 
movable from the wall, with a draught-board 
rudely hacked upon it with a knife, a set of 
draughts, made of old buttons and soup bones, 
a set of dominoes, two mats, and two or three 
wine bottles. That was all the chamber held, 
exclusive of rats and other unseen vermin, in 
addition to the seen vermin, the two men. 

It received such light as it got, through a 
grating of iron bars, fashioned like a pretty large 
window, by means of which it could be always 
inspected from the gloomy staircase on which 
the grating gave. There was a broad strong 
ledge of stone to this grating, where the bottom 
of it was let into the masonry, three or four feet 
above the ground. Upon it, one of the two men 
lolled, half sitting and half lying, with his knees 
drawn up, and his feet and shoulders planted 
against the opposite sides of the aperture. The 
bars were wide enough apart to admit of his 
thrusting his arm through to the elbow ; and so 
he held on negligently, for his greater ease. 

A prison taint was on everything there. The 
imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the impris- 
oned damps, the imprisoned men, were all de- 
teriorated by confinement. As the captive men 
were faded and haggard, so the iron was rusty, 
the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air 
was faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like 
a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowl- 
edge of the brightness outside ; and would have 
kept its polluted atmosphere intact in one of the 
spice islands of the Indian Ocean. 

The man who lay on the ledge of the grating 
was even chilled. Pie jerked his great cloak 
more heavily upon him by an impatient move- 
ment of one shoulder, and growled, " To the 
devil with this brigand of a sun that never shines 
in here !" 

He w r as waiting to be fed ; looking sideways 
through the bars, that he might see the further 
down the stairs, with much of the expression of 
a wild beast in similar expectation. But his 
eyes, too close together, were not so nobly set in 
his head as those of the king of beasts are in his, 
and they were sharp rather than bright---point- 
ed weapons with little surface to betray them. 
They had no depth or change ; they glittered, 
and they opened and shut. So far, and waiving 
their use to himself, a clockmaker could have 
made a better pair. He had a hook nose, hand- 
some after its kind, but too high between the 
eyes, by probably just as much as his eyes were 
too near to one another. For the rest, he was 
large and tall in frame, had thin lips, where his 
thick mustache showed them at all, and a quan- 
tity of dry hair, of no definable color, in its 
shaggy state, but shot with red. The hand with 
which he held the grating (seamed all over the 
back with ugly scratches newly healed) was un- 
usually small and plump; would have been un- 
usually white, but for the prison grime. 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




The other man was lying on the stone floor, 
covered with a coarse brown coat. 

"Get up, pig!" growled the first. "Don't 
sleep when I am hungry." 

"It's all one, master," said the pig, in a sub- 
missive manner, and not without cheerfulness ; 
"I can wake when I will, I can sleep when I 
will. It's all the same." 

As he said it, he rose, shook himself, scratch- 
ed himself, tied his brown coat loosely round, his 
neck by the sleeves (he had previously used it as 
a coverlet), and sat down upon the pavement 
yawning, with his back against the wall opposite 
to the grating. 

" Say what the hour is," grumbled the first man. 

" The mid-day bells will ring — in forty min- 
utes." When he made the little pause, he had 
looked round the prison-room, as if for certain 
information. 

"You are a clock. How is it that you always 
know?" 

"How can I say! I always know what the 
hour is, and where I am. I was brought in here 
at night, and out of a boat, but I know where I 
am. See here ! Marseilles harbor ;" on his 
knees on the pavement, mapping it all out with 
a swarthy forefinger; "Toulon (where the gal- 
leys are), Spain over there, Algiers over there. 
Creeping away to the left here, Nice. Round 
by the Cornice to Genoa. Genoa mole and har- 
bor. Quarantine ground. City there ; terrace- 
gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here, 
Porto Fino. Stand out for Leghorn. Out again 



for Civita Vecchia. So away to — hey! there's 
no room for Naples ;" he had got to the wall by 
this time ; " but it's all one ; it's in there !" 

He remained on his knees, looking up at his 
fellow-prisoner with a lively look for a prison. 
A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though 
rather thickset. Ear-rings in his brown ears, 
white teeth lighting up his grotesque brown face, 
intensely black hair clustering about his brown 
throat, a ragged red shirt open at his brown 
breast. Loose, seamanlike trowsers, decent 
shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, 
and a knife in it. 

" Judge if I come back from Naples as I went ! 
See here, my master ! Civita Vecchia, Leghorn, 
Porto Pino, Genoa, Cornice, Off Nice (which is 
in there), Marseilles, you and me. The apart- 
ment of the jailer and his keys is where I put 
this thumb ; and here at my wrist, they keep the 
national razor in its case — the guillotine locked 
up." 

The other man spat suddenly on the pave- 
ment, and gurgled in his throat. 

Some lock below gurgled in its throat imme- 
diately afterward, and then a door clashed. 
Slow steps began ascending the stairs ; the prat- 
tle of a sweet little voice mingled with the noise 
they made ; and the prison-keeper appeared, 
carrying his daughter, three or four years old, 
and a basket. 

"How goes the world this forenoon, gentle- 
men ? My little one, you see, going round with 
me to have a peep at her father's birds. Fie, 



LITTLE D0RR1T. 



239 



then ! Look at the birds, my pretty, look at the 
birds." 

He looked sharply at the birds himself, as he 
held the child up at the grate, especially at the 
little bird, whose activity he seemed to mistrust. 
" I have brought your bread, Signor John Bap- 
tist," said he (they all spoke in French, but the 
little man was an Italian); "and if I might 
recommend you not to game — " 

"You don't recommend the master!" said 
John Baptist, showing his teeth as he smiled. 

" Oh ! but the master wins," returned the jail- 
e •, with a passing look of no particular liking at 
the other man, "and you lose. It's quite an- 
other thing. You get husky bread and sour 
drink by it ; and he gets sausage of Lyons, veal 
in savory jelly, white bread, strachino cheese, 
and good wine by it. Look at the birds, my 
pretty !" 

"Poor birds !" said the child. 

The fair little face, touched with divine com- 
passion, as it peeped shrinkingly through the 
grate, was like an angel's in the prison. John 
Baptist rose and moved toward it, as if it had a 
good attraction for him. The other bird remain- 
ed as before, except for an impatient glance at 
the basket. 

" Stay !" said the jailer, putting his little 
daughter on the outer ledge of the grate, "she 
shall feed the birds. This big loaf is for Signor 
John Baptist. We must break it to get it through 
into the cage. So, there's a tame bird, to kiss 
the little hand ! This sausage in a vine-leaf is 
for Monsieur Rigaud. Again — this veal in sa- 
vory jelly is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again — these 
three white little loaves are for Monsieur Ri- 
gaud. Again, this cheese — again, this Avine — 
again, this tobacco — all for Monsieur Rigaud. 
Lucky bird !" 

The child put all these things between the 
bars into the soft, smooth, well-shaped hand, 
with evident dread — more than once drawing 
back her own, and looking at the man with her 
fair brow roughened into an expression half of 
fright and half of anger. Whereas, she had put 
the lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, 
knotted hands of John Baptist (who had scarce- 
ly as much nail on his eight fingers and two 
thumbs as would have made out one for Mon- 
sieur Rigaud) with ready confidence; and, when 
he kissed her hand, had herself passed it caress- 
ingly over his face. Monsieur Rigaud, indiffer- 
ent to this distinction, propitiated the father by 
laughing and nodding at the daughter as often 
as she gave him any thing ; and, so soon as he 
had all his viands about him in convenient 
nooks of the ledge on which he rested, began to 
eat with an appetite. 

When Monsieur Rigaud laughed, a change 
took place in his face that was more remarka- 
ble than prepossessing. His mustache went up 
under his nose, and his nose came down over his 
mustache, in a very sinister and cruel manner. 

"There!" said the jailer, turning his basket 
upside down to beat the crumbs out, "I have 



expended all the money I received ; rations in- 
note of it, and that's a thing accomplished, man. 
sieur Rigaud, as I expected yesterday, the Pres- 
ident will look for the pleasure of your society 
at an hour after mid-day, to-day." 

"To try me, eh?" said Rigaud, pausing, knife 
in hand and morsel in mouth. 

" You have said it. To try you." 

" There is no news for me ?" asked John Bap- 
tist, who had begun, contentedly, to munch his 
bread. 

The jailer shrugged his shoulders. 

" Lady of mine ! Am I to lie here all my life, 
my father?" 

"What do I know!" cried the jailer, turning 
upon him with southern quickness, and gesticu- 
lating with both his hands and all his fingers, as 
if he were threatening to tear him to pieces. 
" My friend, how is it possible for me to tell how 
long you are to lie here ? What do I know, John 
Baptist Cavalletto ? Death of my life ! There 
are prisoners here sometimes who are not in 
such a devil of a hurry to be tried." 

He seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Ri- 
gaud in his remark ; but Monsieur Rigaud had 
already resumed his meal, though not with quite 
so quick an appetite as before. 

"Adieu, my birds!" said the keeper of the 
prison, taking his pretty child in his arms, and 
dictating the words with a kiss. 

" Adieu, my birds !" the pretty child repeated. 

Her innocent face looked back so brightly over 
his shoulder, as he walked away with her, sing- 
ing her the song of the child's game : 

" Who passes by this road so late ? 

Compagnon de la Majolaine ! 
Who passes by this road so late ? 
Always gay!" 

That John Baptist felt it a point of honor to re- 
ply at the grate, and, in good time and tune, 
though a little hoarsely : 

" Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, 
Compagnon de la Majolaine ! 
Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, 
Always gay !" 

Which accompanied them so far down the few 
steep stairs, that the prison-keeper had to stop 
at last for his little daughter to hear the song 
out, and repeat the Refrain while they were yet 
in sight. Then the child's head disappeared, 
and the prison-keeper's head disappeared, but the 
little voice prolonged the strain until the door 
clashed. 

Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John 
Baptist in his way before the echoes had ceased 
(even the echoes were the weaker for imprison- 
ment, and seemed to lag), reminded him with a 
push of his foot that he had better resume his 
own darker place. The little man sat down 
again upon the pavement, with the negligent 
ease of one who was thoroughly accustomed to 
pavements ; and placing three hunks of coarse 
bread before himself, and failing to upon a fourth, 
began contentedly to work his way through them, 
as if to clear them off were a sort of game. 

Perhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and 



23G 




EW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



/savory jelly, 

nake his mouth 

dispatched them, 

tribunal, and pro- 

.s clean as he could, 

/ine leaves. Then, as 

j contemplate his fellow- 

.e went up, and his nose 



nd the bread?" 
out I have my old sauce here," 
lv Baptist, holding up his knife. 

"t je?" 

"I cai. /dt my bread so — like a melon. Or 
so — like an omelette. Or so — like a fried fish. 
Or so — like Lyons sausage," said John Baptist, 
demonstrating the various cuts on the bread he 
held, and soberly chewing what he had in his 
mouth. 

"Here!" cried Monsieur Rigaud. "You may 
drink. You may finish this." 

It was no great gift, for there was mighty lit- 
tle wine left ; but Signor Cavalletto, jumping to 
his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned it 
upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips. 

" Put the bottle by with the rest," said Rigaud. 

The little man obeyed his orders, and stood 
ready to give him a lighted match ; for he was 
now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes, by the 
aid of little squares of paper which had been 
brought in with it. 

" Here ! You may have one." 

" A thousand thanks, my master !" John Bap- 
tist said it, in his own language, and with the 
quick conciliatory manner of his own countrymen. 

Monsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, 
put the rest of his stock into a breast-pocket, 
and stretched himself out at full length upon the 
bench. Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, 
holding one of his ankles in each hand, and 
smoking peacefully. There seemed to be some 
uncomfortable attraction of Monsieur Rigaud's 
eyes to the immediate neighborhood of that part 
of the pavement where the thumb had been in 
the plan. They were so drawn in that direction, 
that the Italian more than once followed them 
to and back from the pavement in some surprise. 

"What an infernal hole this is!" said Mon- 
sieur Rigaud, breaking a long pause. "Look at 
the light of day. Day ? The light of yesterday 
week, the light of six months ago, the light of 
six years ago. So slack and dead !" 

It came languishing down a square funnel that 
blinded a window in the staircase wall, through 
which the sky was never seen — nor any thing 
else. 

" Cavalletto," said Monsieur Rigaud, suddenly 
withdrawing his gaze from this funnel, to which 
they had both involuntarily turned their eyes, 
"you know me for a gentleman?" 

" Surely, surely !" 

"How long have we been here?" 

"I, eleven weeks, to-morrow night at midnight. 
You, nine weeks and three days, at five this 
afternoon." 



" Have I ever done any thing here ? Ever 
touched the broom, or spread the mats, or rolled 
them up, or found the draughts, or collected the 
dominoes, or put my hand to any kind of work T* 

"Never!" 

"Have you ever thought of looking to me to 
do any kind of work ?" 

John Baptist answered with that peculiar back- 
handed shake of the right forefinger which is the 
most expressive negative in the Italian language. 

" No ! You knew from the first moment when 
you saw me here that I was a gentleman ?" 

" Altro !" returned John'Baptist, closing his 
eyes and giving his head a most vehement toss. 
The word being, according to its Genoese em- 
phasis, a confirmation, a contradiction, an asser- 
tion, a denial, a taunt, a compliment, a joke, and 
fifty other things, became in the present instance, 
Avith a significance beyond all power of written 
expression, our familiar English "I believe you !" 

" Ha, ha ! You are right ! A gentleman I am ! 
And a gentleman I'll live, and a gentleman I'll 
die ! It's my intent to be a gentleman. It's my 
game. Death of my soul, I play it out where- 
ever I go !" 

He changed his posture to a sitting one, cry- 
ing with a triumphant air : 

" Here I am ! See me ! Shaken out of des- 
tiny's dice-box into the company of a mere smug- 
gler ; shut up with a poor little contraband trader, 
whose papers are wrong, and whom the police 
lay hold of, besides, for placing his boat (as a 
means of getting beyond the frontier) at the dis- 
position of other little people whose papers are 
wrong ; and he instinctively recognizes my posi- 
tion, even by this light and in this place. It's 
well done! By Heaven! I win, however the 
game goes." 

Again his mustache went up, and his nose 
came down. 

"What's the hour, now?" he asked, with a 
dry hot pallor upon him, rather difficult of as- 
sociation with merriment. 

"A little half-hour after mid-day." 

"Good! The President will have a gentle- 
man before him soon. Come ! Shall I tell you 
on what accusation ? It must be now, or never, 
for I shall not return here. Either I shall go 
free, or I shall go to be made ready for shaving. 
You know where they keep the razor." 

Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from be- 
tween his parted lips, and showed more mo- 
mentary discomfiture than might have been ex- 
pected. 

"I am a" — Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say 
it — "I am a cosmopolitan gentleman. I own 
no particular country. My father was Swiss — 
Canton de Vaud. My mother was French by 
blood, English by birth. I myself was born in 
Belgium. I am a citizen of the world." 

His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm 
on his hip, within the folds of his cloak, together 
with his manner of disregarding his companion 
and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed 
to intimate that he was rehearsing for the Presi- 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



239 



dent, -whose examination he was shortly to un- 
dergo, rather than troubling himself merely to 
enlighten so small a person as John Baptist 
Cavalletto. 

" Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have 
seen the world. I have lived here, and lived 
there, and lived like a gentleman every where. 
I have been treated and respected as a gentle- 
man universally. If you try to prejudice me, by 
making out that I have lived by my wits — how 
do your lawyers live — your politicians — your in- 
triguers — your men of the Exchange ?" 

He kept his small smooth hand in constant re- 
quisition, as if it were a witness to his gentility, 
that had often done him good service before. 

" Two years ago I came to Marseilles. I ad- 
mi}; that I was poor ; I had been ill. When your 
lawyers, your politicians, your intriguers, your 
men of the Exchange, fall ill, and have not 
scraped money together, they become poor. I 
put up at the Cross of Gold — kept then by Mon- 
sieur Henri Barronneau — sixty-five at least, and 
in a failing state of health. I had lived in the 
house some four months, when Monsieur Henri 
Barronneau had the misfortune to die ; at any 
rate, not a rare misfortune that. It happens 
without any aid of mine, pretty often." 

John Baptist having smoked his cigarette down 
to his fingers' ends, Monsieur Rigaud had the 
magnanimity to throw him another. He lighted 
the second at the ashes of the first, and smoked 
on, looking sideways at his companion, who, pre- 
occupied with his own case, hardly looked at 
him. 

"Monsieur Barronneau left a widow. She 
was two-and-twenty. She had gained a repu- 
tation for beauty, and (which is often another 
thing) was beautiful. I continued to live at the 
Cross of Gold. I married Madame Barronneau. 
It is not for me to say whether there was any 
great disparity in such a match. Here I stand, 
with the contamination of a jail upon me; but 
it is possible that you may think me better suited 
to her than her former husband was." 

He had a certain air of being a handsome 
man — which he was not ; and a certain air of 
being a well-bred man — which he was not. It 
was mere swagger and challenge ; but in this 
particular, as in many others, blustering asser- 
tion goes for proof, half over the world. 

"Be it as it may, Madame Barronneau ap- 
proved of me. That is not to prejudice me I 
hope ?" 

His eye happening to light upon John Baptist 
with this inquiry, that little man briskly shook 
his head in the negative, and repeated in an ar- 
gumentative tone under his breath, altro, altro, 
altro, altro — an infinite number of times. 

"Now came the difficulties of our position. 
I am proud. I say nothing in defense of pride, 
but I am proud. It is also my character to gov- 
ern. I can't submit; I must govern. Unfor- 
tunately, the property of Madame Rigaud was 
nettled upon herself. Such was the insane act 
of her late husband. More unfortunately still, 



she had relations. When a wife's relations in- 
terpose against a husband who is a gentleman, 
who is proud, and who must govern, the conse- 
quences are inimical to peace. There was yet 
another source of difference between us. Ma- 
dame Rigaud was unfortunately a little vulgar. 
I sought to improve her manners and amelio- 
rate her general tone; she (supported in this 
likewise by her relations) resented my endeav- 
ors. Quarrels began to arise between us ; and, 
propagated and exaggerated by the slanders of 
the relations of Madame Rigaud, to become no- 
torious to the neighbors. It has been said that 
I treated Madame Rigaud with cruelty. I may 
have been seen to slap her face — nothing more. 
I have a light hand ; and if I have been seen 
apparently to correct Madame Rigaud in that 
manner, I have done it almost playfully." 

If the playfulness of Monsieur Rigaud were 
at all expressed by his smile at this point, the 
relations of Madame Rigaud might have said 
that they would have much preferred his cor- 
recting that unfortunate woman seriously. 

" I am sensitive and brave. I do not advance 
it as a merit to be sensitive and brave, but it i& 
my character. If the male relations of Madame 
Rigaud had put themselves forward openly, I 
should have known how to deal with them. They 
knew that, and their machinations were conduct- 
ed in secret ; consequently Madame Rigaud and 
I were brought into frequent and unfortunate 
collision. Even when I wanted any little sum 
of money for my personal expenses, I could not 
obtain it without collision — and I too, a man 
whose character it is to govern! One night 
Madame Rigaud and myself were walking ami- 
cably — I may say like lovers — on a height over- 
hanging the sea. An evil star occasioned Ma- 
dame Rigaud to advert to her relations ; I rea- 
soned with her on that subject, and remonstrated 
on the want of duty and devotion manifested in 
her allowing herself to be influenced by their 
jealous animosity toward her husband. Ma- 
dame Rigaud retorted, I retorted. Madame 
Rigaud grew warm ; I grew warm, and provoked 
her. I admit it. Frankness is a part of my 
character.. At length, Madame Rigaud, in an 
excess of fury that I must ever deplore, threw 
herself upon me with screams of passion (no 
doubt those that were overheard at some dis- 
tance), tore my clothes, tore my hair, lacerated 
my hands, trampled and trod the dust, and final- 
ly leaped over, dashing herself to death upon 
the rocks below. Such is the train of incidents 
which malice has perverted into my endeavor- 
ing to force from Madame Rigaud a relinquish- 
ment of her rights ; and, on her persistence in a 
refusal to make the concession I required, strug- 
gling with her — assassinating her!" 

He stepped aside to the ledge where the vine 
leaves yet lay strewn about, collected two or 
three, and stood wiping his hands upon them, 
with his back to the light. 

"Well," he demanded after a silence, "have 
you nothing to say to all that?" 



240 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" It's ugly," returned the little man, who had 
risen, and was brightening his knife upon his 
shoe, as he leaned an arm against the wall. 
"What do you mean?" 
John Baptist polished his knife in silence. 
"Do you mean that I have not represented 
the case correctly ?" 

" Al-tro !" returned John Baptist. The word 
was an apology now, and stood for, " Oh, by no 
means !" 

"What then?" 

"Presidents and tribunals are so prejudiced." 
" Well !" cried the other, uneasily flinging the 
end of his cloak over his shoulder with an oath, 
"Let them do their worst J" 

"Truly I think they will," murmured John 
Baptist to himself, as he bent his head to put his 
knife in his sash. 

.Nothing more was said on either side, though 
they both began walking to and fro, and neces- 
sarily crossed at every turn. Monsieur Rigaud 
sometimes half stopped, as if he were going to 
put his case in a new light, or make some irate 
remonstrance ; but Signor Cavalletto continuing 
to go slowly to and fro at a grotesque kind of 
jog-trot pace, with his eyes turned downward, 
nothing came of these inclinings. 

By-and-by the noise of the key in the lock ar- 
rested them both. The sound of voices succeed- 
ed, and the tread of feet. The door clashed, the 
voices and the feet came on, and the prison- 
keeper slowly ascended the stairs, followed by a 
guard of soldiers. 

"Now, Monsieur Rigaud," said he, pausing 
for a moment at the grate, with his keys in his 
hand, "have the goodness to come out." 
"I am to depart in state, I see." 
"Why, unless you did," returned the jailer, 
"you might depart in so many pieces that it 
would be difficult to get you together again. 
There's a crowd, Monsieur Rigaud, and it doesn't 
love you." 

He passed on out of sight, and unlocked and 
unbarred a low door in the corner of the cham- 
ber. "Now," said he, as he opened it and ap- 
peared within, "come out." 

There is no sort of whiteness in all the hues 
under the sun, at all like the whiteness of Mon- 
sieur Rigaud's face as it was then. Neither is 
there any expression of the human countenance 
at all like that expression, in every little line -of 
which the frightened heart is seen to beat. Both 
are conventionally compared with death ; but 
the difference is the whole deep gulf between 
the struggle done, and the fight at its most des- 
perate extremity. 

He lighted another of his paper cigars at his 
companion's, put it tightly between his teeth, 
covered his head with a soft slouched hat, threw 
the end of his cloak over his shoulder again, and 
walked out into the side gallery on which the 
door opened, without taking any further notice 
of Signor Cavalletto. As to that little man him- 
self, his whole attention had become absorbed 



in getting near the door, and looking out at it. 
Precisely as a beast might approach the opened 
gate of his den and eye the freedom beyond, he 
passed those few moments in watching and peer- 
ing, until the door was closed upon him. 

There was an officer in command of the sol- 
diers ; a stout, serviceable, profoundly calm man. 
with his drawn sword in his hand, smoking a cigar. 
He very briefly directed the placing of Monsieur 
Rigaud in the midst of the party, put himself 
with consummate indifference at their head, 
gave the word " March !" and so they all went 
jingling down the staircase. The door clashed 
— the key turned — and a ray of unusual light, 
and a breath of unusual air, seemed to have 
passed through the jail, vanishing in a tiny 
wreath of smoke from the cigar. 

Still, in his captivity, like a lower animal — 
like some impatient ape, or roused bear of the 
smaller species — the prisoner, now left solitary, 
had jumped upon the ledge, to lose no glimpse 
of this departure. As he yet stood clasping the 
grate with both hands, an uproar broke upon his 
hearing; yells, shrieks, oaths, threats, execra- 
tions, all comprehended in it, though (as in a 
storm) nothing but a raging swell of sound dis- 
tinctly heard. 

Excited into a still greater resemblance to a 
caged wild animal by his anxiety to know more, 
the prisoner leaped nimbly down, ran round the 
chamber, leaped nimbly up again, clasped the 
grate and tried to shake it, leaped down and ran, 
leaped up and listened, and never rested until 
the noise, becoming more and more distant, had 
died away. How many better prisoners have 
worn their noble hearts out so ; no man think- 
ing of it; not even the beloved of their souls 
realizing it ; great kings and governors, who had 
made them captive, careering in the sunlight 
jauntily, und men cheering them on. Even the 
said great personages dying in bed, making ex- 
emplary ends and sounding speeches ; and polite 
history, more servile than their instruments, em- 
balming them ! 

At last John Baptist, now able to choose his 
own spot within the compass of those walls, for 
the exercise of his faculty of going to sleep when 
he would, lay down upon the bench, with his 
face turned over on his crossed arms, and slum- 
bered. In his submission, in his lightness, in 
his good-humor, in his short-lived passion, in 
his easy contentment with hard bread and hard 
stones, in his ready sleep, in his fits and starts 
altogether, a true son of the land that gave him 
birth. 

The wide stare stared itself out for one while : 
the sun went down in a red, green, golden glo- 
ry; the stars came out in the heavens, and the 
fire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as 
men may feebly imitate the goodness of a better 
order of beings ; the long dusty roads and the 
interminable plains were in repose — and so deep 
a hush was on the sea, that it scarcely whispered 
of the time when it shall give up its dead. 



LITTLE DOKRIT. 



241 



CHAPTER II. —FELLOW TRAVELERS. 
" No more of yesterday's howling over yonder 
to day, Sir, is there ?" 
"I have heard none." 

" Then yon may be sure there is none. When 
these people howl, they howl to be heard." 
"Most people do, I suppose." 
"Ah! but these people are always howling. 
Never happy otherwise." 

"Do you mean the Marseilles people?" 
"I mean the French people. They're always 
at it. As to Marseilles, we know what Mar- 
seilles is. It sent the most insurrectionary tune 
into the world that was ever composed. It 
couldn't exist without allonging and marshong- 
ing to something or other — victory or death, or 
blazes, or something." 

The speaker, with a whimsical good-humor 
upon him all the time, looked over the parapet- 
wall with the greatest disparagement of Mar- 
seilles ; and taking up a determined position, by 
putting his hands in his pockets, and rattling his 
money at it, apostrophized it with a short laugh. 
"Allong and marshong, indeed. It would be 
more creditable to you, I think, to let other peo- 
ple allong and marshong about their lawful busi- 
ness, instead of shutting 'em up in quarantine I" 
"Tiresome enough," said the other. "But 
we shall be out to-day." 

"Out to-day!" repeated the first. "It's al- 
most an aggravation of the enormity that we 
shall be out to-day. Out ! What have we ever 
been in for?" 

"For no very strong reason, I must say. But 
as we come from the East, and as the East is 
the country of the plague — " 

"The plague!" repeated the other. "That's 
my grievance. I have had the plague continu- 
ally, ever since I have been here. I am like a 
sane man shut up in a mad-house ; I can't stand 
the suspicion of the thing. I came here as well 
as ever I was in my life ; but to suspect me of 
the plague is to give me the plague. And I have 
had it — and I have got it." 

•• You bear it very well, Mr. Meagles," said 
the second speaker, smiling. 

"No. If you knew the real state of the case, 
that's the last observation you would think of 
making. I have been waking up, night after 
night, and saying, now I have got it, now it has 
developed itself, now I am in for it, now these 
fellows are making out their case for their pre- 
cautions. Why, I'd as soon have a spit put 
through me, and be stuck upon a card in a col- 
lection of beetles, as lead the life I have been 
leading here." 

"Well, Mr. Meagles, say no more about it, 
now it's over," urged a cheerful feminine voice. 
"Over!" repeated Mr. Meagles, who appeared 
("though without any ill-nature) to be in that pe- 
culiar state of mind in which the last word spoken 
by any body else is a new injury. " Over ! and 
;hy shou-A I say no more about it because it's 
over?" 

It was Mrs. Meagles who had spoken to Mr. 



Meagles ; and Mrs. Meagles was, like Mr. Mea- 
gles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant En- 
glish face, which had been looking at homely 
things for five-and-fifty years or more, and shone 
with a bright reflection of them. 

"There! Never mind, father, never mind!" 
said Mrs. Meagles. "Eor goodness sake con- 
tent yourself with Pet." 

"With Pet?" repeated Mr. Meagles in his in- 
jured vein. Pet, however, being close behind 
him, touched him on the shoulder, and Mr. Mea- 
gles immediately forgave Marseilles from the 
bottom of his heart. 

Pet was about twenty. A fair girl with rich 
brown hair hanging free in natural ringlets. A 
lovely girl, with a frank face, and wonderful 
eyes ; so large, so soft, so bright, set to such 
perfection in her kind good head. She was 
round and fresh and dimpled and spoilt, and 
there was in Pet an air of timidity and depend- 
ence which was the best weakness in the world, 
and gave her the only crowning charm a girl so 
pretty and pleasant could have been without. 

"Now, I ask you," said Mr. Meagles in the 
blandest confidence, falling back a step himself, 
and handing his daughter a step forward to il- 
lustrate his question : "I ask you simply as be- 
tween man and man, you know, did you ever 
hear of such damned nonsense as putting Pet in 
quarantine ?" 

" It has had the result of making even quar- 
antine enjoyable." 

"Come!" said Mr. Meagles, "that's some- 
thing, to be sure. I am obliged to you for that 
remark. Now Pet, my darling, you had better 
go along with mother and get ready for the 
boat. The officer of health, and a variety of 
humbugs in cocked hats, are coming off to let 
us out of this at last ; and all we jail-birds are to 
breakfast together in something approaching to 
a Christian style again, before we take wing for 
our different destinations. Tattycoram, stick 
you close to your young mistress." 

He spoke to a handsome girl with lustrous 
dark hair and eyes, and very neatly dressed, 
who replied with a half courtesy as she passed 
off in the train of Mrs. Meagles and Pet. They 
crossed the bare scorched terrace, all three to- 
gether, and disappeared through a staring white 
archway. Mr. Meagles's companion, a grave 
dark man of forty, still stood looking toward this 
archway after they were gone, until Mr. Mea- 
gles tapped him on the arm. 

" I beg your pardon," said he, starting. 

"Not at all," said Mr. Meagles. 

They took one silent turn backward and for- 
ward in the shade of the wall, getting, at the 
height on which the quarantine barracks are 
placed, what cool refreshment of sea breeze there 
was at seven in the morning. Mr. Meagles's 
companion resumed the conversation. 

" May I ask you," he said, "what is the name 
of—" 

"Tattycoram?" Mr. Meagles struck in. "1 
have not the least idea." 



242 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" I thought," said the other, " that—" 

" Tattycoram ?" suggested Mr. Meagles again. 

"Thank you — that Tattycoram was a name; 
and I have several times wondered at the oddity 
of it." 

"Why, the fact is," said Mr. Meagles, "Mrs. 
Meagles and myself are, you see, practical peo- 
ple." 

"That you have frequently mentioned in the 
course of the agreeable and interesting conver- 
sations we have had together walking up and 
down on these stones," said the other, with a 
half smile breaking through the gravity of his 
dark face. 

"Practical people. So one day, five or six 
years ago now, when we took Pet to church at 
the Foundling — you have heard of the Found- 
ling Hospital in London ? Similar to the Insti- 
tution for the Found Children in Paris ?" 

"I have seen it." 

" Well ! One day, when we took Pet to church 
there to hear the music — because, as practical 
people, it is the business of our lives to show her 
every thing that we think can please her — Moth- 
er (my usual name for Mrs. Meagles) began to 
cry so, that it was necessary to take her out. 
' What's the matter, Mother ?' said I, when we 
had brought her a little round ; 'you are fright- 
ening Pet, my dear.' ' Yes, I know that, Father,' 
says Mother, ' but I think it's through my loving 
her so much that it ever came into my head.' 
'That ever what came into your head, Mother?' 
'Oh, dear, dear!' cried Mother, breaking out 
again, 'when I saw all those children ranged 
tier above tier, and appealing from the father 
none of them has ever known on earth to the 
great Father of us all in heaven, I thought, does 
any wretched mother ever come here and look 
among those young faces, wondering which is 
the poor child she brought into this forlorn world, 
never through all its life to know her love, her 
kiss, her face, her voice, even her name ?' Now 
that was practical in Mother, and I told her so. 
I said, ' Mother, that's what I call practical in 
you, my dear.'" 

The other, not unmoved, assented. 

" So I said next day: now, Mother, I have a 
proposition to make that I think you'll approve 
of. Let us take one of those same children to 
be a little maid to Pet. We are practical peo- 
ple. So if we should find her temper a little 
defective, or any of her ways a little wide of 
ours, we shall know what we have to take into 
account. We shall know what an immense de- 
duction must be made from all the influences 
and experiences that have formed us — no pa- 
rents, no child-brother or sister, no individuality 
of home, no Glass Slipper, or Fairy Godmother. 
And that's the way we came by Tattycoram." 

" And the name itself — " 

"By George!" said Mr. Meagles, "I was for- 
getting the name itself. Why, she was called 
in the Institution Harriet Beadle — an arbitrary 
name, of course. Now, Harriet we changed into 
Hatty, and then into Tatty, because, as practical 



people, we thought even a playful name might 
be a new thing to her, and might have a soften- 
ing and affectionate kind of effect, don't you see ? 
As to Beadle, that I needn't say was wholly out 
of the question. If there is any thing that is not 
to be tolerated on any terms, any thing that is a 
type of jack-in-office insolence and absurdity, any 
thing that represents in coats, waistcoats, and 
big sticks, our English holding-on by nonsense, 
after every one has found it out, it is a beadle. 
You haven't seen a beadle lately ?" 

" As an Englishman, who has been more than 
twenty years in China, no." 

"Then," said Mr. Meagles, laying his fore- 
finger on his companion's breast with great ani- 
mation, " don't you see a beadle, now, if you can 
help it. Whenever I see a beadle in full fig, 
coming down a street on a Sunday at the head 
of a charity school, I am obliged to turn and run 
away, or I should hit him. The name of Bea- 
dle being out of the question, and the originator 
of the Institution for these poor foundlings hav- 
ing been a blessed creature of the name of Co- 
ram, we gave that name to Pet's little maid. At 
one time she was Tatty, and at one time she was 
Coram, until we got into a way of mixing the 
two names together, and now she is always Tat- 
tycoram." 

" Your daughter," said the other, when they 
had taken another silent turn to and fro, and 
after standing for a moment at the wall glancing 
down at the sea, had resumed their walk, "is 
your only child, I know, Mr. Meagles. May I 
ask you — in no impertinent curiosity, but be- 
cause I have had so much pleasure in your so- 
ciety, may never in this labyrinth of a world ex- 
change a quiet word with you again, and wish 
to preserve an accurate remembrance of you and 
yours — may I ask you, if I have not gathered 
from your good wife that you have had other 
children ?" 

" No. No," said Mr. Meagles. " Not exactly 
other children. One other child." 

"I am afraid I have inadvertently touched 
upon a tender theme." 

"Never mind," said Mr. Meagles. "If I am 
grave about it, I am not at all sorrowful. It 
quiets me for a moment, but does not make me 
unhappy. Pet had a twin sister who died when 
we could just see her eyes — exactly like Pet's — 
above the table, as she stood on tiptoe holding 
by it." 

"Ah! indeed, indeed?" 

"Yes, and being practical people, a result has 
gradually sprung up in the minds of Mrs. Mea- 
gles and myself which perhaps you may — or per- 
haps you may not — understand. Pet and her 
baby sister were so exactly alike, and so com- 
pletely one, that in our thoughts we have never 
been able to separate them since. It would be 
of no use to tell us that our dead child was a 
mere infant. We have changed that child ac- 
cording to the changes in the child spared to us, 
and always with us. As Pet has grown, that 
child has grown ; as Pet has become more sen- 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



243 



sible and womanly, her sister has become more 
sensible and womanly, by just the same degrees. 
It would be as hard to convince me that if I was 
to pass into the other world to-morrow, I should 
not, through the mercy of God, be received there 
by a daughter just like Pet, as to persuade me 
that Pet herself is not a reality at my side." 

"I understand you," said the other, gently. 

"As to her," pursued her father, " the sudden 
loss of her little picture and playfellow, and her 
early association with that mystery in which we 
all have our equal share, but which is not often 
so forcibly presented to a child, has necessarily 
had some influence on her character. Then, 
her mother and I were not young when we mar- 
ried, and Pet has always had a sort of grown-up 
life with us, though we have tried to adapt our- 
selves to her. We have been advised more than 
once when she has been a little ailing, to change 
climate and air for her as often as we could — 
especially at about this time of her life' — and to 
keep her amused. So, as I have no need to stick 
at a bank-desk now (though I have been poor 
enough in my time I assure you, or I should 
have married Mrs. Meagles long before), we go 
trotting about the world. This is how you found 
us staring at the Nile, and the Pyramids, and 
the Sphinxes, and the Desert, and all the rest 
of it; and this is how Tattycoram will be a 
greater traveler in course of time than Captain 
Cook." 

"I thank you," said the other, " very heartily 
for your confidence." 

"Don't mention it," returned Mr. Meagles, 
" I am aure you are quite welcome. And now, 
Mr. Clennam, perhaps I may ask you whether 
you have yet come to a decision where to go 
next ?" 

"Indeed, no. I am such a waif and stray 
every where, that I am liable to be drifted where 
any current may set." 

"It's extraordinary to me — if you'll excuse 
my freedom in saying so — that you don't go 
straight to London," said Mr. Meagles, in the 
tone of a confidential adviser. 

"Perhaps I shall." 

"Ay ! But I mean with a will." 

"I have no will. That is to say," he colored 
a little, "next to none that I can put in action 
now. Trained by main force ; broken, not bent ; 
heavily ironed with an object on which I was 
never consulted and which was never mine ; 
shipped away to the other end of the world be- 
fore I was of age, and exiled there until my fa- 
ther's death there, a year ago ; always grinding 
in a mill I always hated ; what is to be expected 
from me in middle-life? Will, purpose, hope? 
All those lights were extinguished before I could 
sound the words." 

" Light 'em up again !" said Mr. Meagles. 

" Ah ! Easily said. I am the son, Mr. Mea- 
gles, of a hard father and mother. I am the 
only child of parents who weighed, measured, 
and priced every thing: for whom what could 
not be weighed, measured, and priced had no 



existence. Strict people as the phrase is, pro 
fessors of a stern religion, their very religion was 
a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and sympathies that 
were never their own, offered up as part of a 
bargain for the security of their possessions. 
Austere faces, inexorable discipline, penance in 
this world and terror in the next — nothing grace- 
ful or gentle any where, and the void in my cowed 
heart every where — this was my childhood, if I 
may so misuse the word as to apply it to such 
a beginning of life." 

"Really though?" said Mr. Meagles, made 
very uncomfortable by the picture offered to his 
imagination. "That was a tough commence- 
ment. But come! You must now study, and 
profit by all that lies beyond it, like a practical 
man." 

"If the people who are usually called practi- 
cal were practical in your direction — " 

"Why, so they are!" said Mr. Meagles. 

"Are they indeed?" 

"Well, I suppose so," returned Mr. Meagles, 
thinking about it. " Eh ? One can but he prac- 
tical, and Mrs. Meagles and myself are nothina 
else." 

" My unknown course is easier and more hope- 
ful than I had expected to find it then," said 
Clennam, shaking his head with his grave smile. 
" Enough of me. Here is the boat !" 

The boat was filled with the cocked hats to 
which Mr. Meagles entertained a national objec- 
tion ; and the wearers of those cocked hats land- 
ed and came up the steps, and all the impounded 
travelers congregated together. There was then 
a mighty production of papers on the part of the 
cocked hats, and a calling over of names, and 
great work of signing, sealing, stamping, inking, 
and sanding, with exceedingly blurred, gritty, 
and undecipherable results. Finally, every thing 
was done according to rule, and the travelers 
were at liberty to depart whithersoever they 
would. 

They made little account of stare and glare 
in the new pleasure of recovering their freedom, 
but flitted across the harbor in gay boats, and 
reassembled at a great hotel, whence the sun 
was excluded by closed lattices, and where bare- 
paved floors, lofty ceilings, and resounding cor- 
ridors, tempered the intense heat. There, a 
great table in a great room, was soon profusely 
covered with a superb repast; and the quaran- 
tine quarters became bare indeed, remembered 
among dainty dishes, southern fruits, cooled 
wines, flowers from Genoa, snow from the mount 
ain tops, and all the colors of the rainbow flash- 
ing in the mirrors. 

"But I bear those monotonous walls no ill 
will now," said Mr. Meagles. " One always be 
gins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind : 
I dare say a prisoner begins to relent toward his 
prison, after he is let out." 

They were about thirty in company, and all 
talking; but necessarily in groups. Father and 
Mother Meagles sat with their daughter between 
them, the last three on one side of the table : on 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the opposite side sat Mr. Clennam ; a tall French 
gentleman with raven hair and beard, of a swart 
and terrible, not to say genteelly diabolical as- 
pect, but who had shown himself the mildest of 
men; and a handsome young English woman, 
traveling quite alone, who had a proud observ- 
ant face, and had either withdrawn herself from 
the rest or been avoided by the rest — nobody, 
herself excepted perhaps, could have quite de- 
cided which. The rest of the party were of the 
usual materials. Travelers on business and trav- 
elers for pleasure ; officers from India on leave ; 
merchants in the Greek and Turkey trades ; a 
clerical English husband in a meek strait-waist- 
coat, on a wedding trip with his young wife ; a 
majestic English mamma and papa, of the pa- 
trician order, with a family of three growing up 
daughters - , who were keeping a journal for the 
confusion of their fellow-creatures ; and a deaf 
old English mother, tough in travel, with a very 
decidedly grown up daughter indeed, which 
daughter went sketching about the universe in 
the expectation of ultimately toning herself off 
into the married state. 

The reserved Englishwoman took up Mr. Mea- 
gles in his last remark. 

"Do you mean that a prisoner forgives his 
prison?" said she, slowly and with emphasis. 

"That was my speculation, Miss Wade. I 
don't pretend to know positively how a prisoner 
might feel. I never was one before." 

"Mademoiselle doubts," said the French gen- 
tleman in his own language, "its being so easy 
to forgive ?" 

"I do." 

Pet had to translate this passage to Mr. Mea- 
gles, who never by any accident acquired any 
knowledge whatever of the language of any 
country into which he traveled. "Oh !" said he. 
"Dear me ! But that's a pity, isn't it?" 

"That I am not credulous?" said Miss Wade. 

" Not exactly that. Put it another way. That 
you can't believe it easy to forgive." 

"'My experience," she quietly returned, "has 
been correcting my belief in many respects, for 
some years. It is our natural progress, I have 
heard." 

"Well, well! But it's not natural to bear 
malice, I hope?" said Mr. Meagles cheerily. 

" If I had been shut up in any place to pine 
and suffer, I should always hate that place and 
wish to burn it down, or raze it to the ground. 
I know no more." 

" Strong, Sir," said Mr. Meagles to the French- 
man ; it being another of his habits to address 
individuals of all nations in idiomatic English, 
with a perfect conviction that they were bound 
to understand it somehow. "Rather forcible in 
our fair friend, you'll agree with me, I think?" 

The French gentleman courteously replied, 
"Plait-il?" To which Mr. Meagles returned 
with much satisfaction, "You are right. My 
opinion." 

The breakfast beginning by-and-by to languish, 
Mr. Meagles made the company a speech. It 



was short enough and sensible enough, consid- 
ering that it was a speech at all, and hearty. It 
merely went to the effect that as they had all 
been thrown together by chance, and had all 
preserved a good understanding together, and 
were now about to disperse, and were not likely 
ever to find themselves all together again, what 
could they do better than bid farewell to one 
another, and give one another good speed, in a 
simultaneous glass of cool Champagne all round 
the table? It was done, and with a general 
shaking of hands the assembly broke up forever. 

The solitary young lady all this time had said 
no more. She rose with the rest, and silently 
withdrew to a remote corner of the great room, 
where she sat herself on a couch in a window, 
seeming to watch the reflection of the water as 
it made a silver quivering on the bars of the lat- 
tice. She sat, turned away from the whole 
length of the apartment, as if she were lonely 
of her own haughty choice. And yet it would 
have been as difficult as ever to say, positively, 
whether she avoided the rest, or was avoided. 

The shadow in which she sat, falling like a 
gloomy vail across her forehead, accorded very 
well with the character of her beauty. One could 
hardly see the face, so still and scornful, set off 
by the arched dark eyebrows, and the folds of 
dark hair, without wondering what its expres- 
sion would be if a change came over it. That 
it could soften or relent appeared next to im- 
possible. That it could deepen into anger or 
any extreme of defiance, and that it must change 
in that direction when it changed at all, would 
have been its peculiar impression upon most ob- 
servers. It was dressed and trimmed into no 
ceremony of expression. Although not an open 
face, there was no pretense in it. I am self- 
contained and self-reliant ; your opinion is no- 
thing to me ; I have no interest in you, care no- 
thing for you, and see and hear you with indif- 
ference — this it said plainly. It said so in the 
proud eyes, in the lifted nostril, in the handsome, 
but compressed and even cruel mouth. Cover 
either two of those channels of expression, and 
the third would have said so still. ' Mask them 
all, and the mere turn of the head would have 
shown an unsubduable nature. 

Pet had moved up to her (she had been the 
subject of remark among her family and Mr. 
Clennam, who were now the only other occu- 
pants of the room), and was standing at her side. 

" Are you" — she turned her eyes, and Pet 
faltered — "expecting any one to meet you here, 
Miss Wade?" 

"I? No." 

"Father is sending to the Poste Restante. 
Shall he have the pleasure of directing the mes- 
senger to ask if there are any letters for you ?'? 

" I thank him, but I know there can be none." 

"We are afraid," said Pet, sitting down be- 
side her, shyly and half tenderly, that you will 
feel quite deserted when we are all gone." 

"Indeed!" 

"Not," said Pet, apologetically, and embar- 



LITTLE DORKIT. 



245 



rassed by her eyes, " not, of course, that we are 
any company to you, or that we have been able 
to be so, or that we thought you wished it." 

"I have not intended to make it understood 
that I did wish it." 

"No. Of course. But — in short," said Pet, 
timidly touching her hand as it lay impassive on 
the sofa between them, "will you not allow fa- 
ther to render you any slight assistance or serv- 
ice. He will be very glad." 

"Very glad," said Mr. Meagles, coming for- 
ward with his wife and Clennam. "Any thing 
short of speaking the language I shall be delight- 
ed to undertake, I am sure." 

"I am obliged to you," she returned, "but 
my arrangements are made, and I prefer to go 
my own way in my own manner." 

"Do you?" said Mr. Meagles to himself, as 
he surveyed her with a puzzled look. "Well! 
There's character in that, too." 

" I am not much used to the society of young 
ladies, and I am afraid I may not show my ap- 
preciation of it as others might. A pleasant 
journey to you. Good-by !" 

She would not have put out her hand, it seem- 
ed, but that Mr. Meagles put out his so straight 
before her, that she could not pass it. She put 
iters in it, and it lay there just as it had lain 
upon the couch. 

" Good-by !" said Mr. Meagles. "This is the 
last good-by upon the list, for Mother and I have 
just said it to Mr. Clennam here, and he only 
waits to say it to Pet. Good-by ! We may never 
meet again." 

"In our course through life we shall meet the 
people who are coming to meet us, from many 
strange places and by many strange roads," was 
the composed reply ; " and what it is set to us 
to do to them, and what it is set to them to do 
to us, will all be done." 

There was something in the manner of these 
words that jarred upon .Pet's ear. It implied 
that what was to be done was necessarily evil, 
and it caused her to say in a whisper, " Oh, fa- 
ther !" and to shrink childishly in her spoilt way 
a little closer to him. This was not lost on the 
speaker. 

"Your pretty daughter," she said, "starts to 
think of such things. Yet," looking full upon 
her, " you may be sure that there are men and 
women already on their road, who have their 
business to do with you, and who will do it. Of 
a certainty they will do it. They may be com- 
ing hundreds, thousands of miles over the sea 
there; they may be close at hand now; they 
may be coming, for any thing you know, or any 
thing you can do to prevent it, from the vilest 
sweepings of this very town." 

With the coldest of farewells, and with a cer- 
tain worn expression on her beauty that gave it, 
though scarcely yet in its prime, a wasted look, 
she left the room. 

Now, there were many stairs and passages that 
she had to traverse in passing from that part of 
the spacious house to the chamber she had se- 



cured for her own occupation. When she had 
almost completed the journey, and was passing 
along the gallery in which her room was, she 
heard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing. 
A door stood open, and within she saw the at- 
tendant upon the girl she had just left — the maid 
with the curious name. 

She stood still to look at this maid. A sullen, 
passionate girl! Her rich black hair was all 
about her face, her face was flushed and hot, 
and as she sobbed and raged she plucked at her 
lips with an unsparing hand. 

"Selfish brutes!" said the girl, sobbing and 
heaving between whiles. "Not caring what be- 
comes of me ! Leaving me here hungry and 
thirsty and tired, to starve, for any thing they 
care ! Beasts ! Devils ! Wretches !" 

"My poor girl, what is the matter?" 

She looked up suddenby, with reddened eyes, 
and with her hands suspended, in the act of 
pinching her neck, freshly disfigured with great 
scarlet blots. " It's nothing to you what's the 
matter. It don't signify to any one." 

" Oh yes it does ; I am sorry to see you so." 

" You are not sorry," said the girl. "You are 
glad. You know you are glad. I never was like 
this but twice, over in the quarantine yonder, 
and both times you found me. I am afraid of 
you." 

" Afraid o. me ?" 

" Yes. You seem to come like my own anger, 
my own malice, my own — whatever it is — I don't 
know what it is. But I am ill-used, I am ill-used, 
I am ill-used !" Here the sobs and the tears, and 
the tearing hand, which had all been suspended 
together since the first surprise, went on together 
anew. 

The visitor stood looking at her with a strange 
attentive smile. It was wonderful to see the fury 
of the contest in the girl, and the bodily struggle 
she made as if she were rent by the Demons of 
old. 

" I am young than she is by two or three 
years, and yet it's me that looks after her, as if 
I was old, and it's she that's always petted and 
called Baby! I detest the name. I hate her. 
They make a fool of her, they spoil her. She 
thinks of nothing but herself, she thinks no more 
of me than if I was a stock and a stone !" So 
the girl went on. 

" You must have patience." 

"I won't have patience!" 

"If they take much care of themselves, and 
little or none of you, you must not mind it." 

" I will mind it !" 

" Hush ! Be more prudent. You forget your 
dependent position." 

" I don't care for that. I'll run away. I'll do 
some mischief. I won't bear it ; 1 can't bear it ; 
I shall die if I try to bear it !" 

The observer stood with her hand upon her 
own bosom, looking at the girl, as one afflicted 
with a diseased part might curiously watch the 
dissection and exposition of an analogous case. 

The girl raged and battled with all the force 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



of her youth and fullness of life, until by little 
ind little her passionate exclamations trailed off 
into broken murmurs as if she were in pain. By 
corresponding degrees she sunk into a chair, then 
upon her knees, then upon the ground beside the 
bed, drawing the coverlet with her, half to hide 
her shamed head and wet hair in it, and half, 
as it seemed, to embrace it, rather than have 
nothing to take to her repentant breast. 

" Go away from me, go away from me ! When 
rny temper comes upon me, I am mad. I know 
I might keep it off if I only tried hard enough, 
and sometimes I do try hard enough, and at 
other times I don't and won't. What have I 
said! I knew, when I said it, it was all lies. 
They think I am being taken care of somewhere, 
and have all I want. They are nothing but good 
to me. I love them dearly; no people could 
ever be kinder to a thankless creature than they 
always are to me. Do, do go away, for I am 
afraid of you ! I am afraid of myself when I 
feel my temper coming, and I am as much afraid 
of you. Go away from me, and let me pray and 
cry myself better !" 

The day passed on ; and again the wide stare 
stared itself out ; and the hot night was on Mar- 
seilles ; and through it the caravan of the morn- 
ing, all dispersed, went their appointed ways. 
And thus ever, by day and night, under the sun 
and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and 
toiling along the weary plains, journeying by 
land and journeying by sea, coming and going 
so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one 
another, move all Ave restless travelers through 

die pilgrimage of life. 

+. 

CHAPTER III.— HOME. 
It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, 
close, and stale. Maddening church bells of all 
degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked 
and clear, fast and slow, made the brick and 
mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets in 
a penitential garb of soot, steepe'd the souls of 
the people who were condemned to look at them 
out of windows, in dire despondency. In every 
thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down 
almost every turning, some doleful bell was throb- 
bing, jerking, tolling, as if the plague were in 
the city and the dead-carts were going round. 
Every thing was bolted and barred that could 
by possibility furnish relief to an overworked 
people. No pictures, no unfamiliar animals, no 
rare plants or flowers, no natural or artificial 
wonders of the ancient Avorld — all taboo with 
that enlightened strictness, that the ugly South 
Sea gods in the British Museum might have 
supposed themselves at home again. Nothing 
to see but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to 
breathe but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to 
change the brooding mind, or raise it up. No- 
thing for the spent toiler to do, but to compare 
the monotony of his seventh day with the mo- 
notony of his six days, think what a weary life 
he led, and make the best of it — or the worst, 
according to the probabilities. 



At such a happy time, so propitious to the 
interests of religion and morality, Mr. Arthur 
Clcnnam, newly arrived from Marseilles by way 
of Dover, and by Dover coach the Blue-eyed 
Maid, sat in the window of a coffee-house on 
Ludgate Hill. Ten thousand responsible houses 
surrounded him, frowning as heavily on the 
streets they composed as if they were every 
one inhabited by the ten young men of the Cal- 
ender's story, who blackened their faces and be- 
moaned their miseries every night. Fifty thou- 
sand lairs surrounded him where people lived so 
unwholesomely, that fair water put into their 
crowded rooms on Saturday night would be cor- 
rupt on Sunday morning; albeit my lord, their 
county member, was amazed that they failed 
to sleep in company with their butcher's meat. 
Miles of close wells and pits of houses, where 
the inhabitants gasped for air, stretched far away 
toward every point of the compass. Through 
the heart of the town a deadly sewer ebbed and 
flowed in the place of a fine fresh river. What 
secular want could the million or so of human 
beings whose daily labor, six days in the week, 
lay among these Arcadian objects, from the sweet 
sameness of which they had no escape between 
the cradle and the grave — what secular want 
could they possibly have upon their seventh day? 
Clearly they could want nothing but a stringent 
policeman. 

Mr. Arthur Clennam sat in the window of the 
coffee-house on Ludgate Hill, counting one of 
the neighboring bells, making sentences and bur- 
dens of songs out of it in spite of himself, and 
wondering how many sick people it might be 
the death of in the course of a year. As the 
hour approached, its changes of measure made 
it more and more exasperating. At the quar- 
ter, it went off into a condition of deadly lively 
importunity, urging the populace in a voluble 
manner to Come to church, Come to church, 
Come to church ! At. the ten minutes, it be- 
came aware that the congregation would be 
scanty, and slowly hammered out in low spirits, 
They xoorUt come, they won't come, they won't 
come ! At five minutes, it abandoned hope and 
shook every house in the neighborhood for three 
hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per sec- 
ond, as a groan of despair. 

"Thank Heaven!" said Clennam, when the 
hour struck, and the bell stopped. 

But its sound had revived a long train of mis- 
erable Sundays, and the procession would not 
stop with the bell, but continued to march on. 
"Heaven forgive me," said he, "and those who 
trained me. How I have hated this day !" 

There was the dreary Sunday of his child- 
hood, when he sat with his hands before him, 
scared out of his senses by a horrible tract which 
commenced business with the poor child by ask- 
ing him in its title, why he was going to Per- 
dition? — a piece of cariosity that he really in a 
frock and drawers was not in a condition to sat- 
isfy — and which, for the further attraction of 
his infant mind, had a parenthesis in every other 



LITTLE DOEIUT. 



247 



line with some such hiccoughing reference as 
2 Ep. Thess. c. iii., v. 6 and 7. There was the 
sleepy Sunday of his boyhood, when, like a mil- 
itary deserter, he was marched to chapel by a 
picket of teachers three times a day, morally 
handcuffed to another boy ; and when he would 
willingly have bartered two meals of indiges- 
tible sermon for another ounce or two of inferior 
mutton at his scanty dinner in the flesh. There 
was the interminable Sunday of his nonage; 
when his mother, stern of face and unrelenting 
of heart, would sit all day behind a Bible — bound 
like her own construction of it in the hardest, 
barest, and straitest boards, with one dinted or- 
nament on the cover like the drag of a chain, and 
a wrathful sprinkling of red upon the edges of 
the leaves — as if it, of all books ! were a fortifi- 
cation against sweetness, of temper, natural af- 
fection, and gentle intercourse. There was the 
resentful Sunday of a little later, when he sat 
glowering and glooming through the tardy length 
of the day, with a sullen sense of injury in his 
heart, and no more real knowledge of the be- 
neficent history of the New Testament, than if 
he had been bred among idolaters. There was 
a legion of Sundays, all days of unserviceable 
bitterness and mortification, slowly passing be- 
fore him. 

"Beg pardon, Sir," said a brisk waiter, rub- 
bing the table. "Wish see bedroom?" 

"Yes. I have just made up my mind to do 
it." 

" Chaymaid !" cried the waiter. " Gelen box 
num seven wish see room !" 

"Stay!" said Clennam, rousing himself. "I 
was not thinking of what I said; I answered 
mechanically. I am not going to sleep here. 
I am going home." 

"Deed, Sir? Chaymaid! Gelen box num 
seven, not go sleep here, gome." 

He sat in the same place as the day died, 
looking at the dull houses opposite, and think- 
ing, if the disembodied spirits of former inhab- 
itants were ever conscious of them, how they 
must pity themselves for their old places of im- 
prisonment. Sometimes a face would appear 
behind the dingy glass of a window, and would 
fade away into the gloom as if it had seen 
enough of life and had vanished out of it. Pres- 
ently the rain began to fall in slanting lines be- 
tween him and those houses, and people began 
to collect under cover of the public passage op- 
posite, and to look out hopelessly at the sky as 
the rain dropped thicker and faster. Then wet 
umbrellas began to appear, draggled skirts, and 
mud. What the mud had been doing with it- 
self, or where it came from, who could say? 
But it seemed to collect in a moment, as a 
crowd will, and in five minutes to have splashed 
all the sons and daughters of Adam. The lamp- 
lighter was going his rounds now; and as the 
fiery jets sprang up under his touch, one might 
have fancied them astonished at being suffered 
to introduce any show of brightness into such a 
Jisraal scene. 



Mr. Arthur Cleimam took up his hat, and 
buttoned his coat, and walked out. In the coun- 
try, the rain would have developed a thousand 
fresh scents, and every drop would have had it« 
bright association with some beautiful form of 
growth oi- life. In the city, it developed only 
foul stale smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, 
dirt-stained, wretched addition to the gutters. 

He crossed by Saint Paul's and went down, 
at a long angle, almost to the water's edge, 
through some of the crooked and descending 
streets which lie (and lay more crookedly and 
closely then) between the river and Cheapside. 
Passing, now the mouldy hall of some obsolete 
Worshipful Company, now the illuminated win- 
dows of a Congregationless Church that seemed 
to be waiting for some adventurous Belzoni to 
dig it out and discover its history; passing si- 
lent warehouses and wharves, and here and 
there a narrow alley leading to the river, where 
a wretched little bill, Found Drowned, wag 
weeping on the wet wall, he came at last to 
the house he sought. An old brick house, so 
dingy as to be all but black, standing by itself 
within a gateway. Before it, a square court- 
yard where a shrub or two and a patch of grass 
were as rank (which is saying much) as the 
iron railings inclosing them were rusty ; behind 
it, a jumble of roofs. It was a double house, 
with long, narrow, heavily - framed windows. 
Many years ago, it had had it in its mind to 
slide down sideways ; it had been propped up, 
however, and was leaning on some half dozen 
gigantic crutches : which gymnasium for the 
neighboring cats, weather-stained, smoke-black- 
ened, and overgrown with weeds, appeared in 
these latter days to be no very sure reliance. 

" Nothing changed !" said the traveler, stop- 
ping to look round. "Dark and miserable as 
ever! A light in my mother's window, which 
seems never to have been extinguished since« 
I came home twice a year from school, and 
dragged my box over this pavement. Well, 
well,' well!'' 

lie went up to the door, which had a project- 
ing canopy in carved work, of festooned jack- 
towels and children's heads with Avater on the 
brain, designed after a once popular monument- 
al pattern ; and knocked. A shuffling step was 
soon heard on the stone floor of the hall, and 
the door was opened by an old man, bent and 
dried, but with keen eyes. 

lie had a candle in his hand, and he held it 
up for a moment to assist his keen eyes. " Ah, 
Mr. Arthur!" he said, without any emotion, 
"you are come at last! Step in." 

Mr. Arthur stepped in and shut the door. 

"Your figure is filled out, and set," said the 
old man, turning to look at him with the light 
raised again, and shaking his head; "1)111 you 
don't come up to your father in my opinion. 
Nor yet your mother." 

" How is my mother?" 

"She is as she always is now. Keeps her 
room when not actually bedridden, and hasn't 



248 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 






'""V- 




been out of it fifteen times in as many years, 
Arthur." They had walked into a spare, mea- 
gre dining-room. The old man had put the 
candlestick upon the table, and, supporting his 
right elbow with his left hand, was smoothing 
his leathern jaws while he looked at the visit- 
or. The visitor offered his hand. The old man 
took it coldly enough, and seemed to prefer 
his jaws ; to which he returned, as soon as he 
could. 

"I doubt if your mother will approve of your 
coming home on the Sabbath, Arthur," he said, 
shaking his head warily. 

" You wouldn't have me go away again?" 
"Oh! I? I? I am not the master. It's not 
what / would have. I have stood between your 
father and mother for a number of years. I 
don't pretend to stand between your mother and 
you." 

" Will you tell her that I have come home ?" 
" Yes, Arthur, yes. Oh to be sure ! I'll tell 



her that you have come home. Please to wait 
here. You won't find the room changed." He 
took another candle from a cupboard, lighted it, 
left the first on the table, and went upon his er- 
rand. He was a short, bald old man, in a high- 
shouldered black coat and waistcoat, drab breech- 
es, and long drab gaiters. He might, from his 
dress, have been either clerk or servant, and in 
fact had long been both. There was nothing 
about him in the way of decoration but a watch, 
which was lowered into the depths of its proper 
pocket by an old black ribbon, and had a tar- 
nished copper key moored above it, to show 
where it was sunk. His head was awry, and 
he had a one-sided, crab-like way with him, 
as if his foundations had yielded at about the 
same time as those of the house, and he ought 
to have been propped up in a similar man- 
ner. 

"How weak am I," said Arthur Ciennam, 
when he was gone, " that I could shed tears ai 



LITTLE DOERIT. 



249 



this reception ! I, who have never experienced 
any thing else ; who have never expected any 
thing else." 

He not only could, but did. It was the mo- 
mentary yielding of a nature that had been dis- 
appointed from the dawn of its perceptions, but 
had not quite given up all its hopeful yearnings 
yet. He subdued it, took up the candle and 
examined the room. The old articles of furni- 
ture were in their old places ; the Plagues of 
Egypt, much the dimmer for the fly and smoke 
plagues of London, were framed and glazed 
upon the walls. There was the old cellaret with 
nothing in it, lined with lead, like a sort of coffin 
in compartments ; there was the old dark closet, 
also with nothing in it, of which he had >been 
many a time the sole contents, in days of pun- 
ishment, when he had regarded it as the verita- 
ble entrance to that bourne to which the tract 
had found him galloping. There was the large, 
hard-featured clock on the sideboard, which he 
used to see bending its figured brows upon him 
with a savage joy when he was behind-hand 
with his lessons, and which, when it was wound 
up once a week with an iron handle, used to 
sound as if it were growling in ferocious antici- 
pation of the miseries into which it would bring 
him. But here was the old man come back, 
saying, "Arthur, I'll go before and light you." 

Arthur followed him up the staircase, which 
was paneled off into spaces like so many mourn- 
ing tablets, into a dim bedchamber, the floor of 
which had gradually so sunk and settled that 
the fire-place was in a dell. On a black bier- 
like sofa in this hollow, propped up behind with 
one great angular black bolster, like the block at 
a state execution in the good old times, sat his 
mother in a widow's dress. 

She and his father had been at variance from 
his earliest remembrance. To sit speechless 
himself in the midst of rigid silence, glancing in 
dread from the one averted face to the other, 
had been the peacefulest occupation of his child- 
hood. She gave him one glassy kiss, and four 
stiff fingers muffled in worsted. This embrace 
concluded, he sat down on the opposite side of 
her little table. There was a fire in the grate, 
as there had been night and day for fifteen years. 
There was a kettle on the hob, as there had been 
night and day for fifteen years. There was a 
little mound of damped ashes on the top of the 
fire, and another little mound swept together 
under the grate, as there Jiad been night and 
day for fifteen years. There was a smell of 
black-dye in the airless room, which the fire had 
been drawing out of the crape and stuff of the 
widow's dress for fifteen months, and out of the 
bier-like sofa for fifteen years. 

"Mother, this is a change from your old act- 
ive habits." 

"The world has narrowed to these dimen- 
sions, Arthur," she replied, glancing round the 
room. "It is Avell for me that I never set my 
heart upon its hollow vanities." 

The old influence of her presence and her 
Vol. XII.— No. G8.— It 



stern strong voice, so gathered about her son, 
that he felt conscious of a renewal of the timid 
chill and reserve of his childhood. 

"Do you never leave your room, mother?" 

" What with my rheumatic affection, and what 
with its attendant debility or nervous weakness 
— names are of no matter now — I have lost the 
use of my limbs. I never leave my room. I 
have not been outside this door for — tell him for 
how long," she said, speaking over her shoul- 
der. 

"A dozen year next Christmas," returned a 
cracked voice out of the dimness behind. 

" Is that Affery ?" said Arthur, looking toward 
it. 

The cracked voice replied that it was Affery ; 
and an old woman came forward into what doubt- 
ful light there was, and kissed her hand once ; 
then subsided again into the dimness. 

" I am able," said Mrs. Clennam, with a slight 
motion of her worsted-muffled right hand toward 
a chair on wheels, standing before a tall writing- 
cabinet close shut up, "I am able to attend to 
my business duties, and I am thankful for the 
privilege. It is a great privilege. But no more 
of business on this day. It is a bad night, is it 
not?" 

"Yes, mother." 
' Does it snow ?" 

"Snow, mother? And we only yet in Sep- 
tember ?" 

"All seasons are alike to me," she returned, 
with a grim kind of luxuriousness. " I know no- 
thing of summer and winter, shut up here. The 
Lord has been pleased to put me beyond all 
that." With her cold gray eyes and her cold 
gray hair, and her immovable face, as stiff as 
the folds of her stony head-dress — her being be- 
yond the reach of the seasons seemed but a fit 
sequence to her being beyond the reach of all 
changing emotions. 

On her little table lay two or three books, her 
handkerchief, a pair of steel spectacles newly 
taken off, and an old-fashioned gold watch in a 
heavy double case. Upon this last object her 
son's eyes and her own now rested together. 

" I see that you received the packet I sent you 
on my father's death safely, mother." 

"You see." 

"I never knew my father to show so much 
anxiety on any subject, as that his watch should 
be sent straight to you." 

"I keep it here as a remembrance of your 
father." 

"It was not until the last that he expressed 
the wish — when he could only put his hand 
upon it, and very indistinctly say to me, 'Your 
mother.' A moment before, I thought him wan- 
dering in his mind, as he had been for many 
hours — I think he had no consciousness of pain 
in his short illness — when I saw him turn him- 
self in his bed and try to open it." 

"Was your father, then, not wandering in his 
mind when he tried to open it ?" 

"No. He was quite sensible at that time." 



250 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Mrs. Clennam shook her head; whether in 
dismissal of the deceased or opposing herself to 
her son's opinion, was not clearly expressed. 

"After my father's death I opened it myself, 
thinking there might be, for any thing I knew, 
some memorandum there. However, as I need 
not tell you, mother, there was nothing but the 
old silk watch-paper worked in beads, which you 
found (no doubt) in its place between the cases, 
where I found it and left it." 

Mrs. Clennam signified assent; then added, 
"No more of business on this day," and then 
added, " Affery, it is nine o'clock." 

Upon this, the old woman cleared the little 
table, went out of the room, and quickly return- 
ed with a tray, on which was a dish of little 
rusks and a small precise pat of butter, cool, 
symmetrical, white, and plump. The old man 
who had been standing by the door in one atti- 
tude during the whole interview, looking at the 
mother up stairs as he had looked at the son 
down stairs, went out at the same time, and, 
after a longer absence, returned with another 
tray, on which was the greater part of a bottle 
of port wine (which, to judge by his panting, he 
had brought from the cellar), a lemon, a sugar 
basin, and a spice-box. With these materials, 
and the aid of the kettle, he filled a tumbler 
with a hot and odorous mixture, measured out 
and compounded with as much nicety as a phy- 
sician's prescription. Into this mixture Mrs. 
Clennam dipped certain of the rusks and ate 
them ; while the old woman buttered certain 
other of the rusks, which were to be eaten alone. 
When the invalid had eaten all the rusks and 
drunk all the mixture, the two trays were re- 
moved; and the books and the candle, watch, 
handkerchief, and spectacles were replaced upon 
the table. She then put on the spectacles and 
read certain passages aloud from a book — stern- 
ly, fiercely, wrathfully — praying that her ene- 
mies (she made them by her tone and manner 
expressly hers) might be put to the edge of the 
sword, consumed by fire, smitten by plagues and 
leprosy, that their bones might be ground to 
dust, and that they might be utterly exterm- 
inated. As she read on, years seemed to fall 
away from her son like the imaginings of a 
dream, and all the old dark horrors of his usual 
preparation for the sleep of an innocent child to 
overshadow him. 

She shut the book and remained for a little 
time with her face shaded by her hand. So did 
the old man, otherwise still unchanged in atti- 
tude ; so, probably, did the old woman in her 
dimmer part of the room. Then the sick wo- 
man was ready for bed. 

" Good-night, Arthur. Affery will see to your 
accommodation. Only touch me, for my hand 
is tender." He touched the worsted muffling of 
her hand — that was nothing ; if his mother had 
been sheathed in brass there would have been 
no new barrier between them — and followed the 
old man and woman down stairs. 

The latter asked him, when they were alone 



together among the heavy shadows of the din- 
ing-room, would he have some supper ? 

"No, Affery, no supper." 

" You shall if you like,"-said Affery. " There's 
her to-morrow's partridge in the larder — her 
first this year ; say the word and I'll cook it." 

No, he had not long dined, and could eat no- 
thing. 

"Have something to drink, then," said Af- 
fery; "you shall have some of her bottle of 
port, if you like. I'll tell Jeremiah that you or- 
dered me to bring it you." 

No ; nor would he have that, either. 

" It's no reason, Arthur," said the old woman, 
bending over him to whisper, " that because I 
am afeared of my life of 'em, you should be. 
You've got half the propertv, haven't you?" 

"Yes,' yes." 

"Well then, don't you be cowed. You're clev- 
er, Arthur, an't you ?" 

He nodded, as she seemed to expect an an- 
swer in the affirmative. 

"Then stand up against them! She's awful 
clever, and none but a clever one durst say a 
Avord to her. He's a clever one — oh, he's a clev- 
er one ! — and he gives it her when he has a 
mind to't, he does !" 

"Your husband does?" 

"Does? It makes me shake from head to 
foot to hear him give it her. My husband, Jere- 
miah Flintwinch, can conquer even your mother. 
What can he be but a clever one to do that !" 

His shuffling footstep coining toward them 
caused her to retreat to the other end of the 
room. Though a tall, hard-favored, sinewy old 
woman, who in her youth might have enlisted 
in the Eoot Guards without much fear of dis- 
covery, she collapsed before the little keen eyed 
crab-like old man. 

"Now Affery," said he, "now woman, what 
are you doing? Can't you find Master Arthur 
something or another to pick at?" 

Master Arthur repeated his recent refusal to 
pick at any thing. 

" Very well, then," said the old man ; " make 
his bed. Stir yourself." His neck was so twist- 
ed that the knotted ends of his white cravat usu- 
ally dangled under one ear; his natural acerb- 
ity and energy, always contending with a second 
nature of habitual repression, gave his features a 
swollen and suffused look; and altogether, he 
had a weird appearance of having hanged him- 
self at one time or other, and of having gone 
about ever since halter and all, exactly as some 
timely hand had cut him down. 

"You'll have bitter words together to-morrow, 
Arthur ; yon and your mother," said Jeremiah. 
"Your having given up the business on your fa- 
ther's death — which she suspects, though Ave 
have left it to you to tell her — won't go off 
smoothly." 

"I have given up every thing in life for the 
business, and the time came for me to give up 
that." 

"Good!" cried Jeremiah, evidently meaning 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



251 



Bad. "Very good! only don't expect me to 
stand between your mother and you, Arthur. I 
stood between your mother and your father, 
fending off this, and fending off that, and getting 
crushed and pounded betwixt them; and I've 
done with such work." 

• • You will never be asked to begin it again 
for me, Jeremiah." 

" Good, I'm glad to hear it ; because I should 
have had to decline it, if I had been. That's 
enough — as your mother says — and more than 
enough of such matters on a Sabbath night. 
Affery, woman, have you found Avhat you want 
yet ?" 

She had been collecting sheets and blankets 
from a press, and hastened to gather them up, 
and to reply, "Yes, Jeremiah." Arthur Clen- 
nam helped her by carrying the load himself, 
wi-Oied the old man good-night, and went up 
stairs with her to the top of the house. 

They mounted up and up, through the musty 
smell of an old close house, little used, to a large 
garret bedroom. Meagre and spare, like all the 
other rooms, it was even uglier and grimmer 
than the rest, by being the place of banishment 
for the worn-out furniture. Its movables were 
ugly old chairs with worn-out seats, and ugly old 
chairs without any seats ; a threadbare pattern- 
less carpet, a maimed table, a crippled ward- 
robe, a lean set of fire-irons like the skeleton of 
a set deceased, a washing-stand that looked as 
if it had stood for ages in a hail of dirty soap- 
suds, and a bedstead with four bare atomies of 
posts, each terminating in a spike, as if for the 
dismal accommodation of lodgers who might 
prefer to impale themselves. Arthur opened 
the long low window, and looked out upon the 
old blasted and blackened forest of chimneys, 
and the old red glare in the sky which had 
seemed to him once upon a time but a nightly 
reflection of the fiery environment that was pre- 
sented to his childish fancy in all directions, let 
it look where it would. 

lie drew in his head again, sat down at the 
bedside, and looked on at Affery Flintwinch 
making the bed. 

"Affery, you were not married when I went 
away." 

She screwed her mouth into the form of say- 
ing " No," shook her head, and proceeded to get 
a pillow into its case. 

•• How did it happen?" 

" Why, Jeremiah, o' course," said Affery, with 
an end of the pillow-case between her teeth. 

"Of course he proposed it, hut how did it all 
come about? I should have thought that nei- 
ther of you would have married; least of all 
should I have thought of vour marrving each 
other." 

"No more should 1." said Mrs. Flintwinch, 
tying the pillow tightly in its ca.-e. 

•That's what I mean. When did you begin 
to think otherwise?" 

'• Never begun to think otherwise at all," said 
Mrs. Flintwinch. 



Seeing, as she patted the pillow into its place 
on the bolster, that he was still looking at her, 
as if waiting for the rest of her reply, she gave 
it a great poke in the middle, and asked, " How 
could I help myself?" 

"How could you help yourself from being 
married ?" 

"O' course," said Mrs. Flintwinch. "It was 
no doing o' mine. I'd never thought of it. I'd 
got something to do, without thinking, indeed ! 
She kept me to it when she could go about, and 
she could go about then." 

"Well?" 

"Well?" echoed Mrs. Flintwinch. -'That's 
what I said myself. Well! What's the use of 
considering ? If them two clever ones has made 
up their minds to it, what's left for me to do? 
Nothing." 

"Was it my mother's project, then?" 

"The Lord bless you, Arthur, and forgive me 
the wish J" cried Affery, speaking always in a 
low tone. " If they hadn't been both of a mind 
in it, how could it ever have been? Jeremiah 
never courted me; t'ant likely that he would, 
after living in the house with me and ordering 
me about for as many years as he'd done. He 
said to me one day, he said, 'Affery,' he said, 
'now I am going to tell you something. What 
do you think of the name of Flintwinch ?' ' Wh at. 
do I think of it?' I says. 'Yes,' he said; 'be- 
cause you're going to take it,' he said. 'Take 
it?' I says. ' Jera-mi-ah ?' Oh, he's a clever 
one !" 

Mrs. Flintwinch went on to spread the upper 
sheet over the bed, and the blanket over that, 
and the counterpane over that, as if she had 
quite concluded her story. 

"Well?" said Arthur again. 

"Well?" echoed Mrs. Flintwinch again. 
"How could I help myself? He said to me, 
' Affery, you and me must be married, and I'll 
tell you why. She's failing in health, and she'll 
want pretty constant attendance up in hor room, 
and Ave shall have to be much with her, and 
there'll be nobody about now but ourselves when 
we're away from her, and altogether it will be 
more convenient. She's of my opinion,' he said. 
' so if you'll put your bonnet on, next Monday 
morning at eight, we'll get it over.' " Mrs. Flint- 
winch tucked up the bed. 

" Well ?" 

"Well?" repeated Mrs. Flintwinch, "I think 
so! I sits me down and says it. Well ! — Jere- 
miah then says to me, 'As to banns, next. Sun- 
day being the third time of asking (for I've put 
'em up a fortnight), is my reason for naming 
Monday. She'll speak to you about it herself, 
and now she'll find you prepared, Affery.' That 
same day she spoke to me, and she said, 'So, 
Affery, I understand that you and .Jeremiah arc 
going to be married. I am glad of it, and so 
arc you, with reason. It. is a very good thing 
for you, and very welcome under the. circum- 
stances to me. He is a sensible man, and a 
trustworthy man, and a persevering man, and a 



252 



HAEPEK'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



pious man.' What could I say when it had come 
to that ? Why, if it had been — a Smothering 
instead of a Wedding," Mrs. Flintwinch cast 
about in her mind with great pains for this form 
of expression, " I couldn't have said a word upon 
it, against them two clever ones." 

"In good faith, I believe so." 

"And so you may, Arthur." 

" Affery, what girl was that in my mother's 
room just now ?" 

" Girl ?" said Mrs. Flintwinch in a rather sharp 
key. 

u ,It was a girl, surely, whom I saw near you — 
almost hidden in the dark corner ?" 

"Oh! She? Little Dorrit ? She's nothing; 
she's a whim of — hers." It was a peculiarity 
of Affery Flintwinch that she never spoke of 
Sirs. Clennam by name. "But there's another 
sort of girls than that about. Have you forgot 
your old sweetheart? Long and long ago, I'll 
be bound." 

"I suffered enough from my mother's sepa- 
rating us, to remember her. I recollect her very 
well." 

' ' Have you got another ?" 

"No." 

" Here's news for you, then. She's well to do 
now, and a widow. And if you like to have her, 
why you can." 

"And how do you know that, Affery?" 

"Them two clever ones have been speaking 
about it. There's Jeremiah on the stairs !" she 
was gone in a moment. 

Mrs. Flintwinch had introduced into the web 
that his mind was busily weaving, in that old 
workshop where the loom of his youth had stood, 
the last thread wanting to the pattern. The airy 
folly of a boy's love had found its way even into 
that house, and he had been as wretched under 
its- hopelessness as if the house had been a cas- 
tle of romance. Little more than a week ago, 
at Marseilles, the face of the pretty girl from 
whom he had parted with regret, had had an 
unusual interest for him, and a tender hold upon 
him, because of some resemblance, real or im- 
agined, to this first face that had soared out of 
his gloomy life into the bright glories of fancy. 
He leaned upon the sill of the long low window, 
;;nd looking out upon the blackened forest of 
chimneys again, began to dream. For it had 
been the uniform tendency of this man's life — 
so much was wanting in it to think about, so 
much that might have been better directed and 
happier to speculate upon — to make him a 
dreamer, after all. 



CHAPTER IV.— MRS. FLINTWINCH HAS A DREAM. 

When Mrs. Flintwinch dreamed, she usually 
dreamed unlike the son of her old mistress, with 
her eyes shut. She had a curiously vivid dream 
that night, and before she had left the son of 
her old mistress many hours. In fact it was not 
at all like a dream, it was so very real in every 
respect. It happened in this wise : 

The bedchamber occupied by Mr. and Mrs. 



Flintwinch was within a few paces of that to 
which Mrs. Clennam had been so long confined. 
It was not on the same floor, for it was a room 
at the side of the house, 'Which was approached 
by a steep descent of a few odd steps, diverging 
from the main staircase nearly opposite to Mrs. 
Clennam's door. It could scarcely be sai'd to be 
within call, the walls, doors, and paneling of the 
old place were so cumbrous ; but it was within 
easy reach, in any undress, at any hour of the 
night, in any temperature. At the head of the 
bed, and within a foot of Mrs. Flintwinch' s ear, 
was a bell, the line of which hung ready to Mrs. 
Clennam's hand. Whenever this bell rang, up 
started Affery, and was in the sick room before 
she was awake. 

Having got her mistress into bed, lighted her 
lamp, and given her good night, Mrs. Flintwinch 
went to roost as usual, saving that her lord had 
not yet appeared. It was her lord himself who 
became — unlike the last theme in the mind, ac- 
cording to the observation of most philosophers 
— the subject of Mrs. Flintwinch's dream. 

It seemed to her that she awoke, after sleep- 
ing some hours, and found Jeremiah not yet 
abed. That she looked at the candle she had 
left burning, and measuring the time like King 
Alfred the Great, was confirmed by its wasted 
state in her belief that she had been asleep for 
some considerable period. That she arose there- 
upon, muffled herself up in a wrapper, put on 
her shoes, and went out on the staircase much 
surprised; to look for Jeremiah. 

The staircase was as wooden and solid as need 
be, and Affery went straight down it without any 
of those deviations peculiar to dreams. She did 
not skim over it, but walked down it, and guided 
herself by the banisters on account of her can- 
dle having died out. In one corner of the hall, 
behind the house-door, there was a little wait- 
ing-room, like a well-shaft, with a long narrow 
window in it as if it had been ripped up. In 
this room, which was never used, a light was 
burning. 

Mrs. Flintwinch crossed the hall, feeling its 
pavement cold to her stockingless feet, and 
peeped in between the rusty hinges of the door, 
which stood a little open. She expected to see 
Jeremiah fast asleep or in a fit, but he was calmly 
seated in a chair, awake, and in his usual health. 
But what — hey ? — Lord forgive us ! — Mrs. Flint- 
winch muttered some ejaculation to this effect, 
and turned giddy. 

For, Mr. Flintwinch awake, was watching Mr. 
Flintwinch asleep. He sat on one side of a small 
table, looking keenly at himself on the other side 
with his chin sunk on his breast, snoring. The 
waking Flintwinch had his full front face pre- 
sented to his wife ; the sleeping Flintwinch was 
in profile. The waking Flintwinch was the old 
original ; the sleeping Flintwinch was the double. 
Just as she might have distinguished between a 
tangible object and its reflection in a glass, Affery 
made out this difference with her head going 
round and round. 



MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 






If she had had any doubt which was her own 
Jeremiah, it would have been resolved by his 
impatience. He looked about him for an offen- 
sive weapon, caught up the snuffers, and, before 
applying them to the cabbage-headed candle, 
lunged at the sleeper as though he would have 
run him through the body. 

"Who's that? What's the matter?" cried 
the sleeper, starting. 

Mr. Flintwinch made a movement with the 
snuffers, as if he would have enforced silence on 
his companion by putting them down his throat ; 
the companion coming to himself, said, rubbing 
his eyes, "I forgot where I was." 

"You have been asleep," snarled Jeremiah, 
referring to his watch, ' ' two hours. You said you 
would be rested enough i^f you had a short nap." 

"I have had a short nap," said Double. 

" Half-past two o'clock in the morning," mut- 
tered Jeremiah. "Where's your hat? Where's 
your coat ? Where's the box ?" 

"All here," said Double, tying up his throat 
with sleepy carefulness in a shawl. " Stop a min- 
ute. Now give me the sleeve — not that sleeve, 
the other one. Ha ! I'm not as young as I was." 
Mr. Flintwinch had pulled him into his coat with 
vehement energy. " You promised me a second 
glass after I was rested." 

" Drink it !" returned Jeremiah, " and — choke 
yourself, I was going to say — but go, I mean." 
At the same time he produced the identical port- 
wine bottle, and filled a wine-glass. 

" Her port-wine, I believe ?" said Double, tast- 
ing it as if he were in the Docks, with hours to 
spare. "Her health." 

He took a sip. 

"Your health!" 

He took another sip. 

" His health !" 

He took another sip. 

"And all friends round Saint Paul's." He 
emptied and put down the wine-glass half-way 
through this ancient civic toast, and took up the 
box. It was an iron box some two feet square, 



which he carried under his arms pretty easily. 
Jeremiah watched his manner of adjusting it, 
with jealous eyes ; tried it with his hands, to be 
sure that he had a firm hold of it ; bade him for 
his life be careful what he was about ; and then 
stole out on tiptoe to open the door for him. 
Affery, anticipating the last movement, was on 
the staircase. The sequence of things was so 
ordinary and natural, that, standing there, she 
could hear the door open, feel the night air, and 
see the stars outside. 

But now came the most remarkable part of 
the dream. She felt so afraid of her husband, 
that being on the staircase, she had not the 
power to retreat to her room (which she might 
easily have done before he had fastened the 
door), but stood there staring. Consequently 
when he came up the staircase to bed, candle 
in hand, he came full upon her. He looked as- 
tonished, but said not a word. He kept his eyes 
upon her, and kept advancing; and she, com- 
pletely under his influence, kept retiring before 
him. Thus, she walking backward and he walk- 
ing forward, they came into their own room. 
They were no sooner shut in there, than Mr, 
Flintwinch took her by the throat, and shook her 
until she was black in the face. 

"Why Affery, women — Affery!" said Mr. 
Flintwinch. "What have you been dreaming 
of? Wake up, wake up ! What's the matter ?" 

"The — the matter, Jeremiah?" gasped Mrs. 
Flintwinch, rolling her eyes. 

"Why, Affery, woman — Affery! You have 
been getting out of bed in your sleep, my dear ! 
I come up, after having fallen asleep myself, be- 
low, and find you in your wrapper here, with the 
nightmare. Affery, woman," said Mr. Flint- 
winch, with a friendly grin on his expressive 
countenance, " if you ever have a dream of this 
sort again, it'll be a sign of your being in want 
of physic. And I'll give you such a dose, old 
woman — such a dose !" 

Mrs. Flintwinch thanked him and crept into 
bed. 



Jtatjjltj Itorii nf Current Ctieiik 



THE UNITED STATES. 

THE public mind has been very much excited, 
during the month embraced in our Record, 
by apprehensions of difficulty between the United 
States and Great Britain. It was announced in 
the London Times, of October 25th, that the En- 
glish Government had sent several vessels of war 
to reinforce its West India squadron, and that this 
had been done for the purpose of repressing the 
movements which were in progress in various cities 
of the United States for the invasion of countries 
with which we were at peace, and that Great Brit- 
ain was determined to supply the ability which the 
American Government lacked to enforce its own 
laws. Such an article, echoed to some extent by 
other London journals which were known to enjoy 
the confidence and to represent the views of the 
British Ministry, was well calculated to create 



alarm both in England and the United States. 
Subsequent discussions showed that the British 
Government had disavowed the hostile intentions 
imputed to it by the London journals, and that the 
professed object of the reinforcement of the W< st. 
India squadron was to intercept privateers, which, 
it was believed, were being fitted out in the Rus- 
sian interest in American ports. This belief grew 
out of representations made by Mr. A. Barclay, (he 
British Consul at New York,' to the British Min- 
ister at Washington, concerning the hark Maury, 
which he thought was being fitted out for a priva- 
teer. An inquiry into the facts showed that she 
was engaged in the China trade, and that all the 
suspicions entertained by the British Consul con- 
cerning her were unfounded. The American Got* 
ernment. it is stated, have complained of the conduct 
of the British Minister and of sonic of the British 



254 



HAEPEK'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Consuls in the United States, for their conduct in 
regard to enlisting recruits for the Crimea within 
the United States. The action taken in the mat- 
ter, however, has not yet been made public. The 
letters of instructions written by; Mr. Gushing, the 
Attorney General, to the District Attorney at Phil- 
adelphia, concerning the trials had at that city for 
violation of our Neutrality Laws, in the enlistment 
of recruits for the British service, have excited a 
good deal of indignation in England. In them he 
declared that the Government of Great Britain had 
been guilty of a flagrant violation of our sovereign 
rights, and that this national wrong had been doub- 
led in magnitude by their instructions to their 
agents to proceed so as not to violate the laws of 

the United States.' Congress met at Washington 

on the 3d of December ; but as we are compelled to 
close this Record on that day, we are unable, there- 
fore, to present any account of its proceedings. 

The New York Election, which was mentioned 

in our last Record, resulted in the election of the 
American State officers. The vote for Secretary 
of State was : Headley, American, 146,001 ; King, 
Republican, 185,962 ; Hatch, Administration Dem- 
ocrat, 90,518; Ward, National Democrat, 58,391. 
In the State Senate are 17 Republicans, 11 Amer- 
icans, and 4 Democrats. The Assembly will con- 
tain 48 Democrats, 42 Republicans, and 38 Amer- 
icans.' The Maryland election resulted in the 

election of Purnell, Controller, who received 
41,961 votes over Bowie, who received 39,160. 



At the election in Louisiana the Democratic ticket 
for State officers was elected ; three Democrats and 
one American were elected to Congress.' In Mis- 
sissippi the Democratic candidates for State officers 

and for Congress were elected. The Georgia 

Legislature met at Milledgeville on the 5th of No- 
vember. Governor Johnson's Message says that the 
State debt on the 20th of October was $2,644,222. 
In regard to national politics, the Governor urges 
the necessity of taking steps to resist the aggres- 
sions constantly made on the institution of Slavery. 
Governor Pease, in his Message to the Legis- 
lature of Texas, recommends the acceptance of the 
Act of Congress for the adjustment of the Texas 
debt, notwithstanding the result of the late elec- 
tion, which shows a majority of 2200 against it. 
The finances of Texas are in good condition, and 
the Governor recommends a reduction of the State 

tax. In Alabama, Hon. Benjamin Fitzpatrick 

has been re-elected Senator in the Congress of the 
United States.' The Legislature of South Caro- 
lina met on the 26th of November. Governor 
Adams, in his Message, recommends a revision of 
the school system of the State, and such an amend- 
ment of the laws concerning colored seamen as will 
allow those from foreign countries to remain on 
board their vessels instead of being imprisoned. 
He rebukes the conduct of the State of Massachu- 
setts in impeding the enforcement of the Fugitive 
Slave Law, and concludes by saying that South 
Carolina will encounter the dangers of civil war 
rather than submit to the degradation and ruin 
which the agitation in regard to slavery threatens 
to bring upon her. The anniversary of the vic- 
tory gained by the Americans over the British in 
the Revolution, at King's Mountain, in the west- 
ern part of North Carolina, was celebrated at that 
place on the 4th of October. Addresses were de- 
livered by George Bancroft and William C. Pres- 
ton. The exercises were of marked interest. 
From Kansas we learn that the Free State Con- 



vention, which met at Topeka on the 27th of Oc- 
tober, closed its session on the 11th of November, 
having formed a State Constitution which was to 
be submitted to the suffrages of the people on the 
15th of December. This instrument declares that 
slavery shall not exist in the Territory after the 4th 
of July, 1857. A resolution was introduced ap- 
proving the principle of the Nebraska Bill, but it 
was not passed. It also provides that married wo- 
men are to be secured in their right of individual 
property, obtained either before or after marriage, 
and an equal right in the control and education of 
the children. In prosecutions for libel the truth 
may be given in evidence, and shall be deemed a 
justification. A State University and Normal 
Schools shall be established. The civilized and 
friendly Indians may become citizens of the State. 
Judges are to be elected by the people. Topeka is 
to be the capital temporarily, till the Legislature 
shall determine a site for a permanent location of 
the State buildings. If this Constitution is adopt- 
ed by the people, an election for State officers is to 

be held on the third Tuesday of January.' A 

" Law and Order" Convention met at Leavenworth 
on the 14th of November. Governor Shannon was 
appointed President, and on taking the chair made 
some remarks to illustrate the importance of the 
Convention. He said that the late Legislature was 
a legal body, and that those who should refuse obe- 
dience to the laws it had enacted, would be guilty 
of treason against the State. Governor Reeder's 
election as a delegate to Congress he characterized 
as a revolutionary movement ; and that the Free 
State men, in calling a Convention to form a Con- 
stitution, had taken a step which, if sanctioned by 
Congress, must lead to civil war. He urged the 
members of the Convention to adhere to the ground 
they had taken, and assured them that the Admin- 
istration would sustain them. A series of resolu- 
tions was adopted by the Convention, embodying 
the same sentiments. 

From California our intelligence is to the 5th of 
November. The Chinese were leaving the State 
in large numbers, in consequence of the heavy tax 
imposed upon them by the laws. One ship, which 
left San Francisco for Hong Kong, took four hun- 
dred of them as passengers. The official returns 
of the election for Governor give Johnson, Ameri- 
can, 51,157 votes, and Bigler, Democrat, 46,220. 
An important discovery of gold deposits had been 
made at Table Mountain in Tuolumne County. 
Four men, three of whom were Mexicans and the 
other a German, were hung without trial for steal- 
ing cattle, in Stanislaus County, on the 20th of Oc- 
tober. At Columbia, Tuolumne County, a young 
man named Smith was shot by one Barclay for 
rudeness to his wife. Barclay was hung by a mob 
the same night. 

From Oregon we have information of serious In- 
dian troubles. In Rogue River valley, where, in 
July last, several miners were murdered by the 
Indians, a volunteer company of 120 men was sent 
in pursuit of them, and a general fight ensued, in 
which the Indians were defeated with a loss of 
forty; twelve of the volunteers were seriously 
wounded, and one of them, Major Lupton, had 

died. Major Haller, while on an expedition, was 

surrounded with his company by an immense num- 
ber of Indians, in Yakima County, and were kept 
without food or water for several days. Reinforce- 
ments were sent to his aid by Governor Mason, but 
before they reached him, as his position was be- 



MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 



25i 



coming desperate, his troops fought for fifty hours 
against an overwhelming hody of savages. They 
then charged through the savage horde, and re- 
treated to the Dalles, with the loss of all the ani- 
mals, provisions, and camp equipage belonging to 
the expedition. One cannon was spiked and left 
behind. In the battle and retreat nearly one- 
fifth of Major Haller's force was either killed or 
wounded. The Indians are represented to be well- 
armed, brave, and resolute. It is said that there 
has been a general combination among the Indians 
against the Americans, and it is feared that they 
will commit dreadful depredations, and inflict se- 
rious injuries on the inhabitants before they can 
be repulsed. 

CENTRAL AMERICA. 
From Nicaragua we have news of decided inter- 
est. Our last Record mentioned the conquest of 
Granada by Colonel Walker, and his subsequent 
election to the Presidency of the Republic by the 
citizens. He declined the office in favor of Gen- 
eral Corral, who had command of the government 
troops, but he declined, and Rivas was elected. At 
the request of a committee of citizens, Colonel 
Wheeler, the American Minister, visited the town 
of Rivas, where Corral was stationed w T ith his 
troops, for the purpose of negotiating with him. 
By Corral's order he was detained as a prisoner, 
but was rescued by the threat of an attack upon 
the town from a steamboat sent up by his friends. 
His return was followed by an exchange of letters 
between General Corral and Mr. Wheeler, in which 
the former protested against the co-operation of the 
American Minister with the enemies of the Repub- 
lic of Nicaragua, and Mr. Wheeler defended his 
course on the ground that he was influenced alone 
by the friends of Corral, the chief citizens and 
clergy of Granada, the tears of Corral's sisters and 
daughters, and by the pledge of the Secretary of 
War that his mission should be respected. On the 
22d of October, however, a treaty of peace was con- 
cluded between the contending parties, General 
Corral surrendering to Walker at Granada, and 
agreeing to respect the existing authorities. Don 
Fruto Mayorza, late Secretary of State of the 
former government, and a prisoner on parole in 
the city of Granada, was detected in correspond- 
ence with the enemy outside, and, having been 
tried by a court-martial and found guilty, was shot 
on the public plaza on the morning of the 22d. 
Early in November several letters from Corral to 
one of the officers of the government army were in- 
tercepted, and he was put upon his trial at court- 
martial He was found guilty of having been in 
traitorous correspondence with the enemy, and by 
order of Colonel Walker was shot on the 8th. He 
met his fate with composure. Other arrests had 
been made, but no further ti-ials had been had at 
the date of our latest advices. On the 10th of 
November the President of the Republic waited 
upon the American Minister, who formally recog- 
nized his government, and congratulated him on 
the end that had been put to the civil war, and the 
restoration ofrpeace. He urged him to imitate the 
example of the Republic of the North, and said 
that the true policy of both countries was to de- 
clare and to maintain that the people of American 
republics can govern themselves ; that no foreign 
power shall be allowed to control in the slightest 
manner their views, or interfere in the least degree 
with their interests. Their dignity, their rights 
and security as republics demand this, and the idea 



of any interference or colonization by any foreign 
power, on this side of the ocean, is utterly inadmis- 
sible. The President returned his thanks for the 
kind assurances of Colonel Wheeler, and expressed 
his profound respect for the institutions and gov- 
ernment of the United States. Colonel Kinney's 

colony was peaceful and prosperous. Emigrants in 
considerable numbers have joined him, and he has 
sent agents to the United States with authority to 
procure additional settlers. 

MEXICO. 

Sundry dissensions have arisen in the Ministry 
of the new President of Mexico, General Alvarez, 
but at the latest dates the Administration still stood 
firm. Irreconcilable differences of opinion are 
said to subsist between the ultras and the conserva- 
tives, and it is not believed that peace can long be 
maintained. The Minister of Finance had given 
great dissatisfaction by decrees he had issued, and 
had occasioned diplomatic remonstrances by sus- 
pending the payment of the Spanish Convention 
and delaying that of the French. General Vi- 
daurri has addressed a letter to the American Gov- 
ernment, complaining of the invasion of Mexico on 
the Rio Grande frontier, and especially of the fact 
that officers of the American army have been en- 
gaged in it. The pretext that this invasion is for 
the purpose of repelling the Indians, he says, can 
not be true, for Mexico constantly suffers from In- 
dian depredations which the United States have 
agreed to repress.' Nothing new of any import- 
ance has taken place on the frontier. The war 
still continues, and serious dissensions have broken 
out in the Mexican army. 

GREAT BRITAIN. 

The British public has been a good deal excited 
during the month by the demonstrations of the 
government and the press, which we have noticed 
elsewhere, indicating the possibility of hostilities 
with the United States. The opinion seems to be 
almost unanimous that a war between these two 
great nations at the present time would be an act 
of pure insanity, and that the causes mentioned for 
it are too frivolous to create a moment's uneasiness. 
The movements in this country which are regarded 
as indicative of hostile intentions, are charged to 
the account of the Presidential canvass which is so 
rapidly approaching, and the English Ministry are 
sharply censured for doing any thing to create fears 
of dissension between the two countries at this crit- 
ical period.' Certain distinguished French ex- 
iles, at the head of whom was Victor Hugo, resid- 
ing in the English Isle of Jersey, published, in a 
paper established by them, a disrespectful letter to 
the Queen, for which the journal was suppressed, 
and all connected with it were expelled from the 
island by the local authorities. The exiles drew 
up and signed a protest against this act, as con- 
trary to the spirit of English law, and indicative * 
of the subserviency of the British Government to 
the Emperor of France. For this, with the sanc- 
tion of the Government, all the signers of the docu- 
ment were also expelled. Victor Hugo had de- 
clared his intention to remain and test the legal 
right of the authorities thus to expel him without 

trial. A manifesto on behalf of the Republican 

party has been issued by Kossuth, Mazzini, and 
Ledru Rollin, speaking of the fall of Sevastopol as 
an event which rendered certain the indefinite pro- 
longation of the war, and as thus affording an op- 
portunity for the people of Europe to renew the 
endeavor to secure their freedom. The people arc 



256 



HAEPEE'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



every where called upon to organize and to con- 
tribute to a fund which shall afford the means of 
carrying on the war, when the flag of freedom shall 
have been raised. An address has also been issued 
to the people of the United States by the same 
parties, pointing to the recent demonstrations of 
Great Britain against this country as proof of 
the positive hostility of the allied powers, and 
calling upon them for contributions to the fund for 

the enfranchisement of Europe. Three eminent 

bankers, Strahan, Paul, and Bates, who have for 
many years occupied a very prominent position in 
London, have been tried on charges of having con- 
verted to their own use securities deposited with 
them by their customers — convicted and sentenced 

to transportation for fourteen years.' The Lord 

Mayor of London gave his usual annual banquet 
on the 9th of November, which was distinguished 
by the presence of many men of distinction. The 
French Embassador spoke of the alliance between 
France and England as resting itpon an identity 
of interests, and as not to be dissolved by any hu- 
man power. Lord Hardinge testified to the cor- 
dial good feeling which prevailed in the army be- 
tween the French and English soldiers, and Lord 
Palmerston spoke of the good faith with which 
France had maintained the alliance, and of the brav- 
ery of the troops of all the three nations engaged in 
the war against Eussia. It was regarded as sig- 
nificant of the temper of the large and influential 
company assembled on that occasion, that Lord 
John Russell was greeted with hisses when he rose 
to reply to a toast complimentary to the House of 

Commons. Sir Hamilton Seymour, late British 

Embassador in Eussia, has been appointed Minister 
at Vienna in place of Lord Westmoreland, who re- 
signed. It will be remembered that Sir Hamilton 
was the Minister whose report of conversations 
with the Emperor Nicholas betrayed the designs 

of Russia upon Turkey, which led to the war. ■ 

M. Favre, a distinguished French engineer, has 
published the details of a plan by which, in his 
opinion, a tunnel can be built under the channel 
so as to connect the shores of England and France. 
He thinks it could be completed in five years at a 
eost of twenty millions of dollars. 
FRANCE. 
The closing of the grand Exhibition on the 15th 
of November is the only event of importance in 
France. It was attended with great interest. An 
immense multitude of people were in attendance, 
and the Imperial family were present. The Em- 
peror delivered a speech in which he said that 
France, by this Exhibition, has commemorated the 
arts of Peace, because War only threatens disaster 
to those who provoke it, and from them must be 
taken guarantees for the security and independence 
of Europe. He desired a speedy and durable peace 
— one which shall leave France free to develop the 
marvelous products of human intelligence. But 
this peace, to be durable, must distinctly realize 
the objects for which the war was undertaken. At 
present Europe must decide who is right and who 
is wrong. This declaration will in itself be a vast 
step toward the solution of this difficulty. Indif- 
ference may prompt a calculating policy, but the 
final victory will be achieved by public opinion. 
Addressing the foreign representatives he said: 
tl State to your countrymen that France has no na- 
tional hatreds. Let, then, those who sincerely de- 
sire peace only pronounce for us or against us. For 
ourselves, let us (the nations allied in this great 



cause), without pause or rest, forge those arms 
which are necessary to carry out the objects of our 
union, and to our power let us add confidence in 
God." The prizes were afterward distributed — the 

United States receiving the largest proportion.' 

The American officers, Messrs. Delafield, Mordecai, 
and McClelland, after having first inspected the 
interior of Sebastopol on the Russian side, then the 
exterior from the allied side, the first before, the 
last after the fall of the southern portion, have re- 
turned as far as Marseilles, to which point the 
American Minister has just sent them, at their re- 
quest, a permit from the French Government to 
examine all the military and naval establishments 
of France. These gentlemen were well received 
by both parties. 

SWEDEN. 

General Canrobert has been sent by the Em- 
peror Napoleon on a mission to Sweden. This fact, 
with other circumstances, encourages the opinion 
that Sweden is about to join the Western Alliance. 
A pamphlet has recently been published at Stock- 
holm, in which the expediency of such a union is 
discussed, aiid the conclusion is reached that the 
policy of Sweden can not differ from that of Eu- 
rope ; that is to say, it must tend to form a coun- 
terpoise to Russia. This can not take place, it is 
contended, unless the three Scandinavian states — 
Sweden, Norway, and Denmark — are united to- 
gether under the same government, and form one 
single state, preserving their distinct constitutions. 
Sweden can not take part against Russia unless she 
can look forward to the formation of a union of the 
North, guaranteed by the Western Powers. It is 
confidently expected, therefore, that at the opening 
of the spring campaign the Allies will have the 
important aid of these Northern states. 
RUSSIA. 

The Emperor has issued a ukase, dated October 
15, declaring a levy of ten men for every ten thou- 
sand of the population throughout the empire, ex- 
cept in seven provinces. This new levy is the 
eighth which has taken place since the commence- 
ment of the war. Already fifty-two men in every 
thousand inhabitants have been raised over the 
whole empire, and in the western half sixty-four ; 
and now comes a fresh conscription, making alto- 
gether about seventy men per one thousand souls. 
Count Lanskir, in announcing that he has been 
appointed Minister of the Interior, takes occasion to 
say that he is also regarded as the special repre- 
sentative of the nobility near the throne, and as- 
sures the nobles that their interests shall receive 
special care. He urges them, in return, to zeal- 
ously execute all the plans of the government, and 
co-operate in the plans of the authorities. 
THE EASTERN WAR. 

Since the repulse of the Russians by the garrison 
at Kars, and the destruction of Kinburn by the 
Allies, no incident of any importance has taken 
place in the Crimea. General Simpson has been 
recalled, and Sir William Codrington appointed in 
his place. Prince GortschakofF, in a general order 
to his troops dated October 18, announced that he 
had been authorized by his government to evac- 
uate the Crimea if he should deem it judicious. 
He said he should not voluntarily abandon the 
country, though it might be found expedient to do 
so. The advance of the cold season seems to have 
put a stop to the movements of the Allies, and it 
is not expected that any important step will be 
taken until spring. 



Citenmj Mnllm. 



The Lives of the British Historians, by Eugene 
Lawrence. (C. Scribner.) It is remarkable that 
among all the great literary names of Great Brit- 
ain, we have fewer personal details concerning her 
eminent historians than of almost any class of writ- 
ers. The autobiographies of Gibbon and Hume, 
which are certainly the most characteristic compo- 
sitions of their respective authors, and the stately 
biographical disquisition on the life of Robertson 
by Dugald Stewart, are still the most satisfactory 
sources of information which we possess in regard 
to their subjects. Mr. Lawrence has, accordingly, 
made a happy selection of themes for the present 
work. His volumes will fill a place in biograph- 
ical literature that has been long vacant. They 
include elaborately prepared lives of the great his- 
torians just named, complete notices of Sir Walter 
Raleigh, Clarendon, Burnet, Smollett, and Gold- 
smith, with brief sketches of the early historians 
Gildas, Bede, Ingulphus of Croyland, Jeffrey of 
Monmouth, Matthew Paris, Robert Fabian, John 
Speed, and Sir Richard Baker, and of the more re- 
cent writers, as Camden, Carte, and others, the ce- 
lebrity of whose names has been less than the 
use made of their collection of historic materials. 
Hume and Gibbon, though no favorites with the 
author, have received the greatest share of his at- 
tention. Their biographies are the prominent pieces 
in his work. He has brought to light every inci- 
dent in their career which could be discovered by 
diligent research, and has labored on his materials 
with conscientious fidelity. His task, with regard 
to these historians, was one of no small delicacy. 
With an aversion to their skeptical, and indeed ir- 
religious opinions, and with little sympathy with 
their peculiar traits of character, he was bound to 
do justice to their literary merits, and to exercise 
a serene charity toward their personal defects. In 
treating the subject he has acquitted himself with 
much ability. His discrimination and impartial- 
ity are equally conspicuous. His narrative of 
events is flowing and lively, while his critical re- 
marks exhibit both the power of reflection and the 
love of justice. As regards the style of Mr. Law- 
rence, it must be confessed that occasionally it 
smells too much of the lamp. It abounds in artifi- 
cial beauties rather than in the spontaneous graces 
of expression. He doubtless prefers Gibbon to 
Hume as a master of composition, and Macaulay 
to either. His terseness is sometimes almost epi- 
grammatic, but without sufficient brilliancy of 
point to give it effect. With all the care which he 
has evidently bestowed on his diction, he does not 
escape certain inaccuracies that betray the unprac- 
ticed Avriter. At the same time, he exhibits excel- 
lent judgment, a cultivated taste, and a general 
aptitude for literary effort, which indicate future 
distinction in the field of letters. Mr. Lawrence is 
wholly unknown to us, and if these volumes are his 
first production, he is entitled to warm congratula- 
tions for his successful commencement as an au- 
thor. 

Xotes on Central America, by E. G. Squier 
(Harper and Brothers), affords a new evidence of 
the activity and zeal of the author in geographical 
research, and the success with which he has ex- 
plored the remote and comparatively unknown re- 
gions of the Western continent. Upon all subjects 



connected with the history, the natural features 
and resources, climate, population, productions, 
trade, and capabilities of Central America, as Mr. 
Squier justly remarks, there exists a profound and 
universal ignorance. In regard to the general 
geography of the country, with rare exceptions, 
we have little precise and accurate information. 
The few maps which are found in the archives of 
some of the States are scarcely superior to the rude 
tracings which the Indian makes on the sand as a 
guide to his companions on the war-path. The in- 
terior geography of the country is no less obscure 
than it was a hundred years ago. Most of the 
works written by foreigners on Central America 
have been vapid narratives of traveling adventures, 
founded on superficial observation, and filled with 
erroneous statements. As a general rule, their 
authors were not qualified for their task by educa- 
tion or habit. Exceptions to this remark, how- 
ever, it is admitted by Mi*. Squier, may be found 
in the works of Thompson, Henderson, Young, 
Roberts, Dunn, Bailey, and Crowe, which contain 
the record of many important facts and observa- 
tions. The volume before us is certainly not 
deficient in richness and variety of contents. It 
opens with a general view of the geographical and 
topographical features of Central America, and an 
account of its climate and population — a complete 
survey is then presented of the republics of Hon- 
duras and San Salvador, and the work is brought 
to a close by a rich collection of notices on various 
miscellaneous topics. Mr. Squier is a singularly 
shrewd observer. Nothing seems to escape his 
vigilance. His eye is no less comprehensive than 
it is restless. His curiosity is not easily satisfied, 
nor does he soon tire in his researches. Ever on 
the alert, he detects a thousand incidents and rela- 
tions, to which more languid inquirers are blind. 
His quick sympathies are a signal aid to his in- 
vestigations. He loves to compare the most oppo- 
site manifestations of human character. He thus 
gathers up a rare store of ethnological knowledge. 
Combined in this work with the most ample statist- 
ical details, and exact local descriptions, are many 
lively pictures of national manners, reminiscences 
of personal experience, and sketches of romantic 
scenery, which give a perpetual charm to its peru- 
sal. Mr. Squier is equally at home on the banks 
of the forest stream and in the gay enjoyments of 
society, and hence the freshness of his narrative is 
never compromised by his devotion to geographical 
accuracy. A very important chapter of his work 
is devoted to the proposed interoceanic railway 
through Honduras. 

Lectures on English History and Tragic Poetry, 
by Henry Reed. (Philadelphia : Parry and 
M'Millan.) In this posthumous volume by the 
late lamented Professor Reed, we have another evi- 
dence of the delicacy of his taste, his various and 
elegant culture, and his cordial appreciation of the 
great master-pieces of English literature. It con- 
sists of two courses of lectures on the Historical 
Plays of Shakspeare and on Tragic Poetry, as il- 
lustrated by the dramas of King Lear, Macbeth, 
Hamlet, and Othello. The plan of the work is 
novel, and is executed with considerateness and 
original thought. Mr. Reed was less a man of 
genius than of rare poetic taste, but his suggestions 



;s 



IIARPEli'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



are always lYi :.- h and living, bearing a decided mark 
oi' individuality, and appealing to the highest in- 
stincts of susceptible minds. The influence of 
Coleridge and Wordsworth is, of course, not dimly 
perceptible in the views of Professor Keed (as he 
was probably exceeded b} r no man in enthusiastic 
admiration of those philosophical poets), but he 
was not their servile disciple, nor did the lessons 
so faithfully learned in their school impair the 
freedom and productiveness of his own mind. 
Several extracts from his private correspondence 
have been judiciously added to the volume, in the 
form of notes, illustrative of the matter in the text, 
and showing the delightful simplicity, gentleness, 
and purity of the writer. The work has been ed- 
ited with pious aftectionateness by the brother of 
Mr. Reed, to whom the public is indebted for the 
issue of the former series of his Lectures on English 
Literature. The original notes which the editor 
has furnished, are usually appropriate and valu- 
able, though perhaps not wholly free from obtru- 
siveness in the urgent expression of personal opin- 
ions. We are glad to receive an intimation of his 
purpose to prepare a memoir of the life and corre- 
spondence of Professor Reed, which, we trust, will 
be fulfilled at no distant day. Every memorial of 
such an accomplished scholar and admirable man 
must be gratefully welcomed by all sincere lovers 
of literary talent and moral worth. 

The Library of Standard Letters, edited by Mrs. 
Sarah Josepi-ia Hale, is announced by Mason 
Brothers as a new literary enterprise, which we 
think can not fail of commanding an extensive pa- 
tronage. The plan contemplates the republication 
of selections from the correspondence of eminent 
writers in the different periods of modern history, 
including letters of the celebrated wits of Queen 
Anne's time, of favorite English authors of a more 
recent period, and of some of the brilliant models 
of epistolary composition in France. The first vol- 
ume of the " Library" is issued, containing the let- 
ters of Madame de Sevigne to her daughter and 
one or two other correspondents, from the English 
translation, published in London in 1811, with ex- 
planatory and illustrative notes. The selection of 
this correspondence for the opening volume strikes 
us as judicious, although Madame de Sevigne has 
little of the sparkling persiflage and erratic senti- 
ment which characterize so many of the popular 
French letter-writers. She was a woman of great 
personal dignity, of unimpeached correctness of 
morals in a corrupt court, of peculiar sobriety of 
judgment, and showing no intensity of passion, ex- 
cept in her ardent attachment to her daughter. Her 
letters partake of the propriety and equilibrium of 
her character. They are remarkable for their nat- 
ural graces of style, their lively portraitures of the 
manners of the age, and the quiet ease of their nar- 
rative portions. As authentic illustrations of an 
extraordinary historical epoch, they claim the at- 
tention of modern readers, and can not be consult- 
ed without advantage, although in interest and 
fascination they will probably be surpassed by 
many succeeding volumes of the promised series. 

The Skeptical Era in Modern History, by T. M. 
Post. (Charles Scribner.) The design of this 
work is to show the connection between the infi- 
delity of the eighteenth century and the spiritual 
despotism of the previous age. Believing that an 
era of democratic liberty in church, state, and so- 
ciety is rapidly approaching, the author is anxious 
to determine the condition of the religious senti- 



ment which will accord with that political and so- 
cial order of the world. In his opinion, the pro- 
gress of freedom will be favorable to religious 
faith. He sustains this view by examining the 
history of thought in its transition from the spirit- 
ual authority of the Middle Ages to the repudiation 
of faith in the last century. After an ample sur- 
vey of the whole ground, he arrives at the conclu- 
sion that the great defection of Christendom from 
the Christian religion in the period alluded to was 
owing less to speculative than to moral causes — 
that the quarrel was less with Christianity than 
the Church — or, at least, was with Christianity 
because of the Church. A revolt was declared 
against the Church on account of its champion- 
ship or indulgence of political or social wrongs, and 
hence, in order to prevent a similar movement in 
these days, Christianity must be the great leader 
and guardian of reform, the religion of ameliora- 
tion, emancipation, and progress. In conducting 
his argument the author employs a great variety 
of vivid illustration, and even sometimes weakens 
his statements by an excess of rhetorical glow. 
His work will' be deemed a seasonable contribution 
to the Protestant and Catholic controversy, and 
will furnish the opponents of spiritual despotism 
with many formidable weapons. 

Napoleon at St. Helena, by J. S. C. Abbott 
(Harper and Brothers), is devoted to an account 
of the last years of Napoleon during his exile 
under the command of the British Government. 
Commencing with the voyage to St. Helena, of 
which it gives an interesting narrative, it proceeds 
to describe the daily routine of the fallen Emperor 
from his landing on the island till his death. The 
record of his conversations on a great variety of 
topics is full of interest, and tends to confirm the 
views presented by Mr. Abbott in his biography 
of Napoleon. 

Poems of Home and Travel, by Bayard Taylor. 
(Boston : Ticknor and Fields.) Bayard Taylor's 
poetry holds a cherished place in many American 
hearts. It is of a character to retain its influence 
over the affections, by which it has once been 
prized. Appealing ever to the higher sentiments 
of our nature, rich in the graces of picturesque ex- 
pression, and interspersed with the subtlest es- 
sences of thought, it is no less adapted to win 
permanent fame than to challenge immediate pop- 
ularity. In this volume Mr. Taylor has collected 
such pieces from the "Rhymes of Travel," and the 
" Book of Romances, Lyrics, and Songs," as he 
deems worthy of preservation, adding to them a 
number of new poems written since the appear- 
ance of his " Poems of the Orient." Of these 
later pieces, "The Wind and Sea," "My Dead," 
"Sunken Treasures," "The Mariners," are the 
most striking, and will be universally regarded 
as admirable specimens of imaginative composi- 
tion. 

The Mystic, and other Poems, by Philip James 
Bailey. (Ticknor and Fields.) In the extraor- 
dinary poem called " Festus," the author of this 
volume gained a strong' band of admirers by the 
wild daring of his imagination, his audacious free- 
dom of thought, the mystic grandeur of his specu- 
lations, and the gorgeous splendors of his diction. 
His friends will, doubtless, recognize their idol in 
the contents of this work. But without claiming 
to belong to the initiated, we must own that to us 
these poems appear to combine the most repulsive 
features of " Festus," while they exhibit none of 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



259 



its redeeming points. Their themes lie beyond 
the range of natural and healthy human sympa- 
thies, and can only be relished by the victims of 
a morbid curiosity or ill-regulated aspiration. The 
poet attempts to bring the secrets of the supernat- 
ural within the domain of experience. Leaving 
the broad platform of revelation for Oriental le- 
gends and Platonic dreams, he plunges into the 
depths of " Chaos and Old Night," where he finds 
nothing but fantastic shapes, and grim, wondrous, 
frightful apparitions. Such subjects can never be 
made agreeable by the charms of poetry. They 
minister no wholesome nutriment to the intellect, 
and can only gratify a diseased fancy. " The 
Mystic" is intended to illustrate the ancient reve- 
rie of the soul's pre-existence. The hero is a weird, 
unearthly personage, who is introduced to us as 
" the initiate of the light, the adopted of the water 
of the sun." ■ With this dim twilight on his ante- 
cedents, we are further informed that " he lived a 
three-fold life through all the ages ;" indeed, his 
soul " seven times leavened with its light the 
world." First, he roamed lordly through God's 
homely universe, speaking to earth the lore of 
stars, and "instating" mankind in the truths sym- 
boled by nature in "gem, bloom, and wing" (or, 
as Agassiz would say, the mineral, vegetable, and 
animal kingdoms). Grounded in the sacred cipher 
of nature, he read the language of the light, in- 
scribed with myths in templed tome and hiero- 
glyphic columns, till initiate and perfect in mys- 
teries, he graduated triumphant. This, however, 
would seem to have been a superfluous novitiate, 
for Ave learn soon after that he received the starry 
stamps at his birth, and every limb held commune 
with its god. Endowed with "planetary gifts 
plenipotent," what need had he of the protracted 
Egyptian education? He had riches from the 
moon, mind-wealth from the sun, delight in beau- 
teous shapes and in blue and dewy eyes from love's 
star. " The god of psychopompous function" had 
a certain share in these sublime endowments, but 
it is so obscurely indicated that we had rather not 
commit ourselves on the subject. At last, having 
fought his way through flood and flames, helped 
by good demons, hindered by the bad, he " fainted 
in perfection," and found that death was life "in 
the coffined core of the heaven-wedding pyramid." 
Like the estates of rich men among their heirs, he 
was now divided among the gods, the stars claimed 
their portion in his remains, and he became the 
object of love on earth and adoration in heaven. 
His head fell to the share of the sun, his eyes to 
the starry souls, and his redundant hair to the 
watery powers. But while "time's arid rivulet 
through its glassy gorge lapsed ceaseless," other 
metemphychoses were in reserve for the wonderful 
being. He was next born in a most remarkable, 
if not most immaculate, manner. As a consecrated 
damsel was sporting with her fellow-maidens by 
" Gunga's wave," she was " clasped by a cloud of 
sunset glory and circumfused with vital brilliance," 
of whom " dropping," the immortal aspirant of life 
came down " through the star-gates of the high 
luminous land." After four or five similar expe- 
riences, he becomes "initiate, mystic, perfected, 
epopt, illuminate, adept, transcendent;" but he has 
not yet reached the goal — for, " ivy-like, he lived 
and died, and again lived, resuscitant." He makes 
splendid progress all the while. His " hyperthral 
heart," in temple-like totality, was held open to all 
heaven. At last, he became master of all gifts, 



" seals and signs of radiant force and triply perfect 
power." He was taught truths which " passed all 
search, all height, all depth, all bound, of inter- 
spheral orders, and their rise, action, and central 
end." His nebulous thoughts were grouped in 
firmamental unities. Here the Aveird history breaks 
off somewhat abruptly, though no reason appears 
why it should not have continued its monotonous 
drone through interminable "eons." The versifi- 
cation of this poem is a rough and rugged kind of 
blank verse, interlarded with strange, pedantic 
epithets, and constantly jarring the ear by its 
harsh inversions. In its form, then, no less than 
in its theme, "The Mystic" will be repulsive to 
the lover of natural, poetic beauty, and must be 
pronounced a rash and profitless experiment to in- 
graft the obsolete vagaries of Neo-Platonism upon 
the aesthetic sense and religious feeling of the pres- 
ent age. Of the two other poems in this volume, 
the " Spiritual Legend" is a tissue of theosophie 
jargon, while the "Fairy Tale" is a sweet and 
beautiful fantasy. 

A Treatise on the Differential and Integral Calcu- 
lus and on the Calculus of Variations. By Edward 
H. Courtenay. This posthumous work by the 
late distinguished Professor of Mathematics in the 
University of Virginia is the most profound and 
exhaustive treatise ever produced by an American 
author upon the subject of which it treats. It is, 
at the same time, so clear and precise in its method 
that it can be used with profit as a College text- 
book. The Differential Calculus contains elegant 
investigations of Lagrange's theorem, and of the 
formula for the radius of curvature of curved sur- 
faces. The Integral Calculus embraces full dis- 
cussions of the method of solving differential equa- 
tions. The Calculus of Variations is so presented 
and applied as to divest it of much of the forbidding 
aspect which it has heretofore presented to the stu- 
dent. We can confidently recommend this treat- 
ise to the attention of those who cultivate the higher 
branches of mathematics. (Published by A. S. 
Barnes and Co.) 

The Testimony of an Escaped Novice, by Jo- 
sephine M. Bunkley (Harper and Brothers), is 
the authentic narrative of the young Virginian 
lady whose flight from the Convent of St. Joseph, 
in Emmettsburgh, was a matter of such general 
notoriety several months since. It is a work of 
uncommon interest. Unlike the romances of con- 
ventual life, in which the imagination is largely 
drawn upon for incident and adventure, this is a 
simple and inartificial record of personal expe- 
rience, written with no attempt to act on the sym- 
pathies of the reader by high-colored statements 
or pathetic appeals, and disclosing the daily rou- 
tine within the interior of a " religious house," in 
a manner which bears every mark of verisimili- 
tude. Miss Bunkley describes the steps by which 
she was led to renounce Episcopacy for Catholi- 
cism, her motives for wishing to become a nun, 
and the reasons which impelled her to abandon 
the vocation. With no aim at effective writing, 
her descriptions are singularly graphic, the facts 
which she unfolds are in the highest degree curi- 
ous, and numerous secrets of the nunnery are 
brought to light, concerning which the public has 
heretofore had no authentic information. The 
volume is throughout decorous in its details, and 
though not suited to gratify a prurient love of 
scandal, is filled with revelations that can not be 
read without equal interest and astonishment. 



260 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



The Poets and Poetry of America, by Rufus 
Wilmot Gkiswold. (Philadelphia : Parry and 
M'Millan.) So rapid is the development of poetry 
in this country, that the indefatigable editor of the 
present volume must needs be preternaturally vig- 
ilant in order to keep pace with its progress. In 
this edition of his popular work he has continued 
his record to the latest date, introducing the names 
of several new aspirants for poetical fame, and en- 
larging many of his previous notices by additional 
biographical incidents and more copious extracts. 
One gratifying feature of Dr. Griswold's literary 
chronicle is the evidence which it affords of the im- 
provement in the poetic art by our native writers. 
Not that the great lights of American poetry, as 
Bryant, Dana, Halleck, and other names belonging 
to an elder generation, are in danger of eclipse 
from any modern imitators or rivals ; but the num- 
ber of the latter is constantly receiving fresh acces- 
sions, superior in point of cultivation, of skill in 
composition, and of true poetic genius, to the gen- 
eral standard of an earlier day. The specimens 
contained in the volume before us give a striking 
illustration of this fact. Compare Whittier, Wen- 
del Holmes, Poe, Saxe, Wallace, Parsons, Low- 
ell, Buchanan, Read, Boker, Bayard Taylor, and 
Stoddard, to mention no other names, with the Con- 
necticut bards of the olden time, Trunbull, Dwight, 
Humphreys, and Barlow, or with the now forgot- 
ten Alsop, Honeywood, Clifton, Paine, Munford, 
and others of a similar calibre, and our remark will 
be verilied. In preparing his volume Dr. Gris- 
wold has evidently aimed at preserving an accurate 
historical illustration of American poetry, rather 
than at furnishing a collection of choice specimens 
of the art. Many of the pieces which he has pre- 
served do not merit a second reading, except in 
the point of view alluded to, and would certainly 
receive no attention from the gatherer of a model 
anthology. The critical notices which accompany 
the extracts in this work generally combine dis- 
crimination with kindness, although they will 
probably fail to satisfy the members of the sensi- 
tive race whose conflicting positions they attempt 
to adjust. 

Among the novels of the month a new work by 
Fanny Fern, called Rose Clark (Mason Brothers), 
is one of the most noteworthy, as illustrating the 
ability of that popular authoress in the composition 
of a sustained narrative. The plot of the story is 
of an unpretending character, free from extrav- 
agant incidents and artificial complications, and 
deriving its interest from the natural pictures of 
life in the experience of the heroine. Left an or- 
phan in infancy, and exposed to the usual trials 
of adverse fate, Rose Clark develops a sweet fem- 
inine nature, and wins both sympathy and admira- 
tion by her noble womanly bearing in the most 
perplexing circumstances. Several striking epi- 
sodes are woven into the principal narrative, high- 
ly spiced with the pungent satire for which the au- 
thoress possesses such a remarkable gift. The per- 
sonages in the story are represented with most dis- 
tinct individuality. They are certainly drawn from 
the life, whether or not they are taken from actual 
prototypes. Aunt Dolly, Mrs. Markham, Mr. Balch, 
John, and Gertrude, are veritable beings of flesh and 
blood, and appear more like reminiscences then in- 
ventions. The story, though still too fragmentary 
for any but the Avorshipers of Sterne, has a more 
continuous movement, and is more smoothly round- 



ed in its details than the writer's former produc- 
tions. It will be read with interest for its terse- 
ness of expression and vivacity of description, and 
in tone and temper will be .deemed a marked im- 
provement on "Ruth Hall." 

The Elm-Tree Tales, by F. Irene Burge Smith 
(Mason Brothers), is a collection of original sketch- 
es, written in an unaffected style, and containing 
many passages of quiet beauty and pathos. They 
describe the lights and shades of social life, both 
in city and country, and, without any parade of 
sentiment, exhibit true feeling, and appeal to a 
wide circle of sympathies. 

Friedel; an Autobiography, translated from the 
German of Van Horn, by Mrs. C. M. Sawyer 
(Philadelphia : G. Collins), is a pleasing story por- 
traying the manners of rural life in Germany some 
hundred years ago. It shows the German naivete 
of narrative, and contains an excellent moral be- 
neath its lively pictures. Mrs. Sawyer has suc- 
ceeded in rendering the original into very readable 
English. 

Winnie and I (J. C. Derby), introduces itself 
abruptly without bow or courtesy, author's name 
or preface, but soon makes friends with the reader 
by its genial air of domesticity, and the freshness 
and fragrance of its rural descriptions. The open- 
ing chapter shows a weakness for "fine-writing,'* 
and is quite too stately for the occasion ; but the 
narrative becomes more natural as it advances, and 
before the close gains upon the heart of the reader 
by its true pathos. With no parade of vivacity or 
vigor, the composition of this story betrays a fine 
natural taste, and abounds in scenes of delicate 
beauty. 

An appropriate gift-book for the season may be 
found in Frank Leslie's Port-Folio of Fancy Needle 
Work, edited by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, and pub- 
lished by Stringer and Townsend. It contains in- 
structions in the various branches of embroidery, 
with a great variety of illustrative designs, and is 
a work both of utility and beauty. 

Several new juvenile works make their appear- 
ance with the approach of the winter holidays, 
among which we have examined, and can make a 
favorable report of three volumes of Translations 
from the French and German, byTRAUERMANTEL, 
consisting of legends, sketches, and narratives 
(Crosby, Nichols, and Co.) ; Curious Stories about 
Fairies, a wonderful book for young imaginations 
(Ticknor and Fields) ; The Mysterous Story JJook, 
Out of Debt Out of Danger, by Cousin Alice, and 
Uncle John's First and Second Books (Appleton); 
and Prince Life, by G. P. R. James (J. S. Dicker- 
son). 

Stringer and Townsend have issued a noticeable 
essay on the subject of Postal Reform, by Pliny 
Miles, who has devoted his attention for some 
time past to the investigation of postal arrange- 
ments both in the United States and England. He 
urges a complete modification of the franking priv- 
ilege, the establishment of uniform rates of postage 
throughout the country, and an organization for 
the delivery of letters in all cities and large towns, 
together with several other important changes, 
which, in his opinion, are imperatively required by 
the public convenience. Mr. Miles has collected 
a great variety of statistical facts illustrative of his 
subject, and enforces his suggestions with a co- 
gency of reasoning that must in due time make an 
impression on our national Legislature. 



$hM* €Mt 



LITERATURE OF BUSINESS.— There is so 
much activity of mind in every department of 
modern life, that it naturally seeks to express itself 
in literature as well as in labor. The hands ply 
their busy skill, converting the raw materials of 
nature into various forms of utility and beauty, 
and collecting in vast masses the resources of trade 
and commerce. But they are not the only work- 
ers ; for such pursuits can not long engage the at- 
tention of men without the presence of thought. 
Toil is the parent of intelligence. It rouses the 
intellect to think. It not only cultivates the 
powers of calculation, sagacity, and management, 
but it advances to a point beyond its own imme- 
diate necessities, and connects the relations of 
business with those great objects that lie within 
the range of moral and social sentiments. Labor 
is not a mere earthly law. ' It is not simply an 
economic institution, consulting the wants of the 
animal part of man, and having no higher mean- 
ing than the bread which feeds his hunger or the 
raiment that covers his nakedness. It is not a 
commercial machinery to make money and accu- 
mulate the means of luxury for a leisure future. 
Labor is a most significant portion of the intel- 
lectual, moral, social machinery of the world. It 
is a discipline of virtue — a trial of character. Na- 
ture ordains it as a sacrament, in which she binds 
herself and man to certain conditions of promise 
and performance. Not unmindful of its claims, 
Revelation incorporates it into the Decalogue, as- 
sociates its repose with the Sabbath, sanctifies its 
authority, and lays a special emphasis on its obli- 
gations. We have in these facts the foundation of 
the Literature of Business. 

If our aim were to present an ideal of literature 
in this department of mind, we should attach the 
first importance to the infusion of that moral spirit 
into its thought which is the primary law of all 
truthful art. Christianity must inspire the intel- 
lect that now seeks to improve the world. Society 
has outgrown the delusions of a false philosophy, 
and the meagre satisfactions of an earth-born ma- 
terialism. It has reached a development that 
acknowledges religious virtue as its conservative 
force, and human brotherhood as the end of all in- 
stitutions. Literature must therefore have a moral 
soul, if it would exert any great degree of intel- 
lectual influence. In the pursuit of mere gratifica- 
tion ; in the exercise of taste on tasteful grounds 
alone ; it may afford to do without a high purpose. 
But if it devote itself to humanity, and write 
thoughts that are to speak the everlasting senti- 
ments of its nature, it must have the earnest sim- 
plicity and vigorous motive that are born out of a 
divine zeal for the genuine interests of the world. 
This spirit has begun to show itself in our modern 
literature. Looking beyond the external attitude 
of the working-man, it has found beneath the 
bronzed face and soiled garments the true image 
of manhood. It has listened to the music which 
the beating heart throbs perpetually into the ear 
of God, and caught the key-note of its strains. The 
humble laborer is no more a drudge. A creature 
of infinite hopes and divine instincts, he is not a 
machine for capital to employ for its selfish remu- 
neration, or ambition to sport with for its unhal- 
lowed pleasures. The image of God is stamped 



upon him, and that image lifts him above his cir- 
cumstances, and pleads for his immortal rights. 
Who that remembers how Christianity sought its 
apostles among publicans and fishermen — how 
Christ himself was the carpenter's son — how the 
gospel was first known by being a gospel for the 
poor — who that realizes the moral sublimity of 
these facts can mistake the position and prospects 
of the laboring classes ! There was a prophecy in 
the act that chose these men to reform the world. 
The masses of the people were henceforth to orig- 
inate the intellect and the heart which were des- 
tined to govern the life of men ; and literature, 
yielding to this divine authority, must embody the 
redeeming truth in its strongest, noblest eloquence. 
Not a few of the best writers of the age — such 
writers as Chalmers, Channing, and Dewey — have 
caught this spirit, and infused it into their works. 
Others, like Dickens and Kingsley, have adopted 
it in fiction, and touched the sensibilities of thou- 
sands by its pathos. If we go back to the time of 
Hannah More, who was the Christian pioneer in 
this style of literature, and compare the general 
state of cultivated intellect as it regards the ap- 
preciation of poverty and labor with what it now 
is, we can not fail to see that society has made a 
marked progress in the depth of its sympathies, in 
so far as their expression in literature is concern- 
ed. In nothing has the press been a more valu- 
able auxiliary to the pulpit than in enforcing the 
great lesson that the people, and not caste or class, 
are the strength of government, the agents of 
Providence, the hope of the world. 

Turning to what may be called the secular por- 
tion of Business Literature, we find that much has 
been done in the way of teaching those principles 
of action which are essential to success. The 
names of Franklin and Cobbett will occur to the 
intelligent reader as the men of mark in this de- 
partment. To the genius of Franklin must be 
accorded no common praise for its devotion to 
these humble topics. A man of strong and sturdy 
intellect, who saw every practical truth in a focus 
of clear light, and had a singularly native manner 
of giving to his reader not only what he possessed 
but his own personal manner of grasping it, he was 
admirably fitted to be an expositor of the virtues 
of homely thrift and every-day industry. It is not 
his true distinction that he was born and reared 
outside of the conventionalisms of human life, but 
that, in all his prosperous fortune, he kept his heart 
among the people, and never forgot that he was 
one of them. A man who could thus retain the 
simplicity of childhood was the man to change an 
Almanac from a record of time into a means of 
pleasant and weighty instruction. Powerful in 
little things no less than in things that were great, 
he interpreted the wants of the day, and put them 
in proverbs that can never die out of the memories 
of men. No doubt he dwelt too much on the mere 
worldly aspects of prudence, and confined himself 
too closely within the boundaries of a cold and cal- 
culating materialism; but nevertheless, lie left 
many a thought that contains a higher meaning 
than he apprehended. The best of men may learn 
much from his insight and sententiousness, and he 
can never cease to be regarded as an example of 
what a benevolent intellect can do when it prizes 



262 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



usefulness as a law of action. Other laborers, too, 
have entered on this field. Some have gone into 
its fruitful valleys, others to its heavenward sum- 
mits. Here is Burgh, with his "Dignity of Hu- 
man Nature," and his many valuable hints for the 
ordering of human life. Here is Arthur Helps, 
with his " Hints to Men of Business," full of philo- 
sophic and practical wisdom. Here is Freedly's 
" Essays on Business," with its formularies to guide 
the speculator, and its judicious advice to young 
men entering on the struggles of the world. Here 
is Arthur's " Successful Merchant," with its ele- 
vated morality and lofty Christian industry, direct- 
ed by acute intelligence and sustained by spiritual 
devotion. Here, too, are women worthy of honor- 
able mention — such women as Miss Edgeworth and 
Miss Sedgewick. 

It is, perhaps, difficult to estimate the amount of 
service that this kind of literature has rendered to 
the world. And yet, certain facts are palpable. It 
has succeeded in showing that labor is a much 
higher interest than political economy regards it, 
and that it is intimately identified with the intel- 
lectual and moral growth of society. It has evoked, 
demonstrated, and illustrated the great thought 
that underlies all this bustle of the crowded thor- 
oughfare. It has taught the souls of men to hear 
other sounds in the working of the steam-engine, 
and the confused din of noisy factories, than the 
friction which stuns the outward ear. In this 
mighty whirl they listen to the earthly tones of 
that anthem to which men are now marching to 
recover their sovereignty over the material world. 
Nor is this all its work. For as it exhibits the 
curse of sin, as seen in the derangement of human 
relations — in the prevalence of sorrow and suffer- 
ing — in the thoughts that bewilder us as we ex- 
plore the problems of our being, and look anxiously 
into those sullen mysteries that so often gather 
closely about us — it points to that serene faith 
which, in the absence of knowledge, tells the heart 
that trust is the highest wisdom, and love the 
richest treasure of the universe. Its truest, grand- 
est office is to bring Christianity into the factory, 
into the counting-room, into the exchange, and 
press tipon the heart of toil and business that it 
needs the presence of the redeeming Christ to en- 
noble and to bless its labors and struggles. Yes, 
yes; not at the fireside alone must Christianity 
have its precious priesthood of affection ; not mere- 
ly at the altar, where youthful love breathes its 
vows, must it seal the word and clasp those plight- 
ed hearts in its holy embrace ; nor only at the grave 
must its voice utter that sublime language of hope 
and consolation, which the eloquence of classical 
antiquity never knew ; but Christianity must pre- 
side over the daily deeds of life, and convert the 
dusty pathway, where men jostle and crowd and 
strive, into an avenue to a better world. Intel- 
lect ! what is it without the support and guardian- 
ship of this Christian faith ? What symbol of its 
weakness can the universe give ! The bee can teach 
us geometry, and the bird can instruct us in art. 
The butterfly surpasses our gayest adorning, and 
the lion mocks our proudest strength. The lily 
shames our purity, and the dew-drop is a vaster 
world than we can build. Faith takes us in our 
nothingness, and raises us to a height but little 
" lower than the angels." And it is only as this 
faith penetrates literature and life that men can 
subdue the grossness of their fallen nature, and as- 
cend to the true import and enjoyment of their being. 



(Euituf B fet[ (CljutL 

¥E have all been talking about Thackeray's 
new lectures and Longfellow's new poem. 
They have been the literary events of the month 
and their interest is not ended when the month is. 
Somehow it seems to be a bad year for the Muses 
and their ministers. The beautiful poem of ' ' Maud," 
that irradiated the summer, making "a purer sap- 
phire melt into the sea," was derided and voted a 
failure. Thackeray's first lecture made the head 
of the public shake, and Longfellow's poem is only 
half liked. 

We sit in the Chair, and hear the gossip and 
have our own opinions. It is so hard to know how 
to value criticism. Who has a right to criticise ? 
Is it criticism of a picture when Jones says he 
does not like it? or when Jenkins says that he 
does ? Is it criticism of a lecture when Mrs. Croc- 
odile says it's odious and very naughty ; and, while 
a lecturer is sadly saying grave things, little Rosa- 
mund Bougesits blushingas if she had been insult- 
ed ? Is it criticism of a poem for Smith to say that 
it is not what he expected ? 

Yet if it seems foolish in the individual case, it is 
not in the general. Art addresses itself to every 
body. An artist has no right to shield himself be- 
hind the technicalities of his art. If the public 
cries out to him, "I don't see your drift," or "I 
don't like your drift," may he turn upon it and call 
it names, and deride its dullness and imbecility ? 
For whom is the picture painted ? You laugh at 
Jones's judgment. Is it any better when it is an 
opinion of a million-Jones power? Is the work 
not performed for Jones ? Is not the artist the 
middle-man between nature and Jones ? 

All this has its reason. What a pity that there 
are always two sides to a thing! We thought 
" Maud" a lovely poem, and did not think it neces- 
sary to state that it was not " Paradise Lost," nor 
any thing else which it was not. If a friend comes 
in a new dress, we are not anxious to say, "Why 
didn't you choose something prettier ?" It is the 
friend, not the dress. It is, also, the poet, the man, 
the individuality, quite as nmch as the poem. What 
charms us in great works is quite as much the sense 
of power in the worker, as the beauty and success 
of the work. It is the vague and perfectly intel- 
ligible thing called manner. Shall we not drink 
nectar because it is offered in a tea-cup ? " Maud" 
is labeled a failure. There is no public appeal, 
from the decision of the public. We sit in our 
Chair and believe in " Maud" still. 

There is a feeling of disappointment in Thack- 
eray's Lectures upon the Georges. Mumm. the 
eminent favorite of Lyceums, is fully persuaded that 
the four-headed club will not knock him and all 
his friends out of sight. Nobody, certainly, would 
be so sorry as the brandisher of that club if it did. 
And as to the facts, we must remember that the 
prestige of novelty was gone from the lecturer. 
We had had him. We had seen him and heard 
him. His look, his voice, his manner, his method 
of treatment, were familiar to us. And we are 
capricious. We croAvn our kings upon the very 
highest throne to-day, and we tumble them into 
the kennel to-morrow. Do you remember the 
Dicken's ovation — the Ole Bull furore — the Fanny 
Ellsler frenzy — the Jenny Lind enthusiasm — the 
Kossuth excitement ; do you not feel that the chap- 
ter of American glory is closed for them ? 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



263 



"No spring shall e'er visit their mouldering urn." 
Look at it ; how mossy it is already ! How 
ashamed we already are of having erected it ! It 
is about four years since Kossuth came. 

Thackeray himself was no novelty. Then his 
subject was nearly related to the one which had 
enchanted us all before. In the Lectures upon the 
Humorists he had dealt with the life of the last 
century from the most generally interesting point 
of view. He had grouped it around its most fa- 
mous men. He had explored it like a lover, and his 
appreciation of the men he discussed was as tender 
and true as that of a lover. They had been his 
models to some extent, and they were, so far as is 
possible with such an iconoclast, his idols. There 
remained only one other great point of view for the 
century which could be generally interesting. That 
was the social view. It was the age of wits and 
dandies. And social organization so near our own 
times, and yet so different from our own spirit, 
could not fail to command our interest. The cen- 
tury was to be grouped around the men of society ; 
around Selwyn, and Fox, and Sheridanj and Hor- 
.ace Walpole, and Chesterfield — around the beaux 
and the politicians, with the episodes of court life, 
the dreadful dullness of Farmer George and Dame 
Charlotte — the debauchery of the first George and 
the dandyism of the last. 

For his own reasons Mr. Thackeray preferred 
another treatment. His lectures were collections 
of court gossip, illuminated by an occasional vivid 
sketch of the j) ersonnel of the court. But he looked 
at the men from the times, instead of regarding the 
times from the men. Now an audience is more inter- 
ested in persons than things, and so far he lost some 
sympathy. Perhaps, too, he did not sufficiently 
remember the extreme foreignness of much of the 
detail of those times to America and Americans. 

He had his own reasons for his own treatment. 
To our minds the Thackeray talent was in them 
all. The deep undertone of sadness — the grave 
indignation with the atrocious humbug of the old 
system — the dreadful democracy, which is strong 
by clear and calm perception. They were light- 
ed all through with great gushes of wit. Men 
were painted by a word, spitted upon an epigram, 
mourned in an episode. They were a sweeping 
glance over an immense ground. So much lies in 
that century; over so much human destiny those 
poor sprats of Georges nominally presided ! Such 
a rich track of history is marked with their name ! 
If there had been a really good man among them, 
or one really great; if there had been any thing 
more than dull negative virtues, quite overborne 
by positive incapabilities, obstinacies, and sins; 
if there had been any fine touches of heroism in 
their long and unlovely lives, we might recall 
their names with some pride, and remember their 
reigns with some pleasure. But they were as or- 
dinary men in capacity, and three of them quite 
extraordinary in vice as may be met in history. 
They have no business in history. They have 
done nothing for which they should be well men- 
tioned. They are a prodigious argument, a hun- 
dred years long, against the social organization 
which requires such humiliation as honoring them 
implies. If you must have a nose of wax, a simu- 
lacrum called king, Avhy not go to Thibet and 
import a Grand Lama. It is inexpensive and can 
not disgrace you, nor put a man to the blush by 
his consciousness that he is honoring a principle he 
reveres in a person he despises. 



That is the tremendous moral of these lectures, 
and for that reason, if for no other, they would be 
of the greatest value. It is a moral which, of 
course, we Americans extract more naturally than 
an Englishman. But it is all there. 

There could not well be any thing more amusing 
than Mumm's assertion that Thackeray was trying 
to palm himself off upon the Americans as a dem- 
ocrat. Surely no one who has ever read Thackeray's 
books with understanding, has failed to see how they 
are full of the truest democracy. Also, he is a man 
of too much sagacity and knowledge of the world 
to try such a purely transparent trick in America. 
There is a degree of absurdity in conduct which it 
is too absurd to attribute. Mr. Thackeray's appeal 
in this country, and every where, is to intelligent 
men. Does any man of that kind suppose he does 
not know better than any body the inevitable re- 
sult of any " clap-trap." We should be very cau- 
tious about measuring others by ourselves. It is 
just possible that you and this Easy Chair, if we 
went to England and France, might like to be pre- 
sented at court and dine in Belgravia and the Fau- 
bourg St. Germain. It is a wild idea, of course, 
but it is just possible that we might like to do those 
things. Now it would be very mean to suppose 
every man who comes to us is influenced by the 
same kind of spirit. It is equally possible that a 
man of acknowledged eminence in letters, and very 
cordially respected as a hearty, honest man, might 
not care to do a thing which he must plainly see 
would destroy that good feeling, and lower that 
consideration. Lecturers like applause, but they 
like approbation more. 

There was a little feeling of disappointment in 
the lectures, but they were still the best lectures 
we have had since Thackeray was here before. He 
seems to have the true conception of a popular lec- 
turer. It must be objective. It must treat of 
things rather than of abstract principles. It must 
interest by its description. It must cheer and en- 
liven by its humor. It must touch the heart by 
its pathos. Then his style is so simple and trans- 
parent, that there is never any doubt about his 
meaning. He almost recoils from enforcing a mor- 
al or stating a principle. The thing must tell its 
own story, he seems to say, or the story will not 
be properly told. The moral is in the drift — in 
the spirit and meaning. If the}' are properly pre- 
sented the moral is clear enough. If they arc not, 
the moral is impertinent. 

But Mrs. Crocodile thought it was shocking that 
he should, in speaking of the sea, allude to fish. 
Mrs. Crocodile was nervous. She did not know 
what the man was going to say next. Sophia 
Dorothea, it appears, was trying to run off with 
Konigsmark, and was stopped upon the way. 
"Help! help!" cries Mrs. Crocodile; "Virtue, to 
the rescue !" George the First had a harem, says 
the lecturer; he Avas Ahasuerus the First; he was 
a faithless man, wdio passed his lite with loose wo- 
men. "Oh! oh!" shouts Mrs. Crocodile, "what 
a horrid lecturer! How docs he dare to outrage, 
in this manner, the better feelings of our common 
nature, and especially the tender sensibilities of us 
women?" 

My dear Madame, does your propriety so easily 
take cold? While you arc exclaiming against 
these prurient pictures, there are no prurient pic- 
tures at all; then; is only a calm and terrible 
statement of a loathsome state of society. How 
is it that you so easily scent filth? You know 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



that -when the squeamish Mrs. Malaprop said to 
Dr. Johnson, "Fie! fie! Doctor, how could you 
put such naughty words in your Dictionary ?" the 
Doctor sternly replied, "Ah, madam, I see you 
have been looking for them !" 

We have heard a good deal also about our all 
knowing so much about the century discussed by 
Mr. Thackeray in his lectures. We are all better 
informed, then, than we had supposed. Yet we 
do not know where to look for a more detailed, and 
graphic, and brilliant account of European society, 
at the opening of the Eighteenth century than he 
gave us in the first lecture ; nor for so kindly and 
complete a picture of the long reign of George the 
Third, as in his discourse upon that potentate. 
The theme was vast. It occupied a century, and 
a century croAvded with remarkable figures. Mr. 
Thackeray surveyed them with his sad and search- 
ing eye. The very tones of his voice mourned for 
the unfortunate, and covered the guilty with in- 
dignant condemnation. He was, as always, true 
to the generous and manly impulse, to the noble 
and devoted character. He stung, as always, hy- 
pocrisy and flashing pretense. If New York could 
have every winter such a course of lectures, New 
York would have reason to be proud and better. 



"The Song of Hiawatha," too, is roughly han- 
dled. It is found to be very easy writing, and 
very hard reading. It is adjudged pointless and 
uninteresting. It is thought to be a hopeless at- 
tempt to invest Indian tradition with the dignity 
and pathos of a true human romance. It is voted 
an unfortunate subject, and the simplicity of the 
treatment is considered to be too simple. 

Well, the ways of criticism are hard. Ever 
since this Easy Chair remembers any thing, it re- 
members a loud wail that the beautiful and reso- 
nant Indian names have been suffered to die out; 
that none of our poets had endeavored to sweeten 
their stories with that native music ; and that, in 
general, indifferent to our own resources, we were 
perpetually turning away to other countries and 
times. Now comes the most popular of our poets, 
who has already written the purely American and 
purely beautiful poem of Evangeline, and sings us 
a song of the Indian legends, preserving their own 
simplicity and wayward woodland grace, full of 
a sweet tenderness and tranquil pathos — of the 
sound of rustling leaves, and flowing waters, and 
singing birds — he comes, who has authority, and 
puts the resonant Indian names into literature, 
makes half the music of the Indian poem, as was 
proper, from the music of the Indian names, and 
we all giggle and grin, and parody the perform- 
ance we have been crying for, and which is exe- 
cuted with unsurpassed propriety. 

For ourselves, we find the matter of Hiawatha 
just what an Indian subject must be, and the me- 
tre is full of music to our ears. There is no pro- 
found passion in it, as there is none in the Indian 
character. There is no variety of experience, as 
there is nothing of the kind in Indian life. The 
legends are childlike and tender, as is natural with 
a simple race. It is, as the poet says, an Indian 
Edda. It entreats the mind back to the "forest 
primeval." It quits intentionally the sphere of 
Manfred and the Lamplighter. It invites you to 
a morning walk in the dewy woods and across the 
silent sunny pastures. But it weaves the summer 
air into stores of airy grace. It blows across the 
hot city like a breath of pine woods. It certainly 



is not something else than what it is. But that 
hardly seems sufficient reason for quarreling stern- 
ly with it or making fun of it. It is a measure 
very easily parodied. But so are all measures 
that we know. "Evangeline" had to be put 
through the same ordeal. If it is remembered 
that " Hiawatha" is an Indian poem, supposed to 
to be gathered from Indians who had no rhyme, it 
seems as if the want of rhyme might be forgiven. 
There is a dramatic propriety in the measure, which 
is one of the charms of the poem. The poet knows 
better than the world about that. The journals 
opened in full cry upon Tennyson's "Maud," be- 
cause the form was this, or was not that. But 
it was precisely what he intended ; and every man 
who reads the poem with open mind, as well as 
open eye, will see its significance and beauty. It 
is so with our Indian Edda. "The murmur of 
pines and of hemlocks" is in it. What possible 
rhymed measure is there to which it could be 
set? 

And are the names so dreadful ? and is it so easy 
to write with sonorous names ready made to your 
hand? So it was with Homer and with Milton. 
They found names ready made, and those names 
are strung in memorable music along their lines. 
There is a fullness and richness in the Indian 
names which we have not to learn from this poem: 
a beauty and ringing melody that have made us 
all grieve as Tuscarora and Tonnawanda gave w r ay 
to Smithville and Manlius. Have they suddenly 
lost their music ? Are they not as sonorous in 
"Hiawatha" as they are in Morse's Geography? 
The poem of Longfellow's would be a public serv- 
ice if it were only for its use of these names. He 
may endure a little fun now, for the sake of the 
future that will value his work. It is clear enough 
that " Hiawatha" will be our Indian Edda. The 
lovely legends will survive chiefly, if not only, in 
this poem. The future student will find here not 
only the music but the meaning of the old nomen- 
clature. "Therefore," says the intelligent Jones, 
" let it pass as an Indian dictionary." Are poems 
written for Jones ? 

"Hiawatha" is a singular success in the uni- 
formity of feeling which pervades it. The Indian 
never ceases to be an Indian, and his life does not 
rise into unnatural proportions. The limitation 
of his power and experience and intellectual activ- 
ity are rendered with such faithfulness that it is 
hard to believe the story is not truly an Indian 
song. The simple beauty and pathos of the de- 
scription of the birth of Hiawatha, and all his 
love, and wooing, and end, are not surpassed. And 
yet we value the poem, as we do a fine picture, for 
its general tone, even more than for the excellent 
details of its execution. It is true that the poet is 
not an Indian, and it is true that the Indian char- 
acter and story have not an interest that very deep- 
ly touches our sympathy. But neither was Shak- 
speare an Italian nor a Dane. The success of the 
poem is in its entire accomplishment of what the 
subject permitted; and that, too, a perfectly le- 
gitimate accomplishment. The charm it bas it 
owes to itself, and to the poet's clear and correct 
conception and treatment. Most Indian stories 
have a gloss of sentimentality which experience 
destroys. Cooper's Indians are quite impossible 
ideals. They are what unicorns are among ani- 
mals — creatures with an air of possibility and en- 
tirely unreal. The dramatis personal of " Hiawa- 
tha" are not in themselves very interesting. They 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



2C3 



have a kind of shadowy actuality, precisely such 
as is reported of the Indians. But because they 
are not Greeks nor Italians — because there is no 
glow of passion in their lives, are they not to be 
admitted into literature ? 

Longfellow, we say, can wait a little. We witty 
fellows in editorial Easy Chairs must have our 
squib at " Hiawatha." But we shall like it for all 
that, and like it more and more. Quiet people in 
quiet places, who read and reflect, will acknowl- 
edge the fresh, forest charm of the poem. It will 
be curious, too, to see what they say in England. 
They are always hallooing to us to write about 
Niagara and the Prairies ; we shall see how they 
like our real Indian song. 



"Merry Christmas and happy New Year!" 
says the urchin at the door with his hands in his 
pockets and his nose tingling with the touch of 
Jack Frost. Will it ever cease to be the most 
musical of greetings, the most welcome of wishes ? 
Shall we ever dissociate from it the great, crack- 
ling, blazing, generous log upon the hearth; the 
mistletoe hung somewhere; for vre have "halls" 
no longer, and the privileges thereunto pertain- 
ing. Shall we ever cease to see the fat cook stag- 
gering under the monstrous plum-pudding that 
seems to promise eating for the whole year ? Will 
not those tankards of ale foam forever — foam 
straight through the toughest Maine Law that 
was ever devised ? Shall there not be bells rung 
all Christmas-eve, until their voices die into the 
hymns of the Waits solemnly chanted at midnight, 
and into the voices of children wishing "Merry 
Christmas !" at dawn, and pattering with bare feet 
about the floors to feel — for they can not yet see — 
what Santa Claus has put into their stockings? 
Shall there not be the cheerful going to church in 
the sparkling frosty morning, and the sweet wood- 
land odor of hemlock in the church, while the 
beautiful story of Christ's birth is told? Shall 
there not be the dinner at which there is nothing 
but the warmest and truest affection — the best pos- 
sible sauce for the huge turkey, the huger beef, 
and the hugest pudding? Mince pies, too, gen- 
erous pies, of which to-day even the youngest may 
eat and defy the doctor, shall stand in beautiful 
circular array. It is Christmas-day, we will all 
be happy ! 

How the spirit of the time has touched all the 
literature that deals with it! Lately Ave were 
looking over a book of Christmas Carols, and we 
could not think of the good old people who sang 
them, and heard them sung, as long ago dead 
and gone to dust ; but they seemed full of life and 
lustiness, and still walking about in some cheerful 
winter, "frosty but kindly," and singing their 
Christmas songs. We have no Waits — none of us 
could say this year, as Wordsworth did : 

"The minstrels sang their Christmas tunes 
Last night beneath my cottage eaves." 
But all the unexpressed minstrelsy of the season 
is in our hearts. We felt what we did not say. 
Young Arthur, as he left Aminta on Christmas- 
eve, knew that if he had been an Englishman of a 
century ago, he would have sat with her high at 
the board, while far below the salt the minstrel 
swept his harp and sang through his white beard, 
as a sighing wind through a snow-storm. It is all 
changed now. We are the young children of a 
new time. But the song of Arthur to Aminta was 
the pretty ring he bought her on Christmas morn- 
Vol. XII.— No. C8.— S 



ing — the beautiful bouquet or book. Arthur is n© 
less brave and courtly because he does not wear a 
sword or a feather in his hat. The song is as full 
of sentiment though it has no harp accompani- 
ment. In carpeted parlors and not in vast baro- 
nial halls he keeps his Christmas. The Yule log 
is a generously-glowing grate. His mistletoe is the 
shadow of a moment when all the rest are busy. 
His namesake, King Arthur of old romance, had 
not a more romantic time than Arthur, Prince 
Royal of to-day. Though the Yule log be burnt 
out, and the mistletoe hung upon the wall no more, 
the genial, hearty, gracious genius of Christmas- 
tide survives, and the year eighteen hundred fifty- 
five was as gay in its merriment as any year of 
history. 

How much Dickens has done for our Christmas 
feeling! He has been our Christmas minstrel, 
and his song has made us all better. It is fully 
penetrated with the spirit of the season. How 
could any man be miserly, how could any woman 
be cross and scolding, after those bright pages ? 
There is such a genial mingling of fact and fairy. 
It might so easily be actual, for it is all so possi- 
ble. The chimes surely ring such stories to happy 
hearts on Christmas-eve — the hiss of the cheerful 
kettle sings them — the blithe Christmas carols say 
nothing else. How the heart thanks the genial, 
humorous story-teller! How the coming in of his 
book at the door is as welcome as the coming of 
Santa Claus down the chimney ! 

This Christmas story-telling is one of the loveli- 
est traits of our literature. Thackeray has done it 
well. The " Dr. Birch and his Young Friends," 
and " the Rose and the Ring," are full of his peci.- 
liar humor, with that deep undertone of sweet sad- 
ness. Not too much fairy, he seems to say in 
" Dr. Birch," but good solid human happiness, in 
the marriage of that young woman. Yet in " the 
Rose and the Ring" what fairy burlesque of fairy ! 
How the good old camp of nursery lore is blown 
up by a funny bomb planted in the very midst of 
it! 

Why don't our story-tellers tell Christmas sto- 
ries ? Is it because we want the traditions of the 
season ? Is it because the Puritans did not bring 
with them Waits and Wassail and Mistletoe ? Is it, 
perhaps, because mistletoe is heathenish ? Heathen- 
ish ! Just try it, and see if it be heathenish. Yes, 
let even the Reverend Cotton Mather try it, and see 
if he does not like it, so that, upon coming out 
from the shade of the mistletoe, the Reverend Doc- 
tor Cotton Mather shall sing as the Reverend Doc- 
tor Martin Luther sang : 

" Who loves not wine, woman, and song, 
He is a fool his whole life long." 

Love is the moral of Christmas. What are the gifts 
but the proofs and signs of love ? It is almost the 
only day in the year especially sacred to the ex- 
pression of the affectionate relations that make life 
lovely. On Christmas-day even men with beards 
say to each.other, " I love you." 

Well, now there is so much love and good feel- 
ing upon that day, why not spread it over the 
year? why not have all days little Christmases? 
why not carry into every thing the same generous, 
hearty spirit that we give to this one day? Let 
the heart be the Yule log always brightly burning. 
Its cheerful song will make the whole year sweet. 

Yet with what tenderness the kindly thoughts 
of the season touch those who shall never again in 
this world wish us merry Christmas. Great joy 



266 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



or great sorrow instantly renew our remembrances 
of all who have been most closely held in our hearts. 
The loving mother, stealing at midnight to put the 
gifts of Santa Claus in her darlings' stockings that 
hang around the chimney, stops with a sorrow that 
no man shall ever conceive at the spot where one 
little stocking hangs no more. Into the others she 
has dropped the pretty gifts from her hands, but 
on that vacant space she drops the hot tears out of 
her heart. So stands many a man over the vacant 
places in his Christmas circle, and recalls the ex- 
quisite verses of Tennyson in the " In Memoriam." 
They shall be our Christmas chimes : 

"With trembling fingers did we weave 
The holly round the Christmas hearth ; 
A rainy cloud possessed the earth, 
And sadly fell on Christmas-eve. 

"At our old pastimes in the hall 

We gamhol'd, making vain pretense 
Of gladness, with an awful sense 
Of one mute Shadow watching all. 

"We paused: the winds were in the beech: 
We heard them sweep the winter land ; 
And in a circle, hand-in-hand, 
Sat silent, looking each at each. 

"Then echo-like our voices rang; 

We sung, though every eye was dim, 
A merry song we sang with him 
Last year ; impetuously we sang : 

"We ceased: a gentler feeling crept 
Upon us ; surely rest is meet ; 
4 They rest, 1 we said, 'their sleep is sweet,' 
And silence followed, and we wept. 

" Our voices took a higher range : 

Once more we sang ; ' They do not die 
Nor lose their mortal sympathy, 
Nor change to us, although they change : 

" ' Rapt from the fickle and the frail 
With gather'd power yet the same, 
Pierces the keen seraphic flame 
From orb to orb, from vail to vail. 1 

"Rise, happy mora ! rise holy morn ! 

Draw forth the cheerful day from night ; 
O Father ! touch the east, and light 
The light that shone when Hope was bora." 



We do not talk politics in our Chair, but we 
discuss morals and manners. What then shall we 
say of wars and rumors of wars — and not with 
heathen Hottentots, but with England ? There is 
something ludicrous in the thought, if it were not 
so terrible. To see Patrick Henry and George 
Washington pulling each other's noses would hard- 
ly have made any man laugh. And yet the huge 
absurdity of such a proceeding would have been 
very evident. A man might well despair of men 
if Washington and Henry could not behave them- 
selves. If they must do what their youngest chil- 
dren would be soundly whipped and sent to bed 
for doing, what a farce the world is. And if En- 
gland and Amei'ica can not hold their hands off 
each other, why do they persist in calling them- 
selves Christian, and in building churches and sup- 
porting a ministry. That they are nations makes 
no difference. If one individual is a zany for be- 
having in a certain way, a million individuals do- 
ing the same thing are a million zanies. Between 
two highly civilized nations a war must always 
cost a great deal more than it comes to, to use a 
vulgar phrase. There is a kind of grand historical 
excuse for a higher race conquering a lower. It is 
easy enough to see that in the economy of the world 



this continent could not be given up to the Indians 
as a vast hunting-ground. The' savage must give 
way to the Saxon. But even that is no excuse nor 
alleviation of the individual pang ; and the figure 
of Logan stands always in a pensive light in the 
imagination. 

This may have a theoretical excuse; but when 
two leading nations light, the spectacle is as sad, 
and disgraceful, and disheartening, as when two 
noble men go out to the silly field of honor. Fools 
and fire-eaters may blaze each other out of sight, 
and be thanked by a relieved community ; but we 
can not afford to lose grave and guiding men. If 
the world is poorer when a great man dies — is it 
not still poorer when a great man sets a little ex- 
ample ? Does not every fresh and noble heart in- 
stinctively feel that the sense of conscience should 
have been superior to that of a miscalled honor? 
Is it not notorious, that the men who make the 
most talk about honor, and who are perpetually 
punctilious about their position and character as 
"gentlemen," are precisely the men who have the 
least knowledge of what a gentleman is, and are 
by far the most dishonorable men in the com- 
munity ? 

These things being so in the individual, how 
can they be very different from the national point 
of view ? 

Of course, war can not be altogether avoided, 
any more than personal chastisement. There will 
still be scoundrels who can only be punished by 
the strong hand — and they are well and wisely 
punished. But a sensible gentleman, misunder- 
standing another sensible gentleman, explains and 
seeks to understand. He does not clench his fist, 
and strike, in the manner of wild beasts and "gen- 
tlemen of honor." 

And really there would seem to be no very great 
harm, nor any very insurmountable difficulty, in 
leaving grave national differences to arbitrement. 
If a nation is determined to have its own way, 
and that way is palpably wrong, then there must 
come war, because it is as much the duty of every 
man to prevent the doing of wrong as to preserve 
the peace. If France should insist upon annexing 
the State of Virginia to the empire, and would not 
hear reason, then she must hear cannon — there is 
no other way. But if you have an orchard, and a 
neighboring tenant is perpetually pulling down 
the fences that divide the properties, and you, 
with a natural regard to your apples, put a placard 
upon your fence, " Beware of man-traps !" " Look 
out for the dog !" what would be your opinion of 
the neighboring tenant who should load his gun 
and saunter toward your orchard? That he was 
a gentleman ? Does he behave as a thief would 
behave, or an honest man ? Is he a foolishly sensi- 
tive neighbor, who conceives himself insulted be- 
cause you have an eye put for your natural rights ; 
or is he an agreeable and well-behaved fellow-citi- 
zen, with whom you would have much explana- 
tion before you had a quarrel ? 

Is it firing into cotton-bags, this kind of talk ? 
Perhaps it is. Perhaps j'ou are determined to 
have a shindy with your appropriating neighbor. 
But oh, dear friend! suppose that the boot is on 
the other leg? suppose that it is your bull that 
gores his ox ? 

Circumstances do alter cases. 

There are a good many amiable clergymen who 
go about the country and preach peace on rainy 
Sunday afternoons. The congregation is usually 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



267 



very small, and — perhaps it is the drowsy patter 
of the rain, or some other kind of drowsy patter — 
the congregation usually dozes. Do you know 
how the amiable clergyman could awaken the 
slumberers, and bring that horizontal congrega- 
tion to the quick perpendicular? If he should say : 

"Now, my friends, the true doctrine is, whack 
when you are whacked, and when you are smitten 
on one cheek, smite back again on two. Pommel 
and pound, and if any body looks after you with 
an uncertain gaze, be very sure to blacken his eye 
before you leave him ; in quarreling, never explain, 
but fight it straight out ; explanations are a mere 
subterfuge of cowardice, and there is no salvation 
for spoons. Christianity is a kind of something 
which is in a sort of manner adapted to men in 
their private capacities, and has nothing to do Avith 
men in the aggregate, because it is an impractica- 
ble sort of something in politics ; therefore you 
must resent injuries — bite when you are bitten, 
and smash those who smash you — " 

— Do you think the congregation would continue 
to doze on the rainy Sunday afternoons ? 

Quite the contrary. They would meet after 
church, and request their pastor not to invite any 
more men into the pulpit who preached such anti- 
Christian doctrines. 

And then they would go home and sleep, and 
get up and shave themselves carefully, and then 
go and live for a week the Gospel that the amiable 
clergyman had preached. 

It is according to that Gospel, and not according 
to Christianity, that men fight. Why, here we 
are in the twentieth century almost from the first 
Christmas, and three out of the four leading na- 
tions of Christendom are at loggerheads, and mak- 
ing the Black Sea red with each other's blood. 
What is the use of history — of Christianity? 
What is the difference between General Pelissier 
and General Xerxes? What do the books mean 
about progress ? Who talks of humanity in litera- 
ture ? Who laughs at an Indian with his girdle 
of scalps ? Is it a Zouave ? is it a Chasseur de 
Yincennes ? is it a soldier of the Foot? is it Simp- 
son, or Codrington, or Palmerston, or John Bull 
reading the Times, and cheering the attack ? 

What would Jacques and Timon say ? 

Mrs. Grundy would say that there was no help 
for it. Did ever any thing happen that had not 
the same excuse ? Disease was never any excuse 
for disease. The fact being so, must be taken and 
treated accordingly; but that it should, therefore, 
be assumed as a permanent condition is bad logic 
and worse morals. 

It is such a rumor as this, of possible difference 
between England and America — often enough re- 
newed, but none the more agreeable for that — that 
makes us wish sometimes that we might lean back 
in our Chair, and talk politics hard for a day. 



You have been in the Coliseum — you have per- 
haps stood in the silent temple of Neptune in Paes- 
tum — you have looked from the crumbling summit 
of that central tower in the Baths of Caracalla in 
Borne, where Shelley sat and wrote his "Prome- 
theus Unbound" — you have stood high in the blue 
sky among the shattered seats of the theatre of 
Taormina in Sicily — or farther, and more fabulous 
still, you have crept along the mighty shadow of 
the great Pyramid — or stood in admiring awe be- 
neath the perfect ruin of Dendereh. 

But we have been to the Crystal Palace — not to 



Sydenham, in which every zone and climate is re- 
newed, and the impatient visitor can put a girdle 
round the earth in less than the forty minutes — not 
to the Exposition, where the pictures are so beauti- 
ful, and where every hour is more glittering than 
the last ; birt to Fortieth Street — to our Crystal Pal- 
ace — to the ex-Exhibition — to the ex-Banqueting- 
hall — to the ex-Fair. The Palace is more beauti- 
ful than any thing that was ever in it. That 
exquisite lightness, that airy grace, that almost 
transparent dome — so delicate that the rarest porce- 
lain in the palmiest days of the show was not so 
fairy-like — the long, spacious, silent galleries, the 
flood of sunshine, the cheerful desolation, the few 
statues — these all leave their mark upon the mem- 
ory. It becomes a medal, stamped with the grace- 
ful beauty of the building. 

We leaned over the railing and looked down from 
the gallery. A dozen people strolled below. The 
undisturbed Washington of Marochetti had not ad- 
vanced a step since, two years ago last July, he 
seemed moving to greet Washington's successor. 
The intrepid Amazon still drew back her javelin to 
strike — the noble horse still planted his nervous 
fore-leg, and in terrified scorn snorted at the beast 
whose vicious claws were buried in his shoulder — 
the calm Christ and the cluster of Apostles still 
stood preaching peace, and breathing beauty in 
their seclusion — Mercury, just alighted like a bird 
upon a bough, still piped his " spirit ditties of no 
tone." The whole scene was an "unheard mel- 
ody" — it was a poem ready made to the fancy of 
an Arabian poet. 

Are Ave to lose tnat lovely structure — the most 
beautiful building by far that Ave haA^e ever had 
in America? It is up toAvn noAV, but it Avill go 
doAvn tOAvn fast enough. The city is rapidly catch- 
ing the skirts of the flying country in that direc- 
tion. Let us hold and keep it while Ave may. 
Such a palace dedicated to Flora — full of floAvers, 
and trees, and fountains — would be as beautiful a 
Avinter garden as there is in the world. The pub- 
lic money could not be more usefully spent than 
in founding a public conservatory, and opening it 
for a trifle, or for nothing, to the public. A park 
is a great Avay off. It is uncertain Avhether in our 
day there will be a practicable park ; but here is a 
resort almost ready. 

Noav Mayor Wood has done many things, and 
done them Avell. Why will he not do one more 
that shall glorify his civic career? Let us have 
the Crystal Palace made a Avinter garden, open 
all day, and sometimes illuminated and open at 
night, Avith music. Our children Avill leave read- 
ing the Arabian Nights then for the better fun of 
seeing them. There shall be plenty of police to 
keep order and preserve the floAvers. But in such 
a place people would have self-respect enough to 
respect the trees and plants. 

Mayor Wood, shall we say a Winter Garden ? 



The Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, but Thanks- 
giving itself is not so soon digested. The good 
feeling that is the best sauce for that cheerful din- 
ner — the kindly sympathy Avhich that day devel- 
ops — the sense of rest and repose Avhich is insep- 
arable from the autumn feast— do not pass aAvay. 
They reach forward until Christmas takes up the 
Avondrous tale, and New Year sends it forward far 
toward the spring. Had we but some spring fes- 
tival of the same kind— these, with the Fourth of 
July, would circle the year with pleasant f ■■«*«■:?:. 



268 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



and generous feeling. What can be done ? May- 
day is not ours. There is no May-day worthy the 
poetic association of the name. May-day is mov- 
ing-day or nothing. In the city it is detestable — 
in the country it is worse. The farce of May-day 
is over. We have played poetry until Ave all took 
heavy colds in our heads or worse, and then we 
ran. In New England there is Fast-day, which is 
rather a cheerful occasion. The church is opened 
and business stops. But houses and hearts are 
opened too, and there is a good dinner. For it is 
wisely understood that the day is a day of com- 
memoration. It recalls the perils and privations 
of the early settlers in the wilderness, and the men 
of to-day pay homage to the men of yesterday, 
and their heroism and piety. 

But, dear Gunnybags, whatever festivals we 
may yet acquire, let us honor those we already 
possess. Let us be worthy to have such a world — 
such an abounding table — such huge roast turkeys. 
Let us be glad of all the good gifts — every thing 
that makes the face of man to shine. Yes, Gunny- 
bags, you, who have a million turkeys in your 
purse, remember, whenever you open it, you make 
a Thanksgiving whenever you choose. 



OUR FOREIGN GOSSIP. 

We sec the soldiers hutting themselves in the 
Crimea; the trenches are leveled; the rifle-pits 
are filled, and have made easy graves; canvas has 
given place to the wreck of houses; generals have 
mantles transported from Scbastopol, and even 
cornets eat their mess from deal tables. It is a 
siege no longer — but a city is camped against a 
city. The nights are lighted with trailing shells 
flashing over the Bay of Sebastopol ; but these are 
only errant messengers to keep good the practice 
of the bcleagured gunners. The letters are dull 
that come to ns now from the war-country ; the 
slaughter of a few men is but a tame affair after 
our glorious records of the summer. The heroic 
record is ended for the season, and Times corre- 
spondents have subsided into camp gossips. 

They tell us that Codrington — the new man who 
commands the British forces — has excited the jeal- 
ousy of his elders; and we suddenly find old Sir 
Colin Campbell and Adjutant-general Aircy sum- 
moned home by their private cares. 

The fat old Marshal Pelissier has, it would seem, 
grown inactive, and reposes upon the memory of 
the summer's triumph. 

In Constantinople are rumors of the departure 
of Lord Redcliffe, the bugbear of French letter- 
writers ; and rumors of an attack by the Tunisians 
upon the newly-built hospitals of France. We ven- 
ture to predict that, if true, it will not be the last 
time on which the turbaned men will smite against 
the stone barracks of their Allies from the West. 

The old Emir, Abd-el-Kader, so long a prisoner 
of France, and since a guest of Louis Napoleon, is 
just now reported in the City of the Sultans, on 
his way to retirement in the beautiful Damascus. 
The Turkish Government, urged on by their French 
Allies, have granted him a house in that City of the 
Rivers ; and the Emir is now replenishing his har- 
em from the ranks of the pretty Circassian women 
at Constantinople. Of the extent and taste of his 
purchases we may form some remote idea, by the 
fact that nearly five hundred thousand francs have 
found their way from the imperial exchequer, dur- 
ing the past season, into the pouch of this exile of 
Damascus. A large offset this to the showy Mos- 



lem trinkets which the Emir bestowed upon the 
fair Empress Eugenie. 

Eugenie, meantime, the tattling papers assure 
us, is in fine health and spirits, and keeps good her 
promise of making (so far as in her lies) the impe- 
rial household a happy one. She wanders daily in 
the pretty gardens that skirt her parlor at St. Cloud, 
and from time to time ventures upon a shopping 
visit to the town of Paris. 

Not shopping as most ladies shop, it is true — 
though she has her freaks of this sort of indulgence, 
and many a time the shop-goers at the Ville de 
Paris or at Deslisle are hustled to the wall by the 
imperial attendants who accompany her Majesty. 
But the shopping which the Empress affects noAva- 
days is the dispatch of an order to her dress-maker, 
of the Faubourg Poissoniere, to appear at the pal- 
ace of the Tuileries, at a giA-en hour of the morn- 
ing, Avith all her neAvest patterns, and with a taste 
of eA-ery noA r elty of the toAvn. The Empress neA-- 
er breaks her engagements — nor the dress-makers 
Avhen royalty commands. A brisk gallop through 
the Bois de Boulogne brings the Empress to the 
empty Tuileries salons ; and an hour's discussion 
of the mode, with such as FauA'ct or Barenne, en- 
livens the court life, and reduces her Majesty once 
more to the pleasant Ica'cI of a gossiping, shopping 
Avoman. 

But, as avc Avrite, the courts of the Tuileries 
are empty no longer; the imperial household has 
deserted St. Cloud ; the Emperor has had his short 
gaming frolic at Fontainebleau ; the trees of St. 
Cloud haA-e shed their lcaA r cs ; the cascade lias 
ceased its Sunday Aoav; the Sardinian King has 
come, or is coming, and is the guest of his great 
French ally. 

A A*ery round-faced, dinner-loving boy-man is 
the King of Sardinia — not disturbing himself so 
much with politics as with a bad-sighted foAvling- 
piece, and a good match for the Emperor at billiards 
or at piquet. 

Aside from this royal visit — a small one, after 
the Victoria entertainment of the summer — all Pa- 
risians are agog Avith the close of the Exhibition, 
and with discussion of the merits of the successful 
exhibitors. We Avrite too far in the eye of time to 
tell now of the brilliant ceremonies of the close ; a\ e 
can only record the magnificence of the prepara- 
tions. The long hulk of buildings by the river, 
with its accumulation of machinery, has disappear- 
ed like magic ; the displaced sycamores are finding 
their old feeding-place again along the quay ; the 
neAv bridge Avhich SAveeps over to the esplanade of 
the InA'alides looms upon the eye, with its flattened 
arches, a miracle of quick Paris artisans. The 
shoAviest stalls Avithin the palace have given way 
to the festal trappings of throne, and purple hang- 
ings, and long draperies of Gobelin tissue. The 
Emperor himself has uttered the names which the 
Imperial Commission haAe decided to honor. Ver- 
net has been \-oted first of painters — carrying off 
the golden medal of honor by the highest number 
of A'oices. 

Poor Rude, the sculptor, we learn, died suddenly 
in the day of his triumph, and Avas folloAved to the 
graA-e by the congregated artists of the capital. 

Yet, Avhile speaking of sculptors, it is observable 
that they have Avon feAv honors at the hands of the 
French juries ; few native artists haA-e been decreed 
a medal, and not one of all the competing sculptors 
of Great Britain. As an art, its representation 
seems to haA-e been \-astly inferior to the sister ar> 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



2GD 



of painting. Nor do we find that the Parisian taste 
lias confirmed the new English fancy of blending 
the two, by a revival of the old Greek fashion of 
coloring the marble. 

We are glad, for our own part, to see Vernet 
ranked foremost. We know it has been the way, 
with many over-nice art-critics, to decry the actu- 
ality of his painting and his lack of idealism ; but 
the man who can carry down to history such real 
transcripts of the war-life and hazards of this cen- 
tury — so true, so spirited, so full, so earnest — can 
well afford to ignore the critical talk about unity 
offended, or poesy discarded. There is something 
in his men and horses, as- they throng to his battle- 
canvas, which makes an observer breathe quick and 
stand aside. 

Shall we say any thing about American repre- 
sentation in that Paris galaxy of art ? If any thing, 
we shall say, unhappily, more than has been said 
in the leading journals of the capital. We have 
looked vainly for any harangue from Theophile 
Gautier about the American school of painting: 
we learn, indeed, and with great pleasure, that a 
bronze medal or two have been granted to Ameri- 
can artists : and connecting this with the fact that 
only a few of our painters now abroad have risked 
the competition, we may rest satisfied — satisfied, 
indeed, if Art does not make itself heard loudly in 
this Western Continent these thirty years to come. 



Besides the Exhibition and things belonging 
thereto, the Paris world is stirring its tongue in 
these days about the promised visit of the Sultan 
of Turkey. The great Eastern Ally, of the Moslem 
faith, is to show himself in the body to the Frank 
infidels sometime next summer; and the question 
which the pretty salon-mongers of St. Germain are 
bruiting nowadays is, what ones of his scores of 
wives will he bring with him, or will he leave them 
all among the cypresses of the seraglio ? 

What favors may be hoped for from the sover- 
eign of so many favorites ? What charms must he 
wear, whose gold and gardens have charmed so 
many ? Will there be a temporary mosque, if not 
seraglio, for the Padishah ? 

Will the Archbishop of the Imperial Papal 
Church do him honor, and preach a sermon of wel- 
come ? Will he attend the court mass of the faith- 
ful Eugenie? Will he listen to the Protestant 
blessing of the chaplain of the British Embassy, 
over the British Embassador's dinner? Will he 
say "God is great!" in Notre Dame? Will he 
sit cross-legged at the Opera Comique ? Will he 
put his offending handmaids in a sack and drown 
them off the bridge of the Tuileries ? 

Will it not be droll — this meeting of the Frank 
and Mohammedan in the parlor of the world ? 

And if droll in Paris, what may it be in sober 
England — to find the Eastern Monarch of the Tur- 
ban cross-legging by the British fireside of Mr. 
Bull? Will it not shock my good Lord Shaftes- 
bury to see the great bigamist profaning the En- 
glish court ? 

And even upon this side of the water (if we may 
spend a word upon things other than foreign) will 
not the Free-Lovers take heart in witnessing the 
honors paid to the great advocate of Passional At- 
traction ? 

Apropos of this free-love matter, we must enter 
down a story of Lecomte's, which he assures us is 
a true one. 

A pretty somebody, with rare attractions of face, 



soul, and figure, married, ten years ago, a wealthy 
German baron of twice her age, who kept her im- 
mured in his dungeon of a villa, and met always 
her mirthfulness and waywardness with the hard- 
ness of a man wrapped in money and in self. She 
bore tranquilly and dutifully her doom, but was 
glad of the freedom which came to her relief when 
the baron died, eighteen months ago. He even 
forgot himself to a certain leniency and warmth 
when he died, and by his will left his widow his 
whole fortune, provided she never married again. 

The beautiful mourner — with no strong love-pas- 
sages yet written on her life — consoled herself com- 
placently with the enormous rental of the dead 
baron, and in process of time — when mourning 
masses were said — came to the metropolis of 
France with a company of German friends. 

The change wrought wonders in her hopes and 
in her air. She lent herself joyously to the festiv- 
ities of Paris, and not a salon of splendor but caught 
an additional ray of attractiveness from the pretty 
face of the wizard widow. 

Once on a time, however, as she was struggling 
through the throng which beleaguered the door- 
ways on a reception night at the Palace of the 
Tuileries, she lost sight of her attending friends, 
and with them lost har ticket of entrance. 

What was to be done ? 

The hall was freezing ; the ball-dress light ; the 
crowd more and more annoying. In this crisis of her 

misfortune she was accosted by the Count V , 

who, with the gallantry of a Frenchman, unincum- 
bered by wife or retinue, offered his services to 
the distressed fair one. The offer of assistance 
was frank and manly ; the acceptance diffident, 
but honest. 

The Count advanced toward the Chamberlain 
(or his representative) with the fair lost one cling- 
ing to his arm. 

He announced the Count and Countess V . 

The doors were thrown back, and the parties were 
merged in the brilliant crowd of guests. In every 
salon and corridor they sought for the missing 
friends of the pretty estray ; and in every corridor 
and salon they felt the passional attraction making 
good the place of old acquaintanceship. 

At length the German friends were found, and 
the lady presented her protector as the Count 
V , an old acquaintance. 

The evening's adventure ripened into familiar- 
ity, and from familiarity, in process of time, be- 
came French love. The Count was poor, young, 
handsome. He offered his heart and hand. 

The lady, not insensible to the virtues and at- 
tractions of the Count, said Yes in her heart, but 
No with her tongue. She told him, in short, by 
what tenure she held the fortune, which she would 
be more than happy to shower upon him ; but the 
law was inexorable ; the Count was poor ; the thing 
was impossible. 

The marriage-thought was abandoned for the 
present; but a chance lay in the future; for the 
Count had in the South Provinces a rich bachelor 
uncle who had promised to make him heir to his 
estates. When this should happen, and the kind 
uncle grow kinder by his death, the fortune of the 
German baron might well be abandoned, and the 
two would possess the means of establishing them- 
selves in the world. 

But this bachelor uncle was of a very Puritan 
stamp, and of true Huguenot faith. It came to 
his ears that his cherished nepheV was living in 



270 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



strange Hasan with a pretty widow of foreign birth, 
against whom there had hitherto been no reproach. 

He wrote a bitter letter of reproof to the pre- 
sumptive heir, and bade him, as he valued his 
peace or his prospects, either to marry the charmer 
or to abandon her. 

The nephew in despair vacillated, equivocated, 
and, finally, so enraged the old gentleman that 
he altered his will, bequeathing his property to his 
nephew only upon condition of his marriage to 
some other one than the pretty lady in question. 
After this he died (so runs the story). What was 
to be done now ? 

Were both fortunes to be lost ? The Count re- 
flected, decided, acted after French manner. He 
stole away to the fiat countries of Holland ; sought 
out a poor, hopeful, elderly maiden, who would be 
content with the title of Countess and a few rix- 
dollars without ever a husband to house with her ; 
married her quietly — so quietly that the news only 
came to the solicitor of his deceased uncle — received 
the kinsman's fortune, and now sports the free-love 
doctrines in company with the pretty widow of the 
German baron. 

As they occupy separate establishments (says 
Lecomte) there is no offense to morality, and the 

Count V and the Widow Somebody are to be 

seen in the starchest salons of the high society. 



iter's UrmiiBL 



A HAPPY NEW YEAR is the brightest and 
best of the gifts to be found in the Drawer; 
for the wisest, if not the best of men, who had 
tried all sorts of good things, and knew them like 
a book, has left it on record as his candid opinion 
that " he of a merry heart hath a continual feast ;" 
and in this matter most especially and sincerely 
agrees the Drawer with Solomon. A continual feast 
should make A Happy New Year for every guest. 
Moreover, as the preacher says, a continual feast 
may derange the digestive apparatus even of a 
sound man, as too much of a good thing is some- 
times worse than none at all, and then, in that 
case, what physic would the Drawer recommend ? 
Not the pills and powders of the 'pothecaries' draw- 
ers, but Dr. Solomon's advice, who tells us that 
" a merry heart doeth good like a medicine." To 
the Drawer, then, come all ye who would have a 
Happy New Year ! let us be merry and glad ! 



"In a late month's Drawer," writes a friend 
of ours from the banks of the Delaware, "you 
tell us the way some men have of taking a 
joke, and suggest the expediency of having some 
visible signs by which the reader or hearer may 
know when the laugh comes in. Perhaps that 
plan may be necessary to the discovery of the wit 
in some matters of fact which have been recently 
recorded as part of the local history of the Lumber 
Region, where I am rusticating, and which I pro- 
pose to send off to lumber up your Drawer with. 

"But many a good story is spoiled in the tell- 
ing ; at times, to the great surprise of the teller, 
who forgets the point, or by the blunder of a word, 
blunts it so as to kill its effect. That old story of 
Jones and Brown's coat-tail is a fair specimen. 
Jones had told Brown that his coat was too short. 
1 All !' said Brown, ' it will be long enough before 
I get another,' at which the by-standers laughed 
applaudingly. Jones tried it on — the joke, not the 
coat — the next day in another company. ' Oh !' 



says he, ' did you hear what a good joke Brown 
made yesterday? I told him his coat was too 
short, and he said it would be a great while before 
he got another.' Nobody laughed ; but some one 
remarked that he didn't see the wit of it exactly, 
and Jones said he could now hardly see it himself. 

"Professor Wilson, of Philadelphia, was walk- 
ing out into the country with a friend, and met a 
great Pennsylvania wagon, drawn by six or eight 
horses, which had come from the far interior to 
market. The friend was a wag, and stopping the 
wagoner, he said to him, as he laid his hand on the 
tire of one of the wheels, 'My friend, you must 
have come a long distance to-day?' 

" ' Yes, I have ; but how do you know any thing 
about it, I should like to know ?' 

" ' Oh, I know you must, because 3 r our wheels 
are so Vwclcingly tired /' 

"The wagoner laughed and drove on. The 
Professor, to whom jesting was not familiar, ven- 
tured a few days afterward to repeat the conversa- 
tion, and was mortified to perceive that the story 
was received with profound silence, as he conclud- 
ed by saying that his friend replied to the wagon- 
er's demand, ' How do you know any thing about 
it?' 

" ' Oh, I know you must, your wheels are so 
completely exhausted.'' 

"We had a sad accident here last spring when 
we were getting down our lumber. It turned out 
better than it threatened at one time, for we had 
very nearly lost one of our cleverest fellows. Jim 
and Sam Robertson were brothers and partners in 
business. It is a mighty ticklish business to go 
down the rapids of the DelaAvare with a raft — very 
particularly so, if one's head is dizzy from the im- 
bibition of too much spirituous liquor. Jim was 
always afraid of getting the water into him, never 
of getting into the water himself. 'Water,' he 
would say, 'is well enough for logs to float in, 
and in a drought may do upon a pinch for occa- 
sional drink; but for a steady drink give me rum.' 
I have heard of others who held to the same opin- 
ion. There was a will case tried out here at the 
county court, where a hard old customer had made 
his testament on his dying bed. The question to 
be determined referred to the old man's being in 
his right mind. One of his neighbors appeared as 
a witness, and swore that he was with him till he 
died, and he knew that he was sensible to the last. 

" ' How do you know that?' asked the counsel. 

""Cause his last words was, "Give me some 
more rum !" and that's what I call being sensible 
to the last.' 

" Jim Robertson, of whom I was going to tell 
you a story, was in the tavern at Lackawaxen last 
fall, and was shocked at the miserable milk-and- 
water stuff they gave him for rum. He drank a 
glass of it, and, with a big oath, demanded, ' Do 
you call that rum ?' 

" The tavern-keeper knew it was more than half 
water, and inquired, 'Do you find it too weak, 
Jim ?' 

'"Weak, weehV roared Jim, ' I should say it 
was almost a fortnight /' 

" But I was to mention a disaster by which he 
nearly lost his life. He and his brother Sam were 
on their way down the river, on a raft, and Jim 
was just a little too drunk for safe navigation in 
bad water, when he slipped through and would 
have been drowned but for the energy of his so- 
berer brother, who rushed to the end of the raft 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



271 



and seized him by the hair as he came out. But 
the current was strong, and the strength of Sam 
was fast giving way ; he Avas just thinking of let- 
ting go his hold and leaving his brother to that 
most unfitting of all burials for him — a watery 
grave, when the drowning man got his mouth out 
of the water, and now for thejirst lime opened it, 
shouting, ■ Hold on, Sam ! hang on ! I'll treat, I 
vow I will !' 

" The appeal and the pledge were stimulating. 
Sam made one more pull and brought his brother 
on the raft. 

" I never heard of but one instance of sticking 
to it to the last more striking than those I have 
now mentioned. You remember the scissors story. 
" Mr. Snip, having made a handsome fortune in 
the goose and cabbage line, retired with his wife to 
a charming country residence, and resolved to for- 
get and deny that he had ever been a tailor. In his 
pride and his meanness he became very tyrannical, 
and whenever his wife wished to bring him down 
a peg or two, she reminded him of the fact that he 
was no more of a man now than when, like a wo- 
man, he sat all day with his needle and scissors. 
At length the very name of scissors became so 
hateful to him, that he forbade her ever to use it in 
his presence, and this decree very natually inspired 
the spirited spouse with a will to use it whenever 
she pleased, which was whenever she was dis- 
pleased. In the cool of the day they were sitting 
on the bank of a deep-flowing stream that adorned 
his grounds, and unhappily, indeed, unintention- 
ally, she mentioned in conversation the odious 
word. 

"'My dear,' said he, 'have I not again and 
again requested you not to use that word in my 
hearing ?' 

" ' Scissors !' said Mrs. Snip again. 
" ' Stop that, or I'll make you !' 
" ' Scissors, scissors !' said the roused woman 
fiercely. 

" They were now on their feet, and up for any 
thing. 

" ' Say that again,' cried the puppy of a man, 
' and I'll throw you into the river !' 
" ' Scissors, scissors, scissors ! !' 
" He pushed her in. She went down, but rose 
head first, and throwing up her hands, she seized 
his, which he extended to her support, as he, said, 
" ' Promise never to say that word again, and I'll 
help you out.' 

" 'Scissors, scissors, scissors !' she cried, and he 
dropped her. 

" 'The second time she came up he renewed the 
pious proposition, and with a fainter voice the un- 
relenting love replied, 
" ' Scissors, scissors !' 

" Once more, the third and last time, she came 
to the scratch ; he caught her cold hand and made 
her the generous offer, to which she responded fear- 
lessly, 

" ' Scissors !' 

"And down she went; but, cat-like, she was 
hard to die, and coming almost to the surface, she 
thrust the white hand above the wave, and open- 
ing her first and second fingers from the others, 
worked them up and down in the eyes of her be- 
reaved spouse, the symbol and a very fair resem- 
blance of his detested scissors. 

" And that is what I call sticking to it to the last. 
'Never give up!' was this amiable woman's rule, 
and with the fatal scissors she snipped the thread 



of life rather than yield the point. And with this 
I must also come to the close of my letter." 



" Old Dad" was the familiar title by which was 
generally known the eccentric landlord of the ho- 
tel in Lowville, New York. He was a good, easy 
soul, honest and unsuspicious, preferring to be 
cheated once in a Avhile rather than to be always 
looking out for rogues. Hence it was not a very- 
hard matter to impose upon him, and many were 
the bad bills with which he was stuck in the way 
of trade by his traveling customers. Indeed he 
would take almost any thing that was offered him 
in the shape of a bill, saying that bad money was 
about as good as any, as somehow it wouldn't stay 
in his pocket." Once, however, he took a V which 
stuck to him like a plaster. The more he tried to 
get rid of it, the more he couldn't. He had paid 
it out several times, but it came back as often, re- 
turned as "bogus." At length a traveler, with 
whom he was acquainted, stopped for dinner on 
his way to Utica, and it occurred to " Old Dad" 
that his bill might go down there, and stepping 
into the dining-room with it, handed it to his 
guest, asking him to put it off on the first old 
fool he met, and he would allow him one-half the 
amount. , 

The guest took it, and promised to do as well 
Avith it as he could, and account for it on his re- 
turn. On his way back from Utica he called, and 
" Old Dad" asked him where he had paid out the 
bill, as he had got it again, but could not, for the 
life of him, tell where it had come from. " Why," 
said the friend, "you told me to put it off on the 
first old fool I saw, and so I paid you for my din- 
ner with it." The old fellow acknowledged him- 
self sold, and after paying his guest the half, ac- 
cording to promise, and giving him his dinner be- 
sides, insisted that he had five dollars' worth of wis- 
dom out of the operation. 



A colored clergyman in Philadelphia recently 
gave notice as follows from the pulpit: "There 
will be a four days' meeting every evening this 
week, except Wednesday afternoon." 



Every body who has traveled much on our 
Northern railroads, must have noticed that in 
many of the cars the name of the makers, " Ea- 
ton, Gilbert, and Co.," is conspicuously posted. 
Not long since, in one of these cars, a passenger by 
the name of Gilbert was traveling with a company 
of friends, and seeing another sign over the above 
to the effect that "passengers are requested not to 
crack nuts in the cars," his innate love of fun was 
awakened. At the first stopping-place -he filled 
his pockets with pea-nuts, and distributing them 
among his friends, they were all soon busily en- 
gaged in eating them, and streAving the floor with 
the shells. The conductor in passing, gently in- 
timated that it Avas against the rules, and pointed 
to the printed notice. 

"Oh yes," said Gilbert, "I see, I see that, but 
you see by your oAvn rules we are privileged." 

The conductor, thinking that tiny would soon 
stop without any further trouble, passed <>n. On 
his next rounds he found the same party still at 
the nuts, and making a great display of Shells on 
the floor. Out of patience Ik; now spdke up quite 
sharply, and said to Mr. Gilbert: 

"You must comply with the rules of the com- 
pany if you travel in these cars " 



272 



HARPER'S NEW- MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" Certainly, certainly, Ave will, but you do not 
seem to be aware that I and my company are ex- 
cepted from the rule you refer to." 

" No, I do not know any thing of the sort, nor 
you either, and there is no use of having any words 
about it ; you must stop or quit the cars." 

"Be quiet a minute," replied Mr. Gilbert, "and 
I will convince you. To be sure it says, ' Passen- 
gers are forbid to crack nuts in the cars,' but right 
underneath is written, ' Eat on, Gilbert and Co.' 
Now my name is Gilbert, and this is my company, 
and we are doing as we are told." 

The conductor gave it up. 



" We were very much amused with your account 
of the Western plan of fencing the cemetery, by com- 
pelling every man who swore an oath to pay a fine 
toward paying for the fence ; and," says an Ohio 
contributor, " I must tell you that by a similar ar- 
rangement a great improvement was effected in 
our village some years ago. This was nothing less 
than drinking the stumps out of the streets. It 
was in war times, and our village was the head- 
quarters of General Harrison's army. The sol- 
diers and citizens were lax in their morals, and 
drunkenness became 'altogether too common ir. 
this community,' as Recorder Riker used to say ir. 
3 T ours. Accordingly Squire M'Cracken, Billy 
Cooper, and a few others, took it on themselves 
and ordered that every person found drunk should 
be required to dig up a stump from the streets : 
and as the village was in a new country, these 
stumps were very many and great. It is not on 
record how long this ordinance remained in force, 
but tradition relates that the offenders, as soon 
as they were sober enough, would go to work with 
right good will, joining good-naturedly in the pleas- 
antries of the by-standers, who usually gathered in 
numbers to ' assist' in the sport. The stumps are 
all gone now, and a neater village than Urbana 
now is it would be hard to find." 



Half the pleasure of winter evenings has been 
lost to half of civilized mankind since hard coal 
has taken the place of hard wood. A grate full 
of anthracite is not a grateful fire to one who was 
"brought up" in the country where wopd is cheap 
and abundant. We have sympathy with our cor- 
respondent, who celebrates in the lines following 
the praises of 

A WOOD FIRE. 

By my lonely fireside sitting, 
Where no other save its flitting, 

Flickering light is nigh ; 
What a world of dreamy fancies 
In each little bright flame dances, 

Keeping time with memory ! 

Cold and dead and dreary, seeming 
With no germ of fierce life teeming, 

Lies the unkindled pile ; 
Till by flaming brand ignited, 
Hearth and heart and home are lighted 

With a glowing smile. 

Cold and dead and dreary, seeming 
With no germ of passion teeming 

Throbb'd my heart awhile, 
Till its pent flames were ignited, 
And my heart and home were lighted 

By her glowing smile. 

Now the flames are dancing, singing, 
Cheerful thoughts and feelings bringing 
To my heart and home, 



And a golden light is glowing 
With a radiant splendor flowing 
Over all my room. 

She was gayly dancing, singing, 
And her merry laugh was ringing 

Through my heart and homo ; 
All her soul with joy o'erflowing, 
And her radiant face was glowing 

With a roseate bloom. 

Now the flames are fainting, reeling 
Ghastly, shadowy forms are stealing 

Noiseless through my room ; 
Flickering, fading, dying, dying — 
Hearth and heart and home are lying 

Wrapt in cheerless gloom. 

Shadows o'er my heart were stealing, 
And I saw her struggling, reeling 

Downward to the tomb ? 
Gloom was on my hearthstone lying, 
She I lov'd was dying, dying 

In her youthful bloom. 

Dead the smould'ring heap now lieth ; 
Dead ! the boding gloom replieth ; 

Shading now my hearth : 
Dead ! and like its flame are dying 
All the pleasures that are lying 

On our wayward path. 

Dead ! O God, the form I cherish'd ; 
Dead! and with her being pcrish'd 

Cheer from off my hearth. 
Dead my hopes 1 my heart is dying ! 
Dead the roses that are lying 

On my lonely path. Bepto. 

Ratenswood, Nov. 4. 

The reader came as suddenly as we did into the 
soul of our correspondent's musings over his wood- 
fire, and found his music, " like the memories of 
joys that are past, pleasing but mournful to the 
soul." 



As an " awful warning" to the ninety-nine hun- 
dreds of aspirants for place and power, read the 
summary of the dreadful ends to which all the 
Prime Ministers of England came, from the time 
of William the Conqueror down to the execution 
of the Earl of Strafford. The compiler of this 
table says : 

" I shall conclude this short abstract of history 
with the observation of as wise a politician as ever 
England bred — ' That there never yet was a prime 
minister in Britain but either broke his own neck, 
or his master's, or both ; unless he saved his own 
by sacrificing his master's.' 

" As the reader may perhaps be desirous to be- 
hold, at one view, the diverse casualties of the 
sundry prime ministers, I have here subjoined a 
table of them : 

" Prime Ministers. 

" Died by the halter 3 

Ditto by the ax 19 

Ditto by sturdy beggars 3 

Ditto untimely by private hands 2 

Ditto in imprisonment 4 

Ditto in exile 4 

Ditto penitent 1 

Saved by sacrificing their master _4 

Sum total of prime ministers 31" 

And now that we are in old English history, ad- 
mire this ancient will in rhyme, as it was written by 
William Hunnis, a gentleman of the chapel under 
Edward VI., and afterward Chapel-master to Queen 
Elizabeth : 

" To God my soule I do bequeathe, because it is his owen, 
My body to be layd in grave, where to my friends best 
knowen ; 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



273 



Executors I wyll none make, thereby great stryfe may 

grow, 
Because the goods that I shall leave wyll not pay all I 

owe." 

A very good reason, most indubitably, for not both- 
ering his executors. 

A sensible girl she was who in an old song 

says: 

" Titles and lands I like, yet rather fancy can 
A man that wanteth gold, than gold that wants a man." 

It has been generally believed, since a very 
wise man said so, that there is " nothing new un- 
der the sun;" and yet who would have thought 
that a Baltimore correspondent of the Drawer 
could produce such proof of the fact as that Livy 
was written by Homer, and Julius Caesar was the 
author of Kent's Commentaries ? But let the gen- 
tleman speak for himself. He writes : 

" A famous Greek Professor in one of the New 
York colleges once amused me with the assertion 
that he could show me, from his OAvn library, a 
work of no less importance and curiosity than a 
veritable edition of Livy by Homer ! Smiling at 
my incredulity, sure enough he took down a copy 
of the writings of T. Livy by the Rev. John Homer! 

" But I am indebted to nothing but happy acci- 
dent and my own profound research for the dis- 
covery of an allusion in Shakspeare's writings to 
a work supposed to be of modern and American 
origin. In the play of King Henry VI., Part II., 
Act IV., Scene 7th, Lord Say is made to say that 
" ' Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ, 1 etc. 

" It is obvious that, in the times of Shakspeare, 
Kent was not considered as the author of the Com- 
mentaries by a long shot." 



The poetry of a crazy poet is melancholy enough, 
even when it compels a smile. Nat Lee is still 
remembered by many who have forgotten the fol- 
lowing stanzas in which he attempts the ratioci- 
native : 

" I grant that drunken rainbows lulled to sleep, 
Snort like French rabbits in a fair maid's eyes ; 
Because he laughed to see a pudding creep, 
For creeping puddings only please the wise. 
" Not that a hard roe'd herring dare presume 
To swing a tithe -pig in a catskin purse ; 
Cause of the great hailstones that fell at Rome 
By lessening the fall might make it worse." 



Dr. Johnson was seldom more essentially 
Johnsonian than when, in his life of Milton, he 
thus sums up the duties of the faithful schoolmas- 
ter: 

" To recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate 
sluggish indifference, and to rectify absurd misap- 
prehension." 

We have known "several" youngsters whose 
memories were just about as long as that of the 
little boy who was munching a bit of ginger-bread. 
His mother asked who gave it to him. 

" Miss Johnson give it to me." 

"And did you thank her for it?" inquired the 
mother. 

" Ye — s, I did, hut I didn't tell her so!" was the 
decided, and no doubt the truthful reply. 



one of the pupils of a public school in the city, as 
they stepped out of the door, and saw the moon, 
which on that occasion wore a very red face. 

" Is that a wet or a dry moon ?" inquired the 
teacher. 

The boy had never heard these terms applied to 
the moon as a weather-sign, and after some hesita- 
tion he said, " I should think it was a wet moon." 

"Why so, sonny?" asked the gentle teacher, 
wishing to draw the little fellow out. 

" Well," said the boy, " it looks so plaguy red, 
I think it hain't been painted long enough to get 
right dry yet." 



I had both 
I lent my 



1 



fand a 
I to my 



1 



f of cither thought I store, 
I and tooke his word 
therefore ; 
I sought my \ Money \ from my \ Friend \ which 1 had wanted 

long, 
I lost my and my ) and was not this a 

J I J I wrong! 



At length with* 


fcame my' 
1 


f which pleas'd me won- 
i d'rous well, 


I got my 

But had I 
I'd keep my 


but my 
Money \ 

1 and a 
and my 


away quite from me 
■ Friend { fell ; 

1 as I have had before, 
1 and play the fool no 
L. more. 



Nothing more tenderly beautiful and touching 
has been found in our Drawer than this incident : 
A lady of remarkable loveliness was about to die. 
Her sister, lovely like herself, and loving her with 
the affection that must unite such hearts, approach- 
ed her dying bed, and with a sweet but faltering 
voice she sang these words : 

"Pilgrim, dost thou see yon stream before thee, 
Darkly winding through the vale ? 
Should its dreary waves o'erflow thee, 
Then will not thy courage fail ?" 

The dying, in a clear, unfaltering voice, replied 
by singing, ( 

"No, that stream has nothing frightful, 
To its brink my steps I'll bend ; 
There to plunge will be delightful, 
There my pilgrimage will end." 

Another moment, and the beautiful and beloved 

Mrs. T had ceased to sing and ceased to 

breathe. 



Equally pew and original, if not equally witty, 
was a similar dialogue between the teacher and 



This scene recalls most vividly " the Death- 
,Bed" lines by Thomas Hood. His infinite humor 
has made his name so closely associated with the 
mirthful we forget that Hood could write such lines 
as these : 

"We watched her breathing through the night, 
Her breathing soft and low, 
As in her breast the wave of life 
Kept heaving to and fro. 

" So silently we seemed to speak, 
So slowly moved about, 
As we had lent her half our powers 
To eke her living out. 

" Our very hopes belied our fears, 
Our fears our hopes belied — 
We thought her dying when she slept, 
And sleeping when she died. 

" For when the morn came dim and sad, 
And chill with early showers, 
Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 
Another morn than ours." 

James Aldrich is the author of eight lines not 
less perfect : 

" Her suffering ended with the day, 
Yet lived she at its close, 
And breathed the long, long night away, 
In statue-like repose. 



274 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" But when the sun in all his statu 
Illumed the eastern skies, 
She passed through Glory's Morning-gate, 
And walked in Paradise." 



A recent writer, describing with much display 
of learning and great regard to the precision of 
facts the discoveries made at Nineveh, says, "An 
image was taken from one of these mounds which 
was found in the second story of a temple weigh- 
ing twenty-seven tuns." An anxious inquirer ad- 
dressed the Avriter a letter, wanting to know " how 
large the image was, and why the mound was 
placed in the second story of the temple, and 
whether it is probable that the temple was weighed 
on the spot." 



An Eastern gentleman traveling in Arkansas 
meets with the following rules for the regulation of 
the hotel at which he puts up in that frontier State. 
Believing that they may furnish a hint or two to 
the hotel-men in this region, and some entertain- 
ment to the readers of the Drawer, he copies them 
in pencil from the placard on the door of his cham- 
ber, and sends them to us : 

RULES OF THIS HOUSE. 

1. Gentlemen will black their boots before leav- 
ing their rooms, or they will not be admitted to 
the table without an extra charge of a bit a meal. 

2. Gentlemen going to bed with their boots on 
will be fined a quarter for the first offense, four bits 
for the second, and turned out and sued for their 
board for the third, the landlord holding on to the 
plunder. 

3. No person allowed to call twice for the same 
dish without paying an extra bit. 

4. Gentlemen not on hand at meal-time can not 
come to the table without paying an extra bit. 

5. Any gentleman found going to the ladies 

ooras will be fined dollars, and perhaps turned 

out as the case is aggravating. 

6. All travelers are expected to treat before leav- 
ing the house ; the landlord holding on to the 
plunder till he comes out. 

7. Loud snoring not allowed, and a fine of a bit 
for every offense. 

8. Country soap for washing given here : a bit 
a week for town soap. 

9. A half dime will be charged for the privilege 
of the back porch on shady afternoons. 

10. Liquors with white sugar a bit a drink ; with 
common brown sugar, five cents. 

11. The landlord hopes that his boarders will ob- 
serve the above rules and say nothing, or means 
will be taken to see that thev do. 



The close of an election brings to a head many 
a sore that has been festering within for many a 
month. Jones was left high and dry by his party, 
who believed him to be playing them false, and 
even making terms with the enemy ; but Jones 
said he didn't care if they did compare him to 
Judas Iscariot ! 

"Ah, yes!" remarked, very quietly, one of his 
former friends, "it may be well enough for you, 
Mr. Jones, to say that you don't care about being 
compared to Judas, but how do you suppose Judas 
likes it?" 



Mrs. Woodsum was always dying, but never 
coming quite to the point. Her husband, hard- 
working farmer as he was, had spent a great deal 



of money on the doctors, who told him his wife was 
a victim of hypochondria, a disease of which people 
are always dying but never die. She sent for him 
one day when he was very busy on a distant part 
of the farm, and he had to leave his work and hast- 
en home, for the hired girl who came to call him 
said Mrs. Woodsum had bid all the children good- 
by, and was afraid she would go before Mr. Wood- 
sum would come. He arrived, however, while she 
was yet breathing. Indeed, he could not see any 
sign of approaching dissolution, for her hand was 
warm and her eye was bright ; but she spoke very 
feebly as she said to him : 

"Now, my dear, the time has come at last. I 
hope we shall be resigned ; but there is one thing 
on my mind that I must speak of; it's about you 
and the dear children. Now, don't you think it 
will be best for you to get married to some kind, 
good woman, that will be a mother to our dear lit- 
tle ones, and make your home pleasant for all of 
you ?" 

" Well, I've sometimes thought of late," said 
Mr. Woodsum, with a long face, " it might be the 
best thing I could do." 

" So yoitve been thinking of it, have you ?" said 
the dying dove with more earnestness than before. 
"Why yes," replied the good but rather mis- 
chievous man, " I have sometimes thought about 
it since you've had spells of being so dreadful sick ; 
perhaps it's my duty." 

"Well, it all depends on your getting the right 
kind of a woman ; I hope you will be very particu- 
lar about who you get — very." 

" You needn't be oneasy about that, wife ; I shall 
be very particular : the one I think of is one of the 
kindest and best-tempered women in the world." 

" What ! have you been thinking of any one in 
particular !" cried Mrs. Woodsum, much alarmed. 
" I should really like to know who on earth it is 
that you've been picking out a-ready. You haven't 
named it to her, have you?" she demanded, with 
more of earth than heaven in her eye. 

" Not at all, my dear ; but the subject agitates 
you, and we will drop it : indeed you ought not to 
have introduced it." 

" But you must tell me who it is ; I can't die in 
peace till you do." 

" It is too painful," said Mr. Woodsum, with a 
sigh ; it will not be best to call names : compose 
yourself, my dear." 

" But I insist on knowing who it is that you are 
after ; and if you have one spark of love for me, 
you will tell me before I die." 

"Well, then," said Mr. W., "if you insist upon 
it, my dear, I have thought, if it be the will of 
Providence to take you from us, if I have to marry 
again, I might, perhaps, get for my second wife 
your friend Hannah Lovejoy." 

That was enough. Mrs. Yfoodsum was struck 
as if an electric shock had gone through her. She 
jumped out of bed like a cat, walked across the 
room, and seating herself in a chair, cried out : 

"What! marry that idle, sleepy, good-for-no- 
thing Hannah Lovejoy — just because she's got a 
pretty face ! Mr. Woodsum, that's too much for 
flesh and blood to bear. I can't endure that, nor 
I won't! Hannah Lovejoy to be the mother of 
my children ! No, that she never shall ; so you 
may go to your work and set your heart to rest 
about my dying, or your getting that girl, I tell 
you. You needn't stay any longer, dear, on my 
account, I'm going to get dinner ready." 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



275 



Mr. Woodsum Avent to his plow, and at noon he 
came in and found his wife dressed and at the head 
of the table, looking five years younger than when 
he went out. Her health improved rapidly, and 
she had no more of that terrible hypo, which had 
killed her so many times before. 



Since butter has become so very dear, a receipt 
has been prepared for an admirable substitute : 
Marry a nice, good girl, and when she presides at 
table you will not require any but her ! 



The Widow Bedott was as widely known al- 
most as Mrs. Partington, a few years ago, and her 
charming papers have been gathered into a volume. 
The Widow was a fine specimen of the back-coun- 
try Yankee-woman — her great fault was self-con- 
ceit, and her chief failing was in making poetry. 
She was better at puddings. The first specimen 
we have of her talents in the art of poesy, is the 
effusion in which she celebrates the praises of her 
deceased husband, whom she is slanderously re- 
ported to have scolded to death. " It begins as 
toilers :" 

" He never jawed in all his life, 
He never was onkind, 
And (though I say it that was his wife) 
Such men you seldom find. 

" I never changed my single lot — 
I thought 'twould be a sin — 
For I thought so much o' Deacon Bedott 
I never got married agin." 

The Widow goes on at this rate for a score of 
verses, and finally brings her poem to a close with 
this tenderly pathetic stanza : 

"I'll never change my single lot — 
I think 'twould be a sin — 
The inconsolable Widder o' Deacon Bedott 
Don't intend to git married agin." 

But she did though. She went visiting to a 
sister of hers in another town, and there she heard 
a Baptist minister, who had just lost his wife, 
preaching on the uncertainty of all human expect- 
ations. The Widow was all struck up and broke 
down with this sermon, and with the sudden idea 
that the loss of the Deacon might be made up by 
getting the Elder. Accordingly she composed the 
following poem, entitled 

" CAN'T CALCILATE. 
"What poor short-sighted worms we be — 
For we can't calcilate 
With any sort of sartintee, 
What is to be our fate. 

"These words Prissilla's heart did reach, 
And caused her tears to flow, 
When first she heard the elder preach 
About six months ago. 

" I low true it is what he did state, 
And thus affected her, 
That nobody can't calcilate 
What is a-gwine to occur. 

"When we retire, can't calcilate 
But what afore the morn 
Our housen will conflaggerate, 
And we be left forlorn. 

" Can't calcilate when we come in 
From ary neighborin' place, 
Whether we'll ever go out agin 
To look on Natur's face. 
" Can't calcilate upon the weather, 
It always changes so ; 
Hain't go means of telling whether 
It's gwine to rain or snow. 



"Can't calcilate with no precision 
On naught beneath the sky ; 
And so I've come to the decision. 
That 'taint worth while to try." 



"What does-the minister say to our new bury- 
ing ground?" asked Mrs. Hines of her neighbor. 

" He don't like it at all ; he says he never will 
be buried there as long as he lives." 

" Well," says Hines, " if the Lord spares my life 
I will." 



"Silence silence!" cried the Judge, in great 
wrath ; " here — we have decided half a dozen cases 
this morning, and I have not heard a word of one 
of them!" 



General, Jackson was a man, every inch a 
man, and loved manliness, frankness, and sincer- 
ity in others. Peter Cartwright was a backwoods 
orator, as bold in the pulpit as " Old Hickory" was 
in the field. He had never rubbed his back against 
a college, or gone through one — into one door and 
out of the other. Indeed, he was never known t® 
quote Latin but on one occasion, and then after 
hearing a sermon so deeply metaphysical that he 
could not understand it, and being asked his opin- 
ion of the preacher, he exclaimed " in swamjms non 
comatibus" 

But Peter Cartwright was a noble preacher, and 
not afraid to declare the whole truth, whoever was 
present to hear. As he was to preach in the neigh- 
borhood, General Jackson went to hear him. One 
of his friends whispered to Peter, as he entered the 
church, that General Jackson was in the house, 
and gave him a caution about his manner. Cart- 
wright never whispered, but spoke out aloud, 
" Who cares for General Jackson ; he'll go to hell 
as soon as any other man if he don't repent." 

Then taking the pulpit, he preached with his 
usual bluntness and in the thundering tones of his 
native eloquence, which ever and anon made his 
hearers quake. After the service was over, a gen- 
tleman asked General Jackson what he thought 
of that "rough old fellow?" The General an- 
swered, " Sir, give me twenty thousand of such 
men, and I'll conquer the world, including the 
devil !" 



That no one may suspect us of trifling with 
serious things, we certify that we copy the follow- 
ing from a poem of five stanzas, being appended 
to an obituary notice of a child, and published in 
a Tennessee paper : 



" I am coming, sweet Willie, 

And so is your Ma, 
For to meet you in glory 

Along with your Pa. 
Come meet us a-flying 

And light on each breast, 
Then we'll sing hallelujah 

At home with the blest." 



Elijah Hedding was one of the noblest men 
and most godly bishops that the Methodist or any 
other Church has ever produced. He was "the 
good bishop" emphatically, and the savor of his 
name will be fragrant for successive generations. 
Like all other true men, he could enjoy a joke, and 
even to the latest days of his life on earth, he 
would say a pleasant tiling that would make those 
around him smile even in the midst of their tears. 



276 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



When the aged saint was drawing near to death, 
and was compelled by the nature of his disease to 
sit in a large rotary chair, one of his friends desired 
to fasten it, so that its motion might not disturb 
him. 

"No, no, brother," said the dying man, "you 
fixed it for me the other day, and I thought I 
should like it, but I had to have it unfastened 
again. The fact is, I never could endure to ride a 
hobbled horse. f " 

But he was a man of faith and earnestness, and 
here was the secret of his power. While he was 
yet a young man, and before he was made a bish- 
op, he was called to settle a bitter feud between 
two brothers-in-law. He brought them together, 
in the presence of several friends, taking his seat 
between them, and the wife of each sat by the side 
of her husband. They began to talk over the sub- 
ject of dispute,, when one of them suddenly warmed 
up and called the other a liar. Instantly both 
started to their feet and rushed at each other, the 
females screamed, and a general alarm ensued. 
Mr. Hedding rushed between them, seized each by 
the collar of his coat, and with his Herculean frame 
and strength held them at arm's length, face to face, 
but unable to strike. Then he lectured them as he 
held them, and made such an appeal as would have 
moved the stoutest heart. After he had calmed 
them somewhat, he suddenly exclaimed, 

"Let us pray!" 

And bringing the two men with him upon the 
floor, he prayed for them in the most powerful 
manner, still retaining his grasp on both. When 
he had concluded, he shook the one in his right 
hand, saying, 

"Pray, brother, pray." 

There was no refusing, and when he had con- 
cluded, he made the same demand to the other, 
and then Mr. Hedding said, 

"Amen. Now shake hands and live as breth- 
ren, and love each other as long as you live." 

They immediately embraced, settled their dis- 
pute, the only difficulty being to see which could 
concede the most to the other. 

While Mr. Hedding was an itinerant preacher 
he was traveling among the Indians, some of whom 
had been converted. He says in his journal, 

" It was astonishing and sometimes amusing to 
hear the questions they proposed. A squaw said 
she had heard her boy read in the New Testa- 
ment, that a man and his wife are one ; now sup- 
pose that the squaw is converted and her husband 
is a drunkard, when they die, will the Indian go to 
heaven with the squaw, or must she go to hell 
with her husband, for the Testament says they are 
one?" 

After he became a bishop he displayed great 
tact in making the appointments of ministers to 
particular circuits — the most delicate and difficult 
of all the tasks that fall on a Methodist bishop's 
hands. Sometimes it was impossible to give sat- 
isfaction. At the close of one of the conferences, 
after he had given out the appointments, and re- 
tired to his lodgings, a colored boy rushed into the 
room where he was sitting, and cried out in the 
greatest alarm, " bishop, bishop, bishop ! go up 
stairs quick, quick, quick ! there is a man dying 
up in your room !" He hastened up, and found 
one of the preachers on the bed, with his head 
pushed into the clothes, and blubbering like a 
whipped school-boy because he did not like his 
appointment. He made the man get up, and then 



said to him, "Now, stop this bawling, and go to 
your post and labor like a man." He then dis- 
missed him, supposing that would be the last he 
should hear from him. But a few days after the 
man came to see him again, and now he was fierce. 
" I don't blame you, bishop, I don't blame you ; it 
is that Chris. Frye, my presiding elder. And now, 
bishop, if you will only hear him and me preach 
two bouts of twenty sermons apiece, if I don't beat 
him I'll give up." The bishop did not concede to 
the man's proposal of a preaching match, but sent 
him to his place, from which he ran away before 
his year was up. 

The bishop was traveling, and as it Avas nearly 
the close of Saturday, he inquired at a tavern who 
were the principal men among the Methodists in 
the place he was passing through. The landlord 
pointed him to the house of the man who might be 
called the principal one, to whom the bishop im- 
mediately went, and introduced himself as a Meth- 
odist minister on a journey, adding that if it was 
convenient he would pass the Sabbath there. The 
man made no reply, but spoke of other matters. 

Presently the bishop took up his hat and said, 
"Good-afternoon, Sir!" 

The man stammered out, " I — I — guess you had 
better stay." 

The bishop said he did not wish to be a burden ; 
to which the surly man replied, " Oh, you can 
stay." 

After a while the bishop concluded to make a 
stay of it, for better or worse, but the prospect was 
sufficiently discouraging. When evening came, 
his host said to him, "There's a prayer-meeting at 
the meeting-house : you can go, if you please ; I 
can't go." The bishop went to the meeting, took 
his seat with the congregation, prayed with the 
other brethren, and returned to his lodgings. The 
house of his host was large and elegantly furnish- 
ed ; but at the hour of rest they sent the bishop to 
a small, remote chamber, and one far from being- 
clean. Here he had three apprentice-boys for his 
companions, one of them occupying the same bed 
with- himself. In the morning his host, in a half- 
inviting, half- repelling manner, remarked that 
there was to be a love feast, and inquired if he 
would go. 

" Oh, yes, certainly," said the bishop. 

Soon after he had taken his seat in the congre- 
gation the preacher came in. The host went up 
and spoke to the preacher, and both turned their 
eyes at once upon the stranger. The preacher in- 
stantly recognized the bishop and pronounced his 
name, when the man went covered with shame to 
his seat. Bishop Hedding was now called to the 
altar, and took charge of the love feast, preaching 
afterward. At the close of the service his poor 
host came up to him, and half-mad, half-gracious, 
but thoroughly confused and ashamed, said in a 
quick, impatient manner. 

" Why didn't you tell me you was a bishop ?" 

" Oh," said he, " I am a plain Methodist preach- 
er." 

Both the man and his wife were completely over- 
come with mortification, and it was a relief to the 
bishop to get away from them and go home with 
the minister. 

Fond as the bishop was of pleasantry, and play- 
ful in his private and social intercourse, he was 
remarkable for his gravity in public life. A pillar 
of marble could scarcely be more immovable. His 
biographer says : 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



277 



" I never saw him thrown oft' his balance but 
once. At a certain conference a brother was rec- 
ommended for admission on trial. But his recep- 
tion was opposed by an influential member, on the 
ground of his insufficient education. He sustained 
this objection by citing instances of false syntax 
in a discourse which he said he had heard the can- 
didate preach. In the midst of these rather un- 
gracious remarks an Irish member, whose ready 
wit was known to all, hastily rose, and advancing 
a step toward the speaker, said, with an air and 
earnestness which it would be difficult to de- 
scribe, 

" Broother ! broother! don't you think he was em- 
barrassed because you icere there ?" 

The stroke was irresistible. The conference was 
convulsed. Even the bishop could not stand be- 
fore it; giving himself up to his emotions, his 
whole frame shook as if receiving successive shocks 
from a galvanic battery. 



One seldom meets with more sententious and 
amusing dialogues than are to be found among the 
" examinations" before our metropolitan magis- 
trates, in the matter of infractions of the new pro- 
hibitory law. The following "examination" of a 
legal " derelict," an English Cockney, may be taken 
as a specimen : 

Judge. "You are a hard subject.* 

Prisoner. " Dessay" (dare say). 

Judge. "Are you not ashamed of yourself, to 
be found lying drunk in door-ways?" 

Prisoner. " B'lieve so." 

Judge. "Are you not certain that you are ?" 

Prisoner. " Probably." 

Judge. " Did you drink liquor last night?" 

Prisoner. " P'raps." 

Judge. " Where did you get your liquor ?" 

Prisoner. " Dun' no." 

Judge. " What kind of liquor did you drink ?" 

Prisoner. " I halways 'ad a passion for gin." 

Judge. " Did you drink gin last night?" 

Prisoner. " Dessay." 

Judge. " Are you not certain that you did ?" 

Prisoner. "Mebbee." 

Judge. " How often did you drink ?" 

Prisoner. "Honly ven I've got the 'tin' to 
pay. Dutchmen vont trust now." 

Judge. " Did you have any money last night?" 

Prisoner. " Likely." 

Judge. " How did ) r ou get it?" 

Prisoner. " 'Oldin' ov an 'orse't." 

Judge. " How much did you get for the serv- 
ice ?" 

Prisoner. " A shillin'." 

Judge. " And Avith that you bought your gin ?" 

Prisoner. " Probably." 

Judge. " And got drunk ?" 

Prisoner. " Poss'bly." 

Judge. " Where do you live ?" 

Prisoner. " No vares in partie'lar." 

Judge. " Where do you eat ?" 

Prisoner. "Where the'wittles is." 

Judge. " Where do you sleep?" 

Prisoner. " Any vares vere the vatchman 
can't nab me." 

Judge. " I shall have to send you up to the 
Island as a vagabond." 

Prisoner. " Dessay." 

Judge. "You've been there before?" 

Prisoner. "Mebbee.* 



Judge. "Don't you know whether you have 
been there or not?" 

Prisoner. " Pr'aps." 

Judge. "Are you positively certain of any 
thing?" 

Prisoner. " Dun' no." 

As Samivel Veller says, "Not much information 
elicited from that witness!" 



The affectation of a knowledge — "knowledge 
above what is written" — in the matter of musical 
criticism, is well hit oft' in the following capital 
burlesque : 

"Madame Blank's is a real, or twelve-and-a- 
half cent contralto, of the purest and most sonori- 
ous description. She goes down deny down to the 
lower fe, ft, fo, fum, in the basement, and up again 
to the hut above the clothes-line on the soperalito — 
thus embracing an extent of two Octavians and a 
half in the Mountaineers. One must hear this 
artist to understand the consumptive skill with 
which she uses her munificent organ. It is even, 
odd, light, dark, liquid vocalization, combined with 
the diamond-setting on a style Maccaroni. It is 
really impossible in words to give any clear idea 
of such a voice ; so sure, so uncertain, so true — such 
effort without exertion — and every note as perfect 
as a drop of dew, mist, rain, or a thaw. Never a 
scream irradiating or offending the ear, nor the 
slightest dramatic proportion. Madame Blank is 
perfection !" 

Hood had to pick up his living at the point of 
his pen, and puns sold better than poetry. He 
could turn every thing to punning account, and 
scattered puns by mouthfuls. In him punning was 
tolerable, because he was also a poet, and graced- 
it with poetry. His poetry and prose ode address- 
ed to his son, three years and five months old, is a 
capital specimen of his power. The last stanza is 
as folio vvs : 

" Thou pretty opening rose ! 
(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !) 
Balmy and breathing music like the south ; 
(He really brings my heart into my mouth !) 
Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star : 
(I wish that window had an iron bar!) 
Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove! 

(I'll tell you what, my love, 
I can not write unless he's sent above!)" 



Thomas Holloway, the great pill and oint- 
ment man in London, writes to the Prairie News 
on the subject of advertising. He says : 

" Dear Sir, — A correspondent of yours has rec- 
ommended your paper to me as an advertising 
medium. He mentioned the circulation, but may 
have been mistaken in the amount. Will you 
kindly inform me as to the circulation of your 
weekly, as I wish to make a contract with you for 
the insertion of my advertisement. I am unlimited 
in my advertising; my list of papers is now 1300, 
and I pay in advance. Yours respectfully. 

To which the editor of the News responds : 

Very dear Si it, — The circulation of the Prairie 
News, which has been increasing with unexampled 
rapidity for more than two years, now amounts to 
forty-three, though I am bound in honor to say 
that two of my subscribers being very precarious 
pay, I shall probably cut them off' before this letter 
reaches you, so that you are at liberty to consider 
the list reduced to forty-one. To this number 
should be added seven gratis copies, sent to as 



278 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



many friends of mine at a distance, out of compli- 
ment to their indefatigable exertions in procuring 
new subscribers. This number should be further 
augmented by a permanent exchange list of sixty- 
five, making in all a constant weekly circulation 
of one hundred and thirteen, besides an average of 
half a dozen surplus copies a week, which are sent 
with religious>scrupulosity to postmasters and other 
distinguished individuals in benighted parts of the 
world. I have good grounds for estimating my 
reading patronage at forty-nine persons per copy. 
You may safely calculate that the 5537 readers of 
my paper would consume on an average ten dollars 
worth per annum, each, of your pills and ointment, 
particularly the pills, for I can not promise you an 
extensive sale of your ointment in this region, 
cutaneous diseases being rare, as may be inferred 
from the fact that the foreign born population of 
Mississippi is only one in sixty-two of the aggre- 
gate. So you perceive I shall be the means of 
opening a market to you for $55,370 worth of the 
invaluable remedies which have immortal-//<?s-ed 
your name, on which, after deducting the cost of the 
materials, boxes, etc., your profit will be about 
eighty-five per cent, or $47,0G4 50. Upon this 
handsome increase of your profits, accruing through 
my instrumentality, I propose to charge the mod- 
erate commission of one per cent, or $473 62£. 
If these terms do not suit you, come over by the 
next steamer, and we'll talk about it. If you are 
satisfied with them, for the first quarterly instal- 
ment of $117 66, be so good as to pay for me one 
year's subscription to Punch, Diogenes, and The 
Times, all of which are good papers, and should be 
encouraged, and send me the balance in cuttings of 
the London Particular Madeira grape-vine. Sub- 
sequent installments may be sent, at your option, 
in Bank of England notes, or any sort of truck ex- 
cept your medicines. Give my best respects to 
Queen Victoria, the next time you see her ; tell 
her she is a lady whom I greatly esteem, and that 
I often think with what satisfaction, while this 
disastrous war is so thinning the population of her 
realms, she must reflect that she, at least, has done 
her duty in the way of keeping it up. 

Your obedient servant, The Editor. 



Any John Smith is to be pitied. He has no 
personal identity. He can not " hold property," 
not even an umbrella, with his name in it. What 
are post-offices and city dispatches to him ? Lis- 
ten for a moment to only a few of the annoyances 
which beset the John Smith "you read of" at this 
present : 

"I have been advertised in the newspapers; 
persecuted by females whom I knew not; had 
callow bantlings laid on my door-steps. In short, 
I have suffered every thing but death, and all for 
my name. I am still plodding along the vale of 
existence, looking at the bright steep of fame in 
the distance, knowing it "impossible to climb." 
My name hangs to my tail as heavy as the stone 
of Sysiphus. I almost wish I A\as entirely de- 
funct ! 

" I have got a home of my own, and am ' well 
to do in the world.' But I am not happy. I dis- 
burse the postage for a weekly mass of letters, of 
which three in five are intended for others. I read 
notices concerning me, hymeneal and obituary, 
several times in a month. I have been waited 
upon simultaneously by persons who had come to 
wish me joy, in the expectancy of a punch-drink- 



ing, and by rival tomb-stone cutters, desirous of a 
job ' to my memory,' from the surviving members 
of my bachelor household. 

" I pay twice my own amount of bills. A John 
Smith lives next door, to whom half my choice 
rounds and sirloins, selected personally in the 
market — for I love good feed — are sent without dis- 
tinction. My name is a bore, and my life a bur- 
den. Touching the debts I have paid which were 
not my own, they have harassed me beyond meas- 
ure. Such is the perplexity arising from their 
constant and unavoidable occurrence, that I begin 
to think myself a member of that class of repro- 
bates mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to the 
Romans, who have been given up by Divine Provi- 
dence to ? do those things which are not convenient. 1 

"The last and crowning enormity was in being 
represented in the daily newspapers as having been 
arrested and sent to Blackwell's Island for stealing 
clothes from different hotels ! — and, although inno- 
cent and out of prison, yet it is almost as hard as 
confinement to have every other friend one meets 
ask him, ' How did you get out ?' — ' When did you 
leave the Island?' and congratulating him upon 
having, after all, escaped the fangs of the law !" 

" Important personages" are much more com- 
mon in churches " over the water" — in the congre- 
gations, we mean — than they are in our republican 
country. This is very amusingly exemplified in 
the following : 

" Old Mr. B was the great man of a small 

neighborhood, and ' patronized' a Protestant church 
in his vicinity. The congregation was small, and 
Mr. B - had the most important face, and was 
altogether the most important personage in the 
church. The parson never commenced the service 
until he made his appearance. Sometimes the lat- 
ter would fall asleep during the sermon ; upon 
which the clergyman, out of respect to his patron, 
would pause awhile. Presently the old gentleman 
would wake up, rub his eyes, and exclaim, with a 
gentle wave of his hand, ' Go on, Sir — go on ; I am 
with you!'" 

Apropos of sermons, but more especially of long 
sermons, here is a "case in point:" 

We once knew a judge, "learned in the law," 
who, when at church (forgetting that he was not 
on the. bench), invariably fell asleep. He always 
sat out the service, however, except on one occa- 
sion. It was a sultry summer afternoon ; he had 
listened long, and slept patiently ; but at length, 
in a pause of the discourse, which the dominie had 
split into twenty-four remaining parts, he opened 
the pew-door and walked out into the porch, where 
he was accosted, by a tired-out hearer like himself, 
with : 

"Why, what's the matter, Judge? what has 
brought you out ?" 

" I am going for my night-gown and slippers," 
he replied ; " for I find I must take up my quarters 
here to-night!" 

He should have stood his ground, looked at the 
minister, and — yawnedi 



Professor S. E. B. Morse, the inventor of 
Morse's Electric Telegraph, "known and honored" 
throughout the world, gave, on a recent public oc- 
casion, a very interesting account of his struggles 
in bringing the wonderful thing before the public, 
and in obtaining a grant from Congress to " try it* 
on a line between Washington and Baltimore 



EDITOR'S DRAWEE. 



279 



Mr. Morse was in Washington, almost worn out 
with his incessant exertions, in endeavoring to pro- 
cure the passage of his bill. It finally was got 
through the House, and for the rest — which is 
briefly stated — we leave the great "Lightning 
School-teacher" to tell his own most interesting 
story : 

""My bill had indeed passed the House of Re- 
presentatives, and it was on the calendar of the 
Senate ; but the evening of the last day had com- 
menced with more than one hundred bills, to be 
considered and passed upon, before mine could be 
reached. 

" Weai-ied out with the anxiety of suspense, I 
consulted with one of my senatorial friends. He 
thought the chance of reaching it to be so small, 
that he advised me to consider it as lost. In a 
state of mind, gentlemen, which I must leave you 
to imagine, I returned to my lodgings, to make 
preparations for returning home the next day. 

" My funds were reduced to the fraction of a dol- 
lar. In the morning, as I was about to sit down to 
breakfast, the servant announced that a young lady 
desired to see me in the parlor. It was the daugh- 
ter of my excellent friend and college class-mate, 
the Commissioner of Patents. She had called, she 
said, by her father's permission, and in the exuber- 
ance of her own joy, to announce to me the passage 
of my Telegraph Bill at midnight, but a moment be- 
fore the Senate's adjournment ! 

"This was the turning-point of the Telegraph 
Invention in America. 

"As an appropriate acknowledgment for the 
young lady's sympathy and kindness — a sympathy 
which only a woman can feel and express — I prom- 
ised that the first dispatch, by the first line of tele- 
graph from Washington to Baltimore, should be 
indited by her. To which she replied : ' Remem- 
ber, now, I shall hold you to your word !' 

" In about a year from that time the line was 
completed ; and every thing being prepared, I ap- 
prised my young friend of the fact. A note from 
her inclosed this dispatch : 

" ' WJiat hath God wrought V 

" These were the first words that passed on the 
first completed line of electric wires in America. 
None could have been chosen more in accordance 
with my own feelings. It baptized the American 
Telegraph with the name of its author." 



It will be hard to resist a tear to the memory of 
the brave, in reading the following incident, which 
occurred on board Perry's vessel, after the battle 
of Lake Erie : 

One poor fellow was sent below to the surgeon, 
with his right arm dangling like an empty coat- 
sleeve at his side. It had been shattered near the 
shoulder, and amputation was pronounced un- 
avoidable. He bore the painful operation with- 
out a groan or a murmur, although "cold drops of 
agony stood on his trembling flesh." 

An hour or two after his arm was amputated, 
he called the surgeon to his side, and said : 

" I should like to see my arm, if you have no 
objection." 

" None in the world," replied the surgeon, " if 
you desire it." 

The amputated limb was at once brought to him, 
and poor Jack, pressing the cold hand which had 
"forgot its cunning" in his left, exclaimed, with 
tears in his eyes : 

" Farewell, old messmate ! You and I have 



weathered many a tough gale together, but now 
we must part ! You have been a good friend to 
me ; I shall never find such another 1" 

"One might as well be out of the world as out 
of the fashion,", is an old maxim ; but it is " won- 
derfully wonderful," as the man in the play has it, 
what changes there are in fashions. Just now, the 
wits are satirizing and laughing at the diminutive 
hats of the ladies. It was not exactly " the mode" 
in New England in the 

" Good Old Colony times, 

When we lived under the King," 
if we may trust the " Simple Cobbler of Agawan," 
who wrote in Massachusetts as early as 1647, as 
follows, of the ladies' dresses of that period : 

" I can make myselfe sick at any time with 
comparing the dazzling splendor wherewith our 
gentlewomen, were embellished in some former 
habits with the goose-down wherewith they are now 
surcingled and debauched. We have about five or 
six of them in our colony. If I see any of them 
accidentally, I can not cleanse my phansie of them 
for a moneth after. It is enow to break the heart 
for to see our goodly women imprisoned in French 
cages, peering out of their hood-holes (big bonnets 
were ' the thing' in those days) for some men of 
mercy to help them with a little wit, and nobody to 
relieve them. It is no marvel they weare drailes 
on the hinder-part of their heads, Jeaving nothing, 
as it seems, in the fore-part but a few squirrel's 
brains, to help them frisk from one ill-favored 
fashion to another. It is no little labor to be con- 
tinually putting up English women into outland- 
ish caskes ; who, if they be not shifted anew, once 
in a few moneths, grow too sour for their hus- 
bands. 

" When I hear a nagiperous gentledame inquire 
what is the newest fashion of the Court, with de- 
sire to be in it in all haste, whatever it be, I look 
at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of 
the quarter of a cipher — the epitome of nothing!" 

The old Cobbler certainly does not mean by 
these compliments to indicate one of the strong- 
minded women " of our day and generation !" 



Some go to Church j ust for a walk, 
Some go there to laugh and talk, 
Some go there for observation, 
Some go there for speculation, 
Some go there to meet a friend, 
Some go there their time to spend, 
Some the impulse ne'er discover, 
Some go there to meet a lover, 
Some go there to sleep or nod, 
And some go there to worship God." 



Tall oaks from little acorns grow : large streams 
from little fountains flow : a great matter a little 
fire kindleth ; and a score of other sayings assure 
us of the great effects that follow very slight causes, 
but we have scarcely met any thing more admira- 
bly illustrative of the fact, and, at the same time, 
of the adhesiveness of governments to old usages, 
than is given by Charles Dickens in his late re- 
form speech : 

"Ages ago a mode of keeping accounts in the 
Exchequer by means of notched sticks was intro- 
duced. In th2 course of time the celebrated Cocker 
was born and died : then Walkinghame, the author 
of the ' Tutor's Assistant,' and a multitude of ac- 
countants, actuaries, and •mathematicians, who dis- 
covered and published means of account-koeping 



280 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



by ordinary arithmetic, far more ready, and which, 
in their every-day transactions, every body used ; 
but official routine looked upon these notched sticks 
as part of the Constitution, and the Exchequer still 
continued to be kept by these willow tallies. But 
toward the end of the reign of George III., it oc- 
curred to some innovating and revolutionary spirit 
to suggest the abolition of this barbarous custom, 
and immediately all the red tape in all the public 
departments turned redder at the idea of so bold a 
conception ; and it was not until the year 1826 that 
the custom of keeping these Exchequer accounts 
by willow tallies ceased. In 1834 it was found that 
a large accumulation of these tallies had grown up 
in the course of time, and the question arose what 
was to be done with these old worm-eaten, useless 
bits of wood ? They were housed at Westminster. 
Common sense would have suggested that they 
should have been given to some of the poor miser- 
able people who abounded in that neighborhood 
for fire-wood ; but official routine could not endure 
that ; and, accordingly, an order was given that they 
should be burned privately. They were burned in 
a stove in the House of Lords ; but the stove, being 
overheated with them, set lire to the paneling of 
the room, the paneling set fire to the House of 
Lords, the House of Lords set fire to the House of 
Commons, and the two Houses were reduced to 
ashes." 



It is admitted and mourned by many that a pro- 
hibitory law, by general acquiescence in its require- 
ments, should not have proved more effective ; but 
neither the friends nor the enemies of the " bill" 
will find any thing to complain of in the following 
playful exposition of the way in which the provis- 
ions of the law may be evaded. It is an extract 
from a " Maine Law Melody" and is supposed to be 
a modern midnight conversation between Spirits: 

" Humph !" said Brandy the Bold, 
I'm condemned to be sold 

No more in the way of a frolic ; 
Only this very day, 
A chap over the way, 

To procure me, pretended a colic. 
"When I saw myself pass 
In an ounce-measure glass, 

I felt such a measure improper; 
And with anger I vow, 
For I've not a cork now, 

I exploded, and blew out my stopper." 
" Faugh !" said Port—" only think 
That such comforting. drink 

As I'm well known to be, should see a 
Metamorphose so strange, 
And, oh ! terrible change ! 

Note my name in the Pharmacopeia. 
To be sure, I am sold 
Just as much as of old, 

To many a ' dry' dropping-in gent. ; 
Who makes a wry face, 
Says, * Mine's a bad case, 

Just give me a pint of Astringent. 1 " 

"That's how they take me in," 
Then out-gurgled Gin, 

"As 'cock-tail' or 'sling' I'm not lawful; 
But for ' spasms' or ' giddiness,' 
Or pains in the kidneys, 

The way that I'm swallowed is awful !" 
"True!" quoth Rum; "just to see 
How the patients bolt me, 

"With a phiz as if I was emetic ; 
And, by way of a sham, 
Pass me off as a flam, , 

By calling me ' Diaphoretic.'' " 



Thus each one chimed in, 
That he thought it a sin 

With such nauseous new friends to be dv, eiliug ; 
With cough-stuff and senna, 
Ipecacuanha ! ^ 

And vile asafoetida smelling ; 
What with hartshorn and "ile," 
And stuff for the bile, 

And many a quack mixture cried up : 
And nasty black leaches, 
Each stomach it retches, 

And one really brings his inside up. 

The foregoing would seem to indicate that many 
places have become very sickly since the passage 
of the Maine Law, which "were not so before." 
Some have even gone so far as to quote Saint Paul 
in favor of wine as remedy for a very " popular" 
ailment under the new law : 

" Take a little wine for the stomach-ache!' 1 '' 



It is not often that we encounter any thing 
which combines pathos and poetry to the same 
marvelous extent as in the following doleful bal- 
lad. We give but part of it, including one catas- 
trophe, that of murder. The subsequent trial and 
execution of the criminal would be too much to 
bear at once. It is a choice specimen of Hoosier 
literature ; and what is mere, is from the pen of a 
schoolmaster : 

A SONG. 

On the death of Fuller, who was executed at Lawrence 
Burgh, Dearborn. County, and Indiana. Wrote by Josiah 
I. Cooper, Aug. 17, A.D. 18G1, Clinton County, Indiana. 

Ye sons of Columbia your attention I crave 

Whilst a sorrowful Dity I tell 

Which happened of late in the Indiana State 

On a hero who many did excele 

Like Sampson he courted and made choice of the fair 

Intending to make her his Wife 

But she like Delilah when his heart she did ensnare 

Oh she cost him both his honor and his Life 

A gold wring he gave her in token of love 

On the poesy was the image of the Dove 

And mutually agreed for to marry with Speed 

For she promised by the powers above 

His deportment was lovely he was handsome and trim 

No man was more Loyal and Brave 

But I am sorry for to say instead of a wedding day 

Poor Fuller lies silent in the grave 

For this feeble minded maid she Vowed again to Wead 

With young Warren a liver in that place 

Which was a fatal blow for it prooved his ovei-throw 

And added to her shame and disgrace 

For Satan through the hands of the Woman laid a snare 

To deprive these two heroes of their lives 

So young men be cautious be wise and be ware 

Of your Vows when you are coarting of your Wives 

For when Fuller came to hear that he was deprived of his 

dear 
Whom he had vowed by the powers for to Wead 
Straight to Warren he did go with his heart so full of Woe 
And smiling unto him he said 

Young man you have injured me to gratify your cause 
By Reporting I have left a prudent wife 
Oh acknowledge you have wronged me or tho I Break the 

law 
Oh Warren I'le deprive you of your life ! 

Then Warren he Replied your Request must be denied 

Unto your darling my heart it is bound 

And further I can say this is my wedding day 

In spite of all the heroes in Town 

Then fuller by the passion of Love and anger bound 

Alas it caused many for to cry 

For at one fatal shot he killed Warren on the spot 

And smiling said I am Willing for to Die 



Cljt $ni nf Wm. 




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Vol. XII.— No. G8.— S* 



282 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 







THE SEVEN AGES OF VIRTUE AND OF VICE. 



283 



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WMIJI 'I W/ 







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Mr. Smythe, having read about Life Insurance, 
dreams thereof, as follows: 




The Physician declareth that his brain, lungs, and 
heart are affected. — Premium accordingly. 




Trying to cross Broadway, he falleth into trouble. 
Miraculous Escape. 



4^%. I ' ft 



A* 







Keacheth Home. — Camphene Explosion — Hair 
burnt off. — Presence of Mind of Mrs. S. 




He calls at the Insurance Office ; whereat the offi- 
cials rejoice greatly. 




He leaveth the Office. Meeteth with Accident 
Number One. Life not lost. 




The pavement gives way, and he falleth into a 
Laa'er Bier Saloon. 



:sg 




Procureth a Wig. Ardent Politician mistakes 
him for a Member of the other Party. 



LIFE INSURANCE— A DREAM. 



285 




The Doctor consoleth him by the assurance that 
his -wounds are not mortal. 




Tries Fishing. Falleth into the water ; but is not 
quite drowned. 




i St" I ■ 



On hoard a Steamer. — Is blown up. "What he 
dreamt heoame of him. 




Examines himself. — Finds it was all a Dream ; 
but it might have been true. 




Goeth to the country to recruit. Meeteth an ac- 
cident in Hunting. 




Goeth to Philadelphia via Camden and Amboy 
R. R. — Natural consequences follow. 



f3 




Awakes. — Finds he is really blown up — by Wife 
for putting Foot on Baby. 



• 




Best to be on the safe side. Proceeds to get his 
Life insured. 



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Furnished by Mr. G. Brodie, 51 Canal Street, Neiv York, and drawn by Voigt 

from actual articles of Costume. 




Figures 1 and 2. — Home Dress and Boy's Costume. 



288 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



THE special novelty in the Home Dress illus- 
trated on the* preceding page consists in the 
fashion of the Sleeve. This will commend itself to a 
correct taste as giving full effect to the graceful 
droop of the shoulder, which forms so striking an 
element in the beauty of the female form. It is diffi- 
cult to construct a sleeve that shall start with full- 
ness from its insertion at the shoulder, which shall 
not offend the cultivated eye by the unnatural width 
given by it to the figure at this point. This diffi- 
culty has here been obviated by the manner in which 
the triangular piece is inserted. The cuff is turned 
back upon the sleeve, and is confined by buttons, 
similar to those upon the moire antique trimming 
upon the other portions of the dress. In order to 
avoid the inconvenience, in a Home Dress, of hav- 
ing the sleeves continually falling in the way, no 
greater fullness has been given to them than is ab- 
solutely necessary to avoid a poor and meagre ap- 
pearance of the outline. — The Boddice is high, 
close-fitting, and plain ; somewhat pointed, a form 
which we can not avoid regarding as more grace- 
ful than the rounded waists, which are much in 
vogue with those who do not affect the jacket or 
lappets. We must, however, state that the Basque 
is very generally adopted, and bids fair to retain its 
place for some time. — The Skirt is made full and 
long, beirfg ornamented in the same manner as the 
sleeve. The diamonding lines are composed of 
piping. This trimming is continued in the manner 
indicated, and at the bottom occupies a full width 
of the skirt. — The under-sleeves are close at the 
waist. They and the collar are of English em- 
broidery. The coiffure is Valenciennes. 

The Boy's Costume is composed of a coat of 
green embroidered velvet, of which the illustra- 
tion gives the details of construction. The Pan- 
taloons are of drab-colored cloth, embroidered at 
the bottom. Similar embroidery ornaments the 
outside seam along its whole length. The linen is 
of English embroidery. 

For out-door Costume, Furs have never been 
more extensively in vogue. They are worn of 
every conceivable variety of form, from the ample 
cape or cardinal down to the narrowest pelerine. 
They are also in favor as trimming upon fab- 
rics of almost every variety. The expense lav- 
ished upon them, would almost seem to justify 
the re-enactment of the sumptuary laws of old- 
en time. 

Flounces are universally worn, the number 
resting entirely at the option of the wearer. 
Skirts are very full, and so long as to touch the 
ground, even when distended by the most am- 
ple under-dress. The hoops of our grandmoth- 
ers certainly threaten to reappear, if we may 
not say that they have actually appeared again. 
We are confident, however, that the good taste 
of our countrywomen will prevent a fashion so 
opposed to correct taste from becoming at all 
prevalent. 

We append two styles of Under-sleeves, 
appropriate to the season. Both are close at 
the wrists, with ribbons and nceuds. Bouillon- 
nees with ribbon insertions are placed around 
the wrists in both. In one these bouillonnees 
are also placed lengthwise ; in the other ribbon- 




Fig. 3. — Under-sleeve. 

bars appear through the transparent tulle. Trans- 
parencies of this kind are, in fact, especial favorites. 
They are in the above of peach-blossom and light- 
blue respectively. 




Figure 4. — Under-sleeve. 

Below w r e illustrate a Nursery Basket of a 
unique style, which may afford a not unwelcome 
hint to young mothers. The inside is of white 
satin, ornamented with sprays of the "morning- 
glory," embroidered in natural colors. The vari- 
ous adjuncts of the toilet are represented within. 
The special novelt}' of this basket consists in the 
festooned lace, caught up with silken cords and 
tassels. 




Figure 5. — Nursery Basket. 



HARPER'S 

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



NO, LXK -FEBRUARY, 186ft— VOL XII. 




\ 



GEOEGE WASHINGTON. 

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. 

YIEGINIA ! It is a beautiful name, and 
well appropriated to one of the fairest 
spots upon which the sun has ever shone. 
Her sunny skies and balmy climate, where 
the ocean breeze meets and blends with the 
invigorating airs which sweep over mount- 
ain, and forest, and prairie; her bays, and 
lakes, and glorious rivers, her magnificent 
mountain ranges, and sublime forests, and 
wide-spread and luxuriant plains, present a 
realm to be cultivated by man such as few 
spots on earth can rival, and none can sur- 
pass. Nature, with a prodigal hand, has 
lavished upon Virginia a concentration of 
her choicest gifts. Here " every prospect 
pleases," and man is left without excuse if 
such a spot become not the garden and the 
ornament of the world. 

Just two hundred years ago two brothers, 
Lawrence and John Washington, were lured, 
by the rare attractions of Virginia, to leave 
their crowded ancestral home in England, and 
seek their fortune in this prospective Eden of 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S55, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the 
District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

Vol. XII.— No. CO.— T 



290 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



America. They were young men of intelligence, 
of opulence, and of lofty moral principle. Law- 
rence, the elder of the two, had just left the 
classic halls of Oxford. He was a finished 
scholar and an accomplished man. Several ar- 
ticles from his pen had embellished the world- 
renowned pages of the Spectator. The younger 
brother, John, was more familiar with the cares 
of an estate, and with the practical duties of 
life. 

After a weary voyage of three or four months 
the little vessel in which they embarked entered 
the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Sailing up 
this magnificent inland sea some hundred miles, 
they entered the Potomac river. It was a beau- 
tiful morning in summer. The scene now open- 
ed to the eye of these young emigrants was in- 
deed one of fairy beauty. On either side of the 
mirrored stream the primeval forest extended 
interminably over meadow and hillside. The 
birch canoe with the plumed Indian glided 
over the unrippled and glassy stream. The 
merry shouts of childhood echoed from the 
shore, as young barbarians, in the graceful cos- 
tume of Venus de Medici, hailed the passing 
ship. The picturesque villages of the native 
tribes, with their conical wigwams, to which 
"distance lent enchantment," seemed to grow 
from the green and unbroken turf of the indent- 
ed bays, or stood out upon the cliff in bold re- 
lief against the golden sky. 

About fifty miles above the mouth of the Poto- 
mac the two brothers purchased a large tract of 
land. John soon built him a house, and married 
a young lady of congenial spirit, Miss Anne Pope. 
His life Avas the ordinary life of man. Children 
were born and children died. Days of sunshine 
and of storm, of joy and of grief, succeeded each 
other as life rapidly glided away, until his allot- 
ted pilgrimage was finished. A few weeks of 
sickness, the dying groan, the shroud, the funer- 
al, and the tomb — and all was over. What 
shadows ! 

Augustine, the second son of John, inherited 
his father's virtues and intelligence, and con- 
tinued on the broad acres of the paternal home- 
stead. The drama of life with him also often 
caused the heart to throb with joy, and often 
brought the tears of anguish gushing into his 
eyes. He led his beautiful and youthful bride, 
Jane Butler, to his home of refinement and com- 
fort, and when two little sons and a daughter 
had twined themselves around a mother's heart, 
Jane sickened and died. It was the first grief 
she had brought to the household. A few years 
passed away, and the saddened father sought 
another mother for his then two surviving chil- 
dren. He found the companion he needed in 
Mary Ball. She was one of the most beautiful 
and accomplished of the young ladies of that 
land, then far-famed for the loveliness and the 
culture of its fair daughters. Mary Ball ! May 
her name be held in everlasting remembrance. 
She was a noble girl, a noble wife, a noble 
mother. 

Augustine and Mary were married on the 6th 



of March, 1730. In not quite two years from 
that time, on the 22d of February, 1732, Mary 
heard the wailing cry of her first-born son, and 
pressed to her throbbing heart the infant 
George Washington. 

George was the child of exalted birth, of lofty 
lineage — the lineage of commanding intelli- 
gence, of warm affections, of firm principles, 
and of indomitable energy. Nature's gifts were 
conferred lavishly upon him. He was opulent- 
ly endowed with all that can be externally be- 
stowed to aid in an illustrious career. His 
parents were wealthy, and yet they were living 
with frugality and simplicity, in the cultivation 
of those Puritan virtues which have ever been 
found the best safeguards against temptation, 
and the most powerful stimulus to heroic and 
self-sacrificing deeds. God gave him a mind, a 
heart, a physical organization, each of the no- 
blest cast. 

The spot on which he was born, upon the 
picturesque shores of the Potomac, was one of 
rare beauty. The house was a capacious, com- 
fortable cottage homestead, filled and surround- 
ed with all the solid comforts which an opulent 
planter could in that day gather around him. 
From the lawn where George engaged in in- 
fantile sports with the brothers and sisters who 
were subsequently born, the eye commanded an 
extended reach of the majestic Potomac, as its 
vast flood of waters moved sublimely on to the 
Chesapeake Bay, and through that to the At- 
lantic ocean. Across the magnificent river, 
at this place nearly ten miles wide, rose the for- 
est-clad hills and plains of Maryland. A few 
islands, in the beauty of a solitude which was 
enhanced, not interrupted, by the spiral wreaths 
of smoke which rose, through the unmarred 
foliage, from the fire of the Indian's wigwam, 
relieved the expanse of water and cheered the 
eye. 

George was a vigorous, courageous, manly 
boy. The same noble traits of character which 
made him illustrious among men embellished 
his youthful years. He was noted for his fear- 
lessness, and yet he was never known to become 
involved in a quarrel with a companion. He 
had a generous and a magnanimous spirit which 
prevented him from ever attempting to play the 
tyrant over others; and none were found so 
bold as to attempt the hopeless task of enacting 
the tyrant over him. George Washington upon 
the play -ground was a just, magnanimous, and 
-fearless boy, as George Washington, leading the 
armies of the Revolution or presiding in the 
Presidential chair, was a just, magnanimous, 
and fearless man. From his earliest years he 
was signalized by probity and truthfulness. 

It was a severe ordeal through which he 
passed, when, in the thoughtlessness of almost 
infantile years, he tried the edge of his new 
hatchet upon his father's favorite cherry-tree. 
The tree was girdled and ruined. With flushed 
cheek the impetuous father, who carried "an- 
ger as the flint bears fire," demanded the perpe- 
trator of the outrage. George, trembling with 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



291 




BIRTH-PLACE OF WASHINGTON. 



agitation, for a moment hesitated. But instant- 
ly his noble nature rose triumphant over the un- 
worthy temptation to deceive. Looking his fa- 
ther frankly and earnestly in the face, he said, 
" Father, I can not tell a lie : I cut the tree." 
The father was worthy of the son. Generous 
tears gushed into his eyes. " Come to my heart, 
my boy," said he, as he folded his arms affec- 
tionately around him; "I had rather lose a 
thousand trees than find falsehood in my son !" 
When George was but eleven years of age his 
father died, and he was left entirely to the care 
of his mother. The dying father had so much 
confidence in the judgment of his wife, that he 
directed that all the property of the five chil- 
dren should be at her disposal until they should 
respectively come of age. Well did the mother 
fulfill her weighty responsibilities. Washing- 
ton ever recognized his obligations to his moth- 
er for the principles which sustained him and 
animated him through his eventful life. Au- 
gustine Washington left a large property in 
lands. To his oldest son, Lawrence, the child 
of Jane Butler, he left the estate of Mount 
Vernon, then consisting of two thousand five 
hundred acres. To George was left the paternal 
mansion and the broad and fertile acres which 



were attached to it. All the other children were 
also left in a state of independence. 

Lady Washington was a woman of command- 
ing figure, of much native dignity, and endow- 
ed with features of uncommon loveliness. Be- 
fore her marriage she was generally regarded as 
one of the most beautiful girls of Virginia. Her 
manners were simple and unaffected. She was 
a woman of sincere piety, and trained up her 
family, in their secluded yet most hospitable 
home, at an infinite remove from all fashionable 
frivolities. Through her whole life she retained 
a mother's influence over her illustrious son. 

When Washington was in the meridian of 
his fame, a large party was given in his honor 
at Fredericksburg. When the church bell rang 
the hour of nine, Lady Washington rose and 
said, " Come, George, it is nine o'clock. It is 
time for us to go home." And taking her son's 
arm, they retired. Such is the material of 
which mothers of Washingtons are made. The 
pallid belles of midnight are for a different 
function.* 

* Perhaps we ought in honesty to record that Mrs. Al- 
exander Hamilton, who was present on this occasion, 
states that after General Washington had seen his mother 
safely home, he came back again to the party. 



292 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



There are no two conspicuous characters in 
history which more strikingly resemble each 
other in all physical, intellectual, and affection- 
al qualities than Letitia Raniolini, the mother 
of Napoleon, and Mary Ball, the mother of 
George Washington. And each of these illus- 
trious men attributed to his mother those primal 
influences which controlled and guided subse- 
quent life. 

Lady Washington had a span of elegant gray 
horses, of which she was very fond. She loved, 
as she sat with her needle at the parlor window, 
to see the lordly and graceful animals feeding 
upon the lawn or bounding over the turf in ca- 
ressing gambols. One of these beautiful colts 
had never been broken to the saddle. Some 
young men at the lawn one day proposed to try 
the dapple gray on horseback. But the spirited 
steed set them at defiance, and no one could 
mount. George, though one of the youngest of 
the party, was remarkably vigorous and athletic. 
With a little address he soothed the fretted 
steed, and adroitly leaped into the saddle. He 
was a perfect horseman. The terrified animal 
struggled for a few moments in the vain attempt 
to throw him, and then, with the speed of the 
wind, started off upon a race. George, exult- 
ing in his victory, gave her free rein. But the 
blooded steed, true to her nature, yielded not 
till she fell in utter exhaustion prostrate be- 
neath her rider. The panting animal appeared 
seriously, perhaps fatally injured. George was 
greatly alarmed. He knew how highly his 
mother prized and even loved the beautiful 
span. But, true to his characteristic instincts, 
he immediately hastened to her and informed 
her of what had happened. The mother's re- 
ply reveals to us the influence which formed the 
character of her child. 

"My son," said she, after a moment's pause, 
" I forgive you, because you have had the cour- 
age to tell me the truth at once. Had you 
skulked away I should have despised you." 



George attended a common school, where he 
was instructed in the ordinary branches of an 
English education. His intelligence, manliness, 
and elevated character immediately gave him a 
high rank among his school-mates. He was 
almost invariably made the arbiter of their dis- 
putes, and there was ever a prompt acquiescence 
in the justice of his decisions. At this early 
age, for he was then but thirteen, he developed 
some intellectual traits which were very ex- 
traordinary. There is now extant a manuscript 
in his handwriting, in whicn he had carefully 
written different forms of business papers, that 
he might ever be ready, on any emergency, to 
draw up such a paper in concise and correct 
phraseology. There are copies of promissory 
notes, bills of sale, land warrants, leases, deeds, 
and wills. These are written out with much 
care, in a distinct and well-formed hand. 

Then follow some hymns of a serious, earn- 
est, religious nature. The elevated soul is al- 
ways meditative and earnest. A tinge of pen- 
siveness overshadows every spirit which really 
awakes to the consciousness of the profound, the 
awful mystery of this our earthly being. The 
religious element must predominate in every in- 
tellect sufficiently capacious to range the vast 
sweep of infinity and of eternity. George Wash- 
ington, as a boy, was soulful, thoughtful, devout. 
The wonder of life, inexplicable, astounding — 
the dread enigma of death, present duty, future 
destiny, weighed heavily upon his meditative 
spirit even before he left the play-grounds of 
childhood. 

Another manuscript book, characteristic of 
this noble youth, contains a record of Rules 
of Behavior in Company and in Conversation. 
True politeness has been beautifully defined to 
be " real kindness kindly expressed." Wash- 
ington was a gentleman. When a boy he stud- 
ied the art of courteous and agreeable inter- 
course. He laid down rules to guide him to 
the avoidance of every thing that might offend 










^•S; 



WASHINGTON ON THE UNTAMED IIOK8E. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



293 



a refined taste, and to the culture of all that 
was pleasing in tone, in manner, and in habits. 
The gentleness of the boy expanded in the ur- 
banity and the graceful courtesy of the man. 
Great are the fascinations of that polished ex- 
terior -which is but the exponent of a warm, 
generous, friendly heart. 

Thus we see Washington, even in childhood, 
impelled by some inward monitor, acquiring an 
acquaintance with the important forms of busi- 
ness, investing his own nature with sublimity 
by the cultivation of a religious spirit, and care- 
fully watching over his own words and his own 
actions, that dignity, decorum, and unaffected 
politeness might mark all his intercourse with 
his fellow-men. His temperament was ardent. 
His passions were strong. The fire in his veins 
and in his soul burned glowingly. But under 
the guidance of a judicious mother he com- 
menced in early life the conquest of himself, 
and thus became the model man ; not the spirit- 
less being who is virtuous because he has no 
passions and no temptations, and who has never 
entered into the fierce strife of the soul's deadly 
conflict, but the man of Herculean energies and 
of volcanic emotions, who has vanquished his 
almost indomitable spirit, and disciplined it 
into the meekness and the lowliness of the 
child. 

When sixteen years of age George left school. 
For two years he had very diligently studied 
geometry, trigonometry, and surveying. His 
mathematical attainments were, for that day, 
of a high order. Many manuscripts still re- 
main which attest his diligence, his accuracy, 
and his skill. It was then his intention to en- 
gage in the employment of a surveyor of public 
lands, which was, at that time, a very lucrative 
profession. Every thing which came from his 
pen was executed with extraordinary precision 
and neatness. His handwriting was round and 
distinct as print. Every fact occupied its proper 
place. All the diagrams and tables were drawn 
and arranged with very much care and beauty. 

These invaluable habits, thus early formed, 
Washington retained through life. Every thing 
he did was well done. There has perhaps never 
appeared a more perfectly-balanced character, 
or one in which all the endowments of a lofty 
creation were more harmoniously blended. 

George, upon leaving school, went to visit 
his elder half-brother Lawrence, who was re- 
siding upon his estate at Mount Vernon, a spot 
of enchanting beauty upon the swelling hills 
of the Potomac, about a hundred miles above 
George's paternal home. It was his first visit 
to the place. Little did the ingenuous boy then 
imagine that his subsequent fame was to draw 
to that spot visitors from all lands, and confer 
upon it a world-wide renown. 

In the immediate vicinity of Mount Vernon 
— for a distance of eight miles then constituted 
neighborhood — an English gentleman, Mr. Will- 
iam Fairfax, resided. He was of a noble fam- 
ily, opulent, intelligent, of polished manners, 
and, more than all, a man of integrity and of 



great private worth. He had an interesting 
family of accomplished daughters. Lawrence 
Washington had married one of them. George 
became very intimate in this family, and in the 
society of these polished ladies derived advant- 
ages which were of vast importance to him 
through the whole of his subsequent life. 

Lord Fairfax, a near relative of William, a 
man of romantic tastes and of large wealth, was 
also lured by the charms of Virginia to emigrate 
to this new world. From his rank he had been 
accustomed to the best society of England, and 
his mind was polished and disciplined by high 
literary culture. Lord Fairfax, who was then 
residing with William, owned a vast territory, 
covered by the primeval forest, which extended 
far away into the interior, over hills and valleys, 
beyond the blue ridge of the Alleghanies. The 
scientific acquirements of George Washington, * 
his energy, and frank and noble character, at- 
tracted the attention and won the regard of 
Lord Fairfax. Though in years George was 
still but a boy, the English nobleman made ar- 
rangements with him to undertake the arduous 
and perilous enterprise of exploring and survey- 
ing these pathless wilds. With but one com- 
panion the heroic boy entered the wilderness. 
He was then but one month over sixteen years 
of age. 

It was cold and blustering March. The 
snows of winter still lingered in the laps of the 
mountains, and whitened with their chill ex- 
panse the sunless ravines. The rivers were 
swollen into torrents by the inundations of the 
opening spring. Boldly George plunged into 
the solitudes of the forest, and pursued his 
course along the trail of the Indian, over 
mountain and moor, by the margin of the lake 
and across the swollen stream, where the white 
man's foot had seldom, if ever, trod. His ad- 
venturous spirit enjoyed the exciting enterprise, 
and proudly he faced all the perils and the 
hardships of forest life. As he slept upon the 
ground, in these vast and sublime solitudes, be- 
neath such shelter as the hour could afford, he 
listened to the midnight howl of the wolf and 
the barking of the bear. Occasionally the cabin 
of an adventurous settler, who had felled an 
opening in the forest upon some silent stream, 
afforded him a night's hospitality. At other 
times the young explorer found himself in the 
Avigwam of the friendly Indian, surrounded by 
the tawny warriors of the forest. In the silent 
hours of the night he gazed upon the brands 
flickering at his feet, and upon the Indian brave, 
his squaw, and his pappooses, with whom he was 
sharing the fragrant hemlock couch. A youth 
trained to manhood under such influences must 
possess a marked character. From this expe- 
dition George returned successfully. He was 
no longer a boy. Peril, hardship, responsibil- 
ity had consolidated all his energies, and he 
was now, though still but in his seventeenth 
year, a man — a capable, efficient, self-reliant 
man. 

He immediatelv received a commission from 



294 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




-WASHINGTON A SURVEYOK. 



the State of Virginia as a public surveyor. Fo-r 
three years he pursued this employment, which 
was ever opening before him fields of the most 
romantic adventure. His spirit of enterprise 
was gratified by the novel scenes of grandeur, 
of beauty, of peril, to which he was often in- 
troduced. He floated along the river guided 
by the noiseless paddle of the Indian's canoe. 
He climbed the mountain cliff, and, with a 
throbbing heart, looked out over the wide range 
of mountain, lake, and forest smiling beneath 
the sunny skies of lovely Virginia — of Virginia 
as God had made it. Though he often during 
these three years visited his mother, he consid- 
ered his brother's residence at Mount Vernon 
as his home, since it was nearer the scene of 
his labors. As there were but few civil en- 
gineers in those days, Washington found abund- 
ant employment and ample remuneration. 

With the manly character which such train- 
ing as this secured, it is not strange to find 
that when George Washington was nineteen 
years of age he was one of the prominent men 
of his native State. The Indians, alarmed by 
the encroachments which the white men were 
making upon their hunting-grounds, began to 
manifest a hostile spirit. Their council fires 
were lighted. The fearful war-whoop echoed 
through the forest. The lonely cabin of the 
settler blazed at midnight, and the tomahawk 
and the scalping-knife were red with blood. 



For protection Virginia was divided into dis- 
tricts. The militia was organized and drilled. 
Over each district was appointed a military 
commander, with the title of Major. This of- 
ficer had great responsibilities and great powers. 
The lives and the property of the inhabitants 
of the district, exposed to the ravages of a wan 
and an implacable foe, were under his protec- 
tion. George Washington, though but nine- 
teen years of age, was appointed Major of one 
of these districts. With his accustomed en- 
ergy he immediately devoted himself to the 
study of the military art, read all the import- 
ant treatises to which he could get access, and 
made himself familiar with the manual exer- 
cise and with the accomplishments of a good 
swordsman. 

But man is born to mourn. Life is ever a 
tragedy. Lawrence Washington, George's be- 
loved brother, was attacked by fatal disease. 
With fraternal love and care George accom- 
panied him to the West Indies. It was of no 
avail. He returned but to die at the age of 
thirty-four, leaving an infant child, and a wife 
desolate and woe-stricken, to' weep such tears 
as the widow only can shed. Lawrence Wash- 
ington was a man worthy of the name of Wash- 
ington. He was of a lofty nature, and every 
noble and generous affection found a congenial 
home in his bosom. 

George wept bitterly. Lawrence had been 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



295 



to him as a beloved father. It was, indeed, a 
dark cloud which had thus suddenly obscured 
his sky. Lawrence left a large property. He 
bequeathed Mount Vernon to his infant daugh- 
ter, and, in case of her death without issue, it 
was to pass to his brother George. As George 
was familiar with his brother's affairs, he be- 
came the principal executor of the estate. 

The western frontiers of Virginia, along an 
extent' of several hundred miles, are washed by 
the waters of the beautiful Ohio. England had 
established her colonies on the Atlantic coast. 
France had taken possession of the boundless 
bosom of the St. Lawrence, and had also com- 
menced her settlements at the mouth of the 
Mississippi. Both kingdoms were anxious to 
obtain possession of the limitless interior of this 
new world. The French, from Canada, crossed 
the lakes, followed down the Ohio, established 
military posts at important points, and entered 
into friendly alliances with the Indians. At 
the same time they sent military bands up the 
river from New Orleans to establish forts at 
commanding points, and take possession of the 
southern waters of the Ohio. It was their ob- 
ject to form a line of military posts from Lou- 
isiana to Canada, which should confine the En- 
glish to the Atlantic coast, and effectually pre- 
vent them from crossing the waters of the Ohio 
or of the Mississippi. 

The English landed and established colonies 
upon the Atlantic coast, and claimed, from the 
right of occupancy, the whole breadth of the 
continent to the Pacific. The French had pad- 
dled a canoe down the Mississippi. This was 
their title to the uncounted millions of square 
miles washed by the Father of Waters and his 
majestic tributaries. Both claims were absurd. 
While the conflict raged, the Indians, with na- 
tive keenness of wit, sent a deputation to the 
belligerents to inquire where the Indian lands 
were to be found, since the English claimed, all 
the land on one side of the river, and the French 
all upon the other. France and England quiet- 
ly smiled and made no reply. Neither party 
would yield, and the question was left to the 
infernal arbitration of the sword. 

Woes consequently ensued which can never 
be told, which can never be conceived. Both 
parties called to their aid the " tomahawk and 
the scalping-knife of the savage." All the un- 
imaginable horrors of barbarian warfare deso- 
lated our defenseless frontier, and conflagration, 
torture, blood, and woe held high carnival. 
Many a midnight tragedy was enacted in the 
solitude of the forest as prowling Indians, with 
whoop and yell, applied the torch to the settler's 
cabin, which fiends from pandemonium could 
not have aggravated. The shriek of the tor- 
tured father, and the dying wail of the mother 
and the maiden, faded away in the silence of 
the wilderness. But God saw and heard. The 
day of scrutiny is yet to come. 

George Washington wa3 now twenty -one 
years of age. He was appointed by the Gov- 
ernor of Virginia, before active hostilities com- 



menced, as a peaceful commissioner, to traverse 
the wilderness, five hundred and sixty miles in 
breadth, until he should arrive at some French 
post on the waters of the Ohio. Here he was 
to present his credentials, demand of the French 
the object of their movements, and ascertain as 
accurately as possible their plans, their strength, 
and their resources. 

The enterprise was considered so perilous 
that no one could be found who would under- 
take it until Washington volunteered. He was 
then but twenty years and six months of age. 
When Governor Dinwiddie, a sturdy old Scots- 
man, eagerly accepted his proffered service, he 
exclaimed, 

"Truly you are a brave lad, and if you play 
your cards well you shall have no cause to re- 
pent your bargain." 

Washington took with him eight men, two 
of them Indians, with horses, tents, baggage, 
and provisions, and passing through the thriv- 
ing settlements which were here and there 
springing up in the wilderness, about the mid- 
dle of November left the extreme verge of civ- 
ilization, and plunged into the pathless forest. 
The gales of approaching winter sighed through 
the tree-tops. The falling snow whitened the 
summits of the mountains. The streams, swollen 
into torrents by the autumnal rains, came roar- 
ing from the hills and flooded the valleys. The 
difficulties to be encountered were innumera- 
ble, but judgment and energy surmounted them 
all. 

Following their Indian guides they soon reach- 
ed the Monongahela river, and passing down its 
waters in a canoe, in eight days they reached 
the mouth of the Alleghany, where the junction 
of the two streams form the Ohio, and where 
Pittsburg now stands. He then followed down 
the Ohio river one hundred and twenty miles, 
visited the post of the French commandant, ac- 
complished all the purposes of his mission, and, 
after an absence of about four months, returned 
again to Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, 
to make his report to the Governor. The En- 
glish Governor had, through Washington, or- 
dered the French to leave those waters. The 
French commandant replied that he should 
obey the directions of his government, and re- 
main where he was. 

The Legislature of the State of Virginia was 
then in session at Williamsburg. Washington 
entered the gallery. The Speaker saw him, 
and immediately rose and proposed that 

" The thanks of the House be given to Major 
Washington, who now sits in the gallery, for 
the gallant manner in which he has executed 
the important trust lately reposed in him by 
his Excellency the Governor." 

Every member of the House rose and saluted 
Washington with applause. Overwhelmed with 
confusion in being thus the object of all eyes, 
he endeavored to make some acknowledgment 
of this high honor, but he was quite unable to 
utter a word. The Speaker came happ'ly to his 
relief, saying: 



296 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" Sit down, Major Washington. Your mod- 
esty is alone equal to your merit." 

The Governor, a rash, unthinking, head- 
strong man, much to the dissatisfaction of the 
colonists generally, promptly decided that the 
king's territories were invaded, and immediate- 
ly organized a force to "drive away, kill, or 
seize as prisoners, all persons not the subjects 
of the King of Great Britain who should at- 
tempt to take possession of the lands on the 
Ohio or any of its tributaries." 

Atrocious as this may, at first glance, seem, 
candor must admit that the French were the 
aggressors. England had as good a claim to 
the banks of the Ohio as had France. When 
the French established their forts there, avow- 
edly to exclude the English from ever entering 
that fairest valley upon the face of our globe, it 
was an act of aggression, and they surely could 
not complain that it provoked aggressive retalia- 
tion. But neither France nor England were at 
that time burdened with tender consciences. 
Might with them both made right. 

Washington was now appointed Colonel, and, 
with a military ^band of about four hundred men, 
again commenced his march through the vast 
wilderness, to drive the French from the Ohio. 
He encountered innumerable difficulties and 
embarrassments, which he surmounted with 
great judgment and skill. But when he ar- 
rived near the junction of the Alleghany and 
the Monongahela rivers, he learned that the 
French had already established themselves in 
large numbers at that junction, and were, with 
skillful engineers, constructing Fort Duquesne. 
A small party of forty men had been sent in 
advance by Washington to take possession of 
this most important post. While this English 
party were building a fort, the French came 
down the river, one thousand strong, with 
eighteen pieces of cannon, sixty batteaux, and 
three hundred canoes. To such a force the 
English could of course make no resistance. 
They capitulated, and the French, allowing 
them to retire, immediately reared the fortress 
which subsequently acquired so much celebrity. 
This was the first act of hostility, though no 
blood was shed. 

Such was the alarming report which was 
brought to Washington when he was struggling 
along through the wilderness, with his exhaust- 
ed and feeble band, but a few marches from 
Fort Duquesne. To attack such a foe was not to 
be thought of. Retreat was the only alternative. 

But the French, with their Indian allies, were 
on the alert. The peril of Washington Avas most 
imminent. He was surrounded with snares. 
Hostile bands from different points, it was re- 
ported by the Indian scouts, were crowding 
■down upon him. Washington was then but 
twenty-two years of age. He had never heard 
Xhe shrill whistle of a bullet thrown in anger. 

One dark and stormy night, as floods of rain 
deluged the forest, some Indians came to the 
ramp and informed Washington that a detach- 
ment of the French w;re very near, and were 



marching to take him by surprise. The night 
was dark even to blackness. The raging storm 
howled through the tree-tops, and the mountain 
streams were swollen into roaring torrents. Im- 
mediately Washington took forty men, leaving 
the rest to guard the camp, and, guided by the 
Indians, all night long clambered over the rocks 
and fallen trees as he groped his way through 
the intricate paths of the forest. In the early 
dawn of the dark and dreary morning, his party 
reached an encampment of friendly Indians 
which they Avere seeking. With a band of these 
rude allies Washington continued his advance 
toward the position occupied by the unsuspect- 
ing French. The march Avas pursued in single 
file, in tAvo lines, the Indians to attack upon the 
right, the English upon the left. 

It Avas the 28th of May, 1754. Suddenly the 
forest echoed Avith the rattle of musketry and 
the Avar-whoop of the savage. The conflict Avas 
short. Jumonville, the French commander, and 
ten of his men, almost immediately fell, and the 
rest of his party, tAA-enty-two in number, AA r ere 
taken prisoners. This Avas the first battle Avhich 
ushered in the long, cruel, and bloody French 
and Indian Avar of seven years. BHIoavs of un- 
earthly misery Avere thus rolled over our Western 
frontier. War had not yet been declared. The 
diplomatists on both sides were still professing 
friendship and discussing terms of amicable ad- 
justment. It subsequently appeared that Ju- 
monville Avas the bearer of a summons to Colonel 
Washington. 

For this transaction Washington was for a 
time very severely censured in France. It Avas 
said that Jumonville, while bearing a summons 
as a civil messenger, without any hostile inten- 
tions, was Avaylaid and assassinated. Washing- 
ton Avas denounced in prose and verse as the 
murderer, the assassin of Jumonville. But now, 
Avhen the passions of that day have passed, eA r en 
the French generously admit that the occur- 
rence can only be regarded as an untoward ac- 
cident. Under the peculiar peril and uncer- 
tainty of the case, it is noAV universally granted 
that the high integrity and lofty sense of honor 
of George Washington remain unsullied. 

But the flame of Avar Avas kindled. For seven 
years blood floAved in torrents before that flame 
was quenched. The French, from Fort Du- 
quesne, immediately sent out a detachment of 
one thousand five hundred French and Indians 
against Washington. He Avas too feeble to at- 
tempt a retreat before them. At NeAv Meadows, 
behind such breastworks as could be hastily 
throAvn up, his little band of three hundred men 
fought for a whole day against OA r envhelming 
odds, and was then, starvation reigning in his 
camp, compelled to capitulate. He obtained 
honorable terms, and returned to Virginia, re- 
taining baggage and arms. He had done every 
thing Avhich could have been done under the 
circumstances of the case. The Legislature 
voted him its thanks for the skill, judgment, and 
gallantry Avith which he had conducted the en- 
terprise. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



297 



Washington had a thorough abhorrence, both 
as a gentleman and as a Christian, of the vul- 
gar and degrading vice of profane swearing. 
We extract the following record from one of the 
orders of the day : 

" Colonel Washington has observed that the 
men of his regiment are very profane and rep- 
robate. He takes this opportunity to inform 
tli em of his great displeasure at such practices, 
and assures them, that if they do not leave them 
off they shall be severely punished. The offi- 
cers are desired, if they hear any man swear, 
or make use of an oath or execration, to order 
the offender twenty-five lashes immediately, 
without a court-martial. For a second offense 
he shall be more severely punished." 

Could this order now be enforced all over our 
land, it might exert a very salutary influence — 
an influence highly conducive to the respecta- 
bility of our national character. Religious serv- 
ices were scrupulously attended in the camp 
every Sabbath, and Washington earnestly urged 
upon the Legislature of Virginia the importance 
of providing chaplains for every regiment. He 
did not cease his importunities until his request 
was granted. 

Early the next spring, 1755, General Brad- 
dock landed in Virginia with two regiments of 
regular troops from Great Britain. It was sup- 
posed that such a force would sweep all opposi- 
tion away. With such fool-hardy confidence as 
ignorance gives, Braddock marched boldly into 
the wilderness. Colonel Washington was in- 
duced to accompany General Braddock as aid- 
de-camp. Love of adventure and patriotism 
were the apparently commingling motives, for 
he received no remuneration for his service, 
and his own pecuniary interest would suffer se- 
verely from his absence. In a straggling line, 
four miles in length, this army of two thousand 
men, with artillery and baggage-wagons, com- 
menced its march through the solemn forests 
toward Fort Duquesne. Washington urged 
caution, but in vain. English troops, under an 
English general, were not to be taught the art 
of war by a provincial colonel. They arrived 
within ten miles of Fort Duquesne, not having 
encountered any foe. Braddock was without 
an anxiety or a doubt. lie fancied that neither 
Frenchman nor Indian would dare to meet him. 
Washington was conscious of their peril, and 
begged to lead the march with the Virginia vol- 
unteers, to guard against an ambush. But the 
English despised the Americans, and concealed 
not their pride and contempt. Washington 
was wounded deeply in his feelings by this 
treatment. To such superciliousness he could 
make no reply, though he saw that the lives of 
the whole party were fearfully imperiled. The 
provincial troops were silent but exasperated, 
as they perceived that they were guided by a 
leader who knew not his duty. Some friendly 
Indians came with the proffer of their services. 
They would have been invaluable as scouts to 
guard against ambuscade. Notwithstanding the 
earnest recommendation of Washington, they 



were rejected, and sent from the camp with con- 
tempt and insult. 

A mild and brilliant summer's day illumined 
the forest as the troops drew near the end of 
their march.. The crystal waters of the Monon- 
gahela flowed without a ripple by their side. 
The gigantic trees of the eternal wilderness 
overshadowed them with solemn grandeur. 
From burnished arms, and gleaming helmets, 
and polished cannon, the rays of the morning- 
sun were reflected, and the whole scene pre- 
sented an aspect of picturesque and romantic 
beauty such as has rarely been equaled. They 
entered a wild defile. Lofty trees extended in 
all directions. A luxurious growth of under- 
brush, reaching nearly as high as the men's 
heads, covered the ground. Silence and soli- 
tude reigned : not a leaf moved : not a bird- 
cry was heard. 

Suddenly, like the burst of thunder, came 
the crash of musketry, and a tempest of lead 
swept through their astounded ranks. Crash 
followed crash in quick succession, before, be- 
hind, on the right, on the left. No foe was 
to be seen. Yet every bullet accomplished its 
mission. The ground was already covered with 
the dead. Amazement and consternation ran 
through the ranks. The British regulars could 
detect no foe. Unseen arms attacked them. It 
was supernatural : it was ghostly. Braddock 
stood his ground with senseless, bull-dog cour- 
age until he fell. After a short scene of horror 
and confusion, when nearly half of the army 
were gory in death, the remnant broke in wild 
disorder and fled. The ambush was entirely 
successful. Six hundred of these assailants were 
Indians. They laughed the folly of Braddock 
to scorn. 

This was just what Washington had expected. 
He did every thing which skill and intrepidity 
could do to retrieve the disaster. Two horses 
fell beneath him. Four bullets passed through 
his coat. About eight hundred were killed or 
wounded, while the invisible foe lost not more 
than forty. Washington stationed the Virginia 
provincials, each man behind a tree, according 
to the necessities of forest warfare, and thus 
checked the retreat, and saved the army from 
total destruction. He endeavored to rally the 
British regulars, but "they ran away," he says, 
"like sheep before the hounds." The panic- 
stricken troops, abandoning baggage, artillery, 
and public stores, hastened with all speed to 
the protection and the repose of Philadelphia. 
Washington, with the provincial troops, return- 
ed with dignity and with honor to Virginia. 
The disastrous battle of Monongahela added 
much renown to the name of Colonel Washing- 
ton. 

The situation of Virginia was now terrible. 
The savages had lapped their tongues in blood. 
Their fierce natures were roused by the terrible 
excitements of war. The whole frontier, ex- 
tending three hundred and sixty miles, was ex- 
posed to their ravages. Horrible, horrible be- 
yond all imagination, were the scenes which 



298 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




bkaddock's defeat. 



ensued. Conflagration, murder, torture, be- 
came the amusement of prowling bands of 
savages. Age and infancy, maidens and ma- 
trons, were alike their victims. The story is too 
shocking to be told. Fifteen hundred demons, 
with fire-brand and scalping-knife, swept with 
whirlwind ferocity over the land, and, unresist- 
ed, made themselves merry with death and 
woe. 

The old Scottish Governor was annoyed by 



the disgrace of the British regulars, and by the 
renown acquired by the provincials. He be- 
came apparently indifferent to the desolation 
of the frontiers. A force of but seven hundred 
men was raised, and Washington placed in 
command, to protect the scattered villages and 
dwellings of the extended wilderness from a 
tireless and a sleepless foe. For three years 
Washington devoted himself, day and night, to 
this humane yet arduous enterprise. It would 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



299 



Require a volume to relate the wonderful adven- 
tures, the heroism, the bloody frays of this con- 
flict, as fierce as any which was ever waged on 
earth. In after life, Washington's heart re- 
coiled from the recollection of the horrors 
which he was called to witness. The anguish 
he endured was awful. He wrote to the Gov- 
ernor : 

" The supplicating tears of the women, and 
moving petitions of the men, melt me into such 
deadly sorrow, that I solemnly declare I could 
offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering 
enemy, could that contribute to the people's 
ease." 

" One day," we give the narrative in Wash- 
ington's words, "as we were traversing a part 
of the frontier, we came upon a single log-house, 
standing in the centre of a little clearing, sur- 
rounded by woods on all sides. As we ap- 
proached, we heard the report of a gun, the 
usual signal of coming horrors. Our party crept 
cautiously through the underwood until we ap- 
proached near enough to see what we already 
foreboded. A smoke was slowly making its 
way through the roof of the house, while, at 
the same moment, a party of Indians came 
forth laden with plunder, consisting of clothes, 
domestic utensils, household furniture, and 
dripping scalps. 

" On entering the hut we saw a sight that, 
though we were familiar with blood and mas- 
sacre, struck us, at least myself, with feelings 
more mournful than I had ever experienced be- 
fore. On a bed in one corner of the room lay 
the body of a young woman swimming in blood, 
with a gash in her forehead which almost sep- 
arated the head into two parts. On her breast 
lay two little babes, apparently twins, less than 
a twelvemonth old, with their heads also cut 
open. Their innocent blood, which had once 
flowed in the same veins, now mingled in one 
current again. I was inured to scenes of blood- 
shed and misery, but this cut me to the soul ; 
and never in my after-life did I raise my hand 
against a savage without calling to mind the 
mother with her little twins, their heads cleft 
asunder. 

" On examining the tracks of the Indians, to 
see what other murders they might have com- 
mitted, we found a little boy, and, a few steps 
beyond, his father, both scalped and both stone 
dead. From the prints of the feet of the boy, 
it would seem he had been following the plow 
with his father, who being probably shot down, 
he had attempted to escape. But the poor boy 
was followed, overtaken, and murdered. The 
ruin was complete. Not one of the family had 
been spared. Such was the character of our 
miserable warfare. The wretched people on the 
frontier never went to rest without bidding each 
other farewell. On leaving one spot for the pur- 
pose of giving protection to another point of 
exposure, the scene was often such as I shall 
never forget. The women and children clung 
round our knees, beseeching us to stay and pro- 
tect them, and crying out for God's sake not to 



leave them to be butchered by the savages. A 
hundred times, I declare to Heaven, I would 
have laid down my life with pleasure, even un- 
der the tomahawk and scalping-knife, could I 
have insured the safety of those suffering people 
by the sacrifice." 

Washington rapidly acquired fame and influ- 
ence. His advice was listened to and heeded. 
By a bold march in the stormy month of No- 
vember, 1758, Fort Duquesne was wrested from 
the enemy, and the French power upon the 
Ohio ceased forever. Not long after this the 
Canadas surrendered to the heroism of Wolfe, 
and thus, after seven years of awful carnage and 
woe, the colonies enjoyed the blessings, the un- 
speakable blessings of peace. Washington re- 
tired to beautiful Mount Vernon, rich in the 
gratitude and love which his heroism and self- 
sacrifice so abundantly merited. 

Washington was now twenty-six years of age. 
On the 6th of January, 1759, he married Mrs. 
Martha Custis, a lady of great worth and beauty. 
She was the mother of two children by a former 
husband, a son of six years and a daughter of 
four. This union added to Washington's al- 
ready very considerable estates a property of 
one hundred thousand dollars. As a friend, a 
companion, a wife, Lady Washington was every 
thing which the most affectionate heart could 
desire. 

Washington now, in the lovely retreat of Mount 
Vernon, enjoyed fifteen years of such felicity as 
is rarely experienced on earth. He was wealthy, 
respected, and universally beloved. His pas- 
sions, subdued by the discipline of his early 
years, were under perfect control. Days calm 
and cloudless dawned and faded away upon the 
tranquil lawn of Mount Vernon, while the favored 
inmates of that dwelling were sheltered from 
almost every storm. 

Washington — though his imposing mansion, 
commanding one of the most attractive land- 
scapes in the world, was the abode of the most 
generous hospitality — was frugal, temperate, and 
methodical in the highest degree. Eeligious 
decorum regulated all the arrangements of the 
household. Every hour had its allotted duty. 
He invariably retired to rest at nine o'clock at 
night, whether he had company or not, and rose 
at four o'clock in the morning. All the affairs 
of his extensive plantation were managed with 
the greatest prudence and economy. Though 
a strict disciplinarian in the enforcement of 
regular habits, he was exceedingly kind and af- 
fectionate to all the members of his household. 
He was a cordial supporter of the gospel minis- 
try, and took a deep interest in the religious 
prosperity of the parish. As these peaceful and 
happy years glided rapidly away, a tempest was 
gathering of portentous blackness, of appalling 
fury. 

The year 1775 arrived. Washington was 
forty-three years of age. The haughty British 
Ministry, denying to Americans the rights of 
British subjects, began to trample remorseless- 
ly upon the liberties of these Colonies. The 



300 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Americans remonstrated. The British Minis- 
ters spurned their remonstrances with scorn, and 
sent over disciplined armies to enforce obedi- 
ence. The Americans were too feeble to com- 
mand respect. Goaded by injustice and insults, 
they seized their arms, weak, scattered, dis- 
united as they were, to resist the assaults of the 
mighty monarchy of Great Britain, then out- 
vieing ancient Rome in her fleets and armies. 
The Americans met in Congress, raised an 
army, and unanimously chose George "Wash- 
ington commander-in-chief. A more perilous 
office man never accepted. Three millions of 
people, without resources, without military sup- 
plies, without forts, without ships, marched bold- 
ly to the encounter of the fleets and the hosts 
of England, who held the opulence of the world 
and the resources of the world in her lap. It 
was David meeting Goliath. The Americans 
were denounced as rebels. Washington was 
stigmatized as the leader of banditti bands. He 
fought with the felon's rope around his neck. 
The odds were such that victory seemed im- 
jKtssible. Defeat was not merely ruin — it was 
death upon the gibbet, and the consignment of 
a noble name to eternal infamy. But Wash- 
ington was the man for the occasion. Calmly, 
serenely, sublimely he came forward to the per- 
ilous post. 

The plains of Lexington had already been 
crimsoned with blood ; and the conflict of 
Bunker's Hill had sent its echoes through the 
world. To a friend in England Washington 
wrote : 

" The Americans will fight for their liberties 
and property. Unhappy it is, though, to reflect 
that a brother's sword has been sheathed in a 
brother's breast, and that the once happy and 
peaceful plains of America are either to be 
drenched in blood or to be inhabited by slaves. 
Sad alternative ! But can a virtuous man hes- 
itate in his choice ?" 

To the Congress which elected him he said : 
"I beg leave to assure the Congress that, as no 
pecuniary consideration could have tempted me 
to accept this arduous employment at the ex- 
pense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do 
not wish to make any profit from it. I will 
keep an exact account of my expenses. Those 
I doubt not they will discharge. That is all I 
desire." 

To his wife — the revered and beloved partner 
of all his joys and griefs — he tenderly wrote, 
that it was his greatest affliction to be separated 
from her ; that duty called and he must obey ; 
that he could not decline the appointment with- 
out dishonoring his own name, and sinking him- 
self even in her esteem. 

A formidable army of about twelve thousand 
British regulars were intrenched on Bunker's 
Hill and in the streets of Boston. The Ameri- 
can militia, undisciplined and wretchedly armed, 
about fifteen thousand in number, had formed 
a line twelve miles in extent around Charles- 
town and Boston to Dorchester. This feeble 
line was liable at any moment to be pierced by 



an impetuous assault from an English column> 
"A man is not a soldier," said Napoleon. A 
thousand soldiers, under almost any circum- 
stances, are equal to two or three thousand men. 
It takes long discipline to destroy that individ- 
ual manhood and to create that obedient and 
unquestioning machine which alone constitutes 
the disciplined soldier. The intelligent relig- 
ious farmers of New England, fresh from the 
fireside and from the tears and embraces of 
wife and children, were to meet in unequal con- 
flict the heartless and homeless veterans of the 
barracks. 

Early in July Washington arrived at Cam- 
bridge to take command of the army besieging 
Boston. The ceremony of assuming the com- 
mand took place under the shadow of a majes- 
tic elm-tree, which still stands, revered, immor- 
talized by the deed which it that day witnessed. 
He found in the vicinity of Boston about fifteen 
thousand American troops, almost totally desti- 
tute of all the necessary materials of war. With 
firmness, judgment, and energy which have 
never been surpassed, struggling against innu- 
merable embarrassments, disappointments, and 
apparent impossibilities, he availed himself of 
every resource within his reach. General Gage 
commanded in Boston. He had been the friend 
of Washington during the seven years' war with 
the French, and had fought by his side in the 
bloody disaster of Monongahela. And yet Gen- 
eral Gage mercilessly seized all in Boston who 
espoused the American cause as rebels, and 
threw them all, without regard to their station 
or rank, into loathsome imprisonment. Wash- 
ington remonstrated. Gage insolently replied : 

"My clemency is great in sparing the lives 
of those who, by the laws of the land, are des- 
tined to the cord. I recognize no difference of 
rank but that which the King confers." 

Washington resolved to retaliate by inflicting 
similar severity upon the English prisoners who 
were in his hands. But his generous nature 
recoiled from the cruelty, and he countermand- 
ed the order, directing that all the English pris- 
oners should be treated with every indulgence 
and civility consistent with their security. 

To General Gage he wrote, with true repub- 
lican dignity, "You affect, Sir, to despise all 
rank not derived from the same source as your 
own. I can not conceive one more honorable 
than that which flows from the uncorrupted 
choice of a brave and free people, the purest 
source and original fountain of all power." 

In the subsequent and more successful war 
which the English Government waged against 
France, to crush popular rights in Europe and 
to reinstate feudal monarchy, similar inhuman- 
ity was practiced. The French prisoners were 
thrown into hulks and perished by thousands. 
Napoleon, adopting the humane policy of Wash- 
ington, refused to retaliate. Virtue ever se- 
cures, in the end, its reward. The prisoners 
taken from England and the Allies, when re- 
stored, carried back from France to their com- 
rades tidings of their kind treatment and glow- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



301 




-OS- ^ 

WASHINGTON ASSUMING THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 



ing accounts of the humanity of Napoleon. 
Thus the common soldiers of the Allies, in the 
hour of peril, were more ready to surrender. 
War was thus divested of a portion of its fe- 
rocity. The French soldiers, on the contrary, 
appalled by the awful narratives received from 
their countrymen who had been captives, were 
ready to die a thousand deaths rather than sur- 
render. The plausible suggestion has recently 
been made that the heart-rending woes of the 
English army in the Crimea, and of the sick 



and wounded in their own hospitals, indicates 
that the misery of the French prisoners is not 
to be attributed to disregard of suffering on the 
part of the English Government, but to its in- 
capacity. The lords who ruled in Parliament 
were the petted favorites of fortune, and were 
unacquainted with the details of practical duty.* 



* Napoleon, speaking upon this subject at St. Helena, 
remarked : 

"Then commenced for our unfortunate countrymen the 
odious system of confinement in the hulks — a species of 



302 



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At length matters were arranged for a de- 
cisive action. In a dark and stormy night of 
the ensuing March, Washington opened upon 
the city an incessant cannonade and bombard- 
ment. Under cover of the midnight storm, the 
roar of the batteries, and the clamor and con- 
fusion of the assault, he dispatched a large force 
of picked troops to proceed, with the utmost 
secrecy and dispatch, to the heights of Dor- 
chester, there to strain every nerve, during the 
hours of darkness, in throwing up breast-works 
which would protect them from the broadsides 
of the English fleet in the harbor. These 
heights commanded the harbor. From that 
point a well-manned battery could soon blow 
every English ship into the air. 

In the early dawn of the dark and stormy 
morning, while the icy gale swept floods of rain 
over earth and sea, the English Admiral, to his 
amazement and consternation, found that dur- 
ing the night a fort, bristling with cannon, had 
sprung up over his head. He immediately 
opened upon the bold adventurers the broad- 
sides of all his ships.. But the Americans, de- 
fiant of the storm of iron which fell like hail- 
stones around them, continued to pile their 
sand-bags and ply their shovels, and very soon 
a redoubt rose around them which even that 
formidable cannonade could not injure. It 
was at once manifest to every eye that the 
English fleet was at the mercy of that battery. 
Three thousand men were immediately ordered 
to embark in boats, and at every hazard take 
the heights. But God came kindly to the aid 
of the feeble battalions. The tempest swept 
the bay with billows so fierce that no boat could 
be launched. Before another day and night 
had passed the redoubt was so strengthened 
as to bid defiance to any attack. 

The situation of the two parties was now pe- 
culiar in the extreme. The English fleet was 
at the mercy of the Americans. The Ameri- 
can city was at the mercy of the English. 

" If you fire into my fleet," said the English 
commander, " I will burn Boston." 

torture which the ancients would have added to the hor- 
rors of the infernal regions had their imaginations been 
capable of conceiving it. When it is considered that 
men unaccustomed to live on shipboard were crowded to- 
gether in little unwholesome cabins, too small to afford 
them room to move, that, byway of indulgence, they were 
permitted twice during the twenty- four hours to breathe 
pestilential exhalations at ebb tide, and that this misery 
was prolonged for the space of ten or twelve years, the 
blood curdles at such a picture of odious inhumanity. 

" On this point I blame myself for not having made re- 
prisals. It would have been well had I thrown into sim- 
ilar confinement, not the poor sailors and soldiers, whose 
complaints would never have been attended to, but all the 
English nobility and persons of fortune who were then in 
France. I should have permitted them to maintain a free 
correspondence with their friends and families, and their 
complaints would soon have assailed the ears of the En- 
glish Ministers and checked their odious measures. Cer- 
tain parties in Paris, who were ever the best allies of the 
enemy, would, of course, have called me. a tiger and a can- 
nibal. But no matter. I should have discharged my duty 
to the French people, who had made me their protector 
and defender. In this instance my decision of character 
failed me." 



"If you harm Boston," said the American 
general, " I will sink your fleet." 

By a tacit understanding the English were 
permitted to retire unharmed if they left the 
city uninjured. 

It was the morning of the 17th of March, 
1776. The storm had passed away. The blue 
sky overarched the beleaguered city and the 
encamping armies. Washington sat upon his 
horse serene and majestic, and contemplated 
in silent triumph, from the heights of Dorches- 
ter, the evacuation of Boston. Every gun was 
shotted and aimed at the hostile fleet. Every 
torch was lighted. The English army crowded 
on board the ships. A fresh breeze from the 
west filled the sails, and the hostile armament, 
before the sun went down, had disappeared for- 
ever in the distant horizon of the sea. As the 
last boats, loaded to the gunwales with English 
soldiers, left the shore, the American army, 
with streaming banners and triumphant music, 
marched over the Neck into the rejoicing city. 
It was a glorious victory won by genius without 
the effusion of blood. 

The English, thus driven from Boston, pre- 
pared to make an attack upon New York. There 
were many in the country who were zealous 
monarchists, warm partisans of the English, and 
eager for every opportunity to assist the enemy 
to crush the American republicans. There can 
be no doubt that many of these were sincere 
and good men, and consequently far more dan- 
gerous to the independence of America, since 
the sincerity of their convictions would lead 
them to corresponding efforts. They were spies 
upon the Americans, and kept the enemy in- 
formed of every movement. In this terrible 
peril Congress deemed it necessary to establish 
a secret committee to try suspected persons. 
It was a dangerous but a necessary stretch of 
power. When the ship is sinking the most 
precious freight must be cast into the sea. In 
the terrible convulsions of revolution necessity 
becomes law. 

Congress now resolved to strike for Inde- 
pendence. A committee was appointed, with 
Jefferson at its head, to draft a Declaration. 
This sacred document was prepared and unan- 
imously adopted. History has recorded no spec- 
tacle more sublime than that in which each of 
these venerable men came forward, in his turn, 
to give his signature to that paper which would 
be his inevitable death-warrant should the arms 
of America fail. But no one faltered. To this 
cause, so noble yet so perilous, every individual 
pledged " his life, his fortune, and his sacred 
honor." It was the 4th of July, 1776. 

The Declaration was soon read, from the 
steps of the State House in Philadelphia, to an 
immense concourse, and it was received with 
enthusiastic acclamation. The Declaration of 
Independence was sent to Washington. The 
regiments were paraded to hear it read. It was 
greeted with tumultuous applause. The troops 
thus defiantly threw back the epithet of "re- 
bellious colonists," and assumed the proud title 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



of "The Army of the United States." Wash- 
ington, in the order of the day, thus alludes to 
the momentous occurrence : 

" The General hopes that this important event 
will serve as a fresh incentive to every officer 
and soldier to act 'with fidelity and courage, as 
knowing that now the peace and safety of his 
country depend, under God, solely on the suc- 
cess of our arms, and that he is now in the 
service of a state possessed of sufficient power 
to reward his merit and advance him to the 
highest honors of a free country." 

The latter part of June a large hostile fleet, 
uniting from Halifax and from England, arrived 
at the Hook and took possession of Staten Isl- 
and. Washington made every effort to collect 
an army in the vicinity of New York. The 
English Government, denouncing the Amer- 
icans as rebels, and their leaders as felons des- 
tined to the scaffold, refused to recognize any 
dignity or any title conferred by their voice. 
George Washington the Americans had ap- 
pointed General-in-chicf. The English Govern- 
ment scornfully trampled this title in the dust. 
The King alone could confer titles and office. 
Popular suffrage was deemed impudence and 
rebellion. Washington, jealous of the rights 
of the people, and of his own dignity as their 
agent, peremptorily refused to receive any com- 
munication from the English commander in 
which his title was not recognized. The with- 
holding the title under the circumstances was 
an insult. To submit to it would have been a 
degradation. 

General Howe sent a flag of truce with a let- 
ter to " George Washington, Esq." The letter 
was returned unopened. As occasional inter- 
course was necessary between the chiefs of the 
two armies, in reference to the exchange of 
prisoners and other matters, General Howe 
wrote again to the same address. The letter 
was again returned unopened, with the renewed 
declaration that the Commander-in-chief of the 
American army could receive no letters which 
were addressed to "George Washington, Esq." 
General Howe then wrote a letter which he in- 
solently addressed to " George Washington, Esq., 
etc., etc., etc." This letter was also refused. A 
communication was then sent to " General Wash- 
ington." 

Thus were the English Ministers disciplined 
into civility ; for General Howe frankly con- 
fessed that his only object had been to avoid 
censure from his government at home. Wash- 
ington writing upon this subject to the Congress, 
said : 

" I would not on any occasion sacrifice essen- 
tials to punctilio. But in this instance I deemed 
it my duty to my country, and to my appoint- 
ment, to insist upon that respect which, in any 
other than a public view, I would willingly have 
waived." 

In the same spirit the English Government 
subsequently refused to recognize the right of 
the French to choose Napoleon as their chief 
magistrate. Napoleon, influenced by the same 



spirit which guided Washington, refused to ac- 
quiesce in an insult thus cast upon himself, 
upon France, and upon the sacred cause of 
popular suffrage. But Napoleon was a captive 
in their hands. Still he, like Washington, came 
oft' finally a victor in the strife, but not till 
after he had been consigned to the silence of 
the tomb. 

In Washington's Orderly Book for July 9th, 
1776, just after the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, we find the following entry of an order 
given to the army : 

"The Honorable Continental Congress hav- 
ing been pleased to allow a chaplain to each 
regiment, the colonels or commanding officers 
of each regiment are directed to procure chap- 
lains accordingly ; persons of good character 
and exemplary lives, and to see that all inferior 
officers and soldiers pay them a suitable respect. 
The blessing and protection of Heaven are at 
all times necessary, but especially so in times 
of public distress and danger. The General 
hopes and trusts that every officer and man will 
endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian 
soldier, defending the dearest rights and liber- 
ties of his country." 

A month after this, in the order of the day, 
Washington issued the following notice to the 
troops : 

" The General is sorry to be informed that 
the foolish and wicked practice of profane curs- 
ing and swearing, a vice hitherto little known 
in an American army, is growing into fashion. 
He hopes that the officers will, by example as 
well as by influence, endeavor to check it ; and 
that both they and the men will reflect that we 
can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven 
on our arms, if we insult it by our impiety and 
folly. Add to this, it is a vice so mean and low, 
without any temptation, that every man of sense 
and character detests and despises it." 

By the middle of August the English had as- 
sembled at the mouth of the Hudson River a 
force of nearly thirty thousand soldiers, with a 
numerous and well-equipped fleet. To oppose 
them Washington had but twelve thousand men, 
most of them quite unaccustomed to arms and 
to the hardship of a camp. A few regiments 
of American troops, about five thousand in 
number, were stationed near Brooklyn. A few 
thousand more were posted at other points on 
the island. The English landed without op- 
position, fifteen thousand strong, and made a 
combined assault upon the Americans. The 
battle was short but bloody. The Americans, 
overpowered, sullenly retired, leaving fifteen 
hundred of their number either dead or in the 
hands of the English. Washington witnessed 
this route with the keenest anguish, for he could 
not detach any troops from New York to arrest 
the carnage. 

The East River flowed deep and wide between 
the Americans and their friends in New York. 
An overpowering and victorious foe was crowd- 
ing Upon their rear. The English fleet had al- 
ready weighed anchor at the Narrows to enter 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the river and cut off their retreat. Their situa- 
tion seemed desperate — utterly desperate. To 
resist such a foe was impossible. To attempt 
to cross the stream in sight of the batteries and 
ships of the exultant enemy was inevitable and 
total destruction. 

In this dark hour, as the heart of Washing- 
ton was sinking within him, God kindly came 
again to the aid of the feeble hattalions. Un- 
grateful and brutal unbelief will not recognize 
God's hand. But Washington, in that night of 
anguish, with a grateful heart gave thanks to 
God for coming to his rescue. The wind died 
away into a perfect calm, and no ship could 
stem the current of the Narrows. A dense fog 
was rolled in from the ocean, which settled down 
over river and land, enveloping victors and van- 
quished in almost impenetrable darkness. The 
English, strangers to the country, and apprehen- 
sive of surprise, groped like blind men through 
the gloom, and stood to their arms. The Amer- 
icans, familiar with every land-mark, plied the 
energies of despair. 

Boats were collected. Every available arm on 
either shore was brought into requisition, and in 
a few hours nine thousand men, with their mil- 
itary stores, and nearly all their artillery, were 
safely landed in New York. This transporta- 
tion was conducted with such secrecy, silence, 
and order, that though the Americans were 
within hearing of the challenge of the hostile 
sentinels, the last boat had left the shore before 
the retreat was discovered. The spirit of infi- 
delity has said " God always helps the heavy 
battalions." But the race is not always to the 
swift, nor the battle to the strong. 

The English now presented themselves in so 
much force, with fleet and army, before New 
York, that Washington, with his feeble band of 
disheartened troops, was compelled to evacuate 
the city. A rash and headstrong man would 
have been goaded to desperation, and would 
have risked a general engagement. Thus the 
cause of American Independence would have 
been inevitably crushed. A man of any merely 
ordinary strength of character would, in hours 
apparently so hopeless, have abandoned the en- 
terprise in despair. Thousands in the country 
were the friends of the English Government, and 
were aiding, in every possible way, to, put down 
what they called the rebellion. Nearly all the 
Government officials and their friends were in 
favor of the British Minis trv. 

The American army was almost entirely des- 
titute of resources, without arms, without am- 
munition, without food. The soldiers were un- 
paid and in rags. The colonies were all dis- 
tinct, with no bond of union, no unity of coun- 
sel, no concentration of effort. England's om- 
nipotent fleet swept bay and river unobstructed, 
England's well-drilled armies, strengthened with 
all abundance, strode proudly and contemptu- 
ously from village to village, to shoot down the 
husbands and fathers who had left loved ones 
at the peaceful fireside that they might defend 
the liberties of their country. These patriotic 



sufferers, weary and crushed in spirit, began to 
throw down their arms and return to their 
homes. General Howe scattered proclamations 
far and wide, offering pardon to all the rebels 
who would return to their allegiance to the 
British king, excepting Washington, Franklin, 
and a few others of the most notorious of the 
band, who were to be hung as felons. 

But Washington was equal to this fearful 
crisis. He saw that the only possible hope for 
the country was to be found in avoiding an en- 
gagement, and in wearing out the resources of 
the enemy in protracted campaigns. It required 
inconceivable moral courage and self-sacrifice 
to adopt this course. To rush madly into the 
conflict and fall, required nothing but the most 
ordinary and commonplace courage of exasper- 
ation. One can find ten thousand any day 
ready to do this. Animal courage is the very 
cheapest of all earthly virtues. Every vagabond 
in the streets, after a few months' drilling, may 
become a heroic soldier, laughing lead, and iron, 
and steel to scorn. But to lead an army through 
campaigns of defeat — ever to refuse battle ; to 
meet the enemy but to retire before him ; to en- 
counter the insults and the scorn of the foe ; to 
be denounced by friends for incapacity and 
cowardice ; this required a degree of moral 
courage and an amount of heroic virtue which 
we look for in vain but in a Washington. Amer- 
ica had many able generals ; but it may be doubt- 
ed whether there was another man upon this 
continent who could have conducted the des- 
perate struggle of the American revolution to a 
successful issue. 

Washington slowly retired from New York 
to the heights of Harlem, eying with sleepless 
vigilance every movement of the powerful foe, 
that he might take advantage of the least indis- 
cretion. Here he threw up breast-works which 
the enemy did not venture to approach. En- 
glish troops passed up the Hudson and the East 
River to assail Washington in his rear. A weary 
and gloomy campaign of marches and counter- 
marches ensued, in which Washington, with 
hardly the shadow of an army, sustained, in the 
midst of a constant succession of disasters, the 
apparently hopeless fortunes of his country. At 
one time General Reed, in anguish, exclaimed : 

"My God! General Washington, how long 
shall we fly ?" 

Serenely General Washington replied: "We 
will retreat, if necessary, over every river of our 
country, and then over the mountains, where I 
will make a last stand against the enemies of 
my country." 

Washington crossed the Hudson into the 
Jerseys. The English pursued him. With 
matchless dexterity and consummate skill he 
baffled all the efforts of his flushed and over- 
powering foe. He retreated to Trenton, his 
army now diminished to but three thousand 
men. The British, in proud array, with con- 
tumely and derision, pursued the freezing, starv- 
ing, threadbare patriots. They considered the 
conflict ended, and the rebellion crushed. The 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



305 




CEOSSING THE DELAWAEE. 



Congress in Philadelphia, alarmed by the near 
approach of the enemy, hastily adjourned to 
Baltimore, lest they should suddenly be sur- 
rounded by a hostile cavalcade. 

It was cold December. The " strong bat- 
talions" in pursuit, tracked the path of their 
despised opponents by the blood from their la- 
cerated feet on the frozen ground and on the 
snow. The English army pressed vigorously on, 
and Washington succeeded, with extreme diffi- 
culty, in crossing the Delaware, just before his 
triumphant pursuers, filling the whole country 
with their martial ranks of infantry, artillery, 
and cavalry, arrived upon the shores of the 
stream. Nearly all New Jersey was now in the 
power of the English. They had but to cross 
the Delaware to take possession of Philadel- 
phia. The frosts of winter would soon enable 
the foe to pass the river at any point, and with- 
out any obstruction. The darkness of midnight 
now brooded over the prospects of our country. 
Vol. XII.— No. 69.— U 



The enemy, having nothing more to fear, re- 
mitted his vigilance. Welcomed by the Tories 
in the large towns, the English officers sought a 
few days of recreation in feasting and dances, 
till the floating ice, which was swept down the 
stream in enormous masses, should be consoli- 
dated into a firm foothold. 

The night of the 25th of December, 177G, was 
one of Egyptian darkness. The cold, piercing 
wind of winter swept the icy waves of the Dela- 
ware. A raging storm howled dismally, driving 
man and beast to any shelter which could be 
obtained. The English and Hessian officers 
and soldiers, feeling that they had no foe to 
fear, were enjoying the luxury of the warm fire- 
sides of Trenton and its vicinity. Put in the 
darkness of that tempestuous night, and amidst 
the conflict of its terrible elements, Washing- 
ton embarked his little army to recroil the Del- 
aware. A more heroic deed history lias never 
recorded. It was the sublimity of combined 



306 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



daring and prudence. Forcing his boats against 
the gale, against the sleet, against the masses of 
ice which came crashing down the stream, he 
succeeded, before the dawn of the morning, in 
landing upon the opposite shore two thousand 
four hundred men and twenty pieces of cannon. 

The British were dispersed in careless bands, 
not dreaming of danger. The Americans, 
nerved by the energies of despair, thus sudden- 
ly elevated into sanguine hope, plunged upon 
the first body of the foe they met, and after a 
bloody strife, scattered them like the snow-flakes 
before the gale, taking a thousand prisoners 
and six pieces of cannon. After this bold and 
defiant adventure, which astounded the foe, 
Washington, on the same day, recrossed the 
icy stream with his prisoners, and gained his 
encampment in safety. 

The English alarmed, retreated to Princeton. 
Washington again crossed the Delaware to 
Trenton, and from his head-quarters there, 
watched his now more wary foe. The English 
soon collected an overwhelming force, and 
marched to Trenton, to drive Washington into 
the freezing Delaware. It was at the close of 
a cold winter's day that Lord Cornwallis, with 
his proud army, arrived before Trenton. Wash- 
ington's last hour was now apparently tolled. 
To resist such a foe was merely to sell life as 
dearly as possible. Sir William Erskine urged 
the British commander to make an immediate 
attack. 

" Now is the time," said he, u to make sure 
of Washington I" 

" Our troops are hungry and tired," Corn- 
wallis replied. "He and his tatterdemalions 
are now in my power. They can not escape to- 
night, for the ice of the Delaware will neither 
bear their weight nor admit the passage of boats. 
To-morrow, at break of day, I will attack them. 
The rising sun shall see the end of rebellion." 

The cold, wintry sun rose cloudless in the 
morning. But the American army had vanish- 
ed. Perfect solitude reigned along those lines, 
which, when the last evening's sun went down, 
had been crowded with the ranks of war. In 
the night Washington silently sent his luggage 
to Burlington. Replenishing all his camp-fires 
to deceive the enemy, he noiselessly, and with 
extraordinary precipitation, evacuated his camp 
by a circuitous route, fell upon the rear-guard 
of the English at Princeton, and after a short 
conflict, in which one hundred and sixty of the 
English fell, took three hundred prisoners. 

The morning sun was just brilliantly dawning 
as Washington made this unexpected onset upon 
his foes. At this moment Cornwallis stood 
upon an eminence and gazed astounded upon 
the deserted and waning fires of the Americans. 
Bewildered, he pressed his hand to his brow, ex- 
claiming: 

" Where can Washington be gone !" Just 
then the heavy booming of the conflict of 
Princeton fell upon his ear. " There he is !" he 
added. " By Jove! Washington deserves to fight 
in the cause of Jus king" 



Cheered by this success, Washington led his 
handful of patriots to the heights of Morristown, 
where he fortified himself in winter-quarters. 
Erom this spot he sent out such detachments to 
harass the enemy, that in a short time New 
Jersey was almost entirely delivered from the 
presence of a hostile army. These achieve- 
ments, won by the most extraordinary blending 
of prudence and courage, revived the despond- 
ency of the people. Congress was roused to new 
exertions, and morning began faintly to dawn 
over the midnight darkness of our land. 

Washington employed the winter in making 
vigorous efforts for the spring campaign. Troops 
were sent from the different States to join the 
army at Morristown. The French kindly sent 
to Washington, whose cause and whose charac- 
ter they loved, two vessels containing twenty- 
four thousand muskets. This was an inestima- 
ble favor. The Marquis de Lafayette also, left 
his mansion of opulence and his youthful bride 
to lend his sword and to peril his life in the 
cause of American Independence. 

The English, after various conflicts in New 
Jersey, during the early part of summer, in 
which they accomplished nothing of any mo- 
ment, now sent a powerful fleet, with eighteen 
thousand soldiers, to ascend the Delaware and 
capture Philadelphia. Washington, who was 
watching their movements with unceasing vigi- 
lance, hastened to oppose them. Early in Sep- 
tember this formidable hostile force of well-arm- 
ed veterans, landed near Elkton, at the head of 
Chesapeake Bay. Washington, with eleven 
thousand patriots, marched to encounter them. 
The hostile armies met in the celebrated battle 
of the Brandywine. It was a fierce and bloody 
strife. Lafayette was wounded. The Ameri- 
cans, overwhelmed by numbers, were compelled 
to retire. The discomfited army retreated to 
Philadelphia. Congress had already invested 
Washington with dictatorial powers, to meet 
the fearful crisis which could not be averted. 
The whole country approved of the act. The 
army was rapidly recruited in Philadelphia, and 
before the English had left the dearly-bought 
hills and valleys of the Brandywine, Washing- 
ton again boldly marched to meet the foe. It 
was so important to save Philadelphia from the 
enemy, that he was resolved to hazard a battle. 
The invaders and their patriotic opponents met 
twenty-three miles from the city. A fierce en- 
gagement had just commenced, when a storm 
came on, with such floods of rain, that neither 
army could long pursue the contest. Washing- 
ton was compelled to retire, after a severe en- 
gagement at Germantown, for his ammunition 
was utterly ruined. The British triumphantly 
entered Philadelphia. Congress precipitately 
adjourned to Lancaster, and thence to York. 
For eight months the English held the city. 
Various bloody skirmishes ensued, which led to 
no important results, but which were gradually 
giving the inexperienced Americans new cour- 
age to face their formidable foes. At the 
same time the surrender of Burgoyne at Sar- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



307 



atoga rolled a wave of exultation through Amer- 
ica. 

The cold blasts of winter again came on. 
The English, comfortably housed in Philadel- 
phia, were provided with every luxury. It be- 
came necessary for Washington to seek winter- 
quarters where he could fortify himself against 
surprise. He selected Valley Forge, about 
twenty miles from Philadelphia. The latter 
part of December the soldiers commenced rear- 
ing their log-huts. Each hut was fourteen feet 
by sixteen, and accommodated twelve soldiers. 
The encampment, surrounded by entrench- 
ments, resembled a neat though exceedingly 
picturesque city, with streets and avenues. 
Eleven thousand men here passed the winter 
of 1777, 1778. It was a season of awful suffer- 



ing. The tragedy of Valley Forge ! the heart 
sickens to contemplate it. The inactivity of 
the army, destitute of food, of clothing, of pow- 
der, was by some unjustly and cruelly con- 
demned, and bitter were the reproaches which 
were often thrown on the noble name of Wash- 
ington. 

" I can assure those gentlemen," Washington 
wrote, " that it is a much easier and less dis- 
tressing thing to draw remonstrances in a com- 
fortable room, by a good fireside, than to occupy 
a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and 
snow without clothes or blankets." 

Washington devoted himself with untiring 
energy, during the winter, to ameliorate the 
condition of the army and to prepare for a new 
campaign. In the mean time France gener- 




al INTEB-QUAETEBS AT VALLEY FOEGiS. 



308 



HAMPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ously recognized our independence, and enter- 
ing into friendly alliance with ns, sent a fleet 
and an army to our aid. These tidings were 
received with unbounded joy in the encamp- 
ment at Valley Forge. The day of rejoicing 
was ushered in by prayers and hymns of grati- 
tude and praise. Parades, music, the thunders 
of artillery and patriotic toasts concluded the 
festival of hope and exultation. It is ungrate- 
ful in us ever to forget this kindness of our gen- 
erous allies. 

Efforts were now made to destroy the reputa- 
tion of Washington. A pamphlet, professing 
to contain letters from George Washington, 
was published in London, and republished in 
New York, and circulated very widely, through 
every possible agency, all over the country. It 
Avas asserted that this correspondence was com- 
posed of private letters to Mrs. Washington and 
other friends, and that they had been found in 
a portmanteau taken from a servant of Wash- 
ington after the evacuation of Fort Lee. The 
forgery was very skillfully got up, and repre- 
sented Washington as a hypocrite, denouncing, 
in his confidential letters, the misguided rash- 
ness of Congress in declaring Independence. 
The letters were filled with sentiments which, 
if true, would prove Washington totally unfit to 
be at the head of the American army. The 
authenticity of the letters was undoubted in 
England. But in this country the character of 
Washington and the frauds of the unscrupulous 
enemy were both too well known to allow the 
Americans to be misled by so ignoble a decep- 
tion. 

During the winter there were many bloody 
conflicts, as foraging parties from the English 
in Philadelphia were met and driven back by 
detachments from Valley Forge. The English 
army in New York and Philadelphia now 
amounted to thirty thousand men, many of 
whom were mercenary soldiers from Germany. 
Washington, however, was not aware that the 
enemy was so strong. The whole American 
army, by the first of May, did not exceed fifteen 
thousand men. But the alliance with France 
gave us new strength. The British, apprehen- 
sive that a French fleet might soon appear in the 
Delaware, to the serious embarrassment of the 
English army, evacuated Philadelphia. They 
sent a part of their forces, with provision train 
and heavy baggage, by water to New York, and 
commenced their march through New Jersey 
with the main body of their troops. 

The British were now retiring, and Wash- 
ington, though with feebler numbers, followed 
closely in their rear, eager for an opportunity 
to strike a blow. The 28th of June, ] 778, was 
a day of intense heat. Not a breath of air was 
stirring. The sun, with blistering power, poured 
down its undimmed rays upon the panting ar- 
mies, the pursuers and the pursued. The En- 
glish were at Monmouth. The march of an- 
other day would place them beyond the reach 
of attack. Washington, resolved that they 
should not escape without at least one blow, 



ordered an assault. General Lee was in tu<, 
advance with five thousand men. Washington 
sent orders to him immediately to commence 
the onset, with the assurance that he would 
march vigorously to his support. As Washing- 
ton was pressing eagerly on, to his amazement 
and his inexpressible indignation he met Lee in 
full retreat. Washington plunged his spurs into 
his horse, rode furiously to the retreating gen- 
eral, and with a countenance livid with the 
vehemence of his feelings, in a voice of thun- 
der shouted, 

"In the name of God, General Lee, what 
has caused this ill-timed prudence?" 

Lee angrily retorted, "I know of no man 
blessed with a larger portion of that rascally 
virtue than your Excellency." 

It was no time for debate. Washington 
turned to the men. They greeted him with 
three cheers. At his command they instantly 
turned and charged the enemy. A fierce and 
bloody battle ensued, and the English were com- 
pelled to retire and seek protection in their 
strong-holds. Night at length terminated the 
conflict. 

Washington resolved to renew the battle in 
the morning. He ordered his men to lie upon 
their arms upon the ground which they then 
occupied. Wrapping his cloak around him, he 
threw himself upon the grass and slept in the 
midst of his soldiers. But when the morning 
dawned no enemy was to be seen. They had 
silently retreated in the night to the heights of 
Middletown, where they were unapproachable. 
They left three hundred of their dead behind 
them. The Americans lost but sixty-nine. The 
British lost also one hundred in prisoners •, and 
more than six hundred had deserted since they 
left Philadelphia. The English soldiers did not 
love to fight against their brothers who were 
struggling for independence. Lee was court- 
martialed and suspended from service. The 
English crowded into their ships and made 
good their retreat to New York. Occasionally 
the English sent foraging parties over into the 
defenseless regions of New Jersey, which ma- 
rauding bands perpetrated atrocities hitherto 
unparalleled in civilized warfare. They had 
called the cruel savage to their aid. The toma- 
hawk and the scalping-knife were mercilessly 
employed. Towns, villages, farm-houses were 
burned down, and the inhabitants were plun- 
dered with pitiless cruelty. The British Minis- 
try openly encouraged these atrocities. They 
said that rebellious America must be punished 
into submission ; and that in inflicting this pun- 
ishment it was right to make use of all the in- 
struments which God and nature had placed in 
their hands. 

But we must not forget that there were many 
noble Englishmen, w r ho with great moral cour- 
age espoused our cause. They scorned that de- 
testable maxim, " Our country right or wrong." 
They pleaded for us at home. They aided 
us with their money and their council. They 
entered our ranks as officers and soldiers, and 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



309 



bled for the sacred cause of human liberty. 
Many a voice was eloquently raised in Parlia- 
ment in advocacy of America. And the im- 
mortal Lord Chatham, in tones which echoed 
throughout the civilized world, exclaimed, in the 
House of Lords and at the very foot of the 
throne, "Were I an American, as I am an En- 
glishman, I would never lay down my arms — 
never, never, never !" 

An important distinction must be made be- 
tween the English people, our brothers, and the 
aristocratic government of that day, then so 
fearfully dominant, and so determined to main- 
tain aristocratic usurpation. 

Another cold and cheerless winter came, and 
the American army went into winter-quarters 
mainly at West Point. The British remained 
within their lines at New York. They sent 
agents, however, to the Six Nations of Indians ; 
and these fierce savages, joined by a band of 
Tories, ravaged unresisted the wide frontier, 
perpetrating the horrid massacres of Cherry 
Valley and of Wyoming. These fiendish deeds 
sent a thrill of horror through England as well 
as through America. Four thousand men were 
sent by Washington into the wilderness to ar- 
rest, if possible, these horrors. The Indians 
and their blood-stained allies were driven to 
Niagara, where the gory marauders, civilized 
and savage, were received in the protecting 
arms of an English fortress. 

The summer campaign opened with an in- 
discriminate system of devastation and plunder 
pursued vigorously by the English. 

" A war of this sort," said Lord George Ger- 
main, " will probably induce the rebellious prov- 
inces to return to their allegiance." 

The English now collected all their forces to 
make an assault upon West Point and the upper 
waters of the Hudson. The vigilance of Wash- 
ington detected and thwarted their plans. Ex- 
asperated by this discomfiture, General Clinton, 
who was then in command of the British forces, 
commenced a more vigorous prosecution of vio- 
lence and plunder upon the defenseless towns 
and farm-houses of the Americans who were 
unprotected. Savage warfare was hardly more 
merciless. The sky was reddened with wan- 
ton conflagrations. Women and children were 
driven houseless into the fields. The flourish- 
ing towns of Fairfield and Norwalk, in Con- 
necticut, were reduced to ashes. While the 
enemy were thus ravaging that defenseless State, 
Washington planned an expedition against Stony 
Point, on the Hudson, which was held by the 
British. General Wayne conducted the enter- 
prise on the night of the loth of July, with 
great gallantry and success. Sixty-three of the 
English were killed, five hundred and forty-three 
taken prisoners, and all the military stores of 
the fortress captured. In such fierce yet un- 
decisive warfare another summer passed away. 
The American army was never sufficiently strong 
to take the offensive. It was, however, inces- 
santly employed striking blows upon the En- 
glish wherever the eagle eye of Washington 



could discern an exposed spot, and the Ameri- 
cans growing daily more bold, were gradually 
gaining in the conflict. Under the circum- 
stances of the case any other warfare than this 
would have been fatally disastrous. 

The winter'of 1779 set in early and with un- 
usual severity. The American army was in 
such a starving condition that Washington was 
compelled to make the utmost exertions to save 
his wasting bands from annihilation. His efforts 
were successful, and the colonies, urged by his 
incessant appeals, made new efforts to augment 
their forces for a more vigorous campaign in 
the spring. Cheering intelligence arrived that 
a naval and land force might soon be expected 
from our generous allies the French. A skirm- 
ishing warfare was recommenced early in the 
spring, and the English sent detachments to 
punish distant parts of rebellious America. In 
July twelve vessels of war arrived from France 
with arms, ammunition, and five thousand sol- 
diers. This squadron, however, was immedi- 
ately blockaded in Newport by a stronger Brit- 
ish fleet, and another expedition, which was 
about to sail from Brest in France, was effectu- 
ally shut up there. The war still raged in de- 
tachments, and conflagration, blood, and misery 
deluged our unhappy land. But nothing de- 
cisive could be accomplished toward driving the 
invaders from these shores. 

These long years of war and woe filled many 
even of the most sanguine hearts with dismay 
and despair. Many of the wisest deemed it 
folly for these impoverished and feeble colonies 
longer to contend against the wealth, the power, 
and the numbers of Great Britain, then the 
Roman Empire of the modern world. General 
Arnold, who was at this time in command at 
West Point, saw no hope for his country. Be- 
lieving the ship to be inevitably sinking, he in- 
gloriously sought to take care of himself. He 
turned traitor, and offered to sell his fortress to 
the English. The treason was detected, but 
the traitor escaped, and the lamented Andre 
became the necessary victim of Arnold's crime. 

Lord Cornwallis was now, with a well-pro- 
vided army, and an assisting navy, overrunning 
the two Carolinas. General Green was sent to 
afford such protection as he could to the in- 
habitants, and to annoy as much as possible the 
invaders. Lafayette was vigilant in the vicinity 
of New York, watching the foe with an eagle 
eye, ready to pounce upon any detachment 
which presented the slightest exposure. Wash- 
ington was every where, with patriotism which 
never flagged, with hope which never failed, 
cheering the army, animating the inhabitants, 
rousing Congress, and with his judicious mind 
guiding the movements of the army and the 
decisions of legislation. Thus the dreary sum- 
mer of 1780 lingered away in our war-scathed 
land. 

Again our heroic little army went into winter- 
quarters mainly upon the Highlands of the Hud- 
son. As the springof 1781 opened the war was 
renewed. The English directed their chief at 



310 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



tention to the South, which was far weaker than 
the North. Richmond, in Virginia, was laid in 
ashes, and a general system of devastation and 
plunder prevailed. The enemy ascended the 
Chesapeake and the Potomac with armed ves- 
sels. They landed at Mount Vernon. The 
manager of the estate, to save the mansions 
from pillage and flames, furnished the legalized 
robbers with abundance of supplies, Washing- 
ton was much displeased. He Avrote to his 
agent : 

"It would have been a less painful circum- 
stance to me to have heard that, in consequence 
of your non-compliance with their request, they 
had burnt my house and laid the plantation in 
ruins. You ought to have considered yourself 
as my representative, and should have reflected 
on the bad example of communicating with the 
enemy, and making a voluntary offer of refresh- 
ments to them with a view to prevent a confla- 
gration." 

The prospects of the country were still dark 
and gloomy in the extreme. Washington wrote, 
on the first of May, 1781 : "Instead of maga- 
zines filled with provisions, we have a scanty 
pittance scattered here and there in the differ- 
ent States. Instead of arsenals well supplied 
they are poorly provided, and the workmen all 
leaving. Instead of having field-equipage in 
readiness, the Quarter-master-general is but 
now applying to the several States to provide 
these things. Instead of having the regiments 
completed, scarce any State has at this hour an 
eighth part of its quota in the field, and there 
is little prospect of their ever getting more than 
half. In a word, instead of having every thing 
in readiness to take the field, we have nothing. 
Instead of having the prospect of a glorious 
offensive campaign, we have a bewildering and 
gloomy defensive one, unless we should receive 
a powerful aid of ships, land troops, and money 
from our generous allies." 

The army had, in fact, about this time dwin- 
dled away to three thousand, and the paper- 
money issued by Congress, with which the troops 
were paid, had become almost entirely value- 
less. Lord Cornwallis was now at Yorktown, 
in Virginia, but a few miles from Chesapeake 
Bay. There was no force in his vicinity seri- 
ously to annoy him. Washington resolved, in 
conjunction with our allies from France, to 
make a bold movement for his capture. He 
succeeded in deceiving the English into the 
belief that he was making great preparations 
for the siege of New York. Thus they were 
prevented from rendering any aid to York- 
town. 

By rapid marches Washington hastened to 
encircle the foe. Early in September Lord 
Cornwallis, as he arose one morning, was 
amazed to see, in the rays of the rising sun, 
the heights around him gleaming with the bay- 
onets and the batteries of the Americans. At 
about the same hour the French fleet appeared 
in invincible strength before the harbor. Corn- 
wallis was hopelessly caught. There was no I 



extrication. There was no retreat. Neither 
by land nor by sea could he obtain any sup- 
plies. Shot and shells began to fall thickly 
into his despairing lines.. Famine stared him 
in the face. After a few days of hopeless 
conflict, on the 19th of October, 1781, he was 
compelled to surrender. Seven thousand Brit- 
ish veterans laid down their arms to the victors. 
One hundred and sixty pieces of cannon, with 
corresponding military stores, graced the tri- 
umph. Without the assistance of our noble 
allies we could not have gained this victory. 
Let not our gratitude be stinted or cold. 

This glorious capture roused hope and vigor 
all over the country. The English became dis- 
heartened by our indomitable perseverance. 
The darkness of the long night was passing 
away. 

The day after the capitulation, Washington 
devoutly issued the following order to the 
army : 

"Divine service is to be performed to-mor- 
row in the several brigades and divisions. The 
Commander-in-chief earnestly recommends that 
the troops not on duty should universally at- 
tend, with that seriousness of deportment and 
gratitude of heart which the recognition of such 
reiterated and astonishing interpositions of Prov- 
idence demands of us." 

The joyful tidings reached Philadelphia at 
midnight. A watchman traversed the streets 
shouting at intervals, 

" Past twelve o'clock, and a pleasant morning ! 
Cornwallis is taken /" 

These words rang upon the ear almost like 
the trump which wakes the dead. Candles 
were lighted, windows thrown up, figures in 
night-robes and night-caps bent engerly out to 
catch the thrilling sound. Shouts were raised. 
Citizens rushed into the streets half-clad. They 
wept. They laughed. They embraced each 
other. The news flew upon the wings of the 
wind, nobody can tell how, and the shout of 
an enfranchised people rose like a roar of thun- 
der from our whole land. With France for an 
ally, and with such a victory, republican Amer- 
ica would never again } T ield to the aristocratic 
government of England. The question was 
now settled, and settled forever. 

Though the fury of the storm was over, the 
billows of war had not yet subsided. Wash- 
ington, late in November of 1781, again retired 
to winter-quarters. He urged Congress to make 
preparations for the vigorous prosecution of the 
war in the spring, as the most effectual means 
of securing a speedy and an honorable peace. 
The conviction, however, was now so general 
that the war was virtually at an end, that with 
difficulty ten thousand men were marshaled in 
the camp. The army, disheartened by the in- 
efficiency of Congress, now expressed the wish 
that Washington would assume the supreme 
command of government, and organize the 
country into a constitutional kingdom, with 
himself at the head. But Washington was a. 
republican. He believed that the people of 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



311 




NEWS OF CArTURE OP COHNWALLIS. 



this country, trained in the science of legisla- 
tion, religious in their habits, and intelligent, 
were abundantly capable of governing them- 
selves. He repelled the suggestion promptly 
and almost indignantly. 

Early in May England opened negotiations 
for peace. Hostilities were by each party tacit- 
ly laid aside. Negotiations were protracted in 
Paris during the summer and the ensuing win- 
ter. Washington had established his head- 
quarters at Newburg, and was very busy in con- 
solidating the interests of our divided and dis- 
tracted country. A government, of republican 
liberty and yet of efficiency, was to be organ- 
ized, and its construction required the highest 
energies of every thinking mind. It was also 
necessary to keep the army ever ready for bat- 
tle, for a new conflict might at any moment 
break out. Thus another summer and winter 
passed away. 

The snows were still lingering in the laps of 
the Highlands when the joyful tidings arrived 
that a treaty of peace had been signed at Paris. 
The intelligence was communicated to the 
American army the 19th of April, 1783, just 
eight years from the day when the conflict was 
commenced on the plain of Lexington. En- 
gland had for eight years deluged this land 
with blood and woe. Thousands had perished 



on the gory field of battle. Thousands had 
been beggared. Thousands had been made 
widows and orphans, and doomed to a life-long 
wretchedness. It was the fearful price which 
America paid for independence. 

Late in November the English evacuated 
New York, entered their ships, and sailed for 
their homes. Washington, with his troops, 
marched from West Point, and entered the 
city as the English departed. It was a joyful 
day, and no untoAvard incident marred its fes- 
tivities. America was free and independent., 
Washington was the saviour of his country. 

And now the day arrived when Washington 
was to take his leave of his companions in arms, 
to retire to his beloved retreat at Mount Ver- 
non. The affecting interview took place on the 
4th of December. Washington, firm as he was, 
with a flushed cheek and a swimming eye enter- 
ed the room where the principal officers of his 
army were assembled. His voice trembled with 
emotion as he said : 

" With a heart full of love and gratitude 1 
now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish 
that your latter days may be as prosperous and 
happy as your former ones have been glorious 
and honorable. I can not come to each of you 
to take my leave, but shall be obliged if caeli 
of you will come and take me by the ha,nd." 



312 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Tears blinded his eyes, and he could say no 
more. One after another these heroic men gave 
the warm parting. No one was capable of ut- 
terance. Silence, as of the grave, prevailed as 
each one took an affecting adieu of the noble 
chieftain who had secured peace and independ- 
ence to America. Washington left the room 
bowed down with irrepressible emotion. He 
traveled slowly toward his home, greeted with 
love and veneration in every city and village 
through which he passed. He met Congress 
at Annapolis to resign his commission. It was 
the 23d of December, 1 783. All the members 
of Congress, and a large concourse of spectators, 
were present. His address was closed with the 
following words : 

"Having now finished the work assigned me, 
I retire from the great theatre of action ; and 
bidding an affectionate farewell to this august 
body, under whose orders I have so long acted, 
I here offer my commission, and take my leave 
of all the employments of public life." 



The next day he returned to Mount Vernon. 
He wrote to Lafayette : " At length I am bi*. 
come a private citizen on the banks of the Po- 
tomac ; and under the shadow of my own vine 
and fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp and 
the busy scenes of public life, I am solacing my- 
self with those tranquil enjoyments of which the 
soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fame, the 
statesman, whose watchful days and sleepless 
nights are spent in devising schemes to promote 
the welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin of 
other countries, as if this globe were insufficient 
for us all, and the courtier, who is always watching 
the countenance of his prince, in hopes of catch- 
ing a gracious smile, can have very little con- 
ception. Envious of none, I am determined to 
be pleased with all. And this, my dear friend, 
being the order for my march, I will move gen- 
tly down the stream of life until I sleep with my 
fathers." 

The great problem which now engrossed all 
minds was the consolidation of the thirteen 




WASHINGTON RESIGNING HIS COMMISSION. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



313 



jffi^ 




INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. 



States of America, in some way which should 
preserve State rights, and at the same time se- 
cure the energies of centralization. To this 
problem Washington devoted much thought. 
A convention was assembled to deliberate upon 
this momentous question. It met at Philadel- 
phia in 1787. Washington was sent a delegate 
from Virginia, and was placed in the President's 
chair by a unanimous vote. The result was the 
present Constitution of the United States, on 
the whole probably the most sagacious instru- 
ment which ever came from uninspired minds. 
It has made the United States of America what 
they now arc. The world must look at the 
fruit, and wonder and admire. Nothing hu- 
man is perfect. There were some provisions 
in the compromises of the Constitution from 
which Washington's mind and heart recoiled, 
lie had fought for liberty. " All men are born 
free and equal," was the motto of the banner 
under which he had rallied his strength. 



"There arc some things," he wrote, "in this 
new form, I will readily acknowledge, which 
never did, and I am persuaded never will, ob- 
tain my cordial approbation. But I did then 
conceive, and do now most firmly believe, that 
in the aggregate it is the best Constitution that 
can be obtained at this epoch, and that this or 
a dissolution awaits our choice, and is the only 
alternative." 

A spirit of compromise and concession pre- 
vailed, and the Constitution was adopted by all 
the States. All eyes were now turned to Wash- 
ington as chief magistrate. By the unanimous 
vote of the electors he was chosen the first Pres- 
ident of the United States. It is not known 
that there was a dissentient voice in the nation. 

New York was then the scat of government. 
As Washington left Mount Vernon for the me- 
troplis to assume these new duties of toil and 
care, we find recorded in his journal : 

"About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount 



314 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Vernon, to private life, and domestic felicity ; 
and with a mind oppressed with more anxious 
and painful sensations than I have words to ex- 
press, set out for New York, with the best dis- 
position to render service to my country, in 
obedience to its call, but with less hope of an- 
swering its expectations." 

He was inaugurated with religious ceremo- 
nies and appropriate festivities, on the 30th of 
April, 1789, and became a model President. 
He remained in the Presidental chair two terms, 
until 1796, when he again retired to the peace- 



ful shades of Mount Vernon, bequeathing to his 
grateful countrymen the rich legacy of his Fare- 
well Address. The admiration with which this 
address was universally received will never 
wane. May its precious counsels ever be heed- 
ed. 

The United States Congress, under Washing- 
ton, was the glory of America. Our best men, 
the most lofty in character, and the most dis- 
tinguished in intelligence, integrity, and dignity, 
were then elected to discharge the immense re- 
sponsibilities of the Senate and of the House. 




WASHINGTON ON HIS DEATH-HEP. 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



315 



One of the compatriots of Washington, who was 
then familiar with all the scenes occurring at 
the seat of government, after a lapse of forty 
years, in 1836, visited the capital. He thus, 
in a letter to a friend, describes the difference 
between the ancient and the modern Congress. 

"In the years '94, '95, '96, I often used to 
see the House and Senate of that day. In the 
month of May last I went to Washington, sole- 
ly to see the House and Senate of forty years 
later. Good Heavens ! what a contrast ! If 
the majority of our nation be now fairly repre- 
sented, we are the lowest and the most vulgar 
of all the Caucasian race." 

There are now men in Congress who can 
sneer at the idea of imploring God's blessing. 
May our National Legislature soon be purified 
of all such degrading and abominable nuisances. 

Soon after Washington's return to Mount 
Vernon, he wrote a letter to a friend, in which 
he described the manner in which he passed his 
time. He rose with the sun, and first made 
preparations for the business of the day. " By 
the time I have accomplished these matters," 
he adds, " breakfast is ready. This being over, 
I mount my horse and ride round my farms, 
which employs me until it is time to dress for 
dinner, at which I rarely miss to see strange 
faces, come, as they say, out of respect to me. 
And how different is this from having a few 
friends at a social board ! The usual time of 
sitting at table, a walk, and tea, bring me within 
the dawn of candlelight ; previous to which, if 
not prevented by company, I resolve that as 
soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place 
of the great luminary I will retire to my writ- 
ing-table and acknowledge the letters I have 
received. Having given you this history of a 
day, it will serve for a year." 

The 12th of December, 1799, was chill and 
damp. Washington, however, took his usual 
round on horseback to his farms, and returned, 
late in the afternoon, wet with sleet and shiver- 
ing with cold. A sore throat and hoarseness 
ensued. His disorder rapidly advanced till he 
breathed with much difficulty, and could not 
swallow. All remedies proved unavailing. His 
sufferings continued to increase, and it was soon 
found that he must die. Turning to a friend, he 
said : 

" I find I am going. My breath can not con- 
tinue long. I believed from the first attack it 
would be fatal." 

He thanked his physicians for their kindness, 
but assuring them that no efforts could be of any 
avail, entreated them to let him die quietly. 
On the night of the 14th, between the hours of 
ten and eleven, he gently expired in the sixty- 
eighth year of his age, and in the full possession 
of all his faculties. At the moment of death 
Mrs. Washington sat in silent grief at the foot 
of the bed. 

"Is he gone?" she asked, in a firm and collect- 
ed voice. 

The physician, unable to speak, gave a silent 
signal of assent. 



" 'Tis well," she added, in the same untrem- 
ulous utterance; " all is now over. I shall soon 
follow him. I have no more trials to pass 
through." 

On the 18th his remains were deposited in 
the family tOmb, and his name and his fame 
will forever, as now, fill the world. 

ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS 
OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 

"Auri sacra fames." — Horace. 

I HAVE been requested to communicate, in 
a brief and popular form, the results of my 
journey into the interior of Spanish Honduras. 
The materials which I collected for a statistical 
and political account of Honduras, and more 
particularly of the gold fields of Yoro and Olan- 
cho, together with my diary of travel and per- 
sonal adventures, from September, 1854, to 
May, 1855, would fill a large volume, and are 
accompanied by original maps of regions hither- 
to unknown to miners and geographers, and a 
series of pencil sketches made by an artist of 
rare talent, illustrating many interesting feat- 
ures of the scenery and costume of Honduras. 
From these materials I have endeavored, in the 
present instance, to select such traits of advent- 
ure and novel information as would prove ac- 
ceptable to the general reader. 

During the gradual subsidence of popular 
interest in Californian adventure, a new field 
of inquiry has been opened in Central America. 
The republican State of Nicaragua, illustrated in 
this Magazine by the pen of an accomplished trav- 
eler and negotiator, and the pencil of an artist 
unequaled in the delineation of tropical costume 
and scenery, has at length become familiar to 
the reading public. That State is filling up 
with a powerful and practical emigration from 
California and the Atlantic States ; and we may 
expect soon to hear that its ruinous revolutions, 
the work of native desperadoes, have terminated 
in the establishment of peace and a democratic, 
government. 

Honduras, the counterpart and natural ally 
of Nicaragua on the north, has awakened an 
equal interest in the minds of intelligent Amer- 
icans, not only as an inexhaustible field of 
mining and commercial enterprise, but as a 
portion of the continent shaped by nature and 
position to sustain a populous and powerful re- 
public* 

In the year 1848 a young merchant of New 



* Without estimating the heavy expenditure which i: 
required, we have not only secured for our readers the 
latest and most original information in regard to this im- 
portant and interesting portion of America, but have em- 
bodied that information in the most attractive form which 
can be impressed by the genius of accomplished traveler, 
artists, and men of letters. We wish to gratify the read 
ing community with rare and fresh information, and a: 
the same time satisfy their cultivated taste in the mode of 
presenting it. In the present article we have given the 
personal narrative of an American traveler in Eastern and 
Central Honduras. This, together with our previous ar- 
ticles on Nicaragua and other parts of Central Amerira. 
and our forthcoming work on Honduras by Mr. Squier. 
will form a complete body of correct and novel informa- 
tion. — Ei>. 



316 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




PLAZA OF TEGUCIGALPA. 



York, while visiting the city of Leon, in Nica- 
ragua, was tempted, by the glowing descriptions 
given him by natives of the country, to attempt 
the overland journey from the Lake of Nica- 
ragua, by the way of Segovia, Matagalpa, and 
Tegucigalpa, to the placers of Eastern Honduras, 
at that period but little known, but now promis- 
ing to share some portion of the fame of Cal- 
ifornia and Australia. The rich sands of the 
Sacramento and San Joaquin engrossed at that 
period the adventurous spirit of the continent. 
Central America, as yet unillumined by the 
talent and antiquarian industry of a Squier, or 
the genius of a Bard,* lay under a cloud, await- 
ing, as it were, in modest obscurity the brilliant 
future prepared for it by the example and splen- 
did successes of the Northern and Australian 
El Dorados. 

Our adventurer, after many painful delays, 
and overcoming obstacles against which only 
a strong enthusiasm would have ventured, ar- 
rived at length in Olancho, the auriferous re- 
gion of Central America. He soon satisfied 
himself, by a cursory survey, of the value and 
accessibility of these placers ; and being of an 
amiable disposition, with much social address, 
induced the proprietors of the soil to grant to 
him, and those whom he might associate with 
himself in the United States, an exclusive right 
of mining in a district thirty by sixty miles in 
extent, including all the head-waters of Patook 
or Guayape river ; the sands and earth of these 
waters seeming to him to be the richest in the 

* The best known and most reliable works on Nica- 
ragua and Honduras are tbe published and forthcoming 
volumes of E. G. Squier, and that of Samuel A. Bard, 
distinguished, the first by great accuracy and research, 
and the second by a delightful narrative style. — Ed. 



world. A year's time was consumed in these 
investigations. A year of probation was allow- 
ed, by the terms of the grant, for the formation 
of a company and the commencement of the 
enterprise. The year expired almost before his 
return, and the grants were forfeited. 

The written report and correspondence of this 
first adventurer, with a copy of the now worth- 
less grant, were subsequently taken to Cali- 
fornia, and there, under the intelligent guidance 
of a few far-seeing Americans, an association 
was formed, and I had the good fortune to be 
selected as their agent to go from California 
into the interior and eastern part of Honduras, 
to examine the gold fields of Yoro and Olancho, 
and make a report upon their condition and 
value for the purposes of American miners and 
merchants. I was also instructed to make a 
survey and map of the Guayape or Patook river, 
to ascertain how far it might be navigated by 
steamers from the ocean ; and finally, if it 
seemed to be an object worth the attention of 
capitalists, to procure a renewal and extension 
of the famous Guayape grant and contract. 

I made the voyage from San Juan del Sur, 
on the Pacific, up the coast to Tigre Island, 
in the bay of Fonseca, in an open boat fitted 
with a sail ; the road by the way of Rivas and 
Leon being closed at that time to Americans 
by the guerrillas of Chamorro, at war with the 
republican government of Leon. Tigre Island, 
in the bay of Fonseca, belongs to Honduras, 
and here I showed my letters from Governor 
Bigler and other dignitaries of California, and 
procured from a distinguished merchant of that 
place certain private letters of introduction to 
the President of Honduras. 

Prom Tigre Island I proceeded in a row- 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



317 







BRIDGE OF JTJTECALPA. 



boat across the bay, and up the Rio Grande to 
the foot of the western Cordilleras. Thence 
by mule travel, winding along and gradually 
ascending the declivities of the mountains, I 
made my way to the ancient city of Teguci- 
galpa, once a powerful and wealthy metropolis, 
but in these days containing only thirteen thou- 
sand inhabitants. 

As I was still enfeebled by the fever which 
attacked me on the hot marshes of the Pacific 
coast, I was ill prepared to enjoy the romantic 
and novel scenery of this journey, or the hos- 
pitable and kindly reception which the friends 
of the President had prepared for me at Tegu- 
cigalpa. Sick and exhausted, I passed almost 
unobservant over the beautiful bridge which 
spans the torrent at the entrance of the city. 
Here the bright waters of the Rio Grande rush 
down from the green forests and grassy slopes 
of the Cordilleras, unobstructed by dam or 
sluice, but destined at no remote period to turn 
the wheels of silver-mills and cloth-factories. 
My secretary was too lazy or too sullen to con- 
verse, and did not entertain me with the usual 
narrative of sieges, defeats, and victories — the 
alternate failures and successes — of which the 
antique arches of the bridge are at once the 
witness and the monument. 

Tegucigalpa is the capital of the silver re- 
gion, and second only to Comayagua as a polit- 
ical centre. 

As a citizen of the United States (America- 
no del Norte), and the representative of a com- 
mercial organization of Americans, I was re- 
ceived with many demonstrations of respect and 
hospitality by the members of the Supreme Gov- 
ernment of Honduras. My first interview with 
the President was invested with the formali- 
ties and etiquette so agreeable to the Spanish 
character ; but these detracted nothing from 



the democratic hospitality of the venerable and 
amiable Cabafias. In conformity with usage, 
I was received, at an appointed hour, by the 
President in full costume — wearing uniform, 
and adorned with military and civic orders — 
in the presence of his family and secretaries. 
Only personal compliments, and the ordinary 
conversation of gentlemen at a first introduc- 
tion, were permissible ; business being invari- 
ably deferred for a second interview. 

President Cabafias* is by far the most re- 
fined and intelligent man I have met with in 
Central America, and on a wider stage of ac- 
tion would take his place among the great states- 
men of the age. His reputation for skill as a 
military tactician is inferior to that of some 
others ; but this deficiency — if this deficiency 
be not indeed more apparent than real — is 
more than compensated by romantic gallantry 
and real grandeur of character. His body is 
scarred and pierced with the wounds of many 
battles, leaving only a venerable wreck of man- 
hood, white-haired, and full of placid dignity. 
After a victory over the aristocratic faction, 
some years ago, he entered Tegucigalpa, at the 
head of his army, enthusiastically greeted by a 
concourse of citizens as the liberator of the 
country. An old Avoman, haggard with grief, 
whose son had fallen in the opposite ranks, 
rushed before Cabanas, whom she regarded as 
the cause of her loss, and with violent impre- 
cations accusing him as the author of the war 



* I procured the materials at Tegucigalpa for a bio- 
graphical notice of this distinguished statesman and re- 
publican. He is justly regarded as the successor of the 
lamented Morazan, and the true liberator and defender 
of Honduras, He treats Americans with uniform hos- 
pitality and kindness, and gives every proper encourage- 
ment to such of them as offer benefits to Honduras by in- 
creasing her trade and opening her ahundaut internal re- 
sources. 



318 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




LIMESTONE HILL. — ROAD TO OLANCHO. 



and of her sorrows, hurled a stone which struck 
him on the face, inflicting a wound. The sol- 
diers rushed upon her with drawn sabres ; but 
the General, wiping the blood from his face, 
bade them forbear. " Pity her," said he ; " we 
have all of us lost friends or brothers in the 
war. Grief is sacred even to us, my friends ; 
and hers is for a son." The generosity of Ca- 
banas is proverbial, and no man enjoys more 
personal influence. He has an expression of 
face that is singularly winning ; a subtle, irre- 
sistible smile, which shows a consciousness of 
power, with the wish to use it beneficently. The 



aristocratic factions of Guatemala and Nica- 
ragua have done their utmost to overthrow Ca- 
banas, but without success. His grant of a 
charter to E. G. Squier and others for an Inter- 
oceanic Railroad and Transit route across Hon- 
duras, from Omoa to the Bay of Eonseca on the 
Pacific, excited a violent jealousy in Guatema- 
la, and was made a cause of serious accusation 
against him, as a " friend of Americans." Ca- 
banas and his party are a two-thirds majority 
in Honduras, and continue to be stanch friends 
of the United States. I am since gratified to 
learn that the "friends of Americans" in Hon- 





OITY OF TEGUCIGALPA, 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



319 




5^/1^ 



JUSTEKIGTJE HILL. — ROAD TO OLANCHO. 



duras have beaten (heir enemies in several bat- 
tles, and are now firmly established in the gov- 
ernment. 

The Supreme Government appointed three 
Commissioners to exchange credentials with 
me, and report on the merit of my proposals. 
The details of these negotiations, although high- 
ly interesting in apolitical and economical view, 
I am obliged to pass over, and confine myself 
to the incidents of my journey to the gold 
fields of Lepaguare, and my subsequent resi- 
dence and geographical survey in those new 
and picturesque placers. Suffice it, then, to 
say that, with the advice and friendly assist- 
ance of the Supreme Government, who pub- 
lished an edict giving me permission to survey 
and make contracts, within the year, in the 



districts of Yoro and Olancho, I proceeded 
with letters and passports to Jutecalpa, the cen- 
tral city of the gold region. 

On the 19th of November, 1854, after clos- 
ing important negotiations with the govern- 
ment, and making a rapid preliminary survey 
of the silver department of Tegucigalpa, I be- 
gan my journey and exploration. The ride 
from Tegucigalpa to the great hacienda, or cat- 
tle estate of Lepaguare, in the heart of Olan- 
cho, the residence and property of the Zelaya 
family, and now the centre of the " Guayape 
Grant," occupied seven days, and was inexpress- 
ibly tedious, and beset with discomfort to me. 
Tegucigalpa, although at least four thousand 
feet above the ocean, is rich in vegetation, 
with a temperate atmosphere, and sheltered 




BANDSTO>TE BOCKS. — BIO ABAJO, THGUCIQALTA. 



320 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 





f-V A -^^ 



SAN DIEGO DE YALANGA. 



from the more violent winds by the high ridges 
of the Cordilleras ; but the scene changed when 
I took the mountain road to Olancho, through 
those miserable outposts of civilization, the In- 
dian villages of San Diego de Yalanga, Guaya- 
maca, Salto, Campamento, and Cofradilla. I 
saw nothing here to charm the eye or the im- 
agination. Winds of extraordinary violence ; 
a dreary, interminable labyrinth of steep mount- 
ains, through which the road toiled with a per- 
verse and painful tortuosity toward every point 
of the compass ; ridges of white rocks, so daz- 
zling as to produce headache and temporary 
blindness; and, above all, the squalor, laziness, 
and excessive poverty of the villages that lay at 
long intervals, with each thirty or forty miles 
of intermediate desolation : these features, with 
the burden of a dull companion and an anx- 
ious mind, have impressed the journey as one 
of the disagreeable passages of my life. Five 
times I have been shipwrecked, and twice near- 
ly starved on the wind-swept deserts of Cali- 
fornia; but never do I remember to have re- 
alized more intensely than on this road the 
pain of existence. 

The villagers seemed to have nothing to 
eat, or if they had, it was so little they were 
loth to share or sell it ; nor could I discover 
any visible means of subsistence for them or 
their families. Let the reader picture to him- 
self a barren road, winding among forests of 
pine or small oaks, or over arid and desolate 
ridges bordered with a scanty vegetation — the 
path steep and dangerous even to the sure-foot- 
ed mule. You have journeyed all day without 
seeing a habitation. Night has closed in around 
you, and a cold wind, carrying clouds of dust, 
almost tears you from the saddle. Your com- 
panion, sombre and shivering, urges his weary 
animal at some distance behind. You have 



taken no food since daylight. Darkness, du- 
ring the last two hours, has rested upon the 
mountains, and the melancholy sighing of the 
wind in the low herbage excites sad forebodings, 
in a mind predisposed to despondency by weari- 
ness and hunger, for a long time silently en- 
dured. All at once the bark of a dog in the 
distance arouses your sensitive mules. They 
quicken their pace, and slide rapidly down the 
steep declivities. Soon you are advancing upon 
level ground, and in the middle of a small plain, 
an eighth of a mile wide, may be seen the out- 
line of some Indian huts. A cry of dogs rushes 
out, and your advance is announced by a grand 
chorus of pigs, mules, horses, dogs, and feather- 
ed choristers; but, as yet, no sign or voice, of 
humanity ; no lights in the village ; all dark, 
silent, and asleep. Saddle-sore, and trembling 
with weariness and a day's hunger, you alight ; 
and after stumbling through duck-ponds and 
ditches, and scaring up all the small fry of pigs, 
calves, and pups, grope your way to the entrance 
of the largest hut in the group. You dare not 
open the door forcibly, for fear of the dogs or a 
Spanish knife. You cry, in the silvery accents 
of Castilian, pleading for admission — Answer, 
a grunt. You add pecuniary inducements in 
more emphatic Castilian — Answer, a burst of 
baby-voices, shrieking in chorus, and the scold 
of the vigilant Senora rousing her sleepy Don 
and bidding him open the door to the strangers. 
Don Jose, Alcalde Primero of two hundred sav- 
ages, rolls half-naked from his bull's hide, to 
the sorrow of a million fleas, opens the door, 
and in a gruff voice inquires your business. No 
persuasion can induce him to let you in ; he 
has "nothing to eat," "nothing to drink," "no 
bed in the hut," " not even a hide to sleep on." 
He will not take money (the rascal is itching 
for it! but he is proud, lazy, and suspicious). 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



321 



At length you utter the magical name of " Ca- 
banas" or " Zelaya," and the door is opened, with 
permission to occupy the floor and the fleas for 
the night, your saddle for a pillow, with hope 
of breakfast in the morning. To sleep, how- 
ever, is impossible. The snoring of the Don, 
who answers with an invariable grunt the hour- 
ly scolding of the Senora, urging his atten- 
tion to the natural necessities of a half dozen 
unsavory brats; the crowing and stirring of 
fowls overhead, of whose situation you are ex- 
actly informed by the laws of gravitation ; the 
shrieking of mules, and the baying of dogs; 
these, with the indomitable flea, render the 
night more miserable than the day. You arise 
at dawn, dispirited and weary, and after a scan- 
ty breakfast set forward for another day of la- 
bor, to be followed by another night of dirt, 
fleas, and feverish disturbance. 

On my arrival at Campamento, a village on 
the mountains of that name, about seventeen 
hundred feet above the sea, my spirits began 
to rise. During the last three days we had 
descended rapidly, and I caught glimpses of a 
blue distance toward the Caribbean, which my 
guide assured me was the grassy plain of Le- 
paguare. The sterile summits over which we 
had passed, five thousand feet above the sea, 
were composed of a porous, silicious stone, un- 
favorable to vegetation, and clothed at best 
with interrupted growths of oak and pine. Now, 
the foliage began again to assume the luxuri- 
ous features of the tropics. Two ranges of 
mountains, the Salto and Campamento, separate 
Tegucigalpa from Olancho. From the eastern 
slopes of the Campamento range — at the foot 
of which is Lepaguare — various spurs shoot out, 
known as the Jalan, the Moro, the Juticapa, Los 
Ranchitos, and Los Vindeles. These are masses 
of slate and limestone, intermingled with auri- 
ferous quartzose rocks. 



On these mountains and their foot-hills the 
waters take their rise which flow into the Pa- 
took — a river of great dimensions, bearing the 
drainage of nearly a fourth of Honduras and a 
small part of Nicaragua. On all the foot-hills 
of the Campamento the washing of auriferous 
earth is an immemorial custom of the Indian 
women, who are thence called lavaderas, or wash- 
ers. At Campamento I first saw the native wo- 
men engaged upon the banks of the Guayapita, 
a little tributary of the Guayape. As we left 
the village in the morning, the guide called my 
attention to a woman who stood knee-deep in 
the stream, with a wooden bowl in her hands, 
from which she was throwing off the earth and 
water, with the skill of an experienced gold- 
washer. I rode up to her and watched the pro- 
cess with a degree of interest which only an old 
gold-hunter of '49 can appreciate. Here was 
the first evidence, to my own proper senses, of the 
future destiny of Olancho and of Central Amer- 
ica. The bowl was filled with earth by the use 
of a horn-spoon, and the washing several times 
repeated. In about an hour the lavadera had 
collected enough c coarse gold' to equal seventy- 
five cents of our coinage, and was well satisfied 
with the twenty-five pieces of Government coin- 
ed copper, called copper dollars, which I offered 
her for the amount. The metal was of a deep, 
heavy, yellow color, differing in tint from the 
dust of Australia or California. Specimens of 
this gold, assayed for me by Mr. Hewston, a 
chemist and analyst of high reputation, of the 
Mint in San Francisco, gave eighteen dollars 
and eighty-four cents to the ounce. 

Encouraged by this evidence of the wealth 
of the country, I rode forward in high spirits, 
making observations at short intervals upon the 
character of the rocks and the nature of the 
soil. Two years of practical mining, and fre- 
quent disappointment, in '49 and '50, on the 




CAMPAMENTO MOUNTAINS. — OHICHICASTA TBKE8. 

Vol. XII.— No. 69.— X 



322 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




VILLAGE OF CAMPAMENTO. 



Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers, had qualified 
me for a sharp and critical judgment ; but I was 
soon satisfied that the foot-hills of the Campa- 
mento range are well worthy of their ancient 
reputation. Auriferous quartz veins are of fre- 
quent occurrence in other parts of Central Amer- 
ica as well as in Olancho ; but no other portion 
of the continent, excepting California, has pla- 
cers — dry and wet diggings — superior to those 
which I visited in Lepaguare. The rock for- 
mations are analagous, but not identical, with 
those on the Stanislaus river. The differences 
in soil are accounted for by the denser and richer 
vegetation of this region. I am disposed to re- 
gard the Campamento and Salto ranges as of 
later formation, in point of time, and more dis- 
turbed by volcanic interference, than those of 
the Sierra Nevada.* 

A day's ride down the hills from Campamento, 
brought me to the hacienda of Don Francisco 
Zelaya, Ex-Commandante and General of Bri- 
gade of all the forces of Olancho ; a very inde- 
pendent citizen, who has a small army of retain- 
ers at his service, and shares with his two broth- 
ers the purse, the sword, the judiciary, and some 
twenty-five hundred square miles of "real es- 
tate," gold fields, forested hills, and plains en- 
riched by tens of thousands of cattle, mules, and 
horses. This family is, or will soon become, 
the wealthiest on the continent. Their domain, 
defended on three sides by ranges of mountains, 
exceeds that of many princes, and their personal 
authority has no visible check. 

The Department of Olancho, into which the 
traveler descends eastward from Campamento, 



* I find it necessary to omit in this connection a num- 
ber of scientific and topographical details, more interesting 
to miners and savans than to the general reader. These 
I have embodied in my Report to the Honduras Mining 
and Trading Company, who deputed me as their agent 



is by far the largest and the most beautiful in 
Honduras. Its boundaries are the Rio Tinto 
and the Department of Yoro on the north, the 
Caribbean on the east, the Wauks or Segovia 
river on the south, and Tegucigalpa on the 
west. It has more than a hundred miles of 
sea-coast. The territories of the Zelayas ex- 
tend from the high ridges of the mountains in- 
land to Jutecalpa, eastward toward the sea, a 
distance of sixty or seventy miles. Of the soil 
they are undisputed owners, by royal grants 
made centuries ago to the first Zelaya who 
came over from Spain. The history of these 
grants will be found in my Report to the Trus- 
tees of the Honduras Mining and Trading Com- 
pany. 



\<Q 



eft 




PLOWING AT LEPAGUABE. 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



323 



The view over Lepaguare from the mount- 
ains exceeded any thing I had ever seen, both 
for softness of outline and splendor of coloring. 
On the plain, I found myself traversing a prairie, 
varied with grand undulations, and covered with 
deep grass and flowers. Herds of cattle, droves 
of horses, and of the much-prized mules of 
Olancho, gave life and variety to every new 
opening of the view. They indicated the source 
of that primitive wealth and prosperity which 
has given rule and continuance to the aristo- 
cratic blood of Spain in this rich nook of the 
earth. At intervals the familar cry of the va- 
queros, or herdsmen, dispelled the sense of lone- 
liness which attends the traveler in new scenes. 
All around me a blue horizon of mountains — 
embracing a wide landscape, breathed on by the 
evening wind, and retiring, with richest verdure, 
into the gold and purple tints of sunset — brought 
vividly to mind the scenery of California, where 
the foot-hills of the Sierras decline westward, 
as do these of the Cordilleras eastward, toward 
the ocean. 

The vaqueros, who met me on the edge of 
Lepaguare, inquired the object of my visit. I 
showed them my passports, and was conducted 
before nightfall to the hacienda, or country 
house of General Zelaya. 

Many times I was powerfully affected by the 
extreme and novel beauty of the views which 
met my sight in Lepaguare. This plain, with its 
girdle of mountains, is a park of verdure spring- 
ing from a deep, rich soil, wide enough to sus- 
tain the population of a commercial and agricul- 
tural State. Temperate in climate, and free from 
the local fevers and miasm of our own Western 
States, it is capable of giving full occupation to 
thousands of adventurous emigrants who would 
here find homes, and healthful, remunerative 
occupation. 

The population of Olancho consists mainly 
of Indians, descendants of aborigines, at present 
entirely subjugated and peaceful. These are 
the great body of the people, which is scattered 
sparsely over the region. The Indian women 
are universally gold-washers; though from in- 
dolence or superstition they seldom work on 
the rivers, during the dry season, more than one 
day out of seven, and then only a few hours 
in the day. After a freshet, when there is 
promise of a rich yield, men will engage in this 
business, and bring up the auriferous sand by 
diving on the bars. The head-waters of the 
Guayape yield in this way about $60,000 a 
year, all of which passes through Jutecalpa. 
Mr. Bard gives $129,000 as the annual yield 
passing through Jutecalpa. The above estimate 
was given to me by Don Francisco Zelaya. 
The two districts of Yoro and Olancho togeth- 
er, are said to furnish annually not less than 
,$150,000 by this inefficient system of mining. 
As mines are worked in California, these placers 
would probably produce at least $6,000,000 a 
year. 

The Indians are chiefly engaged in a prim- 
itive kind of agriculture, a very small amount 



,^\ *.o 




INDIAN FARM LABORERS. 

of labor being needful to produce the vegetable 
food and grain required for home consumption. 
Negroes and mulattoes compose a part of the 
lower population of the towns. A tribe of sev- 
eral thousand " Carib" Indians, occupies the sea- 
coast and lagoons between Truxillo and the Pa- 
took river. The wild Poyos tribes inhabit a 
belt of country inside the lagoons, south of the 
Rio Tinto, and north of the Mosquitos and 
Sambos. 

My information concerning the habits and 
manners of the Poyas, differs in some particu- 
lars from the account given by that excellent 
author and traveler, Mr. Samuel A. Bard. I 
had not time to penetrate into the interior of 
the Poyas country south of Olancho, and saw 
very few of the tribe. Those whom I did see 
were dressed in quills and feathers, and had a 
very wild appearance. They hold no inter- 
course with the Spaniards of Olancho, except 
for occasional trade ; exchanging gold dust for 
European commodities. Mr. Bard's account of 
drum-head divination by raps among the Poyas 
is very interesting, nevertheless, and may be re- 
garded as an important addition to the rapidly 
accumulating mass of "scientific" evidence in 
that field of inquiry. Mr. Bard is, in very vulgar 
language, a perfect trump. 

Catholicism is the religion of all the natives 
of this country, except the wild tribes, who are 
few in number. The Catholic settlements com- 
mence about fifty miles inland from the mouth 
of the Patook. Here, on the northwest side of 
the river Patook, are large Indian villages. 
Catacamas has from 800 to 1000 inhabitants. 



324 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Population increases in density going inland, 
until we reach Jutecalpa, a point ninety-five 
miles S.S.E. from Truxillo, and the same dis- 
tance S.W. from the mouth of the Patook. 

Jutecalpa is the ancient capital of Olancho, 
and has dwelling-houses for two thousand in- 
habitants. Mr. Bard was misinformed in re- 
gard to the population of Jutecalpa. It never 
exceeds 2500. It is a prosperous and beautiful 
town, laid out with a public square, a cathedral, 
and a crowd of well-built adobe houses of one 
story. A branch of the Guayape river flows 
from hence to the ocean, a distance of 220 miles, 
near the town, and there is a canoe navigation 
by the tortuous channels of the river ; available 
at all times of the year for steamers of light 
draught. 

Before proceeding to Jutecalpa, I passed a 
number of days enjoying the hospitality of the 




BULL-FIGHT IN JUTECALPA. 

old Don at his comfortable hacienda. He is, 
literally, "monarch of all he surveys."* Prom 
this point his land extends in all directions 
to the head -waters of the Guayape and its 
branches; an immense drainage — commencing 
in the high Cordilleras, and including one-half 
of the valley or prairie of Lepaguare. Don Fran- 
cisco is tall and handsome, with a portly figure 
and a commanding aspect ; very courteous to 
strangers, and not wanting in political knowl- 

* I examined with as much care as circumstances would 
permit, during my four months' residence in Olancho, the 
origin of land titles in that district. There have been no 
confiscations, and there are few disputed titles. The 
crown grants to the Zelayas are still in existence, and con- 
fer upon them a perfect ownership, which has never been 
disputed. All the more valuable mines and placers have 
been denounced by them, and the right of working them 
transferred to the Company under the laws of Honduras, 
with the witness and permission of the Supreme Govern- 
ment. To denounce a mine, or placer, is to secure it by a 
species of pre-emption, according to the immemorial laws 
of Spain, and of all the Spanish Republics of this conti- 
nent 



edge or sagacity, in the affairs of his own coun- 
try ; though the total absence of newspapers and 
society leaves him less cognizant of those of Eu- 
rope and the United States. He is an " ardent 
republican," however, and looks with great favor 
upon los Americanos del Norte. His brother, 
Santiago, is a judge of original jurisdiction — so 
styled in all contracts and legal documents — 
having the power of life and death, and decision 
without appeal. The political and social au- 
thority of Lepaguare is very fairly divided be- 
tween the two. There is a third brother, also rich 
in land and herds. During my negotiations 
with the elder Don, the two younger were present 
in consultation. 

The government of this retired territory is 
thus a very compact and well-established des- 
potism, with a few democratic forms of election 
to satisfy the middle class, or dependents upon 
the great landholders. This middle class con- 
sists of the relatives of the Zelayas by descent 
or intermarriage ; a large and powerful family, 
owning by far the greater portion of Olancho — 
and of the general body of Blancos, or families 
of Spanish blood, who may have settled as land- 
owners or residents in the country. Priests and 
lawyers are not numerous. Sefior Rosas, the 
advocate at Jutecalpa, is a man of intelligence, 
well versed in the laws of Honduras, and has all 
the legal formalities at command. He was 
very serviceable to me. 

My secretary and artist has given an excel- 
lent drawing of the hacienda of Galera, the resi- 
dence of one of the Zelayas, which will convey 
a very clear idea of the appearance of a first- 
class farm-house, or hacienda, in this quarter of 
Honduras. 

The walls are thick, made of sun-dried clay, 
called adobe', with a floor of the same mate- 
rial. The furniture within is of the plainest. 
Nothing for luxury ; all for utility. Ordinary 
kitchen utensils ; plain tables, made of huge 
slabs of cedar ; a few imported chairs ; ham - 




HACIENDA PK GALEKA, LEl'AGTJARB. 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



325 



mocks, or a bull's hide stretched between posts, 
for a bedstead and mattress, as hard as iron ; 
cloths, blankets, etc., imported ; the better class 
dressing in the European fashion, and the infe- 
rior in costumes very correctly given by my art- 
ist. These points of interest have been repeat- 
edly described by travelers in other parts of 
Central America, more especially in the ad- 
mirable works of Stephens and Squier, and 
hardly demand a notice from me. 

Had I been the embassador of President 
Pierce, or the French Envoy, I could not have 
been treated with greater hospitality or distinc- 
tion at Lepaguare. Don Francisco read my 
letters of introduction with evident satisfaction, 
but declined entering for the present into any 
business negotiations. He wished me to ride 
over the country with him, and become famil- 
iar with its features and resources, after which 
he would treat with me. Accordingly, I bent 
myself for several months to the task of survey- 
ing, map-making, collecting statistical informa- 
tion, and enjoying at intervals the hospitali- 
ties of Jutecalpa and the haciendas in its vicin- 
ity. 

The amusements of the better class in this 
neighborhood, as in other parts of Spanish 
America, are of a simple and primitive charac- 
ter. Guitar-playing and singing, dancing, smok- 
ing cigaritos made of excellent native tobacco, 
story-telling, love-making, dozing in hammocks, 
and chatting village politics, serve to fill up 
the lazy intervals of life in a region removed 
out of the world, where the inferior offices are 
performed by peons (Indians in a state of civil 
slavery), and where the excitements of com- 




SPANISII DANCE. 



merce and industrial speculation are unknown 
and impossible. Nearly all play, or strum a 
little, on the guitar. After sunset, until late 
into darkness, the soft air of a tropical night 
is made still more voluptuous and entrancing 
by dreamy and 'passionate love-songs, rude in 
composition, and sung in a drawling, nasal 
tone, but very tender in expression, and call- 
ing to mind the gay romance of the Trouba- 
dours. 

The sun sets to music in Olancho, and the 
air breathes sweet sounds and delicious odors. 
Nor is the rude Olanchano unworthy, in point 
of taste, of his Castilian origin. As fully as 
the more cultivated stranger, he appreciates the 
wonderful beauty of the nature which surrounds 
him. His native land to him, as to others, ap- 
pears an earthly paradise. Without labor, he is 
rich — without art, he is free from disease. To 
live, to love, to enjoy ; to dream away hours in 
the tinted shadows ; to sing songs expressive of 
the flitting emotions which stir the surface of 
passion ; to sleep quietly without care or fear ; 
to lead, when in action, the life of a centaur, 
lifted and borne above the earth — on which he 
scorns to tread — by his familiar servant, the 
horse ; not to know the number of his herds, or 
the antiquity of his family ; — the extent of his 
lands, or the hidden riches they contain; to 
contemn the menial offices of life, and impose 
upon himself the requirements of mere motion 
and existence ; such is the life-tide and being 
of men whose fathers, two centuries ago, vied 
with the colonists of New England in hardihood 
and industry ! 

My sojourn in Lepaguare and Jutecalpa was 
chiefly during the dry season ; which I after- 
ward saw reason to regret, as I then learned 
that a summer in the interior of Honduras 
brings with it such luxuries of air and scenery 
as can be enjoyed in no other part of the world. 
The summer, or wet season, is not, as many 
suppose, a continued fall of rains. A succes- 
sion of quick showers and thunder-storms, with 
intervals of brilliant sunshine, make up the sea- 
son. The rain will fall all night in torrents, with 
lightning, and thunder, and wind — alarming 
but not destroying; and then the sun bursts 
through the clouds of morning over a landscape 
richly and tenderly diversified with green and 
gold. A warm air charms the sense ; the eyes 
are pleased, but not dazzled, with rainbow tints 
reflected by the glittering moisture of the foli- 
age; and the curtain-work of silver and purple 
clouds, fading gradually as day advances, makes 
these lovely pictures seem near and familiar to 
the beholder. 

It is the intensity with which Nature works — 
producing, in close groups, every form of vege- 
table life — that gives its peculiar beauty to this 
region. The grass and trees look fat with sap, 
and ready to burst their rinds. The solidest 
and tenderest — vegetable ivory, and cork ; the 
cocoa-nut and the banana; the grape and guava; 
gum of Arabia and barley of the North ; the 
most delicate of perfumes and the ill-scented 



326 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



but useful India-rubber; mahogany and pitch- 
pine; rose- wood and common oak; frankin- 
cense and anise ; cedar and logwood ; all the 
vegetable utilities have made their home in Le- 
paguard. There is not a conceivable work of 
human hands which may not be executed here, 
with materials found upon the surface ; not a 
month of the year when the workmen may not 
proceed ; not a day too hot or too cold ; not a 
taint in the atmosphere, nor any indigenous or 
imported pestilence. The traveler is bewildered 
with the richness and splendor of all that meets 
the sense. Here is no African desolation, no 
horrors of an Italian Campagna ; the soil reeks 
with gold, the rocks are tenacious with silver. 
In one quarter, fiery cinnabar, looking like a 
mouldered brick-pile, thrusts forward its mercu- 
rial red; reminding you of uncounted millions 
of liquid treasure ; and above it the humble 
and useful pitch-pine offers itself as food for the 
artisan's fire. The wealth and power of an em- 
pire lies here asleep, like night upon the hills, 
and needs only that those heralds of civiliza- 
tion — the Northern miners — should awaken it 
into a brilliant life. 

Imagine the vegetable and mineral wealth 
of New England and Virginia intensified, ten- 
fold ; the same genera of plants and trees, 
American in tint and physiognomy; our own 
Northern June greens and September browns, 
alternating with the same familiar evergreen 
tints, but closer, firmer, softer, richer, and more 
varied and expanded in every way. It is the 
New World at its best — its summit of beauty 
and utility. The aphorism of Lord Bacon, 
that knowledge is power, and, by converse, 
that ignorance is weakness — exemplifies itself 
in the ignorance of the American people re- 
garding the real character of the interior of 
tropical America. A young gentleman, whose 



knowledge of these countries has come prin- 
cipally from the traveling menagerie and the 
picture-books, associates it only with horrid 
serpents, destructive tigers, poisonous spiders, 
and an air reeking with death in every form. 
He has not learned that the white and grizzly 
bears of the North, the panther of the West, 
the rattlesnakes of Virginia, and the fevers of 
the prairies are far beyond any of the dangers 
of that class to be met with in interior Hondu- 
ras. The treeless hills of California offer no 
sustenance to the traveler. In the swamps of 
Pennsylvania the party of Lieutenant Strain, 
without food as they were, would have perished 
to a man. I have lived for months in Olancho 
without seeing a mosquito, and, I believe, but 
one tarantula, or poisonous spider. I could 
not, without great trouble and expense, have 
stocked an ordinary museum with stuffed mon- 
sters. The country is old, and nature accus- 
tomed, long ago, to civilization. Centuries 
ago it was inhabited by the mild and cultivat- 
ed aborigines of Central America. To these 
came the Spanish caballeros, and established 
their slave system — mines were worked, fields 
cultivated, cities built — the interior of Hondu- 
ras became a treasure-house and a garden ; nor 
have twenty years' war and deprivation as yet 
wholly uncivilized it. 

As the main object of my visit to this region 
was to obtain satisfactory information in regard 
to the gold washings of the Guayape, I lost no 
opportunity of seeing them in company with in- 
telligent persons who were acquainted with their 
history and value. The placer region proper 
extends from the head-waters of the Guayam- 
bre and Segovia rivers, in a northeasterly direc- 
tion as low down as Corte Lara — the mahogany 
cuttings of Senor Ocampo — on the Guayambre ; 
thence in a north and northwesterly direction 




MUBOIELEUO BAB. — BIO GUAYAPK. 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



327 



along the foot-hills of the Campamento range 
to the head-waters of the Tinto or Black River. 
The general direction of the great caiions and 
ravines is toward the northeast. The north- 
east trades, blowing from the Caribbean Sea 
and the Bay of Honduras, send waves of air 
loaded with the moisture of the sea and rivers 
along all their valleys ; and these waves reach- 
ing a cooler region deposit a vapor, which keeps 
the valleys on the eastern sides of the Cordille- 
ras perpetually green, while the western and 
southern slopes are parched with the dry winds 
of winter. It is this feature of Central and 
Eastern Honduras which confers upon it such 
unrivaled salubrity and beauty. 

I could not visit all the localities of gold dust, 
not even all of those that are well known. The 
most celebrated of Lepaguare are Las Almaci- 
guerras, the Espumoza, the Murcielego, and 
Las Marias. The general wealth of these, 
and some far richer but less famous local- 
ities which I visited, is fully equal to those I 
saw worked by successful miners in California. 
We estimate the value of a placer in California, 
not by sudden yields of lumps, or "lucky 
strikes," but by the average, for a year or two 
years labor. Two cents to a bucket of earth 
will make the fortune of a company who will 
continue to work. As for sudden yields, I saw 
several, and was lucky enough in the one or 
two experiments which my duties as a topo- 
grapher and negotiator allowed me to make. 
Half an ounce is not infrequently taken out in 
an hour, but this is too rich for continuance. 
The experienced miner relies upon his aver- 
age, not for weeks but for months, and even 
years. 

My visit to the bar or deposit called Murcie- 
lego, in English "the Bat," was well timed, 
and gave me an opportunity of observing the 
lavaderas at work. A few women were washing 
on the bar when we arrived. The river was 
at medium height, and in a favorable condition.* 
The lavaderas worked slowly and stupidly, per- 
forming about a third as much labor each as an 
American miner. The General told them that 
we would buy all they could get that day and 
the next, and pay in copper, but this did not 
seem to quicken their operations. I saw taken 
from one to two and three cents of gold to the 
pan of earth — in rare instances five cents to 
the pan, which is a good yield. One cent to the 
bucket of earth " pays" in California, where ex- 
penses are heavy. The particles were not scale- 
like, but round or irregular, and polished by attri- 
tion. Pieces weighing five and even eight ounces 
have been taken from this bar. The General 
led me to a shallow excavation on the upper 
level of the bar, which is reached by the river 
only during a freshet, at least twenty feet above 
low water, where his lavaderas took out several 
pounds of gold in the course of six days' wash- 
ing. American miners would dig deep and 
attack the " ledges." 



* During the wet season only dry diggings are accessi- 
ble. The rivers rise to a great height 



I mentioned the buccaneers, and alluded to 
my researches among old volumes of the Span- 
ish library at Tegucigalpa. The General list- 
ened attentively. Follow me, and I will show 
you, said he, the old mines where the Span- 
iards used to take out gold. He wheeled hi* 
horse, leaping a fallen tree in a style which I 
dared not imitate. So, making a circuit, with 
much difficulty I forced my horse up the bank 
after him. On a slope more than sixty feet 
above, I found him standing near some large 
and deep pits, partly filled with earth. There 
were four of these pits. Heaps of stones and 
earth, overgrown with grass, lie near their 
mouths. Trees of near a century's growth are 
rooted in the bottom of the pits, indicating their 
great antiquity. 

Twenty years ago, said the General, we 
took out rusted tools and bars of iron of Span- 
ish manufacture, which were left here more 
than a hundred years since. From this kind 
of pits, in the old time, while Honduras was a 
Spanish province — she is now free, thank God ! 
he added — the gold was taken that freighted the 
galleons of Spain. Had Spain been faithful to 
us, she would not have been poor, as she now 
is. The entire coast from Belize, in Yuca- 
tan, to San Juan del Norte, became a resort of 
ocean robbers — buccaneers. These were the 
wretches of whom you were speaking. The 
English of the West India Islands allowed 
them to carry on private war against the colo- 
nies of Spain. Not a ship could sail from 
Omoa or Truxillo, without falling into their 
hands. They leagued themselves with the 
Mosquitos and Sambos of the coast; supplied 
them with weapons ; pensioned their chiefs, 
and encouraged them to a perpetual war upon 
Honduras and Nicaragua. 

" It was this then, Senor, that prevented the 
development of your mines." 

" Yes, in part. Who would send gold or silver 
to Spain, when it was invariably taken by the 
pirates, and sold to the English at Belize and 
Jamaica? We became discouraged." 

"You, Senor?" 

" Yes, we ; the people of Honduras. We had 
every thing but a commerce. The Indians and 
Negroes were our slaves. We made them work. 
Now, they work only for their own convenience." 

"Americans work all the time." 

" So I hear — caramba ! That is astonishing ! 
Do you dig pits with your own hands in Cali- 
fornia, my friend ?" 

" Yes, Senor ; I myself, in 1849, dug a pit or 
the banks of the Tuolumne river, twenty feet 
square by twenty deep." 

" Did you get much gold from it ?" 

" One dollar, Sefior, and the pit caved in and 
buried me to my neck. I cried out lustily, and 
a friend who was within hearing in another pit 
came and dug me out." 

" Jesu Maria ! what an escape ; you dug no 
more then ?" 

" No ; I crossed the desert on foot, followed 
night after night by the wolves, and reached a 



328 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



grass country, where I became a farmer, and 
then an engineer." 

" You have wonderful versatility, Guillermo." 

** It is a trait of our people: we can do any 
thing." 

" God is favorable to your nation. All of you 
that come to Honduras are young men, full 
of activity and talent. Have you seen Senor 
Squier ?" 

"I have not had that pleasure, but am well 
acquainted Avith his projects." 

" Will they succeed ?" 4 

" They always succeed." 

" Caramba! that is astonishing. He is very 
rich then ?" 

"I do not know. When an American has 
rich ideas, he finds men of wealth to execute 
them. Did you ever hear the story of King 
Cyrus?" 

" No. Let us hear it." 

" When Cyrus the Younger entered Babylon 
as a conqueror, he received a visit from the 
Spanish Embassador, who wished to strengthen 
an alliance between his master the great Ferdi- 
nand and the young hero Cyrus." 

" Ah ! I recollect," said the General. 

"Well, the Spanish Embassador was very in- 
quisitive." 

" That was a fault," said the General, mildly. 

"He wished to know how much money the 
conqueror of Babylon might have in his treas- 
ury." 

" Impertinent !" 

" Cyrus replied that he had no treasury." 

"Poor Cyrus! He had money buried, per- 
haps r 

" Well, the Embassador was astonished, and 
made a disrespectful remark, as Embassadors 
do, you know, when any one is found not to 
have money." 

" True, they are a rude set of men. Well." 



" Cyrus called for his writing-desk — " 

" He had a writing-desk ?" 

"Yes, and dispatched several notes to his 
friends, saying that he required money. Im- 
mediately they sent him each a check upon 
some bank." 

" The Bank of England ?" 

" Doubtless — for several millions." 

" And is that the way Senor Squier and the 
others get money in the United States ?" 

" Yes ; but now, Senor, I will try to show you 
how we separate gold dust from sand in Cali- 
fornia." 

" Bueno ! let us see it." 

By my direction one of the Indians who ac- 
companied us had brought a dozen rusty nails 
and some pieces of board, which I fortunately 
lighted upon at the hacienda. With these, and 
a stone for a hammer, after some trouble I suc- 
ceeded in knocking together a rude kind of 
rocker, of the primeval style of '48, in common 
use among the earlier placer-miners. My pro- 
ceedings excited great interest, and the Indian 
women, with our little party of four, including 
the General, gathered about and looked on in 
silent amazement. With this crazy instrument, 
and the help of the natives to bring earth and 
water to wash it, I " rocked out" one dollar and 
fifty cents in fine dust in about an hour, to the 
huge satisfaction of the General and his follow- 
ers. This was my only experiment with machin- 
ery. 

Want of space obliges me to pass over the 
many pleasant incidents and agreeable discov- 
eries which welcomed me daily in Lepaguare 
and Jutecalpa. In my exploring expeditions 
to placers, and along the main stream and 
branches of the Guayape, I was always ac- 
companied by some one of the Zelayas, or by 
my esteemed friend Senor Opolonio Ocampo. 
This gentleman interested himself in my efforts 



<*&**?&& 






",vv 










GUAYAPE RITKK, NEAB LEPAGTJABJt 



ADVENTUEES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



529 



to obtain information, and I am indebted to 
him for the topography of the Guavambre and 
Jalan rivers, with their branches. My map was 
an object of singular interest at Jutecalpa, and 
attracted crowds, each person having some haci- 
enda to insert, or some range of hills or river 
course to suggest. The most ignorant under- 
stood the nature of the work, but I found their 



estimates of distance and direction very unre- 
liable, where an American backwoodsman would 
be clear and accurate. 

Lepaguare', with its beautiful rivers, the Al- 
mendarez, Garcia, Chifilingo, Moran Espana, 
and Guayape, is truly a desirable land; nor do 
I deem it probable that Americans going into 
this thinly-inhabited region will degenerate by 



Bay cf Honduras 




reason of the air, or of too great wealth of soil. 
Over fields teeming with gold, the Yankee can 
not resist the temptation to labor ; and it is my 
firm conviction that in Olancho alone, of all 
tropical America, the problem of colonization 
by the industrious and frugal citizens of North 
America will be peacefully and effectually solved. 
The hills crowned with foliage, and the plains 
covered with deep grass, preserve a constant 
moisture in the earth. The trade-winds, blow- 
ing at all seasons from the ocean, temper the 
air to a delightful mean. At Jutecalpa the mer- 
cury in the hottest weather of summer seldom 
rises above 95° of Fahrenheit, and my own ther- 
mometrical tables, kept during the fall and win- 
ter seasons, never fell below 52°, and only once 
rose above 82°, the best medium for health and 
exercise.* 

* My observations of temperature were made daily three 
times a day, from September 27th, 1854, to January 15th, 
1855. At six o'clock in the morning, observations made 
from December lGth to January 15th, showed an extreme 
variation of only nine degrees, 52° to Cl°. Noon observa- 
tions for the same days showed the same variation, 72° to 
80°. Evening observations, at six p.m., gave only six 
degrees of variation, 60° to 75°. The morning tempera- 
ture at Lepaguare was about 51)°, the noon about 7S°, the 
evening about 74°, for the winter season. It has never 
been known as hot at Jutecalpa, during July and August, 
as is frequent at New York and New Orleans. The 
temperature of Lepaguare is probably finer and more 
equable than in any other part of Central America. The 
reasons for this are geographical, and do not apply gener- 
ally t» the Tropics. At Truxillo the heat is distressing, 



By far the most interesting excursion which 1 
made from Lepaguare was to the celebrated 
Espumosa, a huge pot, or whirlpool, some miles 
below theMurcielego, on the main stream of the 
Guayape. A "pot-hole," in miner's parlance, 
is a hollow excavated by a waterfall or rapid, in 
the body of a rock or stratum of rocks. Pot- 
holes of antediluvian origin, filled with sand 
and detritus from the mountains, are usually 
rich in gold. Those that are of very small di- 
mensions, mere water-worn crevices, are called 
"pockets." One day, after visiting and inspect- 
ing a number of India-rubber and mahogany 
trees, which are large and frequent in this vi- 
cinity, I rode in the afternoon through canons 
(glades?) of magnificent cedros (cedar-trees),* 
some of which are seven and eight feet through 
the bole, solid at heart, and nearly two hundred 
feet in height. At evening we reached the 
famous rapid and whirlpool of Espumosa, or 
" The Foam." Senor Jose' Maria Cacho, Min- 
ister of Finance in Honduras, at one time organ- 
ized a company to work Espumosa, supposed to 
be the richest gold deposit in the world. This 
enterprise, like all others undertaken by natives 
of Central America without foreign assistance, 
was stifled in its birth by a revolution. A sec- 

and bilious fevers and dysenteries are as common ns in 
New Orleans, but not so fatal, because of the better loca- 
tion of the place. 

* The cedar of Honduras corresponds with the "red 
wood" of California, and the " white pine" of the North. 



330 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ond time it was granted to Senor M., my pre- 
decessor in this survey, and his failure had so 
discouraged the old Don, that he swore, during 
the first three weeks of my stay with him, that 
he would be at no further, trouble in regard to 
it. He saw reason, however, to change his 
mind. 

The approaches to the Espumosa from Ale- 
man, a few miles below, on the Guayape river, 
or from the great gold bar of Murcielego above, 
are picturesque and varied. The solitude is 
profound. No trace of human industry or of 
habitations ; not even the smoke of a distant 
camp-fire to indicate the presence of human- 
ity. We rode over hills which reminded me of 
some parts of the interior of Massachusetts, 
wooded in copses, with a vast variety of trees 
and shrubbery, separated by slopes and plains 
of grass. A low ridge, crowned with cedar, 
pine, India-rubber, and mahogany trees, impedes 
the course of the Guayape, which rushes down 
between walls of rock one hundred and fifty 
feet apart, plunging into a deep basin or " pot," 
which the torrent seems to have hollowed out 
for itself, as may be seen on the Merrimac in the 
vicinity of Franconia. The pot must be at least 
twenty feet in depth, and is a mere whirlpool 
of foam, hissing and thundering. 

My thoughts were so intensely occupied with 
imagining the wealth which lies hidden under 
the boiling waters of the Espumosa, that the adja- 
cent scenery made only a slight impression. I 
pictured to myself a company of Californians, 
forty or fifty, stalwart, bearded men, the flower 
of modern manhood, building — as they do in 
these days — a grand water way, or timber sluice, 
to carry the torrent of the Guayape high over 
the Espumosa, and leave dry and accessible the 
rich accumulation. I seemed to hear the ring- 
ing blows of the ax, felling tall cedars along the 
borders of the torrent; the click and crash of 
the saw-mill, and the hiss of its untiring engine, 
fired with spicy and unctuous woods. The il- 
lusion, strengthened by the memories of such 
scenes in former days, became more and more 
intense, as I stood motionless gazing upon the 
foam. The waters were there, but through 
and under them I seemed to see the dry bed of 
sand and rocks; the crowd of red-shirted miners, 
delving and singing — others washing the sands, 
and now and then one of the party utters a cry, 
holding up a pebble heavy with gold. The 
cheerful voices of my friends as they sounded 
in the old times, were again audible to me ; I 
clasped my hands, and an involuntary shout of 
recognition escaped me, when a rude grasp upon 
the shoulder, and an exclamation from the Don, 
brought me back to reality : 

" Guillermo," said he, " you cry out ! and see, 
you are weeping!" True enough — large tears 
were coursing down my cheeks. 

"I was dreaming of home, Senor." 

" Oh yes !" replied the kind old man, " that 
is natural. Bring them all with you to Lepa- 
guare, and come soon." 

During our return I noticed for the hun- 



dreth time the regularity of form which gives 
these hills their unequaled beauty. With an 
even, almost insensible gradation, range beyond 
range, west, north, and south, rises an amphi- 
theatre of grassy elevations, wood-crowned emi- 
nences, aspiring hills, lofty ranges ; and farther 
still, peaks of such a blueness, they seemed solid 
ether; as though the liquid atmosphere had been 
mixed with light, and crystalized in aery gla- 
ciers. The hour of sunset at this season ban- 
ishes all but sensuous and poetical emotions. 
All is softened and tinted with gold and azure. 
The pure air elevates the spirits and clears the 
lungs. The voice deepens, muscular exertion 
becomes easy — almost unconscious. You find 
yourself enjoying the more delicate pleasures of 
perception, and poetic emotions flow in upon you 
at every step. Nothing is more absurd, or far- 
ther from truth, than our popular dread of 
these "unknown regions under the Tropics." 
The sandy horrors of Sahara, or the Colorado, 
are not here. Here, the sun neither scorches 
the skin nor dries the blood ; the earth is warm, 
but not infectious. Throughout all the new 
countries of our own Western States, the local 
unhealthiness is prevalent and hard to be resist- 
ed, even by good constitutions. I found nothing 
of this influence in Olancho. On the sea-coast, 
where there are marshes, the heat of summer 
breeds bilious fevers ; but even at the mouth 
of Patook, and along the shore of Brewer's and 
Carataska lagoons, at Cape Gracias a Dios, and 
as far South as Bluefields river, fevers are slight, 
and not so prevalent as on the Ohio or Missis- 
sippi.* 

Two summers in the mines of California led 
me to believe that the interior of Africa might 
be exceeded there; and this, too, alternating 
with deep snows and intense cold. So differ- 
ent, however, is this climate, that work may be 
done, at all seasons of the year, in Lepaguare, 
in the open air; and as the rivers are never 
dry, because of the constant moisture condensed 
upon the interior mountains by the trade-winds, 
gold-washing — on wet or dry diggings — may be 
carried on without interruption, by well-organ- 
ized mining parties. 

When the river is low on the Espumosa, after 
the subsidence of a freshet, the lavaderas wade 
into the torrent, and bring up gold sand and 
pebbles of remarkable richness. As there are 
no washings above this point, until we reach 
the beginning of the next cataracts, it is pre- 
sumed that an unusual deposit of the precious 
metal has been made here by the action of the 
torrent, continued for a long period of time. 

From the reverend Padre C , whose good- 

* The eastern coast of Central America north of Cape 
Gracias a Dios, is uniformly healthy, excepting at a 
few points where there are miasmatic flats, hummocks, or 
marshes. From the Cape, as you sail N.W., the coast be- 
comes higher, and from the Patook to Truxillo, ranges of 
hills come down nearly to the sea. Beyond Truxillo again 
there are a few decidedly pestilential localities, but the 
major part of the N.E. coast of Central America is superi- 
or in salubrity to any of the West India Islands except, 
perhaps, the Bahamas. 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



331 



will I had the happiness to conciliate, I heard 
many facts and reports in regard to the Espu- 
mosa, and some curious traditions, tending all 
to confirm the general opinion of its value. I 
shall not here repeat them, but only reveal a 
part of my conversations with that intelligent 
and excellent friend, in regard to the general 
wealth of the region as far as he himself was 
acquainted with it. The good Padre is proud 
of his horsemanship, and while I was with him 
always rode a good steed. On the occasion 
which I now call to mind, we rose with the sun ; 
and, after a breakfast of corn-bread and choco- 
late, leaped briskly into the saddle and cantered 
over the prairie in the face of a cool, invigorating 
breeze. The Padre — a little, round, smiling 
fellow, with a great brain stuffed with country 
knowledge, but no reading beyond the missal, 
the prayer-book, and once a year a newspaper or 
so from Tegucigalpa — after galloping an hour in 
deep thought, reined in his horse on a sudden : 

" Senor," he exclaimed, " what is your re- 
ligion ?" 

" Protestant," I replied in English, pulling on 
the rein without looking back. The Padre rode 
up, and we sat quietly in our saddles, he mean- 
while looking at me with a confused expression. 

"Not heretic, I hope?" 

" Oh no, Father— Protestant." 

" That is different," said he. " Eh, yes, Pro- 
tes-tan-te — and yet, Senor, I am at a loss — is 
not the Catholic Church one and indivisible ?" 

"It should be so, Father; but men, you are 
aware, will have disagreements. My doctrines, 
er rather, the doctrines in which I was edu- 
cated—" 

"You were finely educated, my son. But 
what is the difference between your faith and 
mine? I hope we are of the same Church — 
Sancta Maria ! — I should grieve, otherwise." 

Unwilling to disturb the equanimity of my 
simple-minded friend, I eluded his question, 
and for answer repeated to him in Spanish the 
familiar creed — " I believe in God, the Father," 
etc., etc. 

He was delighted, and clapped his hands, 
but added in a moment: "It astonishes me, 
Senor, to read of Protestants at war with Cath- 
olics for differences of faith !" 

"Ah !" said I, " the Church of Christ em- 
braces many opinions. There are Dominicans, 
you know, and those who follow the doctrines 
of St. Ignatius ; there is the partial heresy of 
Origen, and the pure idealism of St. Augustine; 
in short, there are many shades of opinion, but 
all embraced under the one Church. We must 
bear and forbear, and not quarrel, as some do, 
for a difference of words or ritual." 

The Padre seemed satisfied. "Ah !" said he, 
Senor, I knew you were sound on that point. 
We have no books here, and know but little 
of what is going on, and it is a pleasure to 
be in the company of intelligent men. And 
now," said he, riding on at a gentle trot, "we 
will talk about the gold. But first," he con- 
tinued, checking his horse a second time, while 



his face assumed a cunning expression, "tell me 
a little about California. Your countrymen are 
so numerous and powerful there, we are told, 
the poor natives have no chance at all. You 
have taken their lands and mines away from 
them. Is it not so ?" 

" On the contrary," I answered, " they have 
become rich by selling to us. When we went 
to California, we found your people rude and 
barbarous — no money, no fairs, no comfortable 
clothes or furniture — in fact, a poor, unhappy 
nation. But now, look at them! They are 
rich — they have splendid houses, magnificent 
cathedrals of stone, fine music in the churches, 
plenty of books, and every thing that is desir- 
able. And so it will be if we come into Olan- 
cho." 

" But you are an ambitious nation," persisted 
the Padre ; "a proud people, and your weapons 
are always in your hands. I fear you will quar- 
rel with our young men. And then you have 
another fault, worse than that — you deceive our 
women, young man." The good Father spoke 
sternly, but his eye did not show great severity 
of soul ; and as I had heard several scandals 
touching his tenderness toward the gentler sex, 
I answered with confidence, appealing to my 
own behavior as an instance of the general cor- 
rectness of my countrymen. The Padre only 
smiled, and hitched backward and forward in 
his saddle, seeming to attach very little weight 
to my defense of Yankee innocence. We rode 
for a few miles further to a range of hills, where 
we were to inspect an old silver mine, which, 
tradition says, was worked in former times by 
the aborigines. While viewing a green mound 
covered with trees, which the Padre asserted 
was composed of the earth and rubbish taken 
out of the mine, I picked up pieces of argenti- 






z*L 



*%> 




WOMEN OF LEl'AGUAEB. 



332 



HAKPEP'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




VIEW OP JUTECALl'A. 



ferous lead ore ; but as the specimens were in- 
ferior to the ores of Tegucigalpa, I found no- 
thing to interest me in the locality, and occupied 
myself with examining the trees of the copse, 
among which were some bearing the valuable 
vanilla vine. 

These trees abound in Olancho, and support 
vines, which produce qualities of vanilla finer 
than any that is brought to the United States. 
I found the vine which bears the pod, or bean, 
growing parasitically ; extracting its nourishment 
from the bark of the trees to which it clings. The 
roots shoot out at short distances, as the vine 
ascends, the long lanceolate leaves springing 
from the same points with the root fibres. The 
pods depend from the angles, where the leaf 
unites with the stem, two or three together. 
They vary in length from three to nine inches, 
when full grown. Three species of forest trees 
have a bark which affords nutriment to the 
roots of the vanilla vine. Of these, plantations 
may be made, and the vine propagated by tying 
slips to the bark. They take root in the rind, 
and grow freely. 

The preparation of the pod for market is a 
rather tedious process. For wages of not more 
than twelve cents a day, Indians are employed 
to go through the forests and collect vanilla. 
The green pods are laid upon flannel, in a 
broken light, that they may not dry too rapidly. 
The women who watch this process turn them 
over and touch them occasionally with olive-oil, 
to prevent hardening. Every night they are 
covered from the dews. In the course of two 
or three weeks — according to the dryness or 
temperature of the air — they become brown and 
wrinkled lengthways, and the unrivaled per- 
fume of vanilla is developed by the change. 
From ten cents, they acquire the value of three 
and four dollars the pound, and may be rolled 
up in soft cloths and packed for exportation. 

On our return, after three or four applica- 



tions to a flask of aguardiente, which I carried 
in my pocket, the Padre became communicative 
on the subject of mines, and the precious metals 
in general. He said that he knew of a priest 
in Northern Olancho, who lived a secluded life, 
associating only with Indians, who revered him 
as a saint. He was enormously rich in silver, 
and could, at any moment, produce several 
thousand dollars at once, from a mine of which 
no one but himself and the Indians had the se- 
cret. It was impossible to get it from the In- 
dians, whose reverence for the Padre amounted 
to fanaticism. Many persons had searched for 
this treasure without success, but its existence 
was generally believed. As I had seen enough 
of the silver mines of Tegucigalpa to find no- 
thing extravagant or improbable in this ac- 
count, my curiosity was powerfully awakened, 
and I proposed to the Padre to engage with me 
in searching for it. He, however, would not 
meddle in the affair, and advised me to let it 
alone, for fear of awakening the superstitious 
jealousy of the Indians. 

Touching upon the mines and treasure — a 
subject evidently congenial to the Padre — I 
hinted to him that perhaps he himself might 
be possessed of some equally valuable secret. 
The old man put on a knowing look: "Oh," said 
he, "I am too liberal ; I can not keep a secret; 
but there are hidden treasures in Olancho. — 

There are the Z family. — When I was a 

boy, I remember the streams of gold that flow- 
ed through Jutecalpa. Then we threw off our 
allegiance to the Spanish crown, and since that 
day, money has disappeared. Five millions of 
silver went every year from Tegucigalpa, within 
my memory, and half a million of gold dust 
from the Guayape. But when the wars began, 
it was dangerous to have money. The rich 
proprietors filled up their mines, and buried 
large sums. Every body did the same. All the 
j workmen on the mines were taken by the Gov- 



ADVENTUEES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTEAL AMERICA. 



333 



eminent for soldiers, and gradually we became — 
as we are now. But we know well the natural 
riches of Honduras, and expect you with your 
labor and your engines to bring them to light." 

" How is it," said I, doubtfully, " the people 
of Olancho remain poor, if they have so great 
wealth under their feet ?" 

" We are not poor in hope or in possibility," 
said the Padre ; " but, at the same time, we are 
not visibly rich. Our soil gives us what we 
require, almost without labor; but we are in- 
dolent — it is in the blood — we are distrustful 
of each other. The powerful hate each other, 
the weak are timid and sullen. God has given 
you a new destiny ; ours is already accom- 
plished. Come you, then, and unite with us ; 
bring your youth, your genius, and your indus- 
try, and make us a new people. Of the old race 
there are only a few left — one in a hundred. 
The Indians are every day less manageable, 
and by-and-by there will be insurrections, and 
we shall be swept away, as it has happened in 
Yucatan. You alone can save us." 

" You are not afraid, then, to open the flood- 
gates for colonists ?" 

" No, no ; let them come ; there is room 
enough. We have land, cattle, horses, mules, 
food, spices, indigo, vanilla, gold, and silver ; 
all ours, and worth money. You will buy them. 
We shall accumulate wealth. We are not afraid 
of your people, whatever some foreign rogues 
may tell you. You are honest — republican — 
vou do not rob, steal, terrify, and cheat, like the 
English." 

" Padre," said I, " you are too hard upon the 
English. They are a great people — a power- 
ful nation. They have rendered, and are still 
rendering important services to humanity. Two 
centuries ago, we were English, as you were 
Spanish. We must not contemn the blood 
from whence we sprung." 

" Good !" said he, " they have always been 
enemies. I do not know what others think of 
them ; but we look upon them with suspicion." 

"They have injured you, then, in Honduras?" 

"Worse than that; they wish to rob us of 



our territory. They encourage the coast In- 
dians to harass and injure us. Not long ago, 
Sefior Blanchard, an Englishman, came into 
Olancho and discovered the riches of the Guay- 
ape. He tried to establish a colony of English- 
men at Las Flores, on the river below Jutecal- 
pa. But we would not suffer him, because the 
feeling of his nation was aggressive, and not 
kindly toward us ; nor will it ever be until you 
show them how much better it would be for all 
foreign nations to deal kindly and honorably 
with us, and not to harrass us with rascally 
agents, who misrepresent and injure their own 
government while they endeavor to rob and 
spoil us." 

Not caring to waste time in discussing the 
character of the worthy Mr. Bull and his em- 
ployees, I suggested that the establishment of 
an annual fair for all nations, at Jutecalpa, 
would be highly beneficial to Olancho. He 
was delighted with the idea, but said that the 
Indian town of Catacamas was more accessible, 
being near the head of deep navigation on the 
Patook river. 

The trade of two-thirds of Honduras is sup- 
plied by the annual fair of San Miguel, in San 
Salvador. Goods sold at this fair are taken 
round Cape Horn by French, German, and En- 
glish merchants, chiefly the latter, to the Bay 
of Fonseca on the Pacific. Here they pay 
duty in the port of Amapala, on Tigre Island, 
and are taken thence inland to San Miguel. 
Goods to the value of a million are disposed of 
by this arrangement. The inland dealers ex- 
change cattle, and other commodities of Hon- 
duras, San Salvador, and portions of Nicaragua 
and Guatemala, for the imports of the foreign 
merchants. The gold dust of Yoro and Olancho, 
the silver of Comayagua and Tegucigalpa, the 
cocoa, indigo, cochineal, sarsaparilla, vanilla, 
and a great variety of valuable products of 
Honduras, find a ready, but not a profitable, 
market. Cattle, driven from the Guayape river 
across the continent to San Miguel, hardly yield 
two dollars a head in profit to the driver. He 
pays four dollars a head for them at Lepaguare^ 




8TBXET IN JUTKOALPA. 



334 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




SILVER-MINING TOWN IN THE SALTO KANGE. 



and receives eight dollars — it may "be — at the 
fair ; the cost and trouble of driving these herds, 
a three weeks' journey across the entire State 
of Honduras, being equal to at least half the 
difference. The native sellers at the fair are at 
the mercy of the importers, who reap enormous 
profits, and pay slender prices. Vanilla, at $3 
or $4 a pound, bought by the foreign dealer at 
San Miguel, will often be sold at $15 a pound 
in American or European ports. Other things 
are in proportion. 

"And now," said the Padre — on the evening 
of this day of our excursion — turning to me 
with a benignant expression, " since we have 
finished our repast, and you are weary with the 
day's ride, get into that hammock and take your 
cigarito and enjoy yourself, while I read you Se- 
nior Bernardis's pamphlet. Senor Bernardis lives 
at Truxillo, and you will doubtless one day be- 
come acquainted with him; but I myself am much 
better informed than he, regarding the wealth 
of the Gua,yape river, and in a few days I will 
go with you to some of our richest placers, where 
you will see gold more abundant, and of a finer 
quality, than any other in the world." 

The fact was, I had lent the Padre a copy 
of the pamphlet in question, given me by Senor 
Travieso of Tegucigalpa. It was published some 
years ago in La Gaceta Oficial de Honduras — a 
newspaper issued semi-monthly at Comayagua. 
The author of this pamphlet, Senior Jacobo Ber- 
nardis,* resides at Truxillo, and has for a long 

* My very excellent friend Opolonio Ocampo, the en- 
terprising mahogany-cutter of Patook river, represented 
to me that Bernardis did not half know the importance 
and advantages of the river Patook. Ocampo has passed 
the bar at all seasons of the year, and finds the river en- 
tirely navigable for its whole length. 



time collected information in regard to the 
placers. 

Under the head of " Tesoros en Olancho, y 
Santa Cruz del Oro" Bernardis writes nearly as 
follows : 

" The world is generally well informed in re- 
gard to the mineral wealth of California, Aus- 
tralia, and the head-waters of the Amazon. 
These discoveries originated in the eagerness 
of commercial nations to accumulate wealth by 
colonizing new countries; and were not owing 
merely to the intrinsic value of the regions 
themselves." .... "It maybe affirmed, without 
exaggeration, that nearly the entire State of 
Honduras is enriched with metallic veins, and 
conceals, in all parts of its territory, treasures 
which demand only a superficial exploration for 
their development. The scarcity of labor, the 
depopulated condition of the country, the want 
of mineralogical knowledge, of capital, and of 
mining adventurers ; and, above all, the peculiar 
inertness and indolence of the Spanish-Amer- 
ican people in all occupations which require 
physical labor have prevented the enjoyment 
of this natural wealth. Add to this, a continued 
state of revolution, making all property insecure 
for natives of the State, and it is apparent why 
Honduras is not in all respects the equal of 
other gold regions. 

"The departments of Olancho, and a portion 
of Santa Cruz del Oro (called also Yoro), are 
naturally the rivals and equals of the California 
placers. The rivers Guayape and Jalan, which 
form the Patook river by their junction at Jute- 
calpa (about ninety-five miles S.S.E. of Truxil- 
lo), bear in their waters sands of gold collected 
along their entire course." . . . . " The bar of the 
Patook river (Lat. 15° 48' 30" N., and Long. 



ADVENTURES IN THE GOLD FIELDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



33S 



84° 18' W. of Greenwich), is an entrance over 
which vessels of deep draught can not pass with 
safety, the depth of water varying between five 
and eleven feet, according to the season and 
state of the river.* From the bar to the con- 
fluence of the Guayambre — a distance of sixty 
miles inland, in a southeasterly direction, as 
the crow flies — the least depth of water is from 
two to five feet as far as the Chifflones or rap- 
ids ; above which is the junction of the great 
river Guayambre, which comes in from the 
southeast, taking its rise on the mountains which 
divide Nicaragua from Honduras. From the 
Confluence {La Confluencia) to the mouth of 
the Jalan, the depth is three and a half to four 
feet without obstacle, through a level country, 
to a point five miles below Jutecalpa, above 
which are the placers, or gold-washings, extend- 
ing over a region between seventy and eighty 
miles in width." 

At this moment I fixed my eyes upon the 
Padre, whose ruddy visage was flushed to a 
deep red, by the excitement of reading, and 
lighting a fresh cigarito to conceal a slight em- 
barrassment. 

" Padre," said I, " stay a little and let us talk." 
" Bueno /" replied he, wiping the perspiration 
from his face, and leaning back with a smile. 
"Let us talk, Guillermo." 

" Do you not perceive," I began, " that when 
this valuable information, furnished to the world 
by your inestimable friend Bernardis, shall be 
possessed by our intelligent and adventurous 
friends, los Americanos del Norte, as you call 
them — the young caballeros (gentlemen) of the 
United States — they will turn eagerly to share 
with you the advantages of this new California ? 
Was it not rash of that excellent Sefior Ber- 
nardis — ?" 

At the very instant while I was speaking, a 
furious outcry arose in the rear of the Padre's 
house. I leaped, or rather, from want of habit, 
fell, from the hammock, and seizing my re- 
volver, ran in great haste, followed by the 
terrified Padre, to ascertain the cause of the 
uproar. The house stands apart from the 
village, in the centre of a green plot, sur- 
rounded with shrubbery, which unites on the 
south side with a line of forest and chapperal 
stretching up from the river. On this green 
plot, three 6heep, the pets of the good man and 
his withered housekeeper, were used to graze. 
They had once been a flock of ten, the wonder 
and pride of the vicinity, but the wild dogs 
had gradually thinned their ranks. A small 
tiger-cat, which had been prowling for several 
weeks in the neighborhood — doubtless with in- 
terested views upon the mutton — seeing a favor- 
able opportunity, had leaped suddenly out of a 
tree and seized the smallest of the three woolly 
strangers by the throat. Excited by the taste 
of blood, the furious little puss had forgotten 
danger, and lay rolling and tumbling over and 

* The depth is actually eleven to twelve feet in winter, 
and Bix to seven feet in summer. The variations are due 
to Btorms and freshets. 



over with the helpless wether, kicking out its 
bowels, with successive jerks of the hind-paws 
like a kitten at play. The two others, an old 
one-horned ram and a ragged ewe, rushed fu- 
riously into the door of the cottage, nearly 
overturning the Padre in their haste. At the 
same moment with ourselves, arrived upon the 
scene of action the housewife, a withered hag 
of sixty, and began banging away at the cat 
with a hoe-handle. Her dress had fallen en- 
tirely off the upper half of her person, which 
consisted of a skeleton, over which a whity- 
brown parchment seemed to have been stretch- 
ed instead of a skin, with two prolongations, 
like a couple of old leather pouches, depending 
below the girdle, and flapping about in a very 
extraordinary manner as she belabored the ex- 
cited and oblivious cat. The last rays of sun- 
set deepened the shadows and gilded the lights 
of this singular group, which might have been 
taken for two demons contending for the pos- 
session of an unfortunate soul in purgatory. 
The Padre stamped and swore, and tore his 
hair for the loss of his pet, in a style by no 
means clerical, and begged me to fire upon the 
cat ; without seeming to observe the risk I ran 
of putting a ball through the Sefiora's leather 
instead of the tiger's hide. I called to her to 
stand aside, as I intended to "shoot;" on which 
hint she retired precipitately, and with a lucky 
ball the wild-cat was sent suddenly to that re- 
gion described by the poet Catullus, from which 
neither sparrows nor wild-cats have been ever 
known to return. 

The Padre was too much excited by this in- 
cident to continue the reading of Bemardis's 



<% 









C$7 v i. 




ua ■ MN-i. 



336 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



pamphlet, but the next day we resumed it, after 
another excursion, during which I obtained sev- 
eral angles for the foundation of my map. 

" Sefior," said he, recurring with evident 
pleasure to the topic of the previous day, " if 
our brave Olanchanos had weapons like yours, 
they would be independent of all nations ; but 
now let us hear the rest of Sefior Bernardis, as 
follows : 

" * The gold of the Guayape, Jalan, and Man- 
gerlile rivers is well known in Olancho; as those 
of the Sulaco, Yuguale, Caminito, and Pacaya 
are in Yoro. Some of these streams are of the 
richest order of rivers, and compare well with 

that of Copaipo and Guasco in Chili.' 

'The Supreme Government should use every 
means in its power to entice immigration for 
the turning to account of this vast resource of 
the soil.' " 

As the remainder of this remarkable docu- 
ment is merely a description of the mineral and 
agricultural resources of Honduras, I will no 
longer follow the patriotic Padre in his statis- 
tical readings. At a later period I made a per- 
sonal survey of the great river Guayape. Dur- 
ing my sojourn in Olancho it was a formidable 
stream, flowing majestically toward the sea, fed 
by numerous mountain affluents — the Jalan, 
Guayapita, Concordia, Espana, Moran, Garcia, 
Rio de Olancho, Masatepe, Rio Real, Rio de 
Catacamas, and the Lesser Tinto. Below Jute- 
calpa the Guayape (now called Patook) — in- 
creased by the Guayambre from the S.S.W., 
and then successively by the Gineo, Rio de 
Tabaco on the south, Coyamel, Wampeo — all 
large branches with numerous smaller tributa- 
ries — becomes an immense stream, capable of 
bearing the steamers of the Upper Ohio and 
Mississippi upon its bosom. During the rainy 
or summer months, the body of the water rises 
to twice its ordinary depth, and spreads into vast 
reaches, "sloughs," and fresh-water lagoons. 
When I visited the Chiffiones I found four feet 
of water on the rapids, and could discover no 
obstacle to steamboat navigation — as it is now 
practiced on our Western rivera — from the 
ocean to the immediate vicinity of the placers. 

And here, with regret, I am compelled to bid 
adieu to the reader.* The region I have de- 
scribed to him, although not more than four 
days' distance from New Orleans by ordinary 
steam navigation, has been hitherto unknown 
even to geographers. Its rivers and mountains, 
like those of the mysterious O. Brazil, so ludi- 
crously noticed by Swift in the Tale of a Tub, 
have been created by desperate map-makers to 
fill unsightly blanks. Now, on the contrary, I 
have spread before me a map of the noble river 
Patook and all its branches, with every farm- 
house and village in Olancho, and the number 

* I have been obliged, for want of space, to omit all 
mention of the valuable copper-mines of Lepaguare, on 
the lands of the Zelayas, and which are now included in 
their grants to their American associates. These, and the 
silver, rock-gold, and cinnabar deposits of Tegucigalpa 
and Olancho, require a full description, and will repay 
the attention of mineralogists and miners. 



of their inhabitants — a work which can not here 
be introduced ; but as a substitute, our artist 
has given in his best manner the beauties of a 
scenery for the first time represented and de- 
scribed by an American. 



BIRCHKNOLL. 

A NEW GHOST STORY OF OLD VIRGINIA. 

EH— eh— em— em !" 
If you have ever had the honor of an 
acquaintance with a nice old, motherly, shrewd, 
superstitious, affectionate, troublesome, indis- 
pensable, useless, sable daughter of Ham, you 
can pronounce that interjection. If you have 
not had intercourse with any such person, you 
can not imitate the sound, and you need not 
try. It would be as useless for me to attempt 
to teach you, as it is to attempt "French with- 
out a master," or to essay to convey the Gaulic 
sounds in the characters of the English alpha- 
bet. 

" Eh— eh— em— em !" 

There is a deal of meaning conveyed in this 
apparently meaningless sound — quite as much 
as in Lord Burleigh's shake of the head. There 
is more, indeed, for his Lordship's pantomime 
needs daylight or lamplight, but Aunt Susan- 
nah said or humphed that wise exclamation to 
me in the evening, when you could no more 
see her sable pow than you could discern the 
exact form of midnight. 

Aunt Susannah had been regaling me with a 
ghost story. I had told her that I did not be- 
lieve a word of it. I had told her, moreover, 
that if the spirits of the dead could return to 
earth, I should be glad to see my brother's 
wife — two years dead — whose little child found 
in old Susannah's breast as affectionate a heart 
as ever beat in any bosom, black or white. Su- 
sannah is my dear little Charley's nurse. She 
was his father's ; and she was looking forward 
to a long line of duty in a new generation, when 
my dear sister sickened and died. She was my 
nurse. She was my mother's, and she pretends 
that she was her mother's too. I don't know. 
These old negro aunties never grow any older, 
and nobody can remember when they seemed 
younger. I can recollect the time when, if 
Aunt Susannah had told me that Pharaoh's 
daughter gave her Moses to nurse, when she 
took him out of the Nile, I should have believed 
her. [There's an idea for Mr. Barnum. They 
have no baptismal registers in Egypt — which is 
awkward — but Mr. B. may as well play upon 
our credulity with the hieroglyphic and demotic 
inscriptions as to leave them entirely to more 
scientific pretenders.] 

When I expressed the doubt and the wish 
above mentioned, Aunty humphed. She then 
went on to tell me that I need not be so skep- 
tical, that she could oppose experience to my 
young ignorance, and demonstrate the possi- 
bility of ghosts by proofs of their actual appear- 
ance. Such was the purport of Susannah's re- 
marks — such is rather a paraphrase. If I re- 
member the exact words, they were : 



BIRCHKNOLL. 



337 



"Eh — eh — em — em! I hear you talkin'! 
Need'n tell dis chile dere's no gosisses. I know 
dere is !" 

I was silenced for a moment, but not con- 
vinced. I feel my growing years. I am almost 
twenty. I am fresh from boarding-school, and 
have thirty intimate friends with whom I corre- 
spond. Perhaps I should say twenty-nine — 
but that would be anticipating my story. And 
one of those friends, my dear Angeline, was 
with us on a visit at the very time. Aunt 
Susannah coldly included her under the con- 
tempt with which she regards all "dese 'ere 
Yankees," and I was piqued, and determined 
to assert my womanhood. It would not do for 
a girl of eighteen, with a guest in the house, to 
be silenced before Aunt Susannah. I must 
convince her that I am a woman, or she will 
nurse me forever. I told her something in ex- 
change for her marvels. I gave her the newest 
wonders of modern spiritualism — how the dead 
talk with the living, and not only talk, but 
write, through the spiritual telegraph. I did 
not tell her how much of my information came 
from Angeline, for then she would have classed 
it all with wooden hams, silver side-saddles, 
and surreptitious nutmegs. Of course, inven- 
tion was not spared, and what the books, and 
newspapers, and Angelina did not furnish, was 
supplied from a tolerably fertile imagination. 

"How dey look?" asked Aunt Susannah. 

I informed her that no one saw the spirits. 

"How dey speak?" 

I told her that no one heard their voices, 
but that these spiritual essences borrowed the 
tongues of living people, who were called me- 
diums, or used their fingers to write, or rapped 
under the tables, or in the walls ; giving her, 
in short, the most approved relations of spiritual- 
istic phenomena. " Don' believe it. Dey isn't 
true spirits. S'pose dey can come, can't dey 
show theirselves ? S'pose dey can walk, can't 
dey speak ? Don' believe it. But don' tell me 
dere isn't gosisses — real gosisses, 'cause I know 
dere is !" 

It seemed as if Susannah were resolved to 
revenge herse*lf for my unbelief in her ghostly 
narratives, by refusing obstinately to credit 
the new spiritual manifestations. She would 
not believe a word of the spiritualist theory, 
whether that of Andrew Jackson Davis, or the 
emendations of judges and ri devant parsons. 
Whenever I repeated them, she met me with 
the invariable interjection of doubt. As to any 
printed accounts of marvel, she had a sovereign 
contempt for all " made up lies," which came in 
the heterodox shape of books and newspapers. 
Nothing in the way of a ghost story is to be be- 
lieved which comes in such a suspicious form. 
"Dere is things," Susannah said, "dat ain't to 
be printed. Why dere was gosisses fo' ever 
dere was a printer. S'pose dey goern to be put 
in books ? Put 'em in de Red Sea fust." 

The reasoning is plausible, if not logical. 
The connection between the premises and the 
conclusion is not made exactly clear; but the 
Vol. XII.— No. 69.— Y 



fact is, as Aunt Susannah presents it, that the 
only legitimate vehicle of ghostly lore is oral 
tradition. It proves nothing to print it, for you 
can print nay as well as yea. But what has 
been every where believed, and by every body, 
is surely true. Who don't believe in ghosts? 
Don't you ? I wish, then, you could hear Aunt 
Susannah upon the subject. One word of hers 
would settle you — yes, less than a word : " Eh — 
eh — em — em !" And when did not people be- 
lieve in them? If antiquity is the test and 
warrant of truth, the farther back you go into 
the dim past, the more ghosts you find. Spirit- 
ual manifestations are only the old story in a 
new dress — Aunt Susannah to the contrary not- 
withstanding. 

Little Charley cried, and an end was put to 
our colloquy. "B'lieve de gosisses is here 
now," said Aunt Susannah, " if you could only 
see 'em. Dey won't let the chile sleep. Dey 
make hosses kick in the stable, and shy and 
stumble in de road. Hosses see gosisses, or 
else what dey 'fraid of in de dark ? Eh — em ! 
You is mighty piert, Mess C&rline ; but you fine 
out one dese days, I tell you!" 

I wonder if every body is superstitious. I 
think sometimes that I am. At any rate the 
conversation with old Aunty did not at all pre- 
pare me to sit alone and in darkness, while the 
autumn winds suddenly hissing put the doors 
and shutters in motion ; and I sought the family 
in the sitting-room. There must have been 
something contagious in the air, or the spirits 
must have been at work, influencing all parts 
of the house at once, for the family topic to- 
night was spiritualism. All were inclined to 
speak of it lightly, leaving what they said 
to be treated as subsequent revelations might 
prompt. Angeline was the oracle. She had 
the newest wonders and the most of them. 
But you could never tell by what she said 
whether she meant to be serious or was mock- 
ing you with romance. She had a capital De 
Foe-like method of narrative — the perfect art 
of most elaborate simplicity. When you looked 
to see what she meant, she was more a puzzle 
than ever. I was not to be outdone. As 1 
had puzzled Susannah in the kitchen with the 
parlor lore, I turned the kitchen artillery against 
the parlor. We all reached such a comfortable 
state — except father, who went to sleep — that 
the slam of a door made us jump from our 
chairs. 

I saw that my brother was specially uncom- 
fortable, and made an effort to change the sub- 
ject. Poor fellow! He never has been half 
himself since he brought his young wife home 
to die ! But the effort to change the subject of 
conversation only succeeded so far that it pro- 
duced silence. Father waked up, and with- 
drew. Mother followed ; and then the rest, ex- 
cept Edward, who stood at the window gazing 
out into the night. I went to him, and placed 
my hand upon his arm. He started, then said, 

" Oh, is it you, Caroline?" 

"You were thinking of her." 



338 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



"Yes. In my reverie I had forgotten she 
was dead ; and your quiet approach, so like the 
manner in which she used to steal upon me, 
made me turn to greet her, Caroline." 

" Well !" 

" If one could believe what they say of the 
presence of the loved and dead near us !" 

" My dear brother !" 

" Don't argue. Don't ridicule. I know such 
a thing is contrary to all reason. I know it is 
opposed to all experience. I know that to in- 
dulge such thoughts is folly, and worse. But I 
can not be reasoned with. I can not hear such 
things lightly spoken of. My recent affliction 
makes me sensitive. It is wonderful how many 
advocates the delusion has !" 

" Did it never occur to you, Edward, that in 
your own self you may read the solution of the 
wonder ? Who has not lost a friend, parent or 
child, brother or sister, wife or husband? And 
who does not incline to wish that true which 
might preserve to us continued intercourse with 
these loved ones ? In this playing upon our 
sensibilities, and making traitors of our affec- 
tions, is the secret of the too-ready faith with 
which we listen to impossibilities." 

"It may be, indeed." 

"Be assured it is." 

It is curious how, when once we let our minds 
run upon forbidden subjects, they haunt and 
perplex us. I could not divest myself of the 
feeling of superstition which had been called up, 
and was not at all sorry to find that Angeline 
bad taken possession of a spare bed in my room. 
She had retired before me, but when I entered 
was not yet asleep. "I have taken a liberty, 
Caroline, but you must excuse it. The edify- 
ing conversation in which we have been engaged 
has made a complete coward of me. I was 
really afraid to sleep in my own room alone." 

I smiled, and told her she was welcome. I 
did not tell her how welcome, or how much of 
a coward I was myself. I am afraid of the ob- 
servant witch. Besides, if I was glad, heartily 
glad to find her in the room, I soon wished her 
away. She talked, talked, talked, till past mid- 
night, and still on the same theme. I wished 
she would be silent, but still listened in a sort 
of fascination, and even made her repeat the 
words and sentences which I did not at first 
catch. Tired nature at length gave way, and I 
fell asleep, leaving Angeline still in the seventh 
sphere — or in some such indefinite position. 

I dreamed. I dreamed of spirit-rappers and 
spirit-rappings, and never in my life did I hear 
rounds more distinct than the tap — tap — tap ! 
on the foot-board. I waked in a tremor of 
fright, and felicitated myself that it was a dream. 
There is no more delightful sensation in the 
world than the feeling that you are really broad 
awake, and that the terrors with which you still 
tremble were not realities, but merely the sleep- 
ing fancies caused by an over-excited mind. A 
sceptre could not be held with more ecstasy 
than you clasp the bed-post ! 

Such was my triumph — but, alas ! short-lived. 



The conviction that I was indeed broad awake 
ceased to be a satisfaction, when upon my wak- 
ing ears distinctly fell the tap — tap — tap ! Now 
I was sure it was no dream, but a distinct and 
not-to-be-doubted reality, let it come from 
whence it might. I buried my head in the 
bed-clothes — and still came, distinct though 
muffled, the tap — tap — tap ! 

" If you intend to open a communication with 
me," thought I, " you shall be disappointed." It 
is wonderful with what philosophy I acted in 
my fear — for afraid I was, and I confess it. I 
lay awake, wishing for day or for sleep, I cared 
little which, for I was exceedingly fatigued. I 
slipped from the bed with the first gray streak 
of light, and finding that Angeline was sound 
asleep, and in perfect composure, I became con- 
vinced that it was all delusion, and prepared to 
compensate myself for a sleepless night by tak- 
ing a long morning nap. 

But scarce had my head touched the pillow 
when the furniture in the room became possess- 
ed. The old easy chair advanced to its. con- 
temporary, the tall bureau, with the stately and 
measured grace of the days when Virginia was 
the Old Dominion. An etagere, a modern toi- 
let-table, and two or three light chairs — all par- 
venues and innovations — capered round the 
dowager furniture, like frisky new people, un- 
certain of their position. Strange as my mirth 
may appear, I could not avoid laughing out at 
the scene, and forthwith, to rebuke my levity, 
the bed underneath me began to ascend, and 
went as near the ceiling as the posts would per- 
mit, coming down with an audible bounce and 
a sensible jar. The water in the ewer poured 
itself into the bowl, and the towels wiped invis- 
ible hands. Every thing was in a state of most 
unexplainable topsy-turvity. I can't account 
for it, and don't pretend to. The breakfast-bell 
sounded, and forgetting my threatened nap, I 
astonished Aunt Susannah and all the rest of 
the servants by answering the first summons. I 
looked inquiringly round the room. Angeline 
had disappeared in the tumult, but the chairs 
and tables all were there, and all in their places, 
and rebuked me for my folly. But the towels 
were wet, and the pitcher was empty. 

"Where did you dress?" I asked Angeline 
at the breakfast-table. 

" In my own room." 

"And how did you rest?" 

" Sweetly !" That was her answer. I won- 
der if she did not lie — twice? Edward looked 
haggard and weary. I strongly suspected that 
he had passed as troubled a night as myself, but 
I asked no questions, for I was determined not 
to add to the mystification. But what could 
have introduced such vagaries into a quiet, old 
mansion, which was never before suspected of 
any thing contrary to established rule and pre- 
cedent ? Our family have always lived here. 
Marriages, births, and deaths have followed each 
other in due sequence ; and there is not a line 
of romance, that I ever heard of, coupled with 
my name in all our generations. 



BIRCHKNOLL. 



339 



But now, of a certainty Birchknoll is losing 
its good character. 

Spiritualism still continued to be the theme 
of conversation. Angeline now would relate a 
case with due circumstantial minuteness, and 
now laugh at the whole subject. Aunt Susan- 
nah caught a word here and there as she moved 
about the premises, but the brief and only re- 
mark she made the reader is already acquainted 
with. The younger fry, always under foot, 
would stop and listen till their sable faces 
shone and their eyes protruded. About dusk 
they would cluster up to us like a brood of black 
chickens, and there was no making them move 
without louder threats than had ever before been 
heard at Birchknoll. Aunt Susannah declared 
the place was bewitched, and that was all about 
it ! I think Edward began to think so, or if he 
did not, he gave the strongest evidence of being 
under a spell of any of us. Walking or riding, 
sitting or standing, eating or drinking, he was 
sure to be with Angeline. I began to be jeal- 
ous. Mother looked thoughtful. Father asked 
me a great many questions in a quiet, and he 
thought a very unconcerned way, about Ange- 
line's family. Of course I could give him only the 
very best account, since all I knew was from 
Angeline herself; and if boarding-school girls 
are the representatives of our population, we are 
certainly a most exalted people. They never 
fail, at school, to honor father and mother in 
their accounts of home. Aunt Susannah only 
said, "Eh — eh — em — em!" 

All visits must come to a close. Angeline 
Jeft us. It was dull at Birchknoll. How de- 
lightful, in a quiet country-place, to have some- 
body come out to you full of what is going on 
in the great world. The stock which is thrown 
into the common fund of amusement is not to 
be found in the newspapers, or even in your 
correspondence. Time flies. And when the 
guest goes time lags. You try to chat over 
again what you have been talking about. But 
it is pecking at the debris of a feast. It is sip- 
ping stale Champagne, and nibbling the frosting 
of departed cakes. The freshness is gone. The 
esprit is fled. You can't get up the interest 
over again. We were dull, very dull. 

Edward proposed a week in the city. No 
matter what city. I don't care to open, or 
cause to be opened a newspaper correspondence, 
and the events I am to tell are too recent to per- 
mit me to give precise dates and localities. It is 
pleasant to go to town, if you go right. Take pos- 
session of paid quarters, and verify the old prov- 
erb, that there is no welcome like that of an inn. 
Denizens of cities are hospitable in their way. 
They like to dine you and sup you; they are 
delighted at a call ; they are pleased if you can 
spend a night. But never, if you wish to be 
welcome, drive to the door with trunks and 
boxes, and surprise your city friends with a de- 
liberate invasion. Fortify yourself in a public- 
house, and thence make agreeable sorties on 
your relations and friends in rotation. 

We had been installed in our quarters an 



hour — perhaps two. Edward rang for a serv- 
ant, and directed our boy to be sent up — the 
factotum, a boy of forty, Aunt Susannah's 
youngest. He is coachman, footman, valet, and 
all ; a useful fellow, but spoiled. He was not 
to be found. Edward stormed, and I laughed 
at him. Reserving his wrath until Sam should 
return — that wrath, of course, to be entirely for- 
gotten when the object of it should make his 
appearance — my brother took up his hat and 
went himself for what he had intended to send 
— some little toilet article or other. 

He returned with half his errand unattended 
to ; I saw him coming round the corner in such 
a state of blind abstraction that he could see 
nobody. I saw Sam too, cunning varlet! escape 
without falling under his master's eye, for the 
rogue had heard from me of my brother's an- 
ger. Edward threw himself on the sofa with- 
out a word. I was glad that Sam had escaped, 
for I hate scenes ; and ever since this spiritual- 
ism had found its way to Birchknoll my brother 
had been peevish and impatient. I waited his 
sullen worship's pleasure. 

"Caroline, it's deuced queer, but the city 
is haunted too, or bewitched, as Susannah 
says. I was impressed to come here, you 
know." 

"Nonsense! Edward. You were weary at 
home, and came here to be amused." 

"Well, well," he said, impatiently, "have 
that your own way. But what think you of 
this? Nobody knows we are here. We have 
not met an acquaintance. I have not even 
registered our names in the office. But just 
now, as I turned the corner in going out, a 

stranger met me. ' Edward ,' said he, ' the 

spirit which sent you to this city will meet you 

this evening at nine o'clock, at 40 R Street. 

Come alone !' Shall I go ?" 

Here was a question to put to a young wo- 
man of weak nerves. I parried it. "I thought 
you were going this evening to call on cousiB 
Kate!" 

But it was of no use. He would keep the 
mysterious appointment; and I dispatched a 
note to Kate, begging her to come round, as 
Edward had an engagement which left me 
alone, and prevented him from calling upon 
her. 

He came back at eleven o'clock. He was any 
thing but pleased to find Kate with me, and 
there was a strong struggle between his pre- 
occupation and his politeness. The latter tri- 
umphed, though the struggle vas evident. Kate 
has told me since that she felt sure he had been 
at play and lost. 

And what had happened? It occupied the 
time till four o'clock in telling, not to Kate and 
me, but to me alone. I shall put it in briefer 
words and shorter time. And — but now I 
think of it, there's a briefer way still to narrate 
this tale of diablerie — let it tell itself. We spent 
the week in town, during which Edward had 
never a whole evening for his friends : and even- 
day he gtew more moody, and I more unhappy, 



340 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



for after the first night he told me no more. A 
seal was on his lips. I insisted upon returning 
home. I threatened to go without him, and to 
advise his father of his infatuation. At length 
he proposed a compromise. He would go back, 
if I would engage not to tell the family what 
had taken place. I consented to the condition. 

It was hard. Here was Edward, growing 
more incomprehensible daily, and I sharing his 
awkwardness. The house was uncomfortable. 
I was frightened. I dared not trust him out of 
my sight, and I hated to be with him. I could 
not laugh at his folly, for it was preying sadly 
on his spirits and on mine too. I would have 
given the world for a confidant and adviser. 
Think of a girl of eighteen with such a secret, 
and nobody to tell it to ! Besides, I could not 
guess where it would all end, and I was full of 
undefinable fear. 

Is Aunt Susannah any body? I had prom- 
ised not to tell any body. Could that mean 
that I must not tell old Aunty ? I looked and 
wondered as she sat with little Charley on her 
lap, the faithful old creature pretending to be 
wrapped up in the baby, but stealing every now 
and then a watchful look at me, when she 
thought I did not observe her. At last she 
asked plumply, "What's de matter, Miss Car- 
line ?" 

"Matter! Aunty? Nothing!" 

" Eh— eh— em— em !" 

That expressive humph ! I saw that my se- 
cret was out — my manner observed — my uneasi- 
ness detected. 

" Need'n' tell dis chile dat !" Aunt Susannah 
added. 

I felt she was right. I told her the truth. 
In short I made a clean breast of it. I told 
her of the mysterious stranger who met Edward 
as he was going to the shop. 

" Massa Edward goern to the shop ! Where 
was dat Sam ?" 

"Why, Sam was not to be found for an hour 
or two after he put up his horses." 

"Eh— eh— em— em!" 

I told her of the spiritualist circle, and that 
Edward had been put in communication with 
the spirit of his deceased wife. That was 
enough for Aunt Susannah. She could guess 
the rest, and so could I. She did not hesitate 
to speak out the suspicions which I hardly 
dared trust myself to think. "And now," I 
asked, "what do you think of all this?" 

" I tell you byme-by." 

Another night of fright at Birchknoll. But 
this night my dreams were interrupted and col- 
ored by screams of terror, not in my chamber, 
but without. I thought of fire — of any thing 
rather than of ghosts or spirits ; for the cries were 
too much like those of some brazen human throat 
to be mistaken for spirit cries, or the voice of 
any thing disembodied. I ran to the chamber- 
door, and am very much mistaken if something 
white did not flit into the nursery. All was 
soon quiet, and the next day I asked Susannah 
why she was running about at the dead hours? 



" Me ! me run about ! So you see some- 
thing? Eh — em! I tole you, Miss Carline, 
dere is gosisses, and ndw you believe it !" 

All the servants were in perturbation, even 
old Susannah pretended to look frightened. 
As to Sam, he had not turned pale in a night, 
but he had grown thin. He was the oracle. 
He had seen ghosts. There was no mere tale 
of rapping in his revelations, but a genuine old 
orthodox ghost story. Aunt Susannah listened 
with great appearance of interest. Again came 
midnight, and again poor Sam was haunted ! 

Human nature could not stand this — particu- 
larly ebony nature, which has a peculiar terror 
of white ghosts. Aunt Susannah took the op- 
portunity of placing Sam in the confessional, 
and his admissions, relative to his misdeeds and 
machinations, clearly indicated to Edward what 
course to take with him. The threat of dis- 
missal from the house and banishment to the 
plantation forced Sam to acknowledge — need I 
say what? His absence from the hotel was 
duly accounted for; and when it fully appeared 
to my brother that black spirits as well as white 
were implicated in the manifestations ; that Miss 
Angeline was a visitor in the city, though in all 
the week we had never seen or heard of her, 
while Sam often had the honor of an interview, 
and was her unconscious tool ; then, I say, it 
was understood why the spirit of the dead so 
considerately advised that the widowed husband 
should find solace in a second marriage. And 
the family secrets which the " medium" could 
declare ceased to be wonders. 

"Now, do you think, Aunty, that girl could 
have expected to bring such a thing about ?" 

" Eh — em !" said Aunt Susannah. " Dese 
'ere Yankees ! Dere is gosisses — and I know 
it." 

" So does Sam !" 

The old ebony rolled with a peal of laughter, 
which subsided into a silent choking chuckle, 
while her adiposity shook like a jelly. I need 
add no more, except that I have not seen An- 
geline since, nor do we correspond. So, as 
above hinted, I have but twenty-nine intimate 
friends left. 



FUR-HUNTING IN OREGON. 

A FEW years hence, Oregon will be peopled. 
Wharves will have supplanted beaver-traps 
on the rivers, and steam-engines will drive busy 
wheels in the valleys where the Snakes and the 
Blackfeet have so long been used to muster their 
war parties. In anticipation of the passing away 
of the good old times of hunters, and trappers, 
and Indian wars, several industrious gentlemen 
are giving the world the benefit of their expe- 
rience in that wild region. One of these, Mr. 
Alexander Ross, who was a servant of the old 
Pacific Fur Company, and subsequently trans- 
ferred his services to the ill-fated Northwest, 
and afterward to the Hudson's Bay Company, 
spent forty years in the wilderness, like the Is- 
raelites, and having at last reached the land of 
promise at Red River, is beguiling his old age 



FUR-HUNTING IN OREGON. 



341 



by spinning pleasant stories about his exploits 
and his marvelous adventures. 

He is, like most of the hunters of that region, 
a Scotchman, and seems to possess most of the 
virtues of his race. A man of cool nerve, iron 
constitution, and sure eye ; slow to wrath, but 
inflexible in his purpose ; fonder of conciliation 
than menace, but brave as steel in the hour of 
danger ; a devout Christian, with a keen eye to 
trade : he must have been a valuable servant to 
his employers, and the right sort of man to thrive 
in the Northwest. He had been one of the first 
explorers — after Lewis and Clarke — of the Co- 
lumbia River and Oregon ; when the Pacific 
Fur Company went to pieces, at the breaking 
out of the war with England, he transferred his 
services to the Northwest Company, from which 
at that time great results were expected. He 
was at Astoria when the formal transfer took 
place, and started to resume the command of 
his post in the interior, at a place called She- 
Whaps, in company with the returning adven- 
turers of Astor's association. 

They traveled together as far as Onkanagan, 
where they were stopped for want of horses. In 
a valley, some two hundred miles distant, the 
Indians assemble every spring to settle questions 
of peace and war between the tribes. There 
horses can always be bought in any quantities, 
at about half the price of a trained dog, or some 
ten dollars apiece in money. Ross was dis- 
patched to purchase the required supply. 

The valley is beautiful and spacious. But 
Ross had no time to take note of its beauties. 
He had scarcely entered it, when he saw a camp, 
in true Mameluke style, covering more than six 
miles in every direction, and containing not less 
than 3000 men, exclusive of women and chil- 
dren, and perhaps 10,000 horses. The scene 
was indescribable. His ears were stunned by 
the whooping, yelling, drumming, singing, laugh- 
ing, crying of human beings, the neighing of 
horses, the grunting of bears, the howling of 
dogs and wolves. It was like a great city gone 
mad. Every living thing — but the bears and 
wolves, which were tied up — was in a fever of 
motion. Ross rode boldly through the camp to 
the chiefs' tents; when he dismounted he was 
appalled by the stern greeting from an old chief 
— " These are the men who kill our relations, 
who cause us to mourn." At the hint, some 
of the Indians drove off the horses on which 
Ross and his men had ridden to the camp. This 
was unpromising enough ; but Ross, putting a 
bold face on matters, commenced a trade in 
horses, and bought all that were offered. As 
fast as he bought them they were driven off by 
the Indians, amidst savage yells. Then the 
savages, emboldened by the forbearance of the 
white men, began to search their baggage, and 
finding nothing to steal, grew more insolent than 
ever, snatched the men's guns out of their hands, 
fired them off, and returned them with jeers. 
Worse than all, Ross and his party had had 
nothing to eat since their arrival but a few raw 
roots ; and when they tried to cook a meal, the 



Indians thrust spears into the kettle and bore 
off its contents ; thirty or forty of them adding 
emphasis to the proceeding by firing their guns 
into the ashes. All this time Ross never al- 
lowed any sign of impatience to escape him, but 
waited his opportunity. At last an Indian, see- 
ing one of the whites use his knife, snatched it 
from him. The owner claimed it angrily. The 
Indian threw off his robe, and grasping the 
knife, prepared for battle. This was evidently 
the crisis. Round the disputants gathered a 
crowd of Indians, eager to see the fight. Ross 
could no longer hold back. Cocking a pistol, 
he walked toward the thief with the intention 
of making him the first victim in the traged} r ; 
but while in the act of drawing the weapon, the 
thought flashed across his mind that conciliation 
might possibly yet answer. He drew a knife 
instead of .a pistol, and approaching the robber, 
said — " Here, my friend, is a chief's knife which 
I give you. The other is not a chief's knife — 
return it to the man." 

This simple act turned the tide. The Indian 
took the proffered knife with childish pleasure, 
and in the flush of his gratitude made a speech 
in favor of the whites. Ross followed up his 
advantage, and in a few minutes the squaws 
were loading a table with dainties for his bene- 
fit. Still the stolen horses were not restored. 
Turning to one of the principal chiefs, Ross 
asked him what he should say to his white fa- 
ther when he asked for the horses they had 
bought of the Indians ? He touched a sensitive 
chord ; the horses were found, and delivered 
up ; and thus, after a peril whose magnitude 
they did not fully realize till they had escaped 
it, Ross and his party returned to their friends. 

In this instance, bravado would have been 
useless, as the Indians were over five hundred 
to one. Where the disparity of numbers was 
not so enormous, Mr. Ross found a bold policy 
to answer best. For many years the Indians on 
the Columbia endeavored to levy tribute on the 
hunters and their furs as they passed up or down 
the stream. They were confirmed in their pur- 
pose by the folly of several of the old Nor'west- 
ers, who either allowed themselves to be fright- 
ened, or made a senseless and ineffective parade 
of force. 

On one occasion, as Ross was conducting a 
party, heavily laden, to the trading-post, the 
Indians gathered in great numbers on the shores 
of the river, and one fellow, more like a baboon 
than a man, cried out, flourishing his gun — 
" How long are the whites to pass here, troub- 
ling our waters and scaring our fish, without 
paying us?" 

Ross heard this Ciceronian exordium, and, 
turning sharply round upon the Indian, asked — 
" Who gave you that gun ?" 

" The whites," said he. 

" And who gave you tobacco to smoke ?" 

" The whites." 

"Are you fond of your gun and your to- 
bacco ?" 

" Yes." 



342 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" Then you ought to be fond of the whites." 

This last retort seems to have been consid- 
ered jocular on the Columbia, for the whole 
tribe roared, greatly to the discomfiture of the 
" baboon," and for the moment the peril was 
averted. At the next portage, however, the In- 
dians pressed the whites anew, and so closely 
that the embarkation was only accomplished 
under cover of a file of muskets, cocked and 
pointed, and a swivel, likewise pointed, with 
match burning beside it. A third time that 
day the Indians were baffled through the sagac- 
ity and nerve of one of the hunters. It seems 
that they had delegated the command to three 
of their most daring warriors, who pressed toward 
the whites at the head of the throng. One of 
the white leaders, Mackenzie, noticed this, and 
walking up to the three, he presented them with 
a stone to sharpen their arrows. Then priming 
his own gun and pistols in their sight, he eyed 
them sternly, stamped on the ground, and mo- 
tioned them to sit down opposite him and com- 
pose themselves. They could not resist his eye, 
and obeyed. He sat in front of them until the 
whole of the goods were embarked, having the 
satisfaction of seeing the rest of the tribe wait 
patiently for the signal from the three chiefs 
whom he was magnetizing, and thus the Indian 
project of levying " Sound dues" on the goods 
passing over the Columbia was defeated. 

These Indians of the Far West are for the 
most part incorrigible horse-thieves. If the 
sharpest look-out is not kept up at night by 
parties traveling through the wilderness, they 
may rest assured that some of their cattle will 
be missing before morning. Horses are the 
usual game of the robbers; but, in truth, no- 
thing comes amiss to them. On one of Mr. 
Ross's hunting expeditions, a party of friendly 
Indians, with whom he was in company, stole 
twelve of his beaver traps. Fearful of worse if 
they were permitted to steal with impunity, he 
armed thirty-five of his men, rode over to their 
camp, seized ten of their horses by way of pay- 
ment, and drove them to his quarters. He then 
gave orders that every man should prepare for 
battle, and keep his eye on his gun, yet appear 
careless, as if nothing was expected. He would 
give the signal for action by striking the fore- 
most Indian with his pipe-stem. 

The Indians soon approached the camp. 
Ross drew a line, as usual, and civilly notified 
them that they must not cross it. The crowd 
obeyed sulkily ; but a few of them stepped for- 
ward and demanded the horses in a menacing 
tone. Ross replied by demanding the restora- 
tion of the traps. They protested they had not 
stolen them, and seeing the whites apparently 
unprepared, began to clamor and advance to- 
ward the horses. One fellow seized a horse by 
the halter, and tried to drag him off. Ross re- 
monstrated for a while ; but the Indian persist- 
ing, he knocked him down with the long ash 
stem of his pipe. At the signal, the whole 
party sprang to arms with a shout, and in an 
instant every gun was leveled at the Indians. 



These, stunned by the shock, lost their wits, 
threw off their clothes, and plunged in a body 
into the river ; so that, in five minutes, there 
was nothing to be seen of the noisy host but a 
few heads bobbing up and down in the water. 

The Snakes and other Indian tribes of Ore- 
gon differ in no essential characteristic from the 
branches of the great red family with which we 
are familiar. The same virtues and the same 
vices are conspicuous in all. Like all Indian 
traders, Mr. Ross had much reason to complain 
of their fickleness and ingratitude. 

A young Indian, known by the name of 
Prince, had lost his sister, who had been carried 
off by a war party of the Snakes. Prince was 
inconsolable. He sat down outside the fort of 
the whites and began to sing the death-song. 
Mr. Ross, fearing that he was going to commit 
suicide, w«it to him, and tried to reason with 
him ; but the Indian never raised his head, and 
continued to sing furiously. Ross turned away 
from him, and a moment or two afterward a 
loud report was heard. Prince had shot him- 
self. The ball had entered his left breast and 
emerged near the backbone ; he lay in a pool 
of his own blood. Mr. Ross humanely picked 
him up and carried him into the fort. He 
had seen instances of Indians recovering from 
wounds as severe ; one fellow, whose skull had 
been broken, and from whose head Ross had 
himself picked out several pieces of bone, had 
to his knowledge ridden on a hunt within six 
weeks afterward. Notwithstanding the desper- 
ate character of Prince's wound, what reme- 
dies Ross had were applied hopefully, and sure 
enough, after six months' careful nursing, he 
was well again. 

His first proceeding on his recovery was to 
demand a gun from Mr. Ross. The latter re- 
minded him that he owned plenty of horses, 
and could buy a gun if he chose. The Indian 
hung his head sulkily, and cried, 

" Since you are so stingy, keep your gun, and 
give me an ax !" 

Ross, nettled by the imperative tone of the 
man, refused point blank. The next moment, 
as he turned round to speak with some one, 
Prince caught up a gun and made an attempt 
to shoot him in the back; the gun happily 
missed fire. 

When he left the fort, as he was rather im- 
prudently allowed to do, he met a Canadian be- 
longing to the place, and asked to look at his 
gun. The Canadian handed it to him, when 
he instantly shot the horse which he rode, and 
scampered off with the gun, abusing the whites, 
and Mr. Ross in particular. 

It must be hoped that Prince is not a fair 
average of his tribe. Quite certain it is, how- 
ever, that the Iroquois, who are employed in 
great numbers by the factors of the fur com- 
panies, are treacherous and unreliable. Mr. 
Ross mentions frequently, that at the first ob- 
stacle on his hunting expeditions, they invaria- 
bly wanted to desert, and more than once might 
have attempted to do mischief had it not been 



FUR-HUNTING IN OREGON. 



343 



for his sharp watch on them. Mr. Mackenzie, 
the well knoAvn bourgeois of the Northwest Com- 
pany, once narrowly escaped being murdered by 
some of them. They were on a hunting-party 
under his command, and persisted, contrary to 
his orders, in trafficking on their own account 
with the Indians whom they met. To put a 
stop to these practices, a quarrel having arisen 
between a Nez Perce Indian and an Iroquois 
about a horse which the latter had purchased, 
Mr. Mackenzie drew a pistol and shot the horse 
dead. For this the Iroquois resolved to mur- 
der him. He soon won over the other men of 
his tribe, and while Mr. Mackenzie was asleep 
in his tent, a little before the break of day, 
they started on their murderous expedition. 
Fortunately for the white leader, one of his 
servants heard their footsteps and aroused his 
master just as the Iroquois and one of his com- 
panions rushed into the tent. Mackenzie tried 
to seize his pistols, but could not find them in 
the darkness ; but, being a very powerful man, 
he grasped one of the tent-poles and knocked 
down the first and second of his assailants as 
fast as they appeared ; this gave the servant 
time to rouse a few faithful Canadians, who 
very quickly put the other Iroquois to flight. 

The best men in that country are the French- 
Canadians and the half-breeds. Some of the 
latter, as the old hunters gravely say, acquire 
loose notions and bad principles from associa- 
ting with the independent whites and vaga- 
bonds — the white trash, as a Southerner would 
say — who are occasionally to be found in the 
Northwest country ; but these are the excep- 
tion, not the rule ; and all the half-breeds are 
strong, brave, and indefatigable. 

The worst men in the Northwest are the 
white stragglers who come there by accident, 
from vagabondage, or to escape the hands of jus- 
tice. Mr. Ross, like all the other officers of the 
great fur corporations, regards the service of 
" the Company" as the only possible guarantee 
of respectability in the fur regions ; this may be 
doubted by persons who do not live in the fear 
of Sir George Simpson ; but at the same time, 
it is quite easy to understand how the forts, 
especially those on the sea-board, are occasion- 
ally infested by some of the vilest human ver- 
min that breathe. The thief — the murderer — 
is secure from justice in the Northwest terri- 
tory; let him have strength and industry, and 
he may lead a life of royal independence and 
plenty by the side of the silent rivers of the 
Far West, in the midst of Indians whose con- 
fidence he may easily win, and over whom he 
may soon exercise the influence belonging to 
his superior mind. 

One of these fellows Mr. Ross met at Fort 
George, on the Columbia. He was a Russian 
named Jacob, who was brought thither in irons 
for mutiny in a Boston vessel. He made such 
fair promises of amendment, that the com- 
mander at the fort ventured to give him his 
liberty, and set him to work at the forge. But 
. he soon developed under his true colors. He 



grew a favorite with the Indians, and one day 
induced eighteen of them to run away with him 
on a voyage of discovery. The Indians were 
overtaken by a party sent from the fort, and 
persuaded to return ; but Jacob made his escape, 
and associated himself with a wild native tribe 
in the neighborhood. In order to win their 
confidence, he offered to rob the fort ; and so 
daring and skillful a fellow was he, that he elud- 
ed the watch, scaled the twenty feet palisade, 
and carried off his booty. After this he was 
chosen a chief of the tribe, and word soon 
reached the fort that he was planning expedi- 
tions of a more extensive character. 

It was absolutely necessary to free the coun- 
try of so desperate a vagabond. With forty 
well-armed men, Mr. Ross set out, and marched 
straight to the encampment of the tribe which 
Jacob had honored with his company. A spy 
gave him information as to the locality of his 
tent, and when night had fairly set in, Mr. Ross, 
with two powerful men, followed the guide to 
the spot indicated. As they approached, the 
sound of their footsteps betrayed them, and two 
shots were fired at them in rapid succession 
from the tent. As they rushed ki, Jacob was 
in the act of seizing a third gun. It was wrest- 
ed from him ; but he contrived to draw a knife, 
and inflicted a terrible wound on one of his 
captors. The three, however, were too many 
for him ; he was knocked down, handcuffed, and 
carried off. 

The Company's officers might have settled 
Jacob's business for him ; but they preferred 
keeping him in irons till a ship arrived, and then 
sending him out of the country. When they 
put him in the boat to convey him on board the 
ship, he rose, took off his old Russian cap, and 
giving three loud cheers, cried, " Confusion to 
all my enemies !" A pleasant companion for a 
lonely place was Jacob ! 

It was while Ross was in the service of the 
Northwest Company that the council at Fort 
William resolved to transfer the central depot 
of their trade on the Columbia to the spot 
where Lewis and Clarke had made their great 
treaty with the Indians some thirteen years be- 
fore. It was in the heart of the country of the 
fierce Nez Perce's Indians, and was considered 
a post of no small danger. Ross was named 
to the command. The site is one of the most 
beautiful in the Western country, being on the 
bank of the Columbia at a point where it ex- 
pands into a small lake, and in the centre of a 
fertile and picturesque region. At first, the 
adventurers met with the usual, and more than 
the usual difficulties. The Indians assembled 
and complained of the encroachments of the 
whites. What they offered to sell they valued 
at enormous prices, and for a few days the pi- 
oneers actually suffered from want of food. 
Then the red men offered to come to terms if 
the whites would give each of them a present. 
Ross yielded to none of their demands, but pa- 
tiently negotiated, and waited, and argued, un- 
til he wore them out. The whites were too 



844 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



formidable to be easily expelled by force ; the 
Indians agreed at last to trade with them, and 
the building of the fort commenced. It is con- 
sidered the strongest of the Company's forts on 
the west of the Rocky Mountains — the Gibral- 
tar of the Columbia. Four pieces of ordnance, 
of from one to three pounds, ten swivels, sixty 
stand of muskets, twenty boarding-pikes, and a 
box of hand-grenades constitute its weapons of 
defense. It is strengthened by four strong wood- 
en towers or bastions, and the gate is provided 
with a sort of rude portcullis. 

In this castle Mr. Ross began to enjoy the 
life of a bourgeois. Most readers are doubtless 
aware that a bourgeois is the chief of a trading 
post or depot; it is the dignity to which all 
hunters aspire, as being, next to a partnership, 
the highest reward earth can offer them. Nor 
is the life of a bourgeois in any wise unworthy 
of the ambition it awakens. The bourgeois, like 
Robinson in his isle, is lord of all he surveys. 
The hunters and Indians are his slaves. His 
income provides him with every luxury and 
comfort which the forest affords, and enables 
him to procure many foreign luxuries which 
are far beyond the reach of men with the same 
stipend in civilized countries. Some excellent 
private libraries are to be found at the trading 
posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. Some 
of the best Port and Madeira in America is 
stored in their cellars. The bourgeois leads a 
life of delightful leisure. Once a year for a 
few weeks, at the time of the annual migration 
of the hunters, he is kept busily employed in 
fitting out parties, and forwarding couriers with 
dispatches. The remainder of the twelve months 
he can spend in study agreeably diversified by 
the chase. Nor is society wanting. Many of the 
hunters of the fur companies — like Mr. Ross — 
are well-educaled men, who have taken to the 
woods from love of sport and adventure. They 
invariably marry the whitest girl they can find ; 
and thus round each fort a small circle of so- 
ciety is formed, which is said to be pleasant 
and even refined. The balls which used to be 
given at Spokane House — the old central de- 
pot of the Northwest Company — are celebrated 
to this day. It is impossible to persuade an 
old Northwester that Paris itself contains pret- 
tier girls, more lovely dresses, more graceful 
dancing, better music, and pleasanter parties 
generally. If any cavil, let them go and see. 

That there is a strange fascination in life in 
the wilderness, is proved not only by the nos- 
talgia which every hunter feels after he has left 
the country, but by the wonderful tenacity with 
which the voyageurs, who enjoy so few of the 
comforts allotted to the bourgeois, cling to their 
wretched calling. Their stories remind one of 
Robin Hood and his merry men, without the 
windfalls from fat priors and the flagons of 
brimming wine. Mr. Ross met an old French 
Canadian who was over sixty, and took down 
his story in his own language. 

" I have now," said he, " been forty-two years 
in this country. For twenty-four I was a light 



canoe-man ; I required but little sleep, but some- ' 
times got less than I required. No portage was 
too long for me: my end of the canoe never 
touched the ground till I saw the end of it. 
Fifty songs a day were nothing to me. I have 
saved the lives of ten bourgeois, and was always 
a favorite, because, when others stopped to carry 
at a bad spot and lost time, I pushed on, over 
rapids, over cascades, over falls — all were the 
same to me. No water, no weather ever stopped 
the paddle or the canoe. J have had twelve 
wives in the country, and once owned fifty 
horses and six running dogs trimmed in the 
best style. I was then like a bourgeois, rich and 
happy. No bourgeois had better-dressed wives 
than mine. I wanted for nothing, and I spent 
all my earnings in the enjoyment of pleasure. 
Five hundred pounds twice told have passed 
through my hands, though now I have not a 
spare shirt, or a penny to buy one. Yet were 
I young again, I would glory in commencing 
the same career again. There is no life so 
happy as the voyageur's life ; none so independ- 
ent ; no place where a man enjoys so much va- 
riety and freedom as in the Indian country. 
Hurrah ! hurrah ! pour le pays sauvage!" 

Mr. Ross's happiness was not destined to last 
long. On the 19th June, 1816, Governor Sem- 
ple, of the Hudson's Bay Company, heard that 
a party of Northwesters were advancing on the 
Earl of Selkirk's infant colony at Red River. 
With more courage than discretion he imme- 
diately armed twenty-two men, and marched 
out to meet them. The parties met, quarreled, 
shots were fired, and Governor Semple and his 
twenty-two men were all killed on the spot. 
The trials which followed ; the " private war" 
which was carried on between the rival com- 
panies ; the seizure of Fort William by the Earl 
of Selkirk ; and the untimely death of twenty- 
three out of the forty-five victorious Northwest- 
ers, are now matters of history. The North- 
west Company was manifestly in the wrong, 
and few tears were shed when it gave up the 
ghost a few years afterward. Mr. Ross was en- 
dorsed over with other property to the Hudson's 
Bay Company. 

In their service he undertook one of the first 
great hunting and trapping expeditions that 
were ever made into the territory of the Snake 
Indians. His party consisted of fifty-five men, 
of whom two were Americans, seventeen Ca- 
nadians, five half-breeds, and the rest Indians 
of various tribes. As hunting is the normal 
condition of these people, they took with them 
their wives and children — twenty-five of the 
former,, and sixty-four of the latter in all. 
The baggage of the party consisted of seventy- 
five guns, a brass three-pounder, beaver traps, 
392 horses, ammunition in abundance, and a 
few trading articles. They carried no provisions 
with them, but trusted to the luck o'f the hunt. 
ers for their daily supply. 

The main game of the party was, of course, 
the beaver. When they found a safe and se- 
cure spot, near a stream whose banks bore 



FUR-HUNTING IN OREGON. 



345 



traces of the animal, they encamped, and each 
hunter sallied forth at evening to set his si« 
traps. At early dawn the traps were visited, 
the beaver taken out, and the traps reset. Then 
the hunters spent the day in idleness — smoking 
and spinning yarns in the camp, till the fall of 
night warned them to visit their traps again. 
By no means a despicable life in fine weather, 
and when the Indians kept aloof. The latter 
piece of good fortune seldom fell to their lot ; 
the trappers went forth to the river with their 
traps in one hand and gun in the other. One 
day a band of Indians would loom up in the 
distance, and hover round menacingly till the 
whites resolved to make an end of them, and 
charging unexpectedly would scatter them like 
a flock of birds, and perhaps find on the spot 
they had vacated a bundle of wet scalps. At 
another time the wild men would succeed in 
carrying off a few of their horses, and defy pur- 
suit. Sometimes the Indians would show fight. 

A hunter named M'Donald, trapping with a 
large party in the Snake country, was suddenly 
attacked by a band of Piegans. The camp se- 
cured, M'Donald started with his best men to 
give battle. The Indians did not flinch ; one 
fellow held a scalp on the top of a pole, and 
waved it, yelling and screeching, and his com- 
rades stood their ground till twenty of them 
fell. The survivors, losing courage, fled pre- 
cipitately into a coppice of wood near the bat- 
tle-field. But three of the whites had been 
killed, and their companions were determined 
to avenge their death accordin'g to Northwest 
rule. M'Donald sent to the camp for buck- 
shot, and when it arrived poured volley after 
volley into the coppice, the Indians lying con- 
cealed within. While this murderous work was 
going on, a Canadian challenged an Iroquois to 
enter the coppice and scalp a savage with him. 
The challenge was accepted, and the two set 
off together, holding each other by the hand, 
and each grasping a scalping-knife in the other. 
When they were within a few feet of a Piegan, 
the Iroquois cried to the Canadian, "I will 
scalp this fellow ; do you find another !" But 
as he stretched out his hand to seize him, the 
Piegan shot him through the head, and so be- 
spattered the Canadian with his brains that he 
was blinded, and ran hastily back to his com- 
rades. 

M'Donald then resolved to set fire to the 
bush. It was decided that-*the oldest man 
should apply the firebrand, and a poor, wrinkled 
old fellow advanced with it, trembling in every 
limb, and expecting instant death. He per- 
formed his task in safety, and in a few minutes 
the whole coppice was in a blaze. As the poor 
half-roasted Piegans emerged, the hunters took 
aim at them leisurely, and brought them down 
one by one; the Iroquois rushing in to finish 
the work with the knife. Out of seventy-five 
warriors only seven escaped the horrid mas- 
sacre. 

The beaver are not only valuable for their 
skin, but serve as food for the hunter. Care 



must be taken, however, to examine the herb- 
age on which the animals feed, or mischief may 
follow an unwary repast. Mr. Ross's party 
were once poisoned by feasting heartily on 
beaver, and some of them had a very narrow 
escape. The Indians eat this kind of beaver, 
but they roast it ; boiled, they say, it is perni- 
cious. 

Buffalo meat is a more popular dish than 
beaver. In the Snake country, when Mr. Ross 
visited it, buffaloes were plentiful, and his hunt- 
ers had many a glorious feast, which was en- 
joyed all the more for the spice of danger which 
accompanied the chase. Inured as the North- 
west hunters are to peril, there are few among 
the boldest who can stand and look coolly at a 
wounded buffalo, so terrible is the gaze of his 
hideous eye. If he is able to move, and the 
hunter's gun is empty, let him look for a tree, 
or bid adieu to earth. And even when the poor 
brute can not stir, but stands propped up on his 
legs, glaring wildly on the hunters, it is safe to 
put a final ball through his head before step- 
ping up to him and pushing him over. 

More ferocious still is the Northwestern wolf, 
an animal of wonderful strength and sagacity. 
As a general rule the bear and the buffalo will 
not attack man ; but in spring the wolf flies 
at every living thing he sees. Horses are his 
usual prey, and them he pursues with almost hu- 
man cunning. When a band of wolves discov- 
er a horse, they encamp at some little distance, 
all the troop squatting on their hams except 
two old fellows, who sally forth toward the horse. 
He is frightened at first by his visitors ; but they 
gambol so pleasantly in the field, and look so 
innocent and friendly, that by degrees his terror 
subsides, and he continues to graze. Then the 
wolves slowly separate, one going to the front 
of the horse, the other to his rear, and both 
frisking about as amiably, and apparently as un- 
concerned as before. Slowly and cautiously 
they approach the doomed steed with equal 
steps ; when they are within springing distance 
— they can cover over twenty feet at a bound — 
both dash at him together, one at his head, the 
other at his hamstrings. Horses are proverbi- 
ally helpless under some circumstances ; this is 
one of them. The most the poor creature does 
is to turn round and round, uttering cries of 
pain. In a few seconds the wolf who attacked 
him from behind — this being the main attack — 
has cut the sinews of his legs, and he falls help- 
lessly to the ground. Then the whole pack 
come rushing down, howling, and each eager to 
tear a morsel from the living carcass. There is 
little left for the vultures. 

The hunters sometimes catch wolves in steel 
traps ; but the animals frequently run off with 
the traps, heavy as they are, or gnaw their legs 
off and leave them there. When the hunters 
surprise them before the amputation is perform- 
ed, all thought of safety is forgotten in their 
rage. With teeth broken and bloody head — 
with their leg fractured, and clinging to the trap 
by the sinews only — they will fly at their enemy, 



346 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



and even then, it is well for the hunter to make 
sure of his aim. 

Some of the Indians catch wolves by a pro- 
cess which has never been illustrated save in the 
pages of comic periodicals. They suspend the 
bait on a strong fish-hook from the branch of a 
tree, at several feet from the ground. The wolf 
springs to seize it, is caught by the hook, and 
dangles in mid-air. In that position his strength 
can not help him, and he falls an easy prey to 
his destroyer. 

Needless to say that the hunters fare sumptu- 
ously. Buffalo meat, venison, bears' hams, and 
every description of feathered game succeed 
each other at their repasts as fancy prompts, 
till the wearied appetite seeks a repose from 
good things, and invents monstrous regales of 
mouse soup, broiled snake, and insect pie. 
Grasshoppers and crickets are an especial deli- 
cacy. Apicius, in the Far West, toasts his 
grasshoppers till they crackle like grains of gun- 
powder dropped into a frying-pan ; a handful 
of these are the greatest luxury you can offer 
him. The tough old voyageur, who has shot 
his own hack when hard pressed for a meal, 
will leave the savory platter of vension, bear's 
fat; wappatoes, and obellies, to chew a stringy 
piece of horse-flesh. And many an Indian will 
turn up his nose at the most appetizing product 
of the white man's caldron, in order to feast 
himself in private on the ribs of a dog. 

It is painful to reflect that the monsters who 
are guilty of these horrors are more plentifully 
supplied with that prince of fish, the salmon, 
than any other people in the world. In the 
spring the salmon swim up the rivers on the 
Pacific slope, not in shoals, but in beds. They 
are speared, hooked, trapped, butchered by the 
thousand. Twenty thousand fish in a day is 
no extraordinary haul for a hunting-party. A 
cheap knife, such as sells for sixpence in our 
marine shores, is worth fifty salmon ; a pin or 
a nail will purchase a dozen. Let us console 
ourselves with the reflection that Oregon will 
soon be peopled. 

All is not pleasure, however, on these trap- 
ping expeditions. In the month of March 
Mr. Ross found his road blocked by a high 
mountain ridge. He resolved to cross it. The 
exploring party he sent forward on snow-shoes 
to examine the way, reported that the pass was 
twelve miles long, and the snow eight feet deep. 
The Iroquois attached to the expedition at once 
declared that it was impracticable for a party 
with horses and baggage, and insisted on re- 
turning. Ross was well aware of the difficulty ; 
but he had determined to cross, so he calmly 
drew a pistol, placed it to the head of the Ir- 
oquois leader, and gave him his choice of pro- 
ceeding with the party, or paying his debt to the 
Company. The Indians sulkily submitted. Then 
the question was how to beat a road. They re- 
solved to try horses. Taking eighty of the 
strongest, they led them to the foot of the drift. 
A man on snow-shoes then seized the foremost 
horse by the bridle, and dragged it into the 



snow, while another applied the whip behind. 
TJhe animal plunged until it was exhausted; it 
was left standing with nothing but its head and 
ears above the surface. A second was then led 
forward in the same way, through the track of 
the first, and was thus enabled to make a few 
plunges further on ; then a third, and so on to 
the eightieth. When the last horse was left in 
the snow, there was nothing to be seen but a 
long row of heads and ears peeping above the 
drift. Then the horses were dragged out one 
by one, and in this manner, after nine hours 
severe labor, 580 yards of road were made. The 
next day the operation was repeated, but no 
more than 370 yards were made. Ross per- 
severed day after day, till most of the horses 
were knocked up, and only a third of the road 
was made. 

The Iroquois now again burst into rebellion. 
Provisions were growing scarce in the camp, 
and a man might well be excused for wishing 
to return. But Ross was immovable : cross 
they must, and as the horse plan had failed, 
some other must be tried. He sent a party into 
the woods to cut mallets and shovels. Dividing 
the working parties into couples, and providing 
one man with a mallet to break the crust, while 
his companion followed with a shovel, he began 
once more the terrible job. The men wrought 
so hard that they were hardly able to mount 
their horses at night. But they persevered, and 
after nine days' labor the road was complete, and 
preparations were made for a start. The agony 
of mind which Mr. Ross suffered during the 
night before the departure can well be con- 
ceived. It was a perfect calm ; but had the 
wind begun to blow, in three or four hours the 
whole work would have been rendered useless ; 
the drift would have obliterated the road. A 
happy man was he when he arose on the tenth 
morning and found the air as still as on the 
night before. The caravan started from the 
"Valley of Troubles," as they christened their 
encampment, in high good-humor; and in a 
few hours they enjoyed the delight of looking 
down into the plain on the other side. 

On the top of the ridge bubbles a small spring 
into a circular pool, from which a tiny stream 
creeps down the mountain side. Mr. Ross stood 
astride of it, smoking his pipe and looking con- 
templatively into the waters. It is the source 
of the great Missouri River. 

Some will think that the mere pleasure of 
standing astride of that spring was ample re- 
compense for the labors of the expedition, to 
say nothing of some 5000 beaver, and other 
peltries which the hunters had the satisfaction 
of carrying back to the depot. 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 
" A GREAT gift, a great gift you ask me for. 
-L±- Master Paul !" said the old man, sternly, 
turning away his head. 

"But one that you will never have cause to 
repent bestowing on me," said Paul, eagerly. 
" Oh ! Mr. Trevelyan, you do not know how 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



347 



carefully I will guard her, how tenderly I will 
reverence her, how manfully keep her from $11 
sorrow and all harm ! You do not know how 
much I love her, nor how fervently I honor her ! 
Trust me, Sir; for you may; you can bestow 
her on none who will guard her more tenderly, 
more lovingly than I." 

"Ah! all young men say the same things, 
boy, before marriage. Unfortunately it is only 
experience that distinguishes between the real 
and the false, love and fancy, truth and change. 
And if that experience prove ill — there is no re- 
pairing it, Paul !" 

" Yes, yes ! I know all that !" said Paul, im- 
patiently, yet not disrespectfully. " But it can 
never be so with me. Time, age, experience, 
all will only prove more firmly my love and un- 
dying truth. Oh, believe in me ! believe in me ! 
God is my witness that my life shall justify 
you!" 

" Foolish boy ! to believe in the possibility of 
love, in the existence of constancy and happi- 
ness," murmured Mr, Trevelyan, between his 
closed teeth. "A day will come," he said, 
aloud, "when you will curse me in my grave, 
that I ever consented to this match; when you 
had rather I had slain her with my own hands 
than have given her to you." 

" Never ! never !" cried Paul. " Come what 
may, the happiness of having once loved and 
been loved by her, shall suffice." 

The old man took his hand, and looked him 
earnestly in the eyes. They were sitting on a 
garden bench set in the shadow of a large horse- 
chestnut. Behind them rose the barren fell, 
with its gray granite rocks scantily covered by 
heath and junipers ; before them lay a deep 
glade, flush with the richest green and bright 
with flowers. In the distance shone the sea, 
glittering like a band of silver across the open- 
ing among the trees made by that steep ravine ; 
the white sails of the distant ships lessened into 
mere specks, shining in the sun like the wings 
of white birds. It was one of those summer 
days when the sun lies like a seething fire on 
the leaves and grass — when the earth se«ms to 
breathe and palpitate through the low heat-mist 
quivering over her, and Nature lies so still you 
might believe. her dead: it was one of those 
days which fill the soul with nameless emotion, 
and make that unfulfilled longing for love and 
beauty, which even the happiest and most richly 
dowered among us feel, a passionate desire and 
a painful void ; it was a day wherein we live — 
in the true meaning of the word — because we 
feel. Perhaps it influenced even Mr. Trevelyan, 
although not easy to affect in any way ; but there 
are times when a subtle influence seems to per- 
vade our whole being, and to change the direc- 
tion of all our faculties and thoughts — and this 
was one of them. 

Mr. Trevelyan was a man of calm and gentle 
manner, but with a nature hard, and cold, and 
bright as polished steel. Difficult to excite, but 
resolute when roused — whether for good or evil, 
positive, distinct, and firm— he had none of that 



half-hearted temporizing between the will that 
would, and the feebleness that dare not, refuse, 
which so often holds the balance between cruel- 
ty and folly. His yes would be yes indeed, and 
there would be no appeal from his first denial. 
It was a serious matter to demand a favor from 
him ; but if a pain, at least it was not a linger- 
ing one. Paul knew that his refusal would be 
abrupt and decisive, and that his promise would 
be religiously kept. And when, after a long 
silence, he said, in that compressed manner 
of his, " You may take her, I trust you," the 
young artist felt that the worst of the danger 
was over, and that his marriage with Magdalen 
was certain now; for of her consent he never 
doubted. 

Living in a dull country-house, with no pleas- 
ures beyond the insipid occupations of a young 
girl's drawing-room world, the visits of Paul 
Lefevre, the artist-poet, had given a new life to 
Magdalen. He had taught her painting, which 
of itself opened exhaustless mines of intellectual 
wealth before her ; and he had led her to think 
for herself on many points which hitherto she 
had either never touched at all, or else thought 
on by rote. His gifted mind, full of beauty and 
poetry, was a rare treasure to Magdalen, living 
alone with her father — a man who denied all 
intellectual power and action to women ; who 
would give them so much education as would 
enable them to read a cookery-book and the 
Bible, but who thought that a higher class of 
culture was both unnecessary and unfeminine. 
In that lonely country-place, and in that inact- 
ive life, Paul, and his beauty, and his love, as- 
sumed a power and proportion they would not 
have had in a busier life. Want of contrast lent 
perfection, and want of occupation created an 
interest which assuredly was not born of moral 
sympathy or fitness. But the world of mystery 
in country places is always to be explained by 
these conditions. 

The result of all those long walks together 
through the woods, and across the meadows, 
and upon the craggy fells — of all those lessons 
on beauty by the piano and the easel, when arr 
made another language between them, and in- 
terpreted mysteries which words could not reach 
— of those mutual studies of poetry and history, 
when the extreme limits of human thought and 
human emotion were reached, and the echoes 
of the noble chords struck then vibrated in their 
young hearts — the result of this friendship, which 
at first was simply intellectual intercourse, was. 
as might have been looked for, that Paul loved 
Magdalen, and that Magdalen loved Paul, or 
fancied that she loved him, in kind. If there 
had been some one else whom she could have 
loved — some other standard by which to meas- 
ure the requirements of her nature and the 
needs of her heart — it would then have been a 
choice ; as it was, it was only an acceptance. 
She accepted as likeness what was simply ig- 
norance of diversity, and took that for under- 
standing which was want of opportunity 
judgment. She loved Paul from gratitude for 



348 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



his love of her, from admiration of his beauty, 
and delight in his intellect ; she loved him as a 
sister might love a brother, but scarcely as a 
woman of her strong nature would love the 
husband of her own free intelligent choice. But 
as she knew no other love, this contented her, 
and she believed implicitly in its strength and 
entireness. 

Paul came into the drawing-room, where she 
was sitting in that deep cool shadow which is 
so pleasant when the outside world lies in such 
burning glare. Rushing in from the sunshine, 
he could scarcely see her at first, sitting by the 
open window, behind the green blind, reading ; 
reading one of his favorite authors, marked and 
paged by him. He came to her hurriedly, his 
face lighted up with joy and burning with 
blushes. Though he had never looked more 
beautiful, he had never looked more boyish 
than at this moment. Even Magdalen, who 
was not accustomed to criticise, but rather to 
regard him as an intellectual giant beyond her 
stature — even she was struck by his extreme 
youthfulness of air and manner, as he came up 
timidly but joyously toward her. 

"Magdalen, your father has given his con- 
sent ! we are engaged," he said, in a low voice, 
which trembled so that it could scarcely be 
heard. 

Magdalen laid both her hands in his with a 
frank smile. " I am very glad, Paul," she said, 
her voice unchanged, her blue eyes as calm and 
dreamy as ever, and not the faintest tinge across 
her brow. Her betrothal was a name, not the 
realization of a vision ; a fact, not a feeling. It 
was a necessary social ceremony between two 
persons unmarried and unconnected ; it was no 
material ratification of that dearer betrothal 
vowed in secret before. And with the child- 
like kiss, given so quietly by her, received so 
religiously by him, began the initial chapter of 
their love and banded lives. It ought to be the 
initial chapter to a drama of happiness, for no 
apparent element of happiness was wanting. 
Youth, beauty, innocence, and intellect ; what 
more was needed for the searching crucible of 
experience? One thing only. It might be 
read in* the calm, still face of Magdalen, bend- 
ing so tranquilly over her book, while her 
lover sat at her feet, his whole frame convulsed 
with the passion of his joy. It might be seen 
in the immeasurable distance between their 
feelings as he buried his face in her lap, his 
long hair falling like dusky gold upon her 
white gown, and sobs expressing his love ; 
while she smoothed back his hair with a tender 
but sisterly touch, wondering at his fervor, and 
at the form which his happiness took. And 
then, when he looked up, and with quivering 
lips called her his life, and his life's best angel, 
and uttered all the wild transports which such 
a love in such a nature would utter, she, calm 
and grave and tender, would try to check him 
very gently ; through all this storm of feeling, 
herself as calm and unimpassioned as if a bird 
had been singing at her knee. 



II. 

There was a son belonging to the Trevelyan 
family, Andrew, nominally^ lawyer in London • 
a married man of respectable standing and pro- 
fession, but practically a gambler and a — sharp- 
er. Perhaps, if he had been more wisely edu- 
cated, he would have turned out more satisfac- 
torily, but he had been spoilt by every kind of 
injudicious indulgence. His faults had been 
left to grow as they would, unchecked. Nay, 
in many instances they had been even encour- 
aged. So that it was no wonder if the spoilt 
and pampered child grew up the selfish, vicious, 
unrestrained man, who knew no higher law 
than his own gratification, no higher pleasure 
than personal indulgence. Love for this son 
had been one of Mr. Trevelyan's strongest — or 
weakest — points, as one might judge. Through 
good report and evil report, in spite of knowing 
that his race was dishonored, and his name de- 
based by his evil life, the old man stood stanch 
and loving. Even when he married that wref \ - 
ed woman, met with Heaven knows how or 
where, but not as Magdalen's sister should have 
been ; even when he sent down that villainous 
Jew to tell of his arrest for a dishonored bill, 
and to demand, rather than request, enough 
money to pay off this score, and set him going 
again — even then, the old man only turned pale 
and looked sad, but he loved his darling boy 
none the less. It was his pride, his willful 
point of obstinate belief and groundless hope, 
and he would not be driven from it. He was 
his first-born, cradled in his arms while the halo 
of romance yet shone bright about his marriage 
life, and the golden cloud of hope tinged the 
dim form of his future. And Mr. Trevelyan 
was not a man of passing impressions. Affec- 
tion once marked on that granite soul of his 
must be struck out violently, if struck out at all; 
for neither time nor the friction of small cares 
and petty annoyances could destroy it ; and even 
Andrew's worst faults had not as yet destroyed 
the sharpness of a letter. 

Andrew lived on his professions of affection. 
If he sent down a shameless confession of evil 
passages in his evil life, he coupled this confes- 
sion with such warm assurances of attachment, 
that the old man's heart failed him for the stern 
place of judge, and he became the advocate in- 
stead. How could he not forgive one he loved 
so well, and who loved him so faithfully ? And 
what great hope was there not yet of ultimate 
reformation when that sacred filial love contin- 
ued so unchilled ! After all, it was but a youth's 
folly that the boy was ever guilty of. His heart 
was in its right place, and all else would come 
right in time. Andrew well knew what the old 
man would think when he wrote those loving, 
dutiful letters. He used to call them his ex- 
chequer-bills, and tell his wife what each was 
worth. For he never wrote unless he wanted 
money ; which, however, was frequent ; and he 
was always sure of something as the reward for 
his trouble. So things had gone on for the last 
half dozen years ; Andrew passing from bad to 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



549 



worse with startling rapidity, until even the very 
swindlers and scoundrels with whom he associ- 
ated grew somewhat shy of him. 

One day a letter arrived to Mr. Trevelyan, 
from London. It was a curious letter, contain- 
ing minute inquiries concerning his health and 
habits, which he was prayed to answer by return 
of post. He did answer, but not on the points 
required ; and a correspondence ensued, which 
at last led to the information that Andrew had 
been raising money on post-obits, and that he 
was speculating deeply on the probable chances 
of his father's death within the next two years. 
This was perhaps the only thing that could have 
stirred Mr. Trevelyan, and this struck at the 
very root of his love by destroying his trust. 
Every thing else he could forgive, and had for- 
given, but this : and this was the blow that struck 
out that graven word which nothing else had in- 
jured, and left a void and a ruin instead. 

Magdalen knew nothing of what had hap- 
pened. She was terrified to see how pale her 
father was, while reading a certain letter in a 
strange hand, the contents of which she did not 
know ; and how he suddenly drooped, as if 
struck by some fatal disease. She asked him 
if any thing had happened to vex him, but all 
he answered was, " No, child, nothing that you 
can cure," looking sadly on the ground as he 
spoke. He folded up the letter carefully, and, 
in his precise manner, put it away among other 
papers in his drawer; and the matter seemed 
to be forgotten, or to have passed like any other 
small disturbance. But Magdalen understood 
him too well not to see that there was a painful 
secret somewhere — one that nothing of her love 
could touch, nor his own philosophy cure. More 
than once she approached the subject gently, 
for she knew that it was somehow connected 
with her brother ; but he never answered her 
questions, and at last got angry with her if she 
mentioned Andrew's name. It was very pain- 
ful for poor Magdalen to see her father break- 
ing his heart thus in silence, without suffering 
her to sympathize with him ; for she thought, 
woman-like, that love and sympathy would sure- 
ly lighten his burden, whatever it might be! 
But he kept his own counsel, strictly, and Mag- 
dalen could only guess the direction, while ig- 
norant of the details of his sorrow. 

He fell ill ; poor old man ! No one knew ex- 
actly what was the matter with him. The doc- 
tors were at fault, and drugged him with every 
kind of abomination, some of which, at least, 
must have been wrong, if others were right. But 
no drugs would have saved him now; not the 
best nor most skillfully administered. At his 
age, the terrible revolution worked by such a 
crushing sorrow as this was beyond the reach 
of doctors' stuff. His heart was broken. He 
had an illness of two months or more ; a slow, 
sure sickness that never fluctuated, but day by 
day certainly dragged him nearer to the grave. 
He knew that he was dying, but he never men- 
tioned his son. It was his bitterest reflection to 
feel that the gambler's calculation had been 
Vol. XII.— No. CO.— Z 



lucky, and that his death would shamefully en- 
rich him. 

Magdalen hardly ever left him. Nothing 
could exceed the devotion, the tenderness, with 
which she nursed him. If love could have saved 
him he had not died while she had been with 
him ! She had the rare power of embellishing 
a sick-room — making it rather a beautiful cradle 
of weakness than the antechamber to the grim 
tomb : that power which comes only by a wo- 
man's love. The friends who came to see them 
remarked on that exquisite order and the mel- 
ancholy beauty she had given ; and many of 
them said that Miss Trevelyan had changed her 
father's sick-bed into a throne. The old man 
appreciated her now for the first time. He had 
never loved her as he had loved his son ; in- 
deed, he never loved her much at all. She had 
been born after that terrible night — which no 
one but himself and his God knew of — when his 
wife's dreamy lips, Francesca-like, muttered the 
secret kept for so many painful years, and told 
him that she had never loved him. Magdalen 
had always seemed to him to be the ratification 
of his despair, as Andrew had been the fulfill- 
ment of his hope ; and it was only now, for the 
first time in life, that he acknowledged he had 
been unjust. The poor girl had felt the differ- 
ence made between them both, but she believed 
it arose from some fault in herself. She knew 
there was but little virtue in Andrew. Now 
she had taken her true position in her father's 
love, and had become really dear to him. Be- 
fore, he had been coldly proud of her beauty, 
and he had respected her character; but he had 
never loved her. Since his illness it was differ- 
ent. He was only happy when she was sitting 
at the foot of the bed where he could see her — 
only easy when she was in the room and before 
his eyes. Once she heard him say, " Blind ! 
blind !" and " Avenged !" while looking at his 
son's portrait, hanging against the wall just 
above her head, as she stood by the table. 
Blind ! yes, as too many of us are blind, both 
in our loves and our misappreciations. 

At last he died. He had been sinking rap- 
idly for some time, but still his death was sud- 
den at the very last. Magdalen was alone with 
him. She had given him his medicine, and had 
just shaken up his pillows and smoothed the 
coverlet, when she saw his countenance change. 
She went closer to him and asked him if he 
wanted any thing; she thought he was feeling 
faint, perhaps. His lip slightly moved, but she 
heard no sound issue from it ; his eyes grew 
fixed, and that terrible film came over them ; 
she raised his head, again he slightly smiled — 
a sigh : and then she was alone. 

Andrew did not know of his father's illness. 
More than once Magdalen had entreated he: 
father to allow her to write to him, but he used- 
to answer, "No, my love, not yet — not till \ 
give you leave," in a tone and manner so dis. 
tinct and positive, that she felt nothing more 
was to be said. And in his state of weakness 
she was careful to be obedient to the utmost, 



350 



HAKPEE'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



fearing that he should think her undutiful be- 
cause he was unable to be authoritative. So 
the old man had sickened and died in peace ; 
and Magdalen was not sorry that his death-bed 
had been undisturbed by the mockery of her 
brother's pretended love. But when she was 
left alone she wrote hastily to Andrew, telling 
him what had happened, saying that her father 
would not allow her to write to him to inform 
him of his illness, but that now he was the head 
of the family, and must take every thing on 
himself; begging him at the end of her letter to 
come down immediately and manage all as he 
liked. Andrew gave a long whistle. "What!" 
he said, " gone so soon ! That little jade ! if 
she had only told me he was ill, I could have 
got ten per cent. more. I'll pay her out for this ! 
We'll see who will be master and who mistress, 
when I've got things into my own hands ! How- 
ever, I can't go down to-night, so they may mud- 
dle away by themselves as they like." 

The reason why he could not go down that 
night was, that he had made up a whist-party 
with cards so cleverly marked that no one could 
detect them ; and as he expected to clear near- 
ly a hundred pounds by this coup, he was not 
disposed to lose such a good chance because his 
father was lying dead at home, and his sister 
did not like to be alone. 

He wrote, however, a few lines expressing his 
surprise at the news; not a word of grief; he 
had no need now to continue that farce ; and 
authorizing her to begin all the necessary ar- 
rangements, as his agent, saying that he would 
go down to-morrow, take possession, read the 
will, and see that the funeral was properly con- 
ducted. Properly, but with strict economy 
and simplicity, said careful Andrew — the word 
strict being underlined twice. All this seemed 
very natural to Magdalen. Bad as it was, she 
expected nothing better. And as for his cer- 
tainties about his heirship, she herself shared 
them. She never for a moment doubted that 
he was made the heir, and that only a small 
marriage portion had been reserved for her 
when Paul — artistic, unpractical Paul — might 
be able to marry her, and keep a house wherein 
to hold her. 

The whist-party proved a failure for the cal- 
culating Andrew. Eyes as sharp as his, and 
senses as keenly alive to all the possibilities of 
trickery, were there with him ; and his clever 
device, first suspected and then discovered, end- 
ed only in a scene of violence and tumult, where 
every body was robbed and every body beaten, 
and the blame of all thrown on the cheating 
host; where, moreover, he had to pay a large 
sum of money to prevent the affair being car- 
ried into the hands of the police, as some of the 
neediest and most disreputable of the guests 
threatened. 

The next day he came down to Oakfield, 
battered and jaded, and out of humor enough. 
Every thing had been arranged for the funeral, 
which was to take place to-morrow by his wish; 
and the house was full of that terrible stillness 



which the presence of death brings with it — a 
solemn unearthly stillness — the shadow of God's 
hand. There was the chose smell throughout, 
which a single day's want of air and sunshine 
will produce, mingled with the scent of lavender 
and dried rose leaves, and dying flowers, gener- 
ally. The servants moved about gently and 
spoke in whispers ; Magdalen sat attempting to 
work — sometimes taking up a book as if to read 
— but her tears fell over her hands instead, and 
blotted out the page. Paul wandered mourn- 
fully from room to room, his sympathy falling 
far short of Magdalen's sorrow ; " But," as she 
said to herself, " who could console her? no one 
in the world!" When, in the midst of the pas- 
sionate anguish and the solemn silence that sat 
side by side, like grim angels by the threshold, 
a carriage rolled noisily to the door, and An- 
drew's voice was heard, swearing at the man 
for having driven past the hall-step. 

Dressed with every attribute of the man of 
slang and vice, loud in voice, noisy, rough, and 
vulgar in manner, his once handsome face lined 
and attenuated by dissipation, and all his intel- 
lect put into the exaggeration of vulgarity, An- 
drew entered the hall, where Paul and Magda- 
len waited to receive him. He made no at- 
tempt, no feint, at sympathy or sorrow. So far, 
at least, he was honest. But how frightful it 
was to her who had sat so many hours by that 
dying man, till her whole soul had become in- 
terpenetrated by his — how terrible it was to have 
this gross, rude shadow flung between her sor- 
row and that sacred memory- — to feel the spir- 
itual death which, in her brother's presence, re- 
moved her father again from her ! The lone- 
liness of the first hours of her orphanhood was 
nothing compared to the sickening loneliness of 
her feeling now. The coarseness of indifference 
with which he asked, first broadly, and then in 
detail, for information of his father's last mo- 
ments — the coldness with which he listened, rub- 
bing his eyes and yawning noisily, when she told 
him such and such facts as for the mere sympa- 
thy of a common humanity would have touched 
the heart even of a stranger — the very boast of 
carelessness in every gesture ; lounging against 
the chimney-piece ; flinging himself into an 
easy-chair, with one foot raised on his knee, or 
else with one hand doubled against his side, and 
the other playing with the little dog — all was 
torture to Magdalen, who felt that she also was 
included in the shameful disgrace of her brother. 
"Ah, and so this is your Joe?" he asked, 
looking at Paul through his half-shut eyes ; 
then, turning to his sister, he said, in a loud 
whisper, " I say, Mag, there's not too much good 
stuff in him ! He's a fine lad as far as face goes ; 
but hang me if I wasn't more of a man at four- 
teen than he is now. However, that's no affair 
of mine." 

"I hope you will be good friends," said Mag- 
dalen, choking, "and that you will never have 
cause to regret your relationship." 

" That's a sensible speech, Mag, proper to the 
occasion. I say. did the old boy like the match ?" 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



351 



"Do you mean papa?" said Magdalen, very 
coldly. 

" Of course, I do !" and Andrew laughed. 
How loud and long his laugh was ! It chilled 
Magdalen's very heart within her. 

" Oh, Andrew, don't laugh now !" she cried, 
laying her hand on his arm. " It terrifies and 
shocks me, when you know what lies above our 
heads." 

"Don't be a superstitious fool, Magdalen," 
said Andrew, savagely ; " and don't tell me what 
I am to do and what not ! You foolish girls stay 
down here moping in the country, till you don't 
know how to live. You get into a world of ghosts 
and shadows, till you are frightened at the very 
sound of your own voices." Andrew re-crossed 
his legs, and played with the dogs ears till it 
howled and slunk away. 

Paul looked at the Londoner with a mild cu- 
riosity, as if he had been a kind of privileged 
wild beast ; and then, satisfied that he could do 
nothing toward taming him, and feeling ill at 
ease in his society, he went away for a time, 
much to Magdalen's relief and Andrew's disap- 
pointment ; for he had promised himself good 
sport in baiting him. 

Hearing that Andrew had arrived, old friends 
of the family had assembled by degrees, to hear 
the will read, and to offer assistance or condo- 
lence as their position warranted ; some with a 
vague feeling of protection to Magdalen; for 
Andrew had the worst character possible in the 
neighborhood; and more than one thought it 
not unlikely that his sister might need some 
defense against him; "For," as they said justly, 
"that dreamy lover of hers knows nothing of 
business ;" which was true enough. There was 
soon quite a large assemblage — large, that is, for 
a lonely country-house ; and Magdalen was sur- 
prised to find how relieved and protected she 
felt by their presence. They all seemed near- 
er to her than her brother ; and all more sym- 
pathizing and more sorrowful for her loss. 

" Mag, where's the will ?" said Andrew, in a 
loud voice. " I suppose you know where the old 
boy kept his things, don't you?" He spoke as 
the master, with the tone and manner of a slave- 
driver. It was the ultimatum of coarseness. 

" In the library," said Magdalen. 

" Ah, stay ! In the top library drawer, ain't 
it ? Don't you think so ? I remember that used 
to be his hiding-place when I was a little lad, 
and knew all about him. If so, I can find it 
myself, Mag ; I have the keys. No tricks of 
substitution, you know, gentlemen !" and, with 
a laugh and a leer, he strode out of the room. 

He soon came back, bringing a sealed pack- 
et, endorsed " My will," in Mr. Trevelyan's hand- 
writing. 

" Here it is, safe enough !" he said, chuckling, 
and drawing a chair nearer to the window. 
"Hang these plaguy blinds!" he cried, pluck- 
ing at them impatiently ; " they don't let a man 
see his own ! Come, Mag, let's see what he has 
left for your wedding gear. Quite enough, I'll 
be bound, else my name's not Andrew!" 



Magdalen rose, and walked haughtily across 
the room : haughtily and sorrowfully : not 
wounded in her own self-love, but in her daugh- 
ter's dignity — wounded for that dead father 
whose memory was outraged by his son. A 
look from one of the friends assembled brought 
her back to her seat; and she felt when he whis- 
pered "Bear with him quietly now, for the sake 
of your poor father," that this was both good 
advice and the highest duty ; so she controlled 
herself as well as she could, and sat down, feel- 
ing for the first time in her life dishonored. 

Andrew broke the seal of the packet, and 
took the will out of the envelope. Crossing his 
legs, and clearing his throat, with a certain dare- 
devil " Come on, then !" kind of air, he began 
to read it aloud. The will set forth that all the 
lands, tenements, etc., of which he, the testator, 
might die possessed, were bequeathed to his dear 
son, Andrew, with the exception of fifty pounds 
a year to be paid to Magdalen, whom he con- 
fided to the tender care of her brother, "in full 
reliance on his love and honor." The bulk of 
the property was about eight hundred a year. 
It was all clear and distinct, signed and attest- 
ed in due form ; but Andrew's face had changed 
as he came to the close. 

"Aha! What's this?" he cried, looking 
fiercely at Magdalen, whose arm he seized as 
she bent forward when he called her. "What 
devil's work have you been after here, with all 
your pretended love and sickening flattery?" 
and he almost struck her as he shook her arm 
violently. 

"Andrew, what are you talking of?" said 
Magdalen, starting up and flinging off his hand. 
"Even at such a time as this, and from my 
brother, I can not submit to such language." 

" You are right, Magdalen ! For shame, for 
shame, Mr. Trevelyan !" went round the room. 

"Judge me, all of you!" exclaimed Andrew, 
hoarsely, rising and facing his sister. "Judge 
me by yourselves ! If any of you have seen 
your very lives and the lives of your children 
snatched away by a demon's turn like this, you 
can feel with me, and understand my violence. 
Violence it is not, but righteous and most just 
anger. This was why she never told me of my 
father's illness !" he added, grasping Magdalen's 
shoulder, as she stood firmly before him. "This 
was why she practiced all her arts, and made 
the old man, doting on his death-bed, believe 
her devoted to him, not his money — he, who had 
never liked her in life, making her his heir!" 

" Heir !" cried Magdalen, turning pale. " Hifi 
heir !" she repeated, as if in a dream. 

"Aha! I had been too honest for him, had 
I!" continued Andrew, without noticing the in- 
terruption. "I was not courtier — not flatterer 
enough, wasn't I ! And this was why she has 
always been the firebrand between him and me, 
exaggerating every little indiscretion, and turn- 
ing his love for me into coldness — as she has 
done lately — all to steal a march upon me, and 
cut me out of my inheritance. I, the only son. 
to be disinherited for such a worthless fool a* 



:>52 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



that ! By Jove, gentlemen, it is maddening ! 
Listen to the pretty little codicil I find," he con- 
tinued, in a tone of bitter banter, striking his 
forefinger against the parchment : " ' I hereby 
revoke all former wills and testaments whatso- 
ever or whensoever made by me, and leave to 
my dear daughter, Magdalen, the sole use and 
benefit of all that I may die possessed of, wheth- 
er in lands or money. I also leave her my sole 
executrix. Signed, Andrew Trevelyan. Wit- 
nesses, Paul Lefevre and Mary Anne Taylor.' 
And you are in this, too, sir !" he said, turning 
savagely to Paul. "By heaven, there seems to 
be a pretty plot hatched here !" 

" I saw Mr. Trevelyan sign that paper, and I 
and Mary Anne Taylor witnessed it ; but I did 
not know what it was I signed," answered Paul, 
hesitatingly. 

Andrew bent his bloodshot eyes full upon 
him ; and from him to Magdalen, and back 
again. He looked at the writing of the codicil 
attentively — a profound silence in the room — 
and again he looked at them. 

" Where is this Mary Anne Taylor ?" he ask- 
ed, in a hoarse whisper. 

"You know that she is dead; she was our 
nurse," said Magdalen, in a low voice. 

" I see it all — a plot, gentlemen ! a plot !" 
he shrieked. "But as I live, it shall not go 
unpunished ! I see it all now, and you and 
the whole world shall see it too. That writing 
is not like my father's — my sister's lover one 
of the witnesses, and her nurse, conveniently 
iiead since, the other. I am no child, to be 
taken in by any thing so clumsy and self-evi- 
dent as this !" He flung the paper on the floor, 
and trampled it once or twice beneath his heel. 
-' I shall not stay for the mockery of this funer- 
al," he said ; " I have no business here. My 
i. urse upon you all ! — my deadly, blighting curse, 
;md my revenge to come! That is my share in 
the funeral to-morrow." 

" Andrew ! Andrew ! do not go : do not dis- 
honor poor papa so shamefully!" exclaimed 
Magdalen, clinging to him. " Think of what 
you owe him. Andrew, reflect." 

"Owe him?" cried Andrew. "What I owe 
you ; and what I will pay you." He dashed 
her from him with an oath ; then, repeating his 
curse, he flung himself from the room, and so 
from the house ; leaving the pale corpse stiffen- 
ing in the chamber above, without a thought, a 
prayer, or a sigh for what had loved him so 
well. 

m. 

The excitement and disappointment of the 
Sast few days, added to the craziness of a con- 
stitution broken by dissipation, struck Andrew 
with a terrible fit of delirium tremens, from 
which it was thought he would never recover. 
lie could not, therefore, make any opposition; 
and Magdalen proved the will, and took pos- 
session of the property undisturbed, wondering 
why he never answered her letters nor acknowl- 
edged the remittances she sent him. In her 
<9wn mind she determined that her brother 



should share equally with herself in her inher- 
itance ; only she would not bind herself to this 
by any written deed or agreement, as she wish- 
ed to reserve the right of distribution according 
to her own judgment and the circumstances of 
his family. She was uneasy at his silence, how- 
ever, and more than once spoke of going her- 
self to London, to see what was the matter. 
But Paul, who had a horror of scenes, and who 
dreaded any thing like contest infinitely more 
than he hated oppression and wrong, persuaded 
her to remain quiet; telling her that if there 
was ill in store for her, it would come soon 
enough, without her meeting it half-way, and 
that silence was the best thing that could hap- 
pen between them. And, as Madgalen felt he 
was right, she remained in the country: calmer 
and happier as the sharpness of her sorrow wore 
away by time. 

"A letter, miss!" said the servant, one day, 
bringing in a coarse-looking epistle sealed with 
a wafer and marked with a sprawling blot of 
ink. It was wet, too, with rain, and had been 
suffered to fall into the mud. Magdalen took 
it carelessly, thinking it was a circular or a beg- 
ging-letter ; not at first recognizing the writing. 
But she soon changed when she opened it and 
read the name at the end. It was Avritten by 
Andrew, in a trembling straggling hand, as if 
he had indeed been very ill ; but written with 
all the force and bitterness of his nature- — as if 
death had never been near enough to teach him 
gentleness or reformation. It began by accus- 
ing her broadly of having " forged that pretend- 
ed codicil." It made no kind of hesitation in 
the matter. "For you know," it said, "how 
well you can imitate my father's handwriting. 
I have now in my possession letters — more than 
one — written by you, which any one would 
swear were more like his writing than that 
trumpery codicil you have attempted to palm 
off. I little thought, when I used to laugh at 
your innocent forgeries, that I should ever have 
to shudder at a forgery so vile and guilty as 
this. However, to spare you the inevitable ruin 
that must fall on you, I make you an offer, 
though an illegal one — compounding a felony 
— which would, if known, bring me into almost 
as bad a place as yourself. Yet, because you 
are my sister, I will run the risk, and commit 
this legal offense. I have some compassion still 
left for you, base, treacherous, and false as you 
have proved yourself to be. If, then, you will 
quietly give up possession of every thing you 
hold now under your forged codicil, and con- 
tent yourself with the fifty pounds a year left 
you by the true will — and which, I must sa} r , I 
think a very handsome provision for you — I 
will let the matter drop, and you shall never 
hear me allude to it again. I will even give 
you an asylum in my house, if you could bear 
to see the family you had so wickedly tried to 
ruin. If you do not accept this most generous 
offer on my part (by which I shall lose the fifty 
pounds a year that would be mine on the de- 
tection of your guilt), I will at once put the 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



353 



matter into the hands of my friends, and you 
may defend yourself as you can. Your con- 
cealment of my father's illness — telling me only 
when he was dead — your letters, written to me 
in imitation of his handwriting, will condemn 
you without a moment's hesitation, or the hope 
of appeal. Beware ! and think well before you 
refuse your only chance of salvation. If you 
reject my offer, be prepared to brave infamy and 
transportation; for you will find me inexorable. 
Take my advice as your brother and friend — 
still your friend, in spite of your evil conduct — 
and give up possession quietly. You will find 
that I am right. Andrew Trevelyan." 

Magdalen sat stupefied. She could not at 
the first analyze her own feelings nor reason 
out her position. It was as if she had been 
suddenly branded with hot iron, the pain of 
which suddenly took away thought and power. 
But the numbness of that sudden terror soon 
passed. A strong nature like hers could not 
long remain prostrate beneath any shock. In- 
deed, the fiercer the blow the fiercer would be 
the resistance. Her brother Andrew had not 
calculated well when he thought she would be 
conquered by the mere force of an accusation. 
Some of the nature of the father had passed 
into her also, and submission without a struggle 
was as impossible to her as the bending of a 
strong rod of iron by a child. But — what was 
she to do ? for, after all, there was much to be 
considered besides her own temper. What was 
her position, and how should she act for her 
own honor and for the best in point of morals? 
She knew, of course, that the codicil had been 
written by her father's own hand ; that it was 
his express and deliberate will. She could not, 
therefore, give up her right without transgress- 
ing that will, which of itself — whether for her 
own advantage or against it — was a thing she 
would always hold sacred above every thing else 
in the world. It was her father's will that she 
was resolute to maintain, more than her own 
fortune. Then another, and this time a more 
selfish, side of the question : This fortune en- 
abled her to marry Paul. Without it, she knew 
that their marriage was hopeless ; at least, for 
many years to come. Unpractical to the last 
degree, visionary, poetic, generous, unreal, his 
love even for her would never make him prac- 
tical and rational ; never make him capable of 
earning a livelihood by an art which he assert- 
ed lost all its divinity so soon as it became venal. 
Had she then the right, waiving all other prin- 
ciples, to destroy the future of her betrothed by 
yielding to the false assumption of her brother? 
Was it not, on the contrary, her duty to take 
thought of him, if none of herself; and was she 
not justified in maintaining for him what, for 
very weariness, she might have been driven into 
relinquishing for herself alone ? Again, a third 
consideration, and not a trifling one. If she 
gave up her rights without a struggle, would not 
the whole world say it was because she knew 
herself to be guilty, and was frightened at the 
thought of exposure? And how would she 



feel, even though innocent, when it was said 
of her that she had violated the will, betrayed 
the trust, and dishonored the grave of the be- 
ing she most honored ! No ! The girl's heart, 
swelled and her eye flashed. No 1 She would 
defend herself, cost what it might. Innocent, 
she would maintain her innocence; and, justi- 
fied in her inheritance, she would preserve it 
against all assaults. Let who could deprive her 
of it! 

She crushed the letter in her hand with a 
strong and passionate gesture, and then sat 
down to write to her brother. The pen was 
long in her hand before the tumult within her 
subsided. When she did write her expressions 
were emphatic but calm. She distinctly refused 
to give up her rights : she denied the charge of 
forgery in two words ; not deigning to discuss 
the charge ; but she expressed her determina- 
tion to defend her innocence to the last farthing 
of her estate, and to the uttermost verge of her 
strength, body and mind. 

While Magdalen was still quivering with ex- 
citement, like a young war-horse at the first 
sound of the trumpet, Paul came to her to pay 
her his evening visit. Ever loving, ever gen- 
tle, and even feminine in his ways, he was more 
so to-day than usual. He wore an expression 
of thought and love so earnest, so unearthly, 
that he might have been a spirit or an angel 
come down to teach godliness and purity. But 
there was nothing which could teach them man- 
agement or strength. His brown hair parted in 
the middle and falling quite to his shoulders in 
rich undulating tresses, his small, slender figure, 
his white hands, with those taper fingers and 
pink nails which speak the idealist, were all so 
womanly, that he might have been a woman 
dressed in man's clothes for all there was of 
masculine or powerful in his mind or person. 
Magdalen, on the contrary, tall, well-formed, 
perfectly organized, with well-shaped but rather 
large hands — the hand of a useful and practical 
person — resolute though quiet, and with that 
calm steady manner, different from coldness, 
which is usually the expression of strength — 
standing there, nerved for a deadly combat, her 
nostrils dilated, her chest heaving, her hair 
pushed back from her broad full forehead, and 
the eyes flashing beneath their straight dark 
brows — Magdalen, full of the passion and pow- 
er of actual life, looked like a beautiful Ama- 
zon by the side of a young shepherd-boy. Cer- 
tainly she did not look like the weak woman 
needing the protection of his arm, as is the re- 
ceived fable respecting men and women, what- 
soever their characteristics. 

"Magdalen, how glorious you look to-day!" 
said Paul, with fervor, taking her hand. 

She looked at him quietly enough ; but with a 
certain distraction, a certain indifference, which 
could not be reduced to words, but was easy to 
be felt by one who loved; and her hand lay 
passively in his. 

"Come and sit by the window," he said, "wc 
have so few days of sunshine left us now, so few 



854 



HAEPEK'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



moments of beauty before the winter, that we 
ought to make the most of them while they are 
here." 

For it was the late autumn now, when the 
sunsets are so grand and the cloud scenery so 
glorious. 

"You know, Magdalen, how I love to watch 
the sunset with you," Paul went on to say, " how 
I love to see the clouds pass through the sky, 
to read their vague words of promise, to shape 
from them bright auguries of the future, to feel 
that they are words passing between us, speak- 
ing to each of our love more beautifully than 
even loving words falling on the ear. And, when 
I turn and see your face lighted up with the same 
thoughts as have been burning in my heart ; 
when I feel the glory of your great love round 
me, then, Magdalen, I feel that I have been 
prophetic in my hope ; an enthusiast but a seer 
as well. And you, Magdalen, do you not also 
dream of our future — of that beautiful future, 
once far off like a faint star on the horizon, but 
now a glorious temple, on the threshold of which 
our feet are already set? Do you never think 
of the time when sacred words shall add their 
sanctity also to our sacred love? when the grand 
name of wife shall inclose and crown your life ? 
Do no great loving thoughts burn through your 
heart as through mine, Magdalen, and seem to 
lift you up from earth to heaven ?" 

" Yes, Paul," said Magdalen, dreamily. " Oh, 
yes ! I often think of it." She spoke as if she 
thought of other things. 

Paul looked at her wistfully for a moment ; 
then, drawing the low stool on which he sat 
nearer — for it was his fancy always to sit at her 
feet — and pressing that unanswering hand yet 
more tenderly, caressing it as a child, with whom 
caresses cure all ills. Yet the fingers coldly fell 
on his, which throbbed in every nerve. He flung 
back the hair from his eyes, and with a visible 
effort looked up jbyously as before. 

"Oh, Magdalen!" he continued, "I can not 
tell, even to myself, and still less to you, how 
much I love you ; how my whole life and heart 
and soul are bound up in you, and how my vir- 
tue and inspiration own you also for their source ! 
If you were taken from me, Magdalen, I should 
die as flowers die when they are cut from the 
stalk. I seem to draw my very being from you ; 
and to have no strength and no joy but that 
which you give me. Are you glad, Magdalen, 
that I love you so much ?" 

"Yes, Paul," said Magdalen, wearily, " I am 
very glad." 

" I feel, Magdalen, that we shall do such great 
things in life together! — that by your inspira- 
tion I shall be, in art, what no man of my time 
or generation has been, and what I could not 
have been without you. You are so beautiful, 
so glorious! Oh, what a great and solemn joy 
it is to me that you have brightened across my 
path — that I have had the grand task of leading 
and directing your mind, and that I have brought 
you out into the light from the mental shad- 
ow in which you formerly lived ! What glorious 



lessons we shall give the world together ! What 
an example we shall offer, for all men to follow 
and walk by !" 

" What are we to do, Paul ?" said Magdalen, 
not knowing exactly what to say; but seeing 
that her lover waited for an answer. 

"Can you ask what we are to do? can you 
now, after all that I have said, be doubtful of 
our mission ?" cried Paul. 

" Why you know, Paul, you are never very 
definite," said Magdalen ; who, having dashed 
into the middle of the truth unawares, was 
obliged to make the best of it now. She did 
not know where she got the courage to speak as 
she did ; but it seemed to her an easier thing 
to-day — she did not know why — to tell Paul that 
he was an enthusiast, than it had ever been before. 

" My Magdalen ! — but I must not chide you, 
love ; I know that you have not reached my 
place of faith, from whose heights the world 
looks so small, and insuperable difficulties seem 
so easy. What is our mission ? Is it not that 
I am to be the artist, the great artist of my 
day? embodying thoughts which the world is 
too skeptical and material, too irreligious and 
God -forgetting to keep in daily view; giving 
back its true religion to my art ; giving back 
its forgotten glory, and raising it from the dust 
where the iron heels of trade and skepticism 
have crushed it for so long? is it not that I 
am to be the Raphael, the Michael Angelo of 
England ? And you — oh, what will you not be 
in my glorious life ! You will be its star, its 
love, its glory ! When I am dead it will be 
written on my tomb that this great artist was 
made great by love ; that Magdalen, his queen- 
ly wife, had sat by his side as his inspiration, 
and his interpreter of the divine. Oh, Magda- 
len ! Magdalen ! do not doubt our mission, nor 
of the glorious manner in which we shall fulfill 
it ; for we shall regenerate the art-world to- 
gether! Apart Ave should be nothing; no, Mag- 
dalen, without me your strength would crumble 
into ashes, as mine would without you. We 
were made to be the leaders of our age, the 
founders of a new race, and of a higher genera- 
tion. We were made to be the restorers of 
faith and love to art. Magdalen, we shall be 
all that man and wife can be together, and our 
lives shall be a deathless lesson of good and 
beauty to mankind. Is it not so ?" 

"Yes, Paul, I hope," said Magdalen; "but 
will you please let go my hand," for, in her pres- 
ent state of excitement, she could not bear the 
nervous irritation produced by his restless touch. 
It was as much as she could do to listen to his 
dreamy voice and vague visions with composure. 
Those restless burning fingers passing perpetu- 
ally over her hand, irritated her beyond her self- 
command. 

"Do you not love me, Magdalen?" he said, 
letting her hand fall mournfully. His eyes filled 
with tears. 

" Yes. I love you very much, and you know 
that I do ; but it disconcerts me to have my 
hand held. And then yours is so unquiet." 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



355 



"No expression of your love could annoy me, 
whatever it might be," said Paul, very sadly. 

"Don't be vexed with me, dear Paul; we are 
more nervous on some days than on others, and 
to-day I am not very well." 

" And does your love depend on your health, 
Magdalen ? If I were dying, your caresses w ould 
be just as precious as in my best moments !" 
His eyes turned to the sky where the sun was 
sinking into darkness, and his lip quivered. 

With a strange gesture, sudden and abrupt, 
feeling for the first time annoyed at being obliged 
to soothe him so like a child, Magdalen passed 
her hand aci'oss his hair with a caressing ges- 
ture — that still was hardly loving. 

His tears grew larger, though now for joy, 
and fell fast and heavy on her lap. He took 
her hand, and kissed it eagerly. 

Magdalen turned away. "I wish he were 
more manly, and did not cry so soon," she said 
to herself; "and oh! how I wish that he was 
more of a man of the world, and understood the 
realities of life better than he does !" 

In the terrible conflicts of real passion — in 
her first outstep into actual life — the vague and 
dreamy hopes of Paul ; his impracticable asser- 
tions, his unreal romance, and the sufficiency to 
him of mere words — of the mere visions they 
called up, rose through the tumult in her own 
heart like the notes of an JEolian harp through 
the clang of martial music. They were very 
beautiful, but meaningless ; without purpose or 
design ; vague sounds, struck mournfully and at 
hazard by the passing wind. What she wanted 
then was some powerful manly practical advis- 
er, on whom she could rely for real assistance. 
Paul's poetry was very lovely, but very unsta- 
ble ; and, in spite of all his assertions respect- 
ing the strength that he bestowed, Magdalen 
felt that a child would have been as useful in 
her present pass as he. He wearied her, too. 
Like a hungry man, she wanted substance, and 
he gave her only dreams and visions. She be- 
gan to be conscious of his weakness ; not con- 
fessedly conscious, but none the less really so ; 
sensitive, tender as he was ; easily wounded, 
easily soothed again by caresses ; so living on 
words, and so satisfied with them; so certain 
that in the future — that future which never 
comes to the idealist — he would be touching 
pencil or brush, and spending his days in dreams 
and love-making; a power in art, yet seldom 
child-like in actual experience, but child-like in 
his vain belief that he had received all the teach- 
ing life conld give him, and that he did not re- 
quire further experience. 

" No, no," Magdalen used to say to herself, 
"he is nor guide nor strength to me." 

Paul saw something of this feeling. He knew 
that his words often fell coldly on her ear, and 
that not a pulse of her calm, strong heart beat 
in unison with his, throbbing wildly at the fu- 
ture of fame and influence he was picturing. 
And soon he knew, too, that her character was 
developing itself in a direction away from him, 
and that her soul was disengaging itself from 



his. But he shut his eyes to that, and only suf- 
fered instead of acknowledging. 

IV. 

Before proceeding to extremities, Andrew 
wrote again and again to Magdalen. Altering 
his tone with every letter ; sometimes sending 
threats, sometimes entreaties ; now endeavor- 
ing to terrify her into submission, and now to 
cajole her into complaisance. For a week this 
went on, not a day passing without a letter of 
one or the other character. When he did not 
insult her by evil names and foul suspicions ; 
when he did not wound her in every nerve of 
her woman's heart, and wring her pride till the 
sense of degradation became real torture, he ap- 
pealed to her generosity in the most heart-rend- 
ing terms, for the sake of his wife and family 
and the influence that his disinheritance would 
have on his world when known. It would be 
his death-blow. It was from death that he 
asked her to save him. Though perhaps that 
letter wound up with a fierce attack, and an in- 
timation that to-morrow, without fail, he would 
send down a policeman and handcuffs. 

Magdalen was peculiarly frank by nature ; 
yet she was not able to speak to Paul of the 
news which troubled her. She knew that he 
could not go through with it bravely, and she 
did not want the additional embarrassment of 
his weakness. If he sunk, as she was quite 
sure he would, under the first approach of such 
a gigantic trouble, she would have to support 
him as well as herself. That would complicate 
her troubles. So she said nothing, and bore her 
own burden in silence. But this was the begin- 
ning of sorrow between them. Pre-occupied, 
excited, and consequently irritable, her whole 
mind and soul bent on one thing only, and that 
of such fearful import as to overshadow every 
other portion of her life, Magdalen grew hourly 
more and more impatient of Paul's girlish ten- 
derness and poetic reveries ; of his gentle be- 
wailings, worse than impatient. He never com- 
plained, but he perpetually bewailed — in a dove- 
like fashion, without any expressed cause. He 
spoke always in a melancholy voice and on mel- 
ancholy subjects : he wrote sad verses, and wept 
much ; under any kind of emotion, whether joy 
or grief, tears were always in his eyes. He fol- 
lowed her about the house with a kind of mourn- 
ful watching, as if he was afraid of something 
carrying her off bodily from before his eyes. 
He was forever creeping close to her, nestling 
in, if she had left space on the sofa large enough 
for a sparrow to perch on. Then she would 
move farther away, with perhaps an apology. 
Then he would look hurt ; perhaps have a fit 
of mournful sulkiness, which it was inexpressibly 
painful to witness. When that was passed, he 
would go to her with an air tenderly forgiving, 
and attempt some gentle caress ; and, when she 
repulsed him, as she generally did now — although 
she did not know why, his caresses annoyed her 
— he would either droop suddenly like a stricken 
bird, or stand like the lover in a melodrama, 
who opens his vest and cries, "Tyrant! strike 



35G 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



your victim !" with that provoking kind of res- 
ignation which infers meek virtue on the one 
side and hard barbarity on the other ! Or, with 
the temporary combativeness which belongs to 
weak natures, he would press any particular 
manifestation of love on her until he made her 
accept it, unless she had undertaken to discuss 
the matter openly, which was not desirable for 
either. So she would submit to his offered kiss, 
or suffer him to take her hand, or hold her waist 
and press him to her (they were just the same 
height, and she was much the stronger), with 
her teeth set hard and her nerves strung like 
cords. She felt sometimes as if she could have 
killed him when he touched her. 

He came oftener than ever to the house; and 
he had always haunted it like a spectre or an 
unlaid ghost. But now he was never absent; 
she was never alone, never free from him. She 
began to weary of him fearfully, and to feel that 
solitude was an unspeakable luxury. She was 
brought to the pass of feeling that, to escape 
from Paul Lefevre, her affianced lover, was one 
of the tilings most to be desired and attained in 
her daily life. He tried to lead her to talk of 
their marriage, and she turned pale instead. 
He spoke of the great things they would do in 
life together, and her lip curled contemptuously. 
He repeated again and again his own high hopes, 
and she answered, "Dreamer! to believe in a 
future of fame without endeavor ; content to 
say that you will be famous, while taking no 
means to become so ; dreaming away the hours 
which should be employed in action, and think- 
ing that the will can do all things, even without 
translating that will into deeds: enthusiast! who 
of ideas makes realities, and of hopes certain- 
ties !" This was but a sorry answer, however 
true, to the burning thoughts that did verily 
stand the young artist in place of deeds. They 
were finding out how little moral harmony there 
was between their natures, and how unfit they 
were for the real union of life. 

Paul came one day, as usual, early in the 
morning. He used to run all the way from his 
lodgings to Oakfiold, so that he always came in 
a terribly excited, heated, panting condition, 
which of itself irritated Magdalen. To-day he 
came, flushed and eager; pouring out a volume 
of love as he entered, and for this greeting fling- 
ing himself at Magdalen's feet, embracing her 
knees, and calling her his morning star and his 
life. Magdalen had not slept all the previous 
night ; she too was excited, but in a different 
way — irritable and nervous. She would have 
given the world to be alone, but how could she 
send Paul away ? However, being there, she 
must make him reasonable. He spoke to her 
passionately and tenderly; she answered him 
in monosyllables, her head turned away or her 
eyes on the ground. He took her hand, and 
she withdrew it, saving, "Dear Paul, leave me 
alone to-day, and do not touch me." He asked 
her if she had chosen the plain silk or the flow- 
ered, for her wedding dress, and she said, 
"Neither," very coldly. "We have plenty of 



time before it comes to that," she added, with 
an accent that said of itself, " I am happy to be 
able to say so." 

Paul had long been choking with sobs, kept 
back with a wonderful amount of self-command, 
for him. But now, he suddenly gave way. A 
violent flood of tears burst from him as he ex- 
claimed, "Magdalen! Magdalen! we are drift- 
ing fearfully apart. Tell me what yon disap- 
prove of in me ; and trust me, my beloved, I 
will alter it, whatever it may be — were it to cut 
my very .heart out — to please you !" 

He sobbed so bitterly that Magdalen was al- 
most overcome too. For she had a real affec- 
tion for him, if not quite the strength of love 
desirable between persons who are betrothed. 

"Dear Paul," she said, gently, "I dare say 
I have been very much changed lately ; but I 
have been suffering a great deal of misery, which 
I have not liked to tell you of. That is the only 
reason of my coldness. I know that I have been 
cold and changed, but then I have been harassed. 
Will you forgive me?" And she looked and 
spoke gently and lovingly. 

" But why have you not told me, Magdalen?" 
cried Paul, still sobbing. " Why have you con- 
cealed any thing of your life from me? Does 
not all belong to me now, Magdalen ; and have 
I not the right to share your burdens with you ? 
You have not done well to conceal any thing 
from me?" 

"Perhaps I have not," answered Magdalen, 
kindly ; " but I did it for the best, Paul." 

"I know you did! I know you did! You 
could not do wrong. If ever you make a mis- 
take, it is from a nobler motive than others 
have. But now, open your heart to me, Mag- 
dalen ; it will do you good ; and I will help you 
and support you !" 

Magdalen glanced down at the upturned face, 
still flushed and suffused with tears; nervous, 
quivering, full of passion, but so weak; and a 
smile stole over her own calm, grand features 
— like the features of a Greek goddess — as she 
said to herself, "Support! from 1dm V 

" My brother disputes the will," she said, sud- 
denly. "He says that the codicil which you 
witnessed is a forgery ; that I forged my father's 
handwriting, and that you were privy to it, of 
course. I can Avrite like poor papa, as you 
know; and as I have often written letters to 
Andrew in jest, pretending that they came from 
poor papa, he has a strong case. On this fact, 
as the principal evidence against me — on the 
fact, also, of the codicil being written in a 
trembling hand, very unlike my father's firm 
distinct writing, he has founded his charge of 
forgery. Is it not painful ?" 

"But what are you going to do, Magdalen?" 
said Paul, who had become deadly pale, and 
was trembling. 

"Dispute the point to the last inch of 
ground," she answered firmly. 

He covered his face in his hands. "Are you 
obliged to do this?" he asked. 

" No ; I had a letter again to-day from my 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



357 



brother, offering, as he has done before, to with- 
draw his charge, and not proceed with the affair 
at all, if I will give up possession, and destroy 
the codicil. If I do not, he will have me ar- 
rested for felony." 

" Magdalen !" That tremendous word, fel- 
ony, had an overpowering effect on Paul ; and 
he asked wildly, "You will not surely let it 
come to this ?" 

"What else can I do, Paul ?" 

" Give it all up to your brother — to the last 
farthing — your portion — all — rather than begin 
this unholy and most unfeminine strife." 

"And what are we to do then, Paul, when I 
am a beggar ?" 

"What! can you ask me, love? Hand-in- 
hand we will wander through the world ; my 
art our aid, our love our consolation and pro- 
tection. We shall not be deserted, Magdalen." 

"What! give it up, Paul, and allow him and 
the world to believe me guilty? be myself my 
executioner? I could not do that." 

"Let them believe what they like, Magdalen. 
Does belief make truth ? Are you not innocent? 
Who judges you but God? What is the opin- 
ion of the world, compared to the truth of your 
innocence, and the reality of Heaven's favor? 
Magdalen, take my advice — do not enter into 
this contest. Give it all up without a struggle. 
Come to me! my arm shall uphold you, my 
heart shall shelter you." 

" That is very well in words," said Magdalen, 
a little coldly ; "but you know that in reality it 
means nothing. If I give up this property, we 
give up all hope of our union. We have no- 
thing for our support but this ; what would you 
do, then ?" 

" My art," said Paul. " Have I not said so 
already?" 

" Your art ? how can you rely on that ? Have 
you not always said that you could not paint for 
money, and that so soon as you began any thing 
like a commission, you lost all power and in- 
spiration ? Have you not again and again con- 
gratulated yourself on this good fortune, as giv- 
ing you the power of painting for fame, and the 
regeneration of mankind?" And Magdalen's 
lip slightly curled. 

" But if necessary, and if I could not support 
you, I would postpone our marriage to an in- 
definite time, Magdalen, rather than that you 
should do wrong to your nature." 

"And you think a manful defense of my just 
rights a wrong act, Paul?" 

"Against a brother — ves." 

"Then must we submit to any oppression 
and tyranny whatsoever, rather than defend 
ourselves? Is this a man's creed?" Mag- 
dalen was speaking now with somewhat undis- 
guised contempt. 

"Yes:" said Paul, his lips quivering, "I 
would rather you submitted patiently and wo- 
man-like to any wrong than that you came out 
into the open day to defend yourself. The pub- 
licity! The disgrace! You — you, my queenly 
Magdalen, in the criminal's place ; gazed at by 



the coarse rabble ; spoken of by the licentious 
press ; your beauty commented on ; your inno- 
cence made the theme of arguments and doubt, 
bandied about from counsel to counsel; tor- 
mented, insulted ; looked at by bold eyes — nev- 
er ! never ! Magdalen, it would break my heart ! 
It would be such degradation to you as I could 
never bear. For I am jealous of you for your 
own sake !" 

" Is not this rather childish ?" said Magdalen. 
"Have you no more sense of justice — of justice 
to one's self — of innate dignity, and the worth 
which can not be lessened by any outward act ? 
Are you not frightening yourself with words as 
much as you sometimes flatter yourself with 
words, when you say that you will protect and 
support me, and live by your art? I know what 
the future would be, better than you know, Paul. 
I am neither so good nor so enthusiastic as you, 
but I am more rational, and I think I under- 
stand real life better than you." 

"Magdalen! I am losing you!" was all that 
Paul could say, as he sunk upon the sofa, near- 
ly suffocated with tears. 

" Dear Paul, be reasonable," said Magdalen, 
more tenderly; "what can you expect from me, 
a woman of strong will, and holding my father's 
wishes as the most sacred things on earth, but 
the determination to uphold my right and fulfill 
his intentions ? If every time in our lives I dif- 
fer from you in opinion, and even in action, it 
would never do ever for me to yield to such a 
terrible fit of despair as this, Paul," and she 
tried to smile. " This will never do !" 

"Magdalen— darling wife — do with me as 
you will ! Only love me, be gentle with me, 
stay near me, and do then as you will, even with 
my conscience ! Arrange my life as you like. 
I am passive in your hands." 

" Your conscience ?" said Magdalen. "I am 
not dealing with your conscience, nor your life, 
excepting in so far as it relates to my own. 
What I do is in my own affairs, and the re- 
sponsibility, both social and moral, is on my 
own head only. I do not associate you in any 
way with it, nor lay a feather's weight upon 
you !" She did not mean to speak proudly, and 
yet she did. 

He raised his head. "Do as you will," he 
repeated. " Only love me, and let the rest 
go!" 

"This is my protector," thought Magdalen, 
standing a little apart and looking at him mourn- 
fully. "A weak, poetic boy of intellect, but of 
no power; of thought, but of no real force of 
action. And I — " she laid her hand on her 
bosom heaving with emotion, "and I must be 
strong enough for both, and never let him nor 
the world know that I regard him but as a pet- 
ted child, whom I must soothe by caresses, and 
from whom 1 must guard the truth." 

This discussion had no good effect on either 
of them. Magdalen could not overcome the 
impression left by Paul's tears on her. She nev- 
er thought of him now without associating him 
with an hysterical fit; which is neither a pleas- 



358 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ant nor a dignified association of ideas with any 
man, more especially the man who is to be the 
lord and master. Her manners grew colder; 
and with her coldness came a certain shadowy 
assumption of superiority ; a certain vague ex- 
pression of contempt, which cut Paul to the soul. 
Yet he felt that he deserved both. But his un- 
happiness did not add to his strength. He dai- 
ly became more unhappy, daily more hysterical. 
His health suffered, his finely-chiseled features 
became like the beauty of a heart-broken angel ; 
his lips were painfully contracted, and so were 
his brows; and his eyes — those large, tender, 
liquid blue orbs — were never wholly free from 
tears, even while he forced himself to smile, in 
such a ghastly fashion as imposed on none but 
himself. When Magdalen scolded him for be- 
ing miserable, he smiled in this awful way, and 
asked her what more she wanted ? — and didn't 
she see how happy and joyous he was ? 

In the midst of this painful state of things, 
Andrew, seeing that nothing could be done 
either by menace or entreaty, suddenly resolved 
on extreme measures. In one of his drunken 
fits of fury, when he was more like a demon 
than a man, he procured a warrant for the ap- 
prehension of his sister on a charge of forgery ; 
and ten minutes after it was granted by the 
magistrate, a police officer was dispatched to 
that still quiet country house where he, the 
prosecutor, was born, to bring to a felon's trial 
the playmate of his early years, and the friend 
of his manhood — his only and defenseless sis- 
ter. 

It was in the grim autumn twilight when Mag- 
dalen and Paul heard a carriage pass through 
the lawn gates, and drive up to the house. Paul 
had been unusually doleful all the day, for Mag- 
dalen had been unusually absent in her man- 
ners. She had expected a letter from her broth- 
er as usual; and, not receiving one, anticipated 
some evil, and was thinking how she should best 
meet it. Paul, who referred all things to love, 
wondered why she was not soothed by his ca- 
resses. He thought it unkind in her to refuse 
them, and unloving to doubt their power. He 
had been troublesome and tearful ; and Mag- 
dalen had been provoked into more than one 
harsh speech, and more than one look of intense 
weariness, which had not mended matters, even 
as they stood. When she heard the carriage- 
wheels, for a moment her heart sank within 
her : she felt what they brought, she knew what 
they foreboded. And, when a strange voice 
was heard in the passage, asking for her, and a 
tall, resolute-looking man was ushered into the 
drawing-room — which he seemed instantly to 
take possession of by the first glance of his eye 
■ — she knew without a word passing between 
them that he was an officer, and had come to 
arrest her. 

" I am very sorry, miss," he said, in an off- 
hand kind of way, but with great kindness of 
manner, too — as much kindness, that is, as an 
officer with a warrant against you in his pocket 
can show. "It is a painful office I have been 



obliged to undertake; but I am compelled to 
fulfill my duty." 

"Yes," said Magdalen, quietly; she had risen 
as the man entered. " Of course you must do 
your duty." 

The officer pulled out a piece of paper. " Here 
is a warrant for your arrest," he said, "on a 
charge of forgery ; at the suit of your brother, 
Mr. Andrew Trevelyan. I. am afraid, miss, I 
must ask you to trouble yourself to come along 
with me." 

" Where ?" said Magdalen, not moving a 
muscle of her countenance — only placing her 
hand on her heart by a simply instinctive ac- 
tion. 

"Before a magistrate first, miss, and then, 
perhaps, to prison," said the officer, respectfully. 
"You may be able to find bail, and I hope you 
will." 

" I will ring the bell," answered the girl, still 
calm, and yet resolute, "and order my maid to 
prepare what will be necessary for me. Will 
you not sit down ? And may I not offer you 
some refreshment?" 

Paul had sunk back in a stupor when he 
heard what errand that muffled stranger had 
come upon. But, when Magdalen, having given 
her orders, turned to him and spoke to him as 
quietly as if nothing had happened, he started 
up and flung himself on his knees, beseeching 
her to give up every thing, to sign any thing, 
confess to any thing, rather than submit to this 
terrible trial. Oh that she would listen to him ! 
Oh that she had but listened to him when he 
had first spoken! that she had had courage to 
prefer a life like the brave old troubadours of a 
better time — the heroic artists of the day when 
art was heroism — to this fearful skepticism of 
to-day ; and had trusted to Providence and him ! 
Oh, that his life could buy her safety ! that he 
could deliver her by some heroic deed that should 
not only free her, but stir men's hearts to brav- 
ery and nobleness to the latest time ! And then 
he sobbed afresh ; and the nerveless arms, which 
were to stir the world, fell weaker than a weak 
girl's round her. 

" Hush," said Magdalen, gravely ; " do not 
distress yourself so painfully ! You know that 
I am guiltless ; be sure then that I shall be 
proved so. Do not fret ; do not agitate your- 
self. You, who trust so in truth and God, will 
he not defend the innocent, and will not my 
truth be of itself sufficient to protect me ?" 

" No, no, Magdalen ! they are going to mur- 
der you !" cried Paul, clinging to her. " Mag- 
dalen ! I shall never see you more !" 

"Not so bad as that, young gentleman," said 
the officer, mildly, taking him up from the 
ground as if he had been a child ; unloosing his 
nervous clutch on Magdalen's gown, and seating 
him on the sofa. "I assure you we are going 
to do your aunt no kind of harm. Let go her 
dress, my dear young Sir — she has need of all 
her fortitude, and you are only knocking it down 
by carrying on so. She will come out well 
enough. I know too much of these things not 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



359 



to know the truth when I see it staring before 
my eyes." 

" Will she be proved innocent ?" cried Paul, 
appealing to the officer, as if he were a Rhada- 
manthus. " Shall I ever see her again ? Mag- 
dalen ! Magdalen ! are we to meet only in the 
grave ? Is the tomb to be the altar of our mar- 
riage vow ?" 

" Dear Paul, for Heaven's sake a little cour- 
age ; a little fortitude !" said Magdalen, laying 
her hand on his shoulder. "Where is your 
manhood? I, a woman on whose head all this 
misery is accumulated, I should blush to bear 
myself as you do ! Cheer up ! I am not sent 
to the colonies yet !" and she smiled, sadly 
enough. 

He tried to rise, but his agitation was so ex- 
treme that he could not stand. Half-fainting, 
he sunk into a chair, while the maid brought in 
a carpet-bag in great wonder and grief, and some 
suspicion of the truth. The officer drank a glass 
of wine, with an unusual feeling of oppression 
at his heart. Magdalen, in her black dress, her 
face as pale and as composed as marble, look- 
ing as if she had concentrated all her strength 
and courage within her heart and held a grasp 
of iron over her nerves, leant over Paul ; who, 
trembling and faint, seemed to be dying. She 
stooped down and kissed his forehead, murmur- 
ing softly some love names which he preferred 
to all others. He revived, only to catch con- 
vulsively at her hands and waist, and try to hold 
her near to him by force. 

The calm, grand air with which she gently 
undid that feverish clasp, while he still cried, 
"Nothing, not even your own will, shall part 
us !" the quiet majesty with which she forced 
him to be calm and to listen to her — " If, in- 
deed, he wished to do her any good, rather than 
merely to indulge the selfish weakness of his 
own sorrow" — Paul felt that she was the stron- 
gest now, if never before in their whole lives to- 
gether; and, while her influence was on him, 
he controlled himself sufficiently to understand 
what she said. 

"Listen," she said, in a deeper and more 
monotonous voice than usual, " do you wish me 
to feel that I have left behind me a child, to 
weep at my departure, or a man to care for my 
interests? If a man, rouse yourself ; if a child, 
can you ask me to yoke my life to a child's 
feebleness? Listen to me well, Paul, for much 
depends now on you." 

" Oli, Magdalen, you know I would give my 
life for you !" cried the poor boy, passionately. 

" I know that, but I want only your self-com- 
mand. Write to that friend you have spoken 
of to me, the barrister, Horace Rutherford. Tell 
him to come to me ; if you send a special mes- 
senger, he can be with me by nine o'clock to- 
morrow morning, and he can perhaps arrange 
for my release. Be calm, be courageous, and 
useful, and remember your own faith in truth. 
Good-by ! you can do me good only by your 
courage and self-control." 

She stooped down and again kissed his fore- 



head ; and he, awed rather than calmed, let her 
go from the room quietly, without making any 
effort further to keep her. But, when the car- 
riage rolled away from the door and bore to 
infamy all that he loved on earth — while the 
servants clustered round him terrified and weep- 
ing, and asked what it all meant — his strength 
gave way again ; and for long hours he was 
alternating between fainting and hysterics. In 
this way, much precious time, of inestimable 
value, was lost before he remembered Magda- 
len's request, or was able to write to his friend 
and only hope, Horace Rutherford. 

V. 

Horace Rutherford arrived as soon as possible 
after the receipt of Paul's incoherent letter, and 
in a very short time Magdalen was free ; released 
on bail, to take her trial at the next assizes. 

It was an easy matter enough. Any man of 
the world who understood how to conduct the 
affairs of real life, even if not a lawyer, could 
have managed it. Yet there was something in 
the promptitude and decision with which Mr. 
Rutherford acted, that to Magdalen, accustom- 
ed to the timidity and want of practical power 
in Paul, seemed almost heroic, because it was 
simply manly. She never knew how feeble she 
felt her lover to be until she had unconsciously 
compared him with another of his own age ; one 
of his friends ; educated under much the same 
influences, yet on whom life had wrought such 
different effects, and to whom it had taught such 
different lessons. Not that she did not fully 
recognize the graces of Paul's mind and intel- 
lect. The positive and practical nature of Hor- 
ace struck her with greater admiration, perhaps, 
because it was a new study, and because it was 
more in accordance with her own. 

Horace was soon heart and soul in the cause. 
If Magdalen had been his own sister, he could 
not have worked with more loyal zeal than he 
did, leaving no stone unturned by which he 
could establish her innocence. He made mi- 
nute inquiries as to all the old intimates of her 
father : the trusted family friends. He got their 
addresses, so far as Magdalen could give them ; 
and, when she failed, if he could only have the 
smallest clew, he managed to follow it up to 
the end. But, as yet, he heard nothing from 
any of them that could be of use. One, of 
whom Magdalen spoke the most, escaped him. 
About two years ago he had gone abroad ; to 
the German baths : since then, he had been 
wandering about the Continent, and had finally 
gone to Spain; but his only relative (a sister 
who lived in Devonshire), knew not precisely 
whither. As there was not much time before 
the assizes, he could not afford to waste a single 
day. But Horace never flagged in hope, en- 
deavor, and encouraging assurances to Magda- 
len ; continuing his search after Mr. Slade, the 
missing family friend, with extraordinary perti- 
nacity. Magdalen was content to let the mat- 
ter rest wholly with him, to believe in his wis- 
dom and his energy, and to feel secure so long 
as he told her she might feel so. 



360 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



They made a strangely-contrasting group, the 
three friends ; as unlike physically as they were 
morally ; and yet each so excellent in his own 
way. Magdalen and Paul were both handsome, 
as has been shown before ; but Horace had no 
great share of good looks; yet he had some- 
thing that compensated for the want of them. 
He was below the middle size ; but firm and 
strong, and so well proportioned that his want 
of height was not noticeable. Indeed, he left 
on many the impression that he was a tall man. 
He had a rugged, irregular face : but its large 
black eyes, and the raven hair curling thick and 
close gave a rough beauty to it. Although 
every feature was artistically unlovely ; though 
the broad nose, thick at the base and blunt at 
the end, the unshaped lips, thick also and ir- 
regular, the powerful chin and square jaw, were 
none of them in harmony, yet, from these un- 
promising elements, came such a noble expres- 
sion, such a look of energy and frankness and 
quickness and penetration, that no one ever re- 
marked that Horace Rutherford was what peo- 
ple call a plain man. His manners were rath- 
er abrupt; a smile was generally playing round 
his lips, and his eyes were eyes that spoke and 
laughed. His conversation was quick and brill- 
iant ; usually on some topic of the day ; rarely 
metaphysical or abstract. He spoke well, told 
stories and anecdotes with great spirit, was brave, 
generous, prompt, and determined ; a man whose 
hope, energy, and self-command were all but 
unconquerable. 

What a different being he was to sensitive, 
shy, poetic, tremulous, fair-haired Paul! whose 
smiles were like sun-flashes on an April day, 
and whose tears sprang as easily as a child's, 
and were dried like a child's. The one, the 
man of action, born to battle with and to con- 
trol real life as it passed by ; to lead in the thick 
of the fight : the other, the poet, resting apart 
and above the daily things of earth, thinking 
great thoughts, uttering beautiful words, but 
doing no deeds ; the dreamer, the singer, the 
poet, but not the man. 

By their side, to make up the group, Magda- 
len — paler than she used to be, and thinner and 
graver, with her dark-brown hair and gray-blue 
eyes, with her cold, dreamy face, in which only 
resolute will and the first traces of sorrow could 
be seen, and her manners half queenly, half 
girlish — stood before the one as a goddess to be 
worshiped, before the other, as a woman to be 
protected. Paul reverenced the strength he 
could not imitate, and Horace loved the inno- 
cence he could so well defend. 

Horace soon saw that something was amiss 
between the betrothed lovers. Indeed, Paul 
told him as much not many hours after his ar- 
rival at Oakfield ; and, having made that first 
confession, had ever since drawn largely on his 
friend's sympathy and forbearance; going to 
him to complain every time there had been any 
little misunderstanding between him and Mag- 
dalen ; which was very often. Horace was kind 
and sympathizing, and gave Paul good advice ; 



telling him not to be so sensitive ; although he 
could not but think Magdalen harsh. But what 
was to be done ? He saw plainly enough where 
the fault lay — yet who could mend it ? If not 
themselves, then no one ! They were unsuit- 
ed— that was the one sad word that comprised 
all the rest. 

" But Paul," said Horace one day when Paul 
had been complaining of Magdalen's temper — 
"but, Paul, you must forgive a little petulance 
for the sake of the greatness underneath. Re- 
member — only steel cuts ; lead, dull and harm- 
less, will not scratch a fly." 

" Yes, Horace, but Magdalen is so changed ! 
She was never very demonstrative, but she was 
never so cold as she is now," said Paul, sorrow- 
fully. 

" Think of how much she has to occupy her; 
think of the bitter pass of life she is in. It is 
very well for unoccupied people like you, Paul, 
to do nothing and think of nothing all day long, 
but of love ; but the thoughts of a mind torn 
and troubled are very different." 

" So it may be," persisted Paul, naively, "but 
I have had nothing to do with her trials, and 
she should not visit them on me. Why should 
she be cold to me because her brother is a vil- 
lain ?" 

" Well, my dear fellow, that is rather diffi- 
cult to answer; yet you must be content that it 
should be so. People are never just when they 
are excited ; and Miss Trevelyan is excited, and 
may perhaps be unjust to you; so you are to 
her in your very sensitiveness. Women are 
delicate creatures to manage, Paul, even the 
strongest of them. As a man, who ought to be 
the superior in moral power, don't you think 
you could be less sensitive and more consider- 
ate ?" 

" I am sure," said Paul, timidly, " I do all in 
my power for her. If she demanded any serv- 
ice such as hero or Paladin of old would give, I 
would do it for her — oh, how cheerfully, how 
gratefully !" 

"Yes," answered Horace, with a faint smile; 
" but you are not required to give these great 
services. You are only required to be temper- 
ate in your judgment, manly, and self-relying. 
Believe, me, Paul, there is often more real he- 
roism in the suppression of doubt, and of the 
sorrow which springs from doubt, than in any 
George and the Dragon conflict of olden times. 
We are all so apt to demand too much. He is 
the real social hero who unselfishly demands 
but little." 

Paul looked distressed. 

"Horace, I need not tell you how much I 
love her," he said, fervently. " She is my life; 
the life-blood of my whole being. The world 
would be dark and cold without her; she is all 
I love — all — all ! And when I see her coldness 
to me, and think that she does not approve of 
me, it breaks my heart. I can not stand up 
ngainst it. Weak, passionate, boyish, mad — I 
may be all — but it is love for her, and sorrow 
that makes me so!" 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



361 



" Have you no stronger heart than this ? 
Why, the real man would be able to support 
more than his lover's ill-temper — not that Miss 
Trevelyan is ill-tempered ; but I see that she is 
fretted and irritable — and yet have a 'heart 
strong enough for every fate.' You talk of 
heroic deeds; yet you neglect your real hero- 
ism, which is to bear a little waywardness brave- 
ly. Paul, Paul ! how often we neglect the flow- 
ers at our feet, while stretching out our hands 
vainly to those above our heads ! How often 
we neglect the virtues we possess in dreaming 
of those that are impossible for us to attain !" 

" You are right, Horace," said Paul — " quite 
right; and I will show Magdalen that I am 
worthy of her." 

At that moment Magdalen came into the 
room. Paul was full of the impulse created 
by Horace's exhortations. He flew to meet 
her, took her hand and pressed it between both 
his own. 

Magdalen colored deeply, and withdrew her 
hand, saying, in a low voice : 

"Paul, I do not like this kind of thing before 
other people." 

" But Horace. He is my brother — like my 
own flesh and blood. He might see and know 
uf any thing between us." 

" Mr. Rutherford is not my brother," answered 
Magdalen, hurriedly ; " and," she added, more 
haughtily, perhaps, than she intended, "I will 
not allow these absurdities before him." 

xVll this passed in a low voice ; but Horace 
heard every word of it. He was agitated, 
unconsciously ; and, while thinking Magdalen 
harsh, yet blessed her in his heart. Magdalen, 
also, was confused and rather angry. She turn- 
ed away without saying what she had come to 
say to Horace, and left the room ; Paul stand- 
ing like the statue of despair. 

" There! See how she treats me !" he cried, 
pettishly, pacing about the room. " You see it 
now for yourself, Horace ; you see her contempt 
and her coldness. She rules me with a rod of 
iron; she makes me her slave, and then spurns 
me because I am her slave. She might be gen- 
tier to me. What did I do to deserve this? I, 
who love her so much." 

He flung himself on the sofa, burying his face 
in his hands, and quivering convulsively. 

" Is this your way of bearing a little displeas- 
ure ?" cried Horace, in his cheery voice, patting 
his shoulder. " Come, have a little more pluck 
for this once. You, who talk of Milton and 
Cromwell, and all those iron heroes, as if their 
lives were as easy as painting — do you think 
they would approve of this ?" 

"Yes," said Paul, almost fiercely, looking up 
with a strange mixture of feverish passion and 
grief; "yes, they would. The strongest men 
love the best, and sensitiveness is not weakness." 

" Sensitiveness — no. But this is not mere 
sensitiveness ; it is naked folly," said Horace, 
in his clear, calm voice. 

" Folly, Horace ? Such a word from you ?" 

" Yes, from me, Paul ; and don't give way 



again, there's a dear fellow, and I will tell you 
why I call it folly. You tease Miss Trevelyan 
with your love, a little inopportunely offered — 
you often tease her so. You never have the 
good sense to see it in that light ; but complain 
of her coldness, when you ought to be ashamed 
of your own want of discretion. You are so pen- 
etrated by your own feelings, that you can not 
see hers. She is bothered by you; annoyed, 
and tells you so roundly ; and you go off into 
a fit of childish despair. The thing lies in a 
nutshell, and that nutshell you must crack, to 
get common sense out of it. Now, don't bom- 
bard me with blighted feelings," he added, see- 
ing that Paul was about to argue. "Accept my 
view as both just and real. You will find your 
account in being guided by a little more world- 
ly wisdom than you have hitherto allowed. Be- 
lieve me when I tell you so." And Horace 
strode out of the room before Paul could an- 
swer. He went to find Magdalen, intending to 
lecture her as well, and to make her feel that 
she was unkind, and persuade her into better 
behavior. For it was very sad to see these 
young people teasing each other so much, all 
for want of common sense and mutual under- 
standing. 

She was in the dining-room when he went to 
her ; standing very mournfully by the window r 
looking out on the drizzling rain that fell like 
the fringe of a mourning garment from the dark 
clouds above. Her own face was as sad as the 
heavens, and her heart was as heavy as her eyes. 
When Horace came near her, she turned with 
a little impatient movement, for she thought it 
was Paul come to have a scene and then make 
up. When she saw it was Horace, a flush like 
crimson flashed suddenly across her face. She 
smiled, and half held out her hand, sighing as 
if suddenly relieved from some heavy burden. 
Then, as if she remembered something, she 
drew herself away, checked the impulse and the 
smile both, and looked at him almost as coldly 
as she would have looked at Paul. 

"I have come to take a liberty," said Horace, 
smiling, but with a certain embarrassment of 
manner, too. For he did not like this business, 
now that he was close upon it. 

" What is it ?" asked Magdalen. " Not a very 
great one, I am sure." 

"I want to have a long quiet talk with you, 
if you will allow me," he answered, and leading 
her to a chair. His manner was slightly au- 
thoritative; but it pleased Magdalen, surfeited 
as she was with loving slavery. 

"Has any thing gone wrong, Mr. Ruther- 
ford ?" 

"In your cause? no, nothing; but much in 
your life will go wrong, if you are not careful. 
Forgive my frankness; I am an old friend now, 
and feel as if I have the right to advise. May 
I speak openly, without the fear of offending 
you, Miss Trevelyan ?" 

" Yes," said Magdalen, timidly. 

"I will, then. I want to speak to you about 
my old friend, Paul." 



362 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



"What of him?" asked Magdalen, with one 
of her sudden looks of pride. 

" Do not be offended, Miss Trevelyan ; I will 
say nothing that ought to shock the most sens- 
itive pride. But I must be frank. Do you 
think you are wise — I do not say right, but sim- 
ply wise — in your conduct to Paul? It is a 
delicate subject, and one that I have no earthly 
right to approach ; but you are young and in- 
experienced, and seem to me to want a judi- 
cious adviser. Let us pass all ceremony. Think 
of me as of an old gray-headed priest come to 
confess you, and let no false modesty mar my 
usefulness to you. Are you not somewhat harsh 
and hard to Paul ? He loves you very dearly 
— more than you perhaps know ; his whole life 
seems to hang on you — his whole happiness on 
your kindness." 

"Too much so," said Magdalen, suddenly. 
"If he did not love me so much; if he could 
live without following me, like a child after its 
nurse; if he could bear a little impatience, and 
perhaps injustice, without weeping as he does — 
which only makes me more impatient and more 
cold, Mr. Rutherford ; if he had more practical 
power, more knowledge of the world, and were 
less dreamy and romantic ; if he did not always 
talk of the future so wildly, and with such strange 
satisfaction ; if, instead of imagining himself a 
hero, he would be content to be first a man, I 
should be kinder to him : but" — and Magdalen 
looked up, with a full and almost appealing look, 
into Horace's face — "he wearies me ! I am very, 
very sorry for it. I would give all I have in the 
world not to feel so wearied by him, but I can 
not help it. I love and respect him very much." 
And Magdalen got up and walked away. "If," 
she then said, suddenly coming back and stand- 
ing before Horace, with an expression and in an 
attitude sufficiently passionate, " if he has told 
you to speak to me, you may tell him in return 
what I have said. My love for him will be al- 
ways in proportion to his own manliness and 
common sense. If he continues as he has been 
ever since poor papa's death, I shall get to hate 
him. My husband must be a man who can help 
and direct me, not a child sobbing out melan- 
choly bits of poetry." 

Magdalen, as if she had uttered the most tre- 
mendous secret, and committed the most atro- 
cious crime, rushed from the room to her own 
chamber up stairs ; where, locking the door, she 
flung herself on her knees, and, for the first 
time since her arrest, fell into such a passion 
of grief as she had never yielded to in her life 
before. 

Horace sat for a few moments shading his 
eyes after she had left. Something in her tone 
and manner had thrilled through him ; and, 
w r hile wishing to condemn her, had enlisted him 
on her side. She looked so strong and beau- 
tiful, and he felt how far below her Paul was ; 
he understood also what she must feel as a wo- 
man lately come to the knowledge of her strength 
and of her lover's weakness together. Horace 
pitied them both ; but he pitied Magdalen the 



more, because he sympathized most with her. 
If he had been a woman, perhaps he would have 
pitied Paul. 

" Ah, well !" said Horace, half aloud, rising 
from the sofa ; " I dare say they will get on bet- 
ter when they are once fairly married. It is a 
terrible position for both, and no one knows 
which is more to blame — for certainly Paul is 
very tiresome, and Magdalen is harsh," which 
was all that could be said for and against both. 

After this lecture from Horace, Magdalen, 
by a visible effort over herself, was kinder to 
Paul than she had been of late, and the boy 
Avas consequently as wildly happy as he had 
formerly been unreasonably in despair. But 
Horace saw, by every sign which Magdalen 
strove to hide, that his raptures bored her as 
much as his complaints had done before ; and 
that the cause of their disunion lay deeper than 
any thing that Paul could do or undo now. She 
was disenchanted, and saw their want of moral 
likeness — perhaps she exaggerated it: but it 
was still there, and could not be repaired. The 
effort of a few days soon became too much for 
Magdalen : again she relapsed into her old man- 
ner of impatience and coldness, and again Paul 
became heart-broken and hysterical. 

Again Paul spoke to Horace — again besought 
his intercession ; with such despair, such ruin 
of hope and happiness; with such a wrecked 
life, that Horace, strangely unwilling, was forced, 
for mere pity's sake, to undertake this most 
painful and unpleasant task. And, as whatever 
he undertook he went through with thoroughly, 
lie spoke to Magdalen again with even more de- 
cision, force, and distinctness than before. And 
he told her plainly that she was very wrong. 

" Did Paul give you this mission ?" said Mag- 
dalen, haughtily. 

" He certainly spoke to me of your coldness 
to him ; but I have also seen it for myself," 
Horace said, not looking in her face. 

"And may I ask what you advise^ — nay, de- 
sire me to do ?" said Magdalen, still in the same 
manner. 

"Be as kind to him as possible," said Hor- 
ace, stealing a glance into her flushing face. 

"And you — who, at least, are manly — can 
say such a word to me for my future husband !" 
exclaimed Magdalen, bitterly. " Kind ! kind S 
— the word you would use to a child, or a slave, 
or a pet lap-dog! Kind to a man Avho ought 
to stand as your ideal of good and of power, to 
the being whom, next to God, you ought to rev- 
erence and Avorship. Kind ! he asks his friend 
to plead with his obdurate lover, and beg her to 
be kind !" 

She looked at him with her proud head flung 
back and her eyes as hard and as bright as steel. 
Her lip did not curl, only her nostrils dilated, 
and those glittering eyes looked unutterable con- 
tempt — contempt even of him. Then a dim 
softness came over them ; that cold glitter was 
lost in a deeper and darker radiance — some- 
thing that was not a tear, but that softened them 
like tears, stole up into them, as she looked at 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



363 



him, steadily, but timidly. The pride of that 
haughty head was gone, the swelling throat re- 
laxed and bent forward; and Horace felt his 
own eyes grow dim and dark like hers, as he 
met and returned her look. He held out his 
hand, she laid hers in it, and he pressed it 
warmly. 

" Poor child !" he said, " poor child !" 

A sigh, so deep and heart-sent, that, despite 
her effort to suppress it, escaped from her like 
a shivering kind of groan, awoke her as from 
an instant's trance, and she withdrew her hand 
hastily ; turning away from him. But a shad- 
ow had fallen between them, and words, which 
the ear never heard, had been spoken from heart 
to heart. Horace started as if he had seen a 
horrible vision, or heard unholy words, and, pass- 
ing her, said, without looking at her, " If you 
are strong, do not trample on the weak." And 
so left her, in a state which she could not define 
to be either happiness or unhappiness. 

" She is right," said Horace, " and Paul is a 
fool. How I used once to envy that boy's beau- 
ty and poetry ! But now — I would rather be 
the most rugged-featured ogre that ever terri- 
fied a naughty child, if I were but strong and 
manly, than accept all his loveliness and his 
weakness with it. No woman shall say of me, 
that she does not respect me — not even Mag- 
dalen !" 

So Paul was not much advanced by this in- 
terview; and all that Horace said, when he 
questioned him as to his success, was the pithy 
advice — " Let her alone," and " don't worry me 
now, Paul, I am busy." 
VI. 

The assize-time was fast approaching, and 
the trial, of Miss Trevelyan for forgery was, of 
course, the talk of the neighborhood. It can be 
imagined what was the excitement in a country 
place, where the family was so well known, and 
where every one took that peculiar kind of in- 
terest in each other — half fault-finding and half 
responsible — which gives a domestic character, 
though not always a domestic charm, to a small 
society. Of course Andrew Trevelyan found 
some partisans. There are always advocates 
for every side and every person. Even about 
Oakficld a few — not many — were to be found 
who thought, indeed, that that codicil was very 
strange, when every one knew how fond old Mr. 
Trevelyan was of his son, and how little he had 
ever cared for his daughter; and who said also 
that it was unjust; for though Andrew had been 
a wild young fellow enough, yet he was married 
and steadied now, and all that ought to be for- 
gotten. Mr. Trevelyan had forgiven him many 
times before. If he had forgiven his marriage, 
he need not have been so very harsh for any 
thing else. And after all, what had he done 
to justify his disinheritance? Magdalen was a 
good girl enough, they dared say ; but she was 
one of those plaguy clever women one never 
can trust. The neighbors talked and wrangled 
in this way among themselves ; there being 
Guelfs and Ghibellines about Oakfield — strong 



Andrewites and Magdalenians, Horace worked 
in his own way, letting no one into his plans ; 
while Paul suffered such agonies of mind from 
the coming shame and publicity as might al- 
most earn forgiveness for his cowardice. 

The day came, and Magdalen's trial came 
too. The court was crowded. Every person 
of any note whatsoever in the county was there. 
Wagers had been made about it ; irreconcilable 
quarrels and one marriage had alike sprung out 
of it : it had lighted up a civil war all about 
Oakfield, and every one was anxious to see how 
the battle would terminate. The Andrewites 
were the weakest in numbers, but the most pow- 
erful in lungs ; while the Magdalenians content- 
ed themselves with the frigid sympathy of all 
well-bred people, and " hoped poor Miss Tre- 
velyan would succeed." The case was called ; 
and, in the midst of the most profound silence, 
Magdalen took her place in the felon's dock. 

She was ordered to remove her bonnet; which 
demand, after much apparently angry discus- 
sion, was at last merged into the compromise 
of throwing up her vail. Then the whole court 
was astir — silks rustling, boots creaking ; some 
standing up and craning over their neighbors' 
heads ; some leaning forward ; others backward 
— all to obtain a good look at that noble face, 
calm and dignified in the criminal's place. .Hor- 
ace stood near her. His interest in the cause 
had become too strong to admit of his trusting 
himself with the defense of Magdalen profes- 
sionally. But strong, clear, and prompt, he 
watched every countenance ; every turn of the 
case, and made frequent and valuable sug- 
gestions to the prisoner's counsel. Paul sat 
near to Magdalen also ; but in a state of great 
physical weakness and mental agitation. He 
had just so much life left in him as to be. 
able to lean forward against a table without 
fainting; although, if he had not been seat- 
ed, he must have fallen. Occasionally Horace 
was agitated too ; but his agitation took the 
shape of excitation, and gave him greater quick- 
ness even than usual. He had more vividness 
of thought, more keenness of perception — like 
a man whose senses are heightened and stimu- 
lated in power by opium. He seemed to pos- 
sess almost an added sense, and to be able to 
divine what he did not see. One thing troubled 
him — the post-hour. The London post did not 
arrive at that town till the late afternoon, and 
he was expecting a letter to-day from the miss- 
ing friend, Mr. Slade, whose address, among the 
mountains of Cordova, he had at last discovered. 
He had been in constant correspondence with 
old Miss Slade, and had calculated to an hour 
that he might receive a letter to-day from her 
brother, supposing his had been answered so 
soon as was possible. He felt sure he would 
find some important news therein when it did 
come ; but this wretched post would not be in 
till nearly four o'clock, and how drag on so lorn; 
as that a cause that might only employ an hour 
or two ? So Horace was on the rack, but he 
bore his torture bravely, and made no one else 



364 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



miserable by showing it. Magdalen was pale 
as a statue : statue-like, too, in her movements 
• — acting, looking, and speaking like a somnam- 
bulist — with preternatural calmness and self- 
possession ; as if her nerves had been made of 
iron. Paul stifled his sighs so ill that he moan- 
ed, and drew more sympathy than all the rest. 

The trial proceeded : Andrew was the first 
witness for his own prosecution. He swore that 
some years ago he read his father's will — the 
same as had remained to the day of his death ; 
that he had seen him sign it, and also the wit- 
nesses, William Slade and Joseph Lawson — the 
last since dead. He said that his father had 
often called him his heir; and he put in letters 
wherein that expression was repeated many 
times, amidst reiterated assurances of his love 
and trust. But he could show none, nay not 
so much as a line of his father's writing after 
the date of the codicil. This he slurred over as 
well as he could, and his counsel protected him. 
He also swore that his sister could imitate his 
father's handwriting perfectly, also his style of 
expression ; in proof whereof he put in certain 
other letters, written in girlish fun years ago, 
confessed to and undisputed. To this he added, 
that the codicil was, to the best of his belief, not 
in the handwriting of his father ; whom he had 
never offended, and who could not, therefore, 
have had any reason for so suddenly disinher- 
iting him; that it was a forgery written by his 
sister. The counsel for the prosecutor had ar- 
gued, that this was not so improbable, seeing 
that the witnesses were Paul Lefevre, the be- 
trothed of the prisoner, who would consequent- 
ly share with her, and the old nurse, since dead 
— the wet-nurse and foster-mother of the ac- 
cused. " Conveniently dead," said the counsel ; 
for which expression he was reprimanded by the 
judge. This was the case for the prosecution. 

Magdalen's only plea to all this was a simple 
denial. The counsel for her defense stated, 
that she had neither forged the codicil, nor been 
even made acquainted with its existence. Her 
father had forbidden her to send for her brother 
during his last illness — which point had been 
made much of by Andrew and his counsel — he 
was evidently very angry with him. Magdalen 
did not know why; but he refused to hear his 
name, and most peremptorily refused to see 
him. But, as her father had destroyed or re- 
moved the whole correspondence with the in- 
surance offices, with which Andrew Trevelyan 
had been endeavoring to obtain money on post- 
obits on his father's life (at least she had not 
found a line of it), nothing like a reason for the 
change asserted to have taken place in him was 
able to be given. The assertion, therefore, did 
her a great deal of harm, seeing that it was un- 
able to be substantiated by evidence. Horace 
looked up to her and nodded, and smiled after 
her counsel had concluded ; but his eyes were 
bloodshot, and his lips had turned quite blue — 
for he knew the painful effect which this unsup- 
ported assertion must have on the jury, and the 
handle it would give to Andrew's counsel. He 



looked again and again at his watch, and cursed 
the dragging hour in his heart. Then he con- 
quered that passing fit of despondency, and set 
to work and hope again. 

Paul was examined next. His agitation, the 
uncertain, hesitating voice in which he answered 
the questions put to him, his changeful color and 
timid manner, all made a very bad impression 
on both the jury and the public. Few said he 
was sensitive ; many that he too was guilty — a 
participator in Magdalen's imputed crime. Hor- 
ace was in despair. To the question directly 
put, and apparently easy to be answered, if he 
saw Mr. Trevelyan sign that codicil, he gave 
such a hesitating answer ; he suffered himself 
to be so perplexed, bewildered, and brow-beat- 
en ; he got himself entangled in so many hope- 
less contradictions, and made such awkward 
admissions, that more than one of the jury ex- 
changed glances — and one, an old friend of 
Magdalen's, shook his head and sighed. When 
he was ordered to stand down — " You have said 
enough, Sir, for us, and too much for the pris- 
oner's cause," said the counsel for the prosecu- 
tion ; he had entangled the whole matter in an 
inextricable web of confusion and suspicion. 

Magdalen looked at him grandly and coldly 
as he passed. Her lip slightly curled, but not 
unkindly. Her eyes met those of Horace fixed 
mournfully, but very tenderly, on her ; and for 
the first time hers drooped and her lip quiver- 
ed ; but it was not her trial that she was think- 
ing of. 

The case was drawing to a close, and still it 
was not four o'clock. Horace besought her 
counsel to delay it as much as possible, and by 
so doing, weakened the cause yet more ; when 
at last the hands pointed to five minutes before 
four, and the messenger who had been stationed 
at the post-office rushed in, breathless, with a 
packet in his hand. Horace seized it, saw at 
one glance that it came from London, tore open 
the envelope, and observed that his agent there 
had inclosed certain letters and documents with 
the post-mark " Spain" upon them, and darted 
upon that which was signed " William Slade." 

Most important evidence this, which a post 
might have lost ! 

The first letter read aloud was the following, 
addressed to Horace Rutherford, Esq. : 

Dear Sik — It is with no small surprise and indignation 
that I hear of the dastardly attempt of young Trevelyan 
against the honor and existence of his sister; not that I 
ought to have said surprise, for my knowledge of that 
young man's character has been of many years 1 standing, 
and from too undeniable sources, to allow me ever to feel 
surprise at any crime he may commit. I am, however, 
most happy to be able to contribute to the establishment 
of my god-daughter's happiness; and, while unwilling to 
trust such precious documents as those which I now in- 
close to the hazard of the post, yet, seeing no better means 
before me, I send them to you, in the full faith and hope 
that they may arrive in time, and be found sufficient. 
Pray present my most affectionate love to Miss Trevelyan, 
and believe me, dear Sir, in the common interest we both 
have in this case, yours faithfully, William Slade. 

Mr. Slade's handwriting having been proved 
by a witness whose attendance Horace had se- 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



365 



cured beforehand, the documents inclosed were 
read. They were a copy of the codicil in Mr. 
Trevelyan's handwriting, the correspondence be- 
tween himself and the insurance-offices, and this 
letter, addressed to Mr. Slade, then at Wiesba- 
den : 

Dear Friend — You know that I do not often make 
confidants, nor lay on my friends the burden of my sor- 
rows. But you must be content to be the exception to- 
day, and to receive both a charge and a confession, in 
trust for your godchild's future benefit. The correspond- 
ence I have inclosed will show you my latest trouble about 
my son. You know, dear friend, how often I have par- 
doned his excesses — how many times I have crippled my 
resources to pay his debts — how I have always loved him, 
and how I have always believed in him. My eyes are dim 
now to think of the ruin in my heart which this discoveiy 
has made. I could have forgiven any thing but this ; but 
this heartlessness — calculating the chances of my life, and 
making a percentage out of my infirmities — hastening 
my death by his wishes, and, not content with the inher- 
itance he knew I was to leave him, gambling on the chance 
of my speedy decease — this discovery has Avorked such a 
change in my feelings — has opened my eyes to the boy's 
real character so fully, and has made me so sensible, by 
contrast, of my daughter's worth — that I have to-day re- 
voked my will, and left all that I may die possessed of to 
Magdalen. A strange presentiment makes me send you 
these papers. I do not wish them to be found and com- 
mented on after my death. I would rather that you kept 
them in safe and secret custody until they are wanted — if 
ever they may be wanted — to support tbe codicil I have 
executed to day. 

Your godchild is quite well, and growing daily hand- 
somer. You know of her engagement to a young artist 
who came into the neighborhood about two years ago? 
He is a worthy lad, but somewhat too flighty for my taste ; 
however, if she likes him that is all that need be asked for. 
And as they will be independent after my death, I have 
no further doubts as to the prudence of the marriage. 
Keep my secret, dear Slade, till after my death, and be- 
lieve me always your affectionate friend, 

Andrew Trevelyan. 

Although the document was proved to be in 
old Mr. Trevelyan's handwriting, yet none of 
the papers so suddenly produced were held to 
be evidence. It was admitted that they brought 
to the case strong corroborative testimony of 
what had been urged in favor of the prisoner's 
innocence. There was a sharp and lengthy 
discussion on this point. 

Fortunate that it was so ; for the arguments of 
counsel (continually interrupted by the judges 
as being quite irregular, and only tolerated by 
them in mercy to the prisoner) had nearly term- 
inated when a sunburnt, unshorn old gentleman 
forced his way into the court. The commotion 
he created attracted Magdalen's attention. In 
struggling his way to the counsel's table, the 
stranger turned to look at the prisoner. She ut- 
tered a faint cry, and exclaimed — " Mr. Slade !" 

It was he, sure enough ; and he was called 
into the witness-box. His parole evidence was 
perfectly conclusive, and this closed the case. 
The counsel made a very brief comment, the 
judge summed up, and the jury without quit- 
ting their box found the defendant " not guilty," 
amidst the loud and prolonged cheers of the 
court — cheers which the judge himself did not 
interfere to stop. 

" How cleverly managed ! How did you get 
up that evidence, Kutherford ?" asked Andrew's 
Vol. XII.— No. 69.— A a 



counsel, shaking him by the hand. They were 
old friends. 

"I found a memorandum in an old pocket- 
book of Mr. Trevelyan's, 'Wrote to Slade to- 
day,' under the same date as the codicil ; and I 
thought I could get something out of that. I 
found that Mr. Slade was Miss Trevelyan's god- 
father, so that it all looked likely he would have 
some information to give." 

"By Jove! a good move," said Magdalen's 
late champion ; and then the two learned 
brothers sauntered out of court together, to the 
amazement of the vulgar, who believed in legal 
histrionics. Mr. Slade took Magdalen to his 
sister, who had been staying with a friend to be 
near enough to receive early news of the result 
of the trial. Paul and Horace went together to 
Oakfield : Horace joyous, full of the most boyish 
spirits, laughing, leaping, and singing ; the only 
reward he asked, to see her the first, and be the 
first to receive her thanks ; Paul agitated, trem- 
bling, and unnerved. At last she came, bring- 
ing Miss and Mr. Slade with her as guests. 
As she descended the carriage, Horace darted 
through the gates, and, with almost one bound, 
was beside her. 

She took both his hands in hers — her face 
eloquent with happiness and gratitude. " God 
bless you ! You are my preserver," she , said ; 
and then, she added, in a tone that quivered 
through every nerve — in a low, deep, rich tone, 
that sunk like music to his heart — "I would 
rather owe my life to you than to any one in 
the world ; God bless you, beloved friend, again 
and again !" 

Paul had only enough strength left to fall 
into her arms rather than to take her in his, 
covering with a boy's passionate kisses the 
cheek that had just been brushed by Horace's 
raven hair. She could not bear this. Miss 
Slade was manifestly shocked, and her brother 
smiled wickedly ; Magdalen dashed her lover's 
trembling hand away, standing in a strange fit 
of passion and beauty, with such an expression 
of pride, terror, and love in her face, as haunt- 
ed him for days after. He gently asked, how 
he had offended her? He knew he had given 
his evidence ill ; but would she not forgive him ? 
It was love for her, and pity and grief that had 
unmanned him. 

Magdalen looked up with one wild wide 
glance to Horace — a look that transformed her 
whole face — then turning to the darkened part 
of the hall, she spoke gently to Paul, and offer- 
ed him her hand. He ran fondly to take it, 
caressing it ; when with a low cry, and wring- 
ing her hands, as if she would strip a coat of fire 
from them, she rushed from the hall ; and they 
saw her no more for that day. 

" It was," said Mr. Slade to Horace, when 
they parted for the night, " too grave a matter 
to trust to the post ; so I posted off by the same 
mail as that which brought my packet. Con- 
found those custom-house fellows for detaining 
me ; or I should have beaten my own letter in 
the race by several hours." 



366 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



VII. 

Magdalen accused of forgery — standing in 
the felon's dock, and commented on as the 
criminal — felt proud and innocent. Magdalen 
re-established before the world : Magdalen, in 
the solitude and silence of her own chamber, 
feels guilty. She could not give her conscience 
a name for its reproach ; but she could not deny 
that she had cause for self-reproach. She could 
not say what she had done wrong; but she felt 
ashamed and afraid to pray. Horace, too, was 
changed to her. He never spoke to her when 
he could help it, and never would be alone with 
her for a moment. 

He was quite right, she would argue. Why 
should she care about seeing him alone ; was 
she not an affianced woman ? What did it 
signify to her whether he liked her society or 
not; had she no more pride than to be sorry 
because any man in the world avoided her? 
Then she tried to look indifferent ; and de- 
scended the stairs with the gait and manner of 
a Juno. At other times she tried to congratu- 
late herself on having such a friend as Ruther- 
ford. He was her real practical friend in life, 
and she was sure he would always do all he 
could for her : and was not that enough ? She, 
herself, felt nothing more for him but mere sim- 
ple friendship. She pictured him married and 
happy. She thought how happy she would be 
to hear of it. She would go and see them both, 
and be very fond of his wife. She would be 
her sister — her darling sister. She fancied her 
standing in the door-way, like a lovely picture 
enframed, waiting to receive him when he came 
home. She saw her go down the steps, and 
place her arm in his ; perhaps he put his round 
her waist: and then she saw them both go into 
their pretty cottage, and shut the door between 
their loving happiness and the cold world out- 
side. They shut out her as well. Oh ! how hap- 
py that wife would be. How justly proud of her 
noble lord, of her wifely name, and that golden 
badge of union on her hand ! Then Magdalen 
would weep, though angry with herself as she 
felt the tears steal down her face ; saying, some- 
times aloud, in a tone of vexation, "What folly 
this is? What am I crying for? I shall soon 
be as bad as Paul." 

The expression of Magdalen's face was chang- 
ing. It had gone through two different phases 
already, as the circumstances of her life had 
changed. From the calm dreaming of her girl- 
hood — when she looked as if she lived in beauti- 
ful visions, and as if the present was only the 
passage-place to a glorious future ; when Paul's 
mind had been her guide, and Paul's poetry her 
reality — from that phase of misty hopes and un- 
declared visions, it had changed to the cold con- 
centrated grieved expression of one suffering 
under a sorrow that hardened and did not chas- 
ten. It had gained more strength of purpose 
during that time — but it was the strength of iron 
— the force of granite ; it was not the strength 
of love. Now, a third expression had come ; and 
the most beautiful of all. Her face had gained 



a power it never had had before — the power of 
intensest feeling. There was a strange depth 
and darkness in her eyes, ; a flash, not of pride 
as of old and of the gladiator's spirit of combat 
and resistance ; but of newly-aroused emotion, 
of life, of passion. There was a rosier hue on 
her cheek, as if the blood flowed more freely 
through her veins, and she blushed easily, as one 
whose heart beat fast. Her lips were moister 
and redder, and the hard lines round them 
melted into softer smiles : they were not so 
compressed as of old, nor were her eyes so steady. 
Her figure was more undulating; her actions 
more graceful. She had lost some of her former 
almost visible directness ; and, though just as 
honest and straightforward, she was shyer. An 
influence was at work in her which had never 
been over her before ; and every one said how 
much she was changing, and many how much 
she was improving. But in the midst of all these 
other changes, none was so great as that of her 
manners to Paul. She tried to be kind and 
gentle to him ; but she could not succeed. It 
was evidently so forced, and so painful, that 
even feeble beautiful Paul pitied her. Not that 
his pity ever took the shape of breaking off the 
engagement, or of imagining that she did not 
love him. He only thought she was angry or 
irritable, and that he was in the wrong somehow 
— he could not understand how, exactly ; but 
he still believed in her love. Poor Paul ! weak- 
ly yet wildly, he sometimes kept away for whole 
days, with a petted, sulky, injured manner. Or, 
he would come to the house every day, and all 
day long, following Magdalen about wherever 
she went, pressing on her his love and caresses 
with a tender gentleness that was wonderfully 
irritating: till she loathed his very name and 
hated him to madness. 

When Horace was present ; which was often 
— for business brought him to Oakfield — Mag- 
dalen scarcely ever looked up without finding 
his eyes fixed on her. But this only disturbed 
her ; for he never looked at her kindly. She 
thought she read in his face only displeasure 
and dislike. His manners were abrupt and in- 
different ; and, whenever she looked peculiarly 
beautiful, or was more gracious and more charm- 
ing than usual, they used to be something more 
than indifferent. Magdalen, in her own mind 
— when sitting alone in her room, her face 
flushed and her eyes dark — used to call them 
insolent, and declare aloud that she would not 
endure them. He saw that she believed he dis- 
liked her, and encouraged the idea. Indeed, 
she almost said as much when she accused him 
of it one day, big drops of passion and pride 
swelling like thunder-rain in her eyes. And 
when he answered, turning away, " I will not 
flatter you, Miss Trevelyan ; there is much in 
you that I can not and do not approve of," they 
swelled till they overflowed the lids and fell 
heavily on her lap — two large heavy tears — 
worlds full of passion. 

She did not see him start as they fell, nor 
bite his under lip. She did not see hfhi shiver 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



167 



with emotion, nor notice the tender action of his 
hand, beckoning her involuntarily to his heart. 
She saw and knew nothing but that he despised 
her, and all her strength was spent in striving to 
conceal from him what it cost her to know this. 

"I have offended you, Miss Trevelyan?" he 
said, in a milder voice. 

" I owe you too much to be offended at any 
thing you may choose to say," said Magdalen, 
speaking with difficulty. 

"I did not mean to be rude," he then ex- 
claimed, after a short pause ; and he came and 
sat near her on the sofa. 

" You often are rude to me," said Magdalen, 
looking into his face timidly. 

" I am sorry for it, I mean only to be sincere." 

" And do you think me so very bad ?" said 
Magdalen, bending toward him. 

For a moment he looked at her ; a look that 
sent all the blood coursing through her veins, 
it was so earnest, tender, loving — all that seem- 
ed to her the very ideal of affection in a man 
— all that she longed for from him ; and saw 
no disloyalty to Paul in accepting. For was it 
not only simple friendship ? But it was a mere 
passing glance, and then the leaden vail dropped 
over Horace's face again, and there was only 
harshness and coldness — no more love for Mag- 
dalen that day ! 

" Not bad exactly," he said, rising, " but way- 
ward, childish, fickle, weak ; yes," he added, see- 
ing Magdalen's haughty gesture, "yes, weak! 
Real strength, Miss Trevelyan, can accept and 
support all conditions of life. Yours is only a 
feverish excitement that bears you up under 
some conditions ; but leaves } r ou to flag under 
others." And then Horace, thinking he had 
been hero enough for one day, walked out of 
the room, and she heard him humming through 
the hall. But she did not see nor hear him 
when he threw off the mask, and was not afraid 
to be himself. 

There was no need now to delay the marriage. 
It was nearly a year since Mr. Trevelyan died, 
and it would be better for Magdalen to have a 
protector. So the world said, and so her best 
friends advised. The matter was discussed be- 
tween Horace and Paul — Horace with his back 
to the light, and both his elbows on the table, 
his forehead against his hands. And it was 
agreed between them that, Magdalen consent- 
ing, it should take place soon, and here, while 
Horace was with them ; and that he should 
draw up the settlements. 

" Very well," said Horace, ostentatiously 
yawning, "that will do very well indeed. Call 
.Miss Trevelyan, my dear boy." 

Magdalen was sent for; and, in a short time 
came in, looking paler to-day than usual. For 
she had been fretting in the night, and had slept 
ill. She knew what she was sent to do and to 
say — something in her heart told her when the 
message came to her. And, indeed, she had been 
wondering why Paul had kept so long quiet. He 
did not know how grateful she had been to him. 

" It is about our marriage, dearest," said Paul, 



as she entered. He placed a chair for her by 
the table, close to himself, and facing Horace 
and the window. 

Magdalen stood for a moment as if irresolute, 
deadly pale: Then, flushing up to her very tem- 
ples, she drew her chair farther away from Paul 
and sat down. 

"Oh !" she said, as if involuntarily, " I had 
forgotten that I" 

A faint smile stole over Horace's lips. She 
spoke so naively, that he could not help smiling, 
though, indeed, he was in no humor for pleas- 
ure at this moment. Paul took it gently enough : 
only raising his eyes with his usual expression 
of injured humility, that made Magdalen almost 
frantic. If he had got up and beaten her, she 
would have respected him more : if he had spo- 
ken to her harshly, coldly, even rudely, so long 
as it was with manliness, she would have borne 
it : whatever he had done, she would have liked 
him better, than when he gave her the impres- 
sion of lying at her feet to be trampled upon. 
When Horace turned to her, and said in a low 
tone, "Is that a speech you think it right to 
make to the husband of your own free choice, 
Miss Trevelyan?" and looked grave and dis- 
pleased, Magdalen felt only respect and hu- 
mility : if Paul were only like that ! 

" I am sorry I said it," she answered, and 
then she spoke to Paul, and meant to be kind ; 
but was only fierce instead. 

" Horace thinks," began Paul, timidly, " that 
you had better be married soon, Magdalen." 

" Horace !" said Magdalen, with a laugh that 
was meant to express gayety ; but which was the 
very heart-essence of bitterness. " And you, 
Paul ? It seems to me more a question with 
you than with Horace !" 

" I ? Can you ask for more assurances of 
my earnest desire to be all to you that brother, 
friend, husband, guardian, can be ? Can you 
doubt of the exquisite delight with which I shall 
call you my own, and feel that our glorious lives 
have really begun together? You must not 
mistake me, Magdalen. If I spoke of Horace 
it was only as the supporter of my own wishes 
— not as their originator." 

Magdalen had shaded her face while Paul 
spoke. When she looked up, to meet the dark 
eyes opposite, fixed full upon her, she was paler 
than ever. She started and half rose, as if she 
waited for him to speak. But he turned away. 

"I leave the matter to you both," she then 
said, impatiently, "I do not wish to have any 
thing to do with it. Arrange it between you as 
you like. I do not care for settlements, Paul. 
You are both men of honor, and will do all that 
is right." 

She rose to go. She was almost sobbing now ; 
not tearfully; but as men sob. 

" Generous, noble Magdalen !" Paul ex- 
claimed. "Perhaps you are right, in wifely 
feeling, as well as justified in your trustingness ; 
perhaps it is better that there be no legal claims 
on either side, but that our fortunes, as our lives, 
be mingled irretrievably." 



368 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" We will talk about that. I think Mr. Slade 
ought to be consulted," said Horace, a little 
dryly. 

" You know what I mean, Horace ?" said poor 
Paul, too happy at this moment to be wounded 
by a speech that in general would have stung 
his susceptibility to the quick. 

" Oh yes ; but now Magdalen — Miss Trevelyan 
— that you have agreed to the marriage taking 
place soon, you may leave the rest with us ; Mr. 
Slade, and — if you will accept me — I will be 
your trustees." 

Magdalen gazed at him reproachfully She 
did not answer, but she held out her hand in 
passing. He could not choose but take it ; yet, 
he took it so coldly that she would rather he 
had refused it. He held it without the faintest 
pressure ; but his lips quivered and his heart 
throbbed. Again she looked at him with the 
same asking and reproachful glance ; then dash- 
ing his hand away, she left them in a sudden 
passionate manner, which made Paul look after 
her amazed. Horace looked after her too, and 
furtively kissed the light mark left by her fin- 
gers on his. And then he began to talk calmly 
to Paul about his marriage, and to insist on the 
conditions. 

He was to draw the settlements. After hav- 
ing arranged all with Paul — which arrangement 
was that Magdalen's fortune should be settled 
without reserve on herself — he departed to draw 
the deeds, and have them engrossed and "set- 
tled" with the family attorney. 

Any one who had seen Horace when engaged 
in his task, would hardly have thought that he 
was engaged in such a simple matter as framing 
the marriage settlements of a friend. Large 
drops stood on his forehead ; his eyes were 
bloodshot; his face haggard and wild; and 
those manly, well-formed hands trembled like 
a girl's. He quivered in every limb ; every now 
and then started ; and once he threw clown his 
pen and cried aloud, as if he had been tortured 
unawares, before he had time to collect his 
strength. But even with no one to witness his 
weakness, he controlled himself, and pressed 
back the thoughts that would rush through his 
brain. He thought of the sacrifice that Mas* 
dalen was about to make, yet of his inability to 
prevent it : of her evident love for him, and yet 
of the dishonor which would rest on his accept- 
ance of it. He thought of Paul's intense devo- 
tion, of his yet entire unfitness : of her pledged 
word, and of her reluctance. It was a sad coil 
throughout. Every one was to be pitied, none 
to be blamed. It was want of fitness, not of 
virtue, that had brought them into this sad strait, 
and there seemed to be no way out for any of 
them. The only hope was that, when once mar- 
ried, duty, pride, habit, and the sweetness of 
Paul's own nature, would make Magdalen for- 
get his weakness, and reconcile her to her lot. 
She was good ; she was brave ; and, though un- 
der too little control at this moment, yet this 
was only a passing fever. She would grow 
calmer and stronger by-and-by. Thus Horace 



reasoned and tried to say peace ! peace ! where 
there was no peace, and to make words and 
shadows take the place of realities. He looked 
at the names of the contracting parties joined 
together in the rigid legal fashion, till some- 
thing blinded his eyes, and he could see no 
more. 

However, he finished his task, and took it 
down to Oakfield. Mr. Slade read over the set- 
tlements ; but some alterations were required. 
Asking to be alone to make them, he retired to 
the library which overlooked the garden. He 
was so agitated that he walked feverishly about 
the room, leaning against the open window, look- 
ing into the garden ; and there he saw Magda- 
len, in the garden alone. She too had hasten- 
ed away to the filbert-walk where she thought 
no one could see her. There was such a bitter 
northeast wind blowing that the birds kept close 
in their nests and at the roots of the trees, and 
the animals in the fields crouched under the lee 
of the hedges. But Magdalen paced up and 
down the long walk ; every movement and ges- 
ture betraying that a terrible strife was raging 
within. She was thinking how impossible it 
was to escape from the position into which she 
had ignorantly placed herself. Paul loved her 
with such devotion that she dared not break off 
their marriage. It would kill him. And then 
she would break her own heart for remorse, feel- 
ing herself a murderess. Passing this even, she 
thought how that it would be dishonorable, be- 
cause Paul, having given up his profession as 
a means of living since her father's death — not 
that he had ever been able to live yet by his pro- 
fession, but that was nothing to the purpose — 
had thus lost both connection and habit. No ! 
This fatal engagement, so blindly entered into, 
must be faithfully kept. Honor and duty 
sealed the bond ; and her heart — all the love 
that was in it — must lie forever, like the genii 
under Solomon's seals. Large, dark, powerful 
genii, of immeasurable strength — kept down by 
a word and a ring. Besides, to what end give 
up this marriage? If, indeed, Mr. Rutherford 
had loved her — she might have found cause to 
make the effort, and be free. Por she acknowl- 
edged — yes to herself, to God, to man, if need 
be — that she loved him — loved him with her 
whole soul. If he had loved her — and she threw 
herself on the garden-seat where her father and 
Paul had sat on that hot summer's day when 
her fate was sealed — if he had cared for her 
only half so much as she loved him, she could 
have burst these bonds — she could — she would ! 
But he did not. He hated her instead — yes, 
hated her bitterly, fiercely ! This was easy to 
be seen ! He let all the world know it ! His in- 
difference, his coldness, his harshness : all were 
so many words of contempt and dislike, pain- 
ful enough for her to bear, owing him so much 
as she did. If he had not been so kind to her 
in that dreadful trial, she would not have cared 
so much ; but it was painful to owe him her lib- 
erty, her very life, and to know that he despised 
her! And Magdalen — the cold, calm, dreamy 



SENTIMENT AND ACTION. 



369 



Magdalen — paced through the garden, wildly. 
The statue had started into life. Love had 
touched its lips ; as in the days of old it vivified 
that statue on the wide Egyptian plains. 

"I can not bear this," said Horace, aloud. 
" Prudent I must be, and honorable to Paul ; 
but at least I am a man, and owe her something 
as well." 

His own heart had divined her secret, and he 
ran down stairs, out into the garden, through 
the filbert-walk to where it ended in the large 
horse-chestnut tree looking down the glade, and 
where Magdalen was sitting in this bitter wind, 
trying to reason down her passion. Horace 
paused. She was thinking almost aloud : " I 
will marry — yes, soon; and then, when habit and 
the knowledge that what I have done is inevita- 
ble, have reconciled me to my fate, I shall be 
more patient with Paul, and perhaps even love 
him, and be kind to him. He is very good, 
and I have behaved ill, very ill, to him ; but I 
do not love him, I know that. What can I 
do ? Patience ! patience ! Resignation, and 
that quiet strength which can support sorrow 
silently, and neither complain of it nor avenge 
it : this is all that life has for me !" 

She turned to go to the house, when Horace 
met her. She started, and looked as if she 
would have escaped him if she could. 

"I came to beseech you to come into the 
house," he said. 

" I am going now," she answered, her eyes on 
the ground. " Why did you come ?" 

" I was afraid you would take cold sitting out 
here without shawl or bonnet." Horace was 
not speaking in his usual voice. 

" You are very kind, but I did not know that 
you knew where I was ;" and Magdalen's care- 
worn face was beginning to smile. 

" I saw you from the window." 

" Ah ! and then came to me ?" She looked 
up, blushing. 

" Yes," said Horace. 

Nothing more was said, and they returned to 
the house ; Magdalen little dreaming of how she 
had been watched from that upper window, little 
thinking of the anguish that had held company 
with hers, nor seeing, in the indifferent manners 
of her friend, any evidence of the feeling which a 
few minutes ago had made him open his arms and 
call her to come to them — call her by her name 
of Magdalen and beloved ! All this was buried. 

Waiting for the return of the deeds (which had 
to be re-engrossed in consequence of the altera- 
tions suggested by Mr. Slade) Horace added yet 
another disagreeable quality to the many that 
Magdalen wanted to persuade herself he possess- 
ed. During this visit to Oakfield, he began to 
extol Paul. He praised and even exaggerated 
his virtues, till Magdalen was tired of the very 
name of Paul's perfections. Once, when Horace 
was finding out more and more good points in 
Paul, Magdalen looked at him with such won- 
der, sorrow, and disdain, that the words died 
away on his lips, and he suddenly stopped, in 
the middle of a sentence. 



" I am glad I made you stop !" said Mag- 
dalen, haughtily; "you seem as if you could 
spend your life in praising Paul." And she 
walked away to her usual refuge above stairs. 

Another time, Paul — who had had an attack 
of woe, and had been playing at dignity, keep- 
ing away from the house, but, wearying at last, 
which hurt only himself, coming oftener than 
ever — came in the evening, and asked Magdalen 
to play at chess with him. She said yes, for she 
was glad of the opportunity of sitting silent, and 
of keeping him silent too. They sat down, and 
Horace stood near them. Magdalen was a much 
better player in general than Paul. Her game 
was more distinct, Paul's more scheming. But 
to-day she played ill : she would have disgraced 
a tyro by her mistakes. She overlooked the 
most striking advantages ; for Paul, in his 
schemes after a pawn, often put his queen in 
peril ; and, while concentrating his forces for an 
impossible checkmate, forgot to secure the pieces 
lying in his way. But Magdalen to-day let 
every thing pass. 

"You are not yourself this evening," said 
Paul, who suddenly woke to the perception that 
his queen had been standing for the last half a 
dozen moves in the jaws of Magdalen's knight. 

" No ; I am playing very badly," said Mag- 
dalen. 

" Very !" echoed Horace. 

" Mr. Rutherford at least will never spare nor 
conceal my failings," said Magdalen bitterly. 

" I thought you wanted friends, not flatterers," 
observed Horace, in an indifferent tone of voice. 

" It seems I have neither here !" retorted 
Magdalen. 

"My Magdalen!" cried Paul, looking up with 
his wondering face, "what do I hear? No 
friends ? And we would either of us die for 
you ! What has come to you ? Are you ill — 
or, why have you suddenly allowed such bitter 
thoughts to sadden you ? Will you not tell me, 
Magdalen ?" he added, very caressingly. 

"Never mind what I think," said Magdalen 
impatiently. "Play — it is your move." 

"You are somewhat imperious," Horace said, 
in his stern manner — that manner which awed 
Magdalen as if she were a child, and that she 
loved above all things to obey. 

" I know I am," she said frankly, looking up 
into his face, "and I have been wrong to you 
also. But you will forgive me, will you not ?" 

When Magdalen looked penitent she looked 
beyond measure beautiful. No expression suit- 
ed her so well as this, the most womanly that 
she had ; and none threw Horace more off his 
guard. It was such intense triumph to see that 
woman so grand, cold, and stern to all others, 
relax in her pride to him, and become the mere 
gentle loving girl. This was almost the only 
temptation Horace could not resist ; but this 
softened his heart too much. 

"It is not for me to forgive you, wayward 
child," he said, with extreme kindliness of voice 
and look. "You have not offended me, if you 
have not annoyed yourself." 



370 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Magdalen's face changed as much as if she 
had taken off a mask. An expression of calm 
and peace took the place of the feverish irrita- 
tion ; her eyes became dark and loving ; her 
lips relaxed in that iron line they made when 
she was unhappy, and a smile stole over them. 
It was winter with all its harsh rigidity changed 
to the most loving, lovely, laughing spring. She 
was so happy that she even associated Paul in 
her pleasure, and spoke to him tenderly and 
gayly, as in olden times. Poor Paul, unaccus- 
tomed to such demonstrations in these latter 
days, looked up with a bewildered smile, and 
then, for very happiness and gratitude, tears 
came into his eyes. 

Magdalen's joyous look faded away. Weari- 
ness and contempt came in its stead. She rose 
from the chess-table, and stood a little apart ; 
something of the old Pythoness breathing again 
in her. 

Horace came to her ; but she left the room. 

" Paul," said Horace, more strangely than he 
had ever spoken to him before, and more pas- 
sionately, "you are a downright fool." With 
which inspiriting speech he also walked away ; 
leaving Paul to his excitement and nervous de- 
bility unchecked. 

" And you do not think I am to be pitied ?" 
said Magdalen, as she met Horace in the hall. 

" Yes : you are very much to be pitied, Miss 
Trevelyan ; so is Paul. He is more unhappy 
than you are, because he has less strength of 
resistance than you have. Paul is one of those 
natures which feel suffering more acutely than 
any thing else ; whose very strength of feeling 
lies in their power of misery." 

"Ah ! you judge like all the world !" said Mag- 
dalen. " Because Paul's tears come easily you 
think he feels more acutely than I feel. It is 
not always that those with the least self-command 
feel most ; nor the reverse." 

" I know that, Miss Trevelyan ; but it is sim- 
ply because Paul's nature is weaker than yours 
that he requires more consideration. Miss Tre- 
velyan" — he said this very earnestly — "you can 
not help yourself now. You are engaged to a 
man you do not love ; whom you do not respect 
in some things, as you ought to love and respect 
your husband : but you Avill find your married 
life better than you expect. For when Paul is 
happy and calm he will grow stronger. You 
will be rewarded for your sacrifice." 

" I wish I could believe you, Mr. Rutherford," 
said Magdalen, sadly. " I wish I could believe 
that Paul would ever be as manly and as good 
as you are." 

" Hush ! don't say that again," said Horace, 
in a low voice. " You tempt me to become the 
very reverse of what you praise in me. God 
help us! we all have need of help;" and he 
turned away, Magdalen looking after him, her 
heart throbbing violently. 

The settlements came down. It was of no 
use waiting; they must be signed, and might 
as well be signed at once as later. " There was 
no hope of the marriage breaking itself off," as 



Magdalen said quaintly, and she had no grounds 
on which to break it herself. Her wedding 
clothes had come, and "all was prepared. At 
last Magdalen determined on making the fatal 
effort, and putting an end to her present state 
of suffering. For it was unqualified misery for 
them all. They all assembled in the room to- 
gether ; the Slades and the lady who had been 
living with Magdalen since her father's death, 
but who, being blind in one eye, deaf, and in- 
firm, had not been of any great prominence in 
the late affairs ; Horace, Paul, and Magdalen. 
Paul was in one of his most painful fits of nerv- 
ousness — trembling and faint ; Magdalen cold, 
pale, statue-like, as she had been on the day 
of her trial, when she had to take her courage 
"by both hands" to maintain her strength and 
self-possession by force. The pen was put into 
her hand. Paul had signed. She could not re- 
fuse now. Horace Mas leaning against the chim- 
ney-piece, apparently biting his nails. Magda- 
len looked at him. He was looking on the 
ground, and would not raise his eyes. Only 
when her gaze grew painful, he waved his hand 
authoritatively, and said, " Sign, sign !" as if he 
had been her father. 

Still the same long earnest asking look in 
her eyes, and the friends wondering; still the 
same conflict in his heart, and her mute appeal 
rejected. Once she said "Horace!" but he 
only answered " Silence," in so low a voice that 
no one heard him speak but herself. She turn- 
ed her eyes from him to Paul. He, the strong 
noble man, mastering his passion with such 
dauntless courage, the master, the ruler over 
himself, even when torn on the rack, and tor- 
tured as few men have been tortured : and Paul, 
fainting, sinking, his head drooping plaintively 
on his bosom. She looked from each to each 
again ; then, with a wild sob, she dashed the 
pen to the ground and cried, "The truth shall 
be told — I do not love him — I will not sign — I 
will not be his wife !" 

Horace sprang forward, and held out his arms. 
She fell into them blind and giddy, but not faint. 
He pressed her to him — " Magdalen ! Magdalen ! 
my own !" he murmured. She looked up wild- 
ly, " Yes ! to you and none other !" she said, 
" yours, or death's !" 

Paul had started up. He came to them : 
"What are you saying?" he said tremulously, 
"that you love each other?" 

Magdalen clung to Horace: "I have con- 
cealed it from you, and all the world, Paul," 
she said, " as long as I could, and would have 
concealed it now, but I was surprised." 

" I have not dealt dishonorably by you," 
said Horace, offering him his hand. " If you 
knew all, you would acquit us both." 

" And you love Horace, Magdalen ?" Paul 
said, in a low voice. 

She flushed the deepest crimson as he look- 
ed up. "Yes," she said, "I do love him." 

The boy turned away; then, after a short 
pause, laying his hand on Magdalen's, he said, 
sobbing bitterly between each word. " Mag- 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



371 



dalen, it had been better if you had told me of 
this. It would have spared you much pain — 
me also some unnecessary pain — for I would 
not have been ungenerous. But let that pass. 
You do not love me. I have long felt this, and 
yet was too cowardly to acknowledge it even to 
myself. I thought it was, perhaps, a fit of gen- 
eral impatience that would pass. I would not 
believe it weariness of me. But I will not 
weary you any more. Though I have been 
weak in the fearful conflict that has gone on so 
long, yet I can be strong for sacrifice and good." 

He did not dare to look at her, but in his old 
way strained her tenderly to his breast. 

Magdalen took his hand, her tears flowing 
fast over it. "Dear Paul !" she said, affection- 
ately. " My life shall thank you !" 

Paul kissed her; and then, boy-like, placed 
his hand affectionately upon Horace's shoulder ; 
when, feeling his limbs failing him and his eyes 
growing dim, he fled from the house, and in a 
few hours was wandering through the streets of 
London : and the next day, he was abroad. 

Years passed before they met again. When 
Magdalen's hair was gray, and her children were 
marrying their Horaces and Magdalens, Paul 
Lefevre came to stay with them at Oakfield. 
He was the same dreamy, tearful, unreal Paul 
then that he had been when he was young; 
with a perpetual sorrow, which had grown into 
a companion and a melancholy kind of pleas- 
ure. He never went beyond portrait-painting, 
but he was always going to begin that great his- 
torical picture which was to rival Michael An- 
gelo ; and the very day before he died he spoke 
of the " mission to which he was baptized," and 
told how " the regeneration of art and the world 
was to come by him." 

PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 

BY AN AMERICAN. 

OUR engagements in Cairo made it impossible 
for us to remain in Alexandria as long as 
we could have desired. To the traveler who 
wishes to see only the external appearance of 
things, or to look only at the ground which over- 
lies old cities or on which they once stood, one 
or two days will suffice as well as a month or a 
year to see the city of the Ptolemies. But not 
so witli us. We caught ourselves often stand- 
ing for an hour before a modern Arab, or rather 
Egyptian, house, in the wall of which was work- 
ed a piece of old marble, whose exquisite carving 
and polish proved it to be without doubt a part 
of the old city: possibly from the pediment of 
a temple ; possibly from the boudoir of a lady ; 
possibly from the throne-chamber of a king. 
Conjecture — or, if you prefer the phrase, imag- 
ination — was never idle as we passed along the 
streets of the modern city, or over the mounds 
that cover the ancient. It was most active in 
the tombs, where we found the ashes of the men 
of Alexandria of all periods in its eventful his- 
tory, and the memorials of their lives and deaths. 
There was one small earthen lamp which we 



found in a tomb, over which I wasted my fancy 
for hours in the evening and night, sitting in 
my room and listening to the alternate cry of 
the watchmen and the call of the muezzin at 
the hours of prayer. There was nothing pecul- 
iar about it except a monogram on the top. It 
was of the simplest form of ancient lamps, with 
a hole for the oil and a smaller one for the wick ; 
but there was on the surface a cross, on one arm 
of which was a semicircle rudely forming the 
Greek character Mho, the cross and the letter 
together signifying the Xp, the familiar abbrevi- 
ation of the name of our Lord. I know not 
how many centuries that peaceful slumberer in 
His promises had remained undisturbed ; but 
when I saw that we had broken the rest of one 
who slept in hope of the resurrection, that we 
had rudely scattered on the winds of the sea the 
ashes of one over whom in the long gone years 
had been read the sublime words, " I am the 
Resurrection and the Life," perhaps by Cyril the 
great Bishop, perhaps by Mark himself — when 
I saw those crumbling bones under my feet, and 
thought in what strong faith that right arm had 
been lifted to heaven in the hour of extremity, 
I felt that it was sacrilege to have opened his 
tomb and disturbed his rest. True, the Arabs 
would have reached him next year ; but I would 
rather it had been the Arabs than I. True, He 
who promised can find the dust though it be 
scattered on the deserts of Africa. I too have 
a more than Roman veneration for the repose of 
the dead ; and, though I felt no compunctions 
of conscience in scattering the dust of the Arabs 
who had themselves robbed the tombs of their 
predecessors to make room for themselves, yet 
I did not like the opening of that quiet place in 
which a Christian of the early days was buried. 

Who was he? Again imagination was on 
the wing. He was one of those who had heard 
the voices of the Apostles ; he was one of those 
who had seen the fierce faith of the martyrs in 
their agony ; he was one who had himself suf- 
fered unto death for the love of his Lord and 
Master. Or possibly that were too wild a fancy, 
for such a man would hardly have a tomb like 
this. If so it were, they must have buried him 
by night, with no torch, no pomp, no light save 
the dim flickering light of this funereal lamp 
guiding their footsteps down the corridors of 
this vast city of the dead ; and this they left be- 
side him — sad emblem of his painful life — the 
light of faith, pure though faint, in the darkness 
that was all around him. 

Men were sublime in faith in those days. It 
was but as yesterday to them that the footsteps 
of their Lord were on the mountain of Ascension 
— it was but as yesterday that the voice of Paul 
was heard across the sea. Perhaps those dusty 
fingers had grasped the hand that had often 
been taken lovingly in that hand which the nail 
pierced. Perhaps — perhaps — I hewed my head 
reverently as the thought Hashed across me — for 
I do reverence to the bones of the great dead, 
and though I would not worship, yet I would 
enshrine in gold and diamonds a relic of a saint 



372 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



— perhaps in some far wandering from his home 
this man had entered Jerusalem, and stood with- 
in the porch of the temple when He went by in 
all the majesty of His lowliness. You smile at 
the wild fancy. Why call it wild ? Turn but 
your head from before the doorway of the sep- 
ulchre, and you see that column at the foot of 
which Mark taught the words of his Lord ; and 
turn again to yonder obelisk, and read that the 
king who knew not Joseph, but whom Moses 
and Aaron knew, carved it in honor of his reign. 
Why, then, may not this tomb which I have open- 
ed a hundred feet below the surface of the hill, 
contain the dust of one who had traveled as far 
as the land of Judea only eighteen hundred 
3 r ears ago ; who had seen the visible presence 
of Him whom prophets and kings desired to see ; 
and who, won by the kingly countenance, the 
holy sweetness of that face, went homeward, 
bearing with him enough of memory of that face 
and voice to rejoice at the coming of " John 
whose surname was Mark," and to listen to the 
teaching of the Gospel of the Messiah ? 

It is vain to argue with imagination in a coun- 
try like this. Every thing is full of interest as 
suggesting thoughts of the past, and nothing is 
so well fixed in date and object as to forbid the 
free exercise of fancy. But for the terrible dog- 
fights under my windows in the great square, I 
believe I should have dreamed all night over that 
lamp in the same fashionlhave already described. 

We were to leave Alexandria for Cairo by 
rail. A railway in Egypt is perhaps as great a 
curiosity as the pyramids. Constructed by Eu- 
ropean engineers, and under the efficient super- 
intendence of a Scotch gentleman, it does not 
differ much from Continental or English rail- 
ways. But the appearance of things about it is 
decidedly different. The stone station-house 
and buildings are west of the Mahmoud Canal, 
near its entrance into the sea. The roads or 
streets leading to it are lined with the low mud 
huts in which the modern Egyptians live. The 
lizards, which abound here, lie on the walls and 
tops of the houses sunning themselves, and do 
not move for the crowds of men, women, and 
children passing and repassing them. A more 
miserable, squalid, abject poverty than one sees 
here can not be imagined. The inhabitants 
seem more like brutes than men, and one can 
not have toward them any of the ordinary feel- 
ings of fellow humanity. I can not believe that 
the blood and dust of which God has made them 
is the same of which he has made me, except 
when I am in the tombs, those levelers of dis- 
tinctions. The clothing of the modern Alex- 
andrians is as simple and miserable as can well 
be imagined. Children up to ten and twelve 
years of age go about the streets with either one 
single ragged, filthy cloth wound around them, 
or, as frequently, entirely naked. Groups of 
ten or a dozen play in the sunshine here and 
there, without a rag of covering from head to 
foot. The older people are scarcely more clad. 
A single long blue shirt suffices for a woman. 
It is open in front to the waist, and reaches to 



the knees. A piece of the same cloth, by wav 
of vail around the head, is the substitute for the 
elegant head-coverings of the wealthy classes. 
The upper part of the body is, of course, entirely 
exposed, and no one seems to think of covering 
the breast from sun, wind, or eyes. The face 
is usually hidden by the cloth held in the hand, 
while the entire body is exposed without the 
slightest attention to decency. Not unfrequent- 
ly, when the woman has not the extra covering 
for her head, she will seize and lift her solitary 
garment to hide her features, thereby leaving 
her person uncovered, it being in her view a 
shame only to exhibit her face. 

The men wear whatever they possess in the 
way of cloth. Doubtless one garment lasts a 
lifetime, and is ignorant of water oftener than 
once a year. Their costume is various. Some 
wear the single shirt ; others a mass of dirty 
cloth wound around the body, neck, and head ; 
others a coarse blanket made of camel's-hair, 
which they throw rather gracefully over their 
shoulders, leaving a corner to come over the 
head. The costumes vary so much that I think 
I counted over thirty entirely different and dis- 
tinct styles of dress in the square before my win- 
dows at one time. 

But on the route to the railway we passed 
mostly the lowest class of houses and people. 
The huts of mud have no outlet or inlet but the 
doorway, and they are built in masses like hon- 
ey-combs, hundreds in a mass, on the sand, 
without shade or relief from the intense glare 
of the sun. Not less than a thousand of the 
miserable inhabitants of these hovels were sur- 
rounding the railway station, though not allow- 
ed to enter its inclosures. The departure of a 
train had not yet become so common an event 
in Egypt as two years' experience would lead 
one to suppose. The railway being government 
property, is under its direction, and trains leave 
only when specially ordered. There is no reg- 
ular time of departure, but it usually occurs 
twice or three times a week, notices being post- 
ed in public places in English, Italian, and Ar- 
abic, that "a departure for Cairo will take place" 
on such a day. 

It was somewhat strange, as may well be im- 
agined, to see a train of cars, surrounded by a 
hundred guards in turbans and tarbouches, start- 
ing out of a city of mud houses, through groves 
of palms and bananas, winding its way around 
the pillar of Diocletian and off into the dismal 
waste that separates Lake Mareotis from the 
sea. The speed was at first but slow, even slow- 
er than the usual starting rate with us at home ; 
but on reaching the open country we made some 
thirty miles an hour steadily until Ave came to 
Kafr-el-aish, the present terminus of the road 
on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, eighty miles 
below Cairo. The length of railway in opera- 
tion is now only sixty miles ; but before this 
reaches America it will be extended nearly as 
far again. At the Nile we were transferred 
to the steamer in waiting for us, the first and 
second class passengers going on the steamer, 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



and the third class taking an ordinary river boat, 
which was to be towed three hundred feet astern. 

Railway-cars have not introduced carts or 
trucks into Egypt. The baggage and freight 
was transferred by hand from cars to boat, a 
distance of three or four hundred feet, heavy 
articles being carried on the backs of the fel- 
lahs, supported by ropes around their heads. I 
was much amused at one fat specimen of the 
Turk, who had a chest of money in his charge, 
which was too heavy for any one man to lift 
or carry. A truck or wheelbarrow would have 
solved the difficulty in a moment ; but in the 
absence of this they tried in vain to swing the 
box on ropes from a pole, the ropes breaking at 
each fresh attempt. Half an hour was wasted 
in their endeavors, of which I was an amused 
spectator, and which were at last successful by 
the aid of iron chains brought from the steamer. 

On board the scene was certainly novel to 
our eyes. Turks had spread their carpets on 
every available portion of the forward deck, 
and were going through their noonday prayers. 
We secured small rooms on the deck, answer- 
ing to a state-room on an American steamer, 
though furnished with only a hair-cloth cushion 
on a wooden bench, and here we could pity the 
poor wretches of third-class passengers who Avere 
broiling in the sun on the deck of the tow. 

It was impossible as yet to get up any enthu- 
siasm about the Nile. This was indeed one of 
the mouths of the great river, but only one of 
them, and it was hardly more the Nile than was 
the Mahmoud Canal in Alexandria, whose wa- 
ters are the same. Most travelers, on leaving 
the Mahmoud Canal a few miles below this point 
and entering this branch of the river, break out 
in enthusiasm at their first view of the Father 
of Rivers. I could not do so. It is now high 
Nile, and the stream is muddy and discolored, 
while it flows high up between its banks, or over 
the flat lands adjoining them. It was impossi- 
ble to admire such a mass of mud and dirt, as it 
appeared to be, and we were glad to excuse our- 
selves for our lack of excitement by saying that 
this was only a small part of the great river. 

And so all day long, until the night came 
down on us, we toiled slowly up the river against 
the strong current, and instead of reaching Cai- 
ro, as we had been assured in Alexandria we 
should, at nine in the evening, it was manifest, 
long before that time, that we should not be 
there until two or three in the morning. 

As the sun went down, the deck of the boat 
began to present a strange spectacle. One by 
one the Mussulmans went out on the little guard 
behind the wheel-house and performed their ab- 
lutions in the prescribed style, and then ascend- 
ed the wheel-houses, kitchens, state-room decks, 
and every other elevated place, and went through 
the postures and prayers. It was certainly curi- 
ous to see a row of ten or fifteen men on each 
side of the deck bowing in the strange but grace- 
ful forms of the Mohammedan worship. We 
lay and looked at them till the evening had 
passed into night, and then wrapping our shawls 



around us, slept on the deck till roused by the 
passage of the barrage. 

This, it is not necessary to explain, is the 
magnificent stone bridge intended to operate 
as a dam, which Mehemet Ali projected and his 
successors have continued to its present state, 
across the Nile, at the point of the delta where 
it separates into different mouths, the object 
being to raise the water somewhat higher and 
increase the annual inundation. The wild ap- 
pearance of the stone piers, between which we 
passed, lit by immense torches of blazing wood, 
and swarming with half-naked Arabs, whose 
swarthy countenances glared on us in the flick- 
ering light like the faces of so many fiends, 
roused us from slumber; but we relapsed in- 
stantly into deeper sleep, which remained un- 
broken until we arrived at Boulak, the port of 
the modern city, and thence we drove swiftly, 
by the light of a torch in the hands of a swift 
runner, up the long avenue and into the gate 
of the Ezbekieh, and were at last in the city 
of the Memlooks, Cairo the Victorious, Cairo 
the Magnificent, Cairo the Beautiful and the 
Blessed. 

Shall I confess it ? There were two trains of 
thought struggling for precedence in my mind 
during the first half hour after my arrival, nor 
did the one gain entire ascendency until I was 
in bed and nearly asleep, as the day was break- 
ing over the red hills. The one was full of all 
the wonderful creations that once haunted my 
boyish mind, that I have never ceased to love — 
never forgotten to recall and cherish. To this 
day, I know no more complete delight than an 
hour of the Arabian Nights; and the heroes and 
all the natural and supernatural personages of 
those exquisite imaginations were around me 
in troops the moment I was within the city of 
Saladin. With these spectres angels strove. I 
could call it nothing else. Sublime and solemn 
memories that forever linger in this spot ! of 
all the mighty men of that ancient religion, of 
which our own is but the new form, of patri- 
archs and holy men of old, of prophets and 
priests in later days, who came down with the 
scattered remnant of the line of Abraham ; and 
last of all, of the Mother of our Lord, and His 
own infant footsteps ; all these came to drive 
away the genii that were around me, and be- 
fore I slept the seal of Solomon was over them 
again. 

It is my object to give sketches of travel life. 
I shall be pardoned, therefore, if I am personal 
in my descriptions, and if I appear disposed to 
make ourselves prominent in the scenes I at- 
tempt to portray. It is my desire to have the 
reader feel with me the various emotions of the 
passing hours in various places, and hence I am 
free to say, that I intend rather to give my own 
history from day to day, than to describe scenes 
and places. Every body has read of all these a 
hundred times, and Americans are as familiar 
with the valley of the Nile as with that of the 
Mississippi. It is only in the new incidents 
of our journey that I can hope to find any 



374 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




A STKEET IN CAIRO. 



tiling sufficiently novel to interest the intelligent 
reader. 

It was two months since we left home, and 
our letters were but two weeks later than the 
date of our departure. Before seeing any thing, 
so soon as I was fairly awake in the morning, I 
mounted a donkey and rode to the banker's for 
letters. 

Through the narrow streets lined with lofty 
houses, whose latticed windows are more mi- 
nutely beautiful than the finest workmanship 
of the Parisian cabinet-maker, and which fre- 
quently interclasp each other so as to shut out 
the sky completely, threading my way among 
camels, donkeys, and Turks, at a killing pace, 
that is, killing to any thing that did not " clear 
the track" on hearing the shout of my donkey- 
boy, I found myself in a street four feet wide 
from house to house, the houses fifty and sixty 
feet high, and after going down this two hun- 
dred yards I was at my destination. The let- 



ters were there, and I sat on the donkey's back 
and read them all the way back, while the boy, 
fully appreciating my feelings, led the donkey 
by the head, and I was entirely ignorant of my 
whereabouts until I found him at the door of 
the hotel from which I started. 

The Cairene donkey-boy is of a different race 
from all other boys. He has nothing in com- 
mon with them. We have kept five in our em- 
ploy steadily since Ave have been here, and they 
are as useful as the dragoman himself. One 
of them rejoices in the name of the great 
founder of his faith, while his donkey, singu- 
larly enough, bears the cognomen of Mister 
Snooks, given him by some English or Ameri- 
can traveler. Mohammed is a bright active 
boy, talks enough English to be able to commu- 
nicate information, and is thoroughly acquainted 
with Cairo and its people. His speed of foot is 
incredible. The donkey to which he is an at- 
tachment is by no means slow, but he will take 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



375 



him by the bridle and run while the donkey 
gallops, and the lady who rides has nothing to 
do but look around her, and they go at the rate 
of five or six miles an hour, or even more, with- 
out rest for miles. 

Possibly there may be some readers of this 
article who have not made themselves so famil- 
iar with the history and locality of Cairo as 
others, and I shall therefore be permitted to 
dwell for a moment on these subjects, to make 
more intelligible the descriptions of our various 
rambles here and there. I am the more per- 
suaded of the propriety of this from the fact 
that my own impressions were incorrect in many 
instances Avhen I had supposed I was fully in- 
formed. 

The Nile, running from south to north, is di- 
vided into tw r o streams by the island of Mho- 
da, which is some three miles in length. The 
branch running to the eastward of the island is 
narrow, being not over two hundred yards Avide. 
At the south, or upper end of the island, where 
the water parts to go on either side, stands the 
palace of Hassan Pacha, one of the dignitaries 
of the country, and attached to his palace is the 
Nilometer, of w-hich I shall hereafter speak. On 
the east bank of the river, immediately opposite 
this palace, is Old Cairo, and on the west bank is 
the village of Ghizeh. Three miles down the 
river, or north from this point, that is, at the 
other extremity of the island of Rhoda, is Bou- 
lal; on the east bank of the river. Two miles 
from Boulak eastward, and, of course, at the 
same distance from the river, is the present city 
of Cairo, containing from two to three hundred 
thousand inhabitants, and surrounded by a wall, 
outside of which are no houses excepting mud 
huts, and a few elegant residences inclosed in 
gardens^ West of the river, and five miles 
from the village of Ghizeh, are the pyramids 
which bear the same name, while Sakkara and 
its pyramids are some seven miles south of 
Ghizeh, on the same side of the river. The site 
of Memphis, of course, every one understands to 
be south from the pyramids, and occupying an 
unknown space on the west bank of the Nile. 
Buck of Cairo, that is, east of the Nile and 
about four miles from it, the Mokattam Mount- 
ains — barren rock hills of five hundred feet in 
height — shut out the yew of the desert from the 
city. These hills run northeast and southwest, 
on an abrupt spur of which, some two hundred 
feet above the city and within its walls, is the 
citadel of Cairo. North of Cairo, about six 
miles distant, is Heliopolis, the ancient On. 

These explanations of locality make it suffi- 
ciently evident to every one that Cairo in itself 
possesses no interest by reason of any great an- 
tiquity. It does not stand on ground that is 
hallowed by any ancient name, story, or ruins. 
The founding of Cairo, known formerly as 
Musr-el-Kaherah, was in the year OGi), but the 
city received its greatest embellishments, and 
became most powerful and wealthy, under the 
reign of Yusef Saladin, known to all readers of 
the history of the Crusades. The buildings 



erected by him still stand firmly, and here and 
there, all over the vast extent of the city, you 
hear his name in reply to questions for the 
builder of this or that mosque or other monu- 
ment. Beyond this, the City of Victory has no 
interest to the traveler other than as the most 
Oriental of the Oriental cities, and one in which 
the Pranks have as yet made few innovations. 

Until within a very few years past the people 
have been bigoted Mussulmans, and it was with 
great difficulty that a Christian could obtain ac- 
cess to their streets or their mosques. But the 
love of money is a great civilizer, if it is the 
root of all evil, and I believe that now a dollar 
or a sovereign will open the hardest well, or 
mosque, or tomb from Omar of Jerusalem to 
old Amer of Cairo. 

We had purchases to make in the bazaars, 
and thither directed our way so soon as the la- 
dies had finished reading their letters. 

No description will suffice half so well to con- 
vey an idea of the bazaars of Cairo as the sketch 
here given, which is minutely accurate. The 
only suggestion necessary to complete the idea 
is, that the street is crowded, jammed, with pass- 
ers-by or purchasers, women with vailed faces, 
and donkeys loaded with Avater-skins, Turks, 
Bedouins, camels, dromedaries, and horses, all 
mingled together, for side-walk or pavement 
there is none, and it is therefore at the risk of 
constant pressure against the filthiest specimens 
of humanity, and constant collisions with nests 
of fleas and lice, that one passes through the 
narrow streets. The first purchase to be made 
was a silk for a lady's dress, and we went to the 
silk merchants in the wealthiest bazaar of Cairo. 
One and another showed his small stock of 
goods, but it was with difficulty that May hit 
on a dress for traveling purposes such as suited 
her. When this was found, then commenced 
the business of determining the price. The 
shop of the Turkish merchant is but a small 
cupboard. The front is invariably about the 
size of an ordinary square shop-window in 
America, say six feet wide by eight high. The 
floor of the shop is elevated two feet above the 
street, and on a carpet in the middle of the floor 
sits the merchant. His shop is so small that 
every shelf is within reach of his hands. Of 
these shops there are thousands in Cairo, and 
whatever the business the shop is of the same 
description. 

May sat on the right hand of the merchant, 
with her feet in the street over the front of the 
shop; I on his left. The silk goods lay piled 
on the carpet between us, the pieces she had se- 
lected being uppermost. The first step toward 
price was a cup of coffee and a pipe. She took 
coffee, I smoked quietly a few minutes, and the 
Turk smoked as calmly and coolly as if there 
was no silk on earth, and he was dreaming of 
heaven. For some minutes the silence was un- 
broken, and he looked at the opposite side of 
the street, and we blew a tremendous cloud of 
smoke. At length I broke the silence. 

"How much?" 



376 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




T11E BAZAAR. 



He smoked calmly a while, sent the cloud 
slowly up, and the words came from his lips as 
gently as the smoke itself. 

"Two hundred and seventy-five piastres." 

" I will give you one hundred and ninety." 

" It cost me more money than that." 

" It is not worth any more." 

"It is very beautiful. I sold one like it yes- 
terday for two hundred and eighty." 

" I will not give it." 

Five minutes of smoke and silence. May 
most decidedly impatient, and yet full of fun at 
this novel mode of buying a dress. A fresh 
pipe and a fresh start. I asked him the least he 
would take. It was two hundred and sixty. I 
laid down the pipe, sighed heavily, and walked 
away down the bazaar toward the donkey-boys. 
He followed us out and down the street, calmly 
and quietly assuring us that he was honorable 
in his statements, and offering a reduction of 
ten piastres more. I offered him two hundred 
and twenty. He exclaimed in despair and re- 
tired. 

Having made one or two other purchases, we 
returned to the charge. He had spread his pray- 
ing carpet, and was kneeling in his little shop 
engaged in his devotions. A dozen other Mus- 
sulmans were in sight, doing as he. It was the 
hour when the voice of the muezzin called to 
prayer, and though in the din and bustle of the 
crowded bazaar I had not heard it, yet on the 



ears of these sincere worshipers it had fallen 
from the minaret of Kalaoon, and they obeyed 
the summons. 

We waited till he had finished, and then re- 
sumed our seats and negotiations, which were 
finally terminated by our coming together on 
an intermediate point, and the sale being closed, 
we mounted our donkeys and rode homeward. 
This was but the first of a dozen similar nego- 
tiations, and is a fair specimen of the Cairene 
manner of doing business. 

Some one has remarked that the manners 
of modern Arabs, in common conversation, are 
such that a stranger hearing them talk will in- 
evitably believe they are quarreling. But it 
is certain that they do a great deal of quarrel- 
ing, and almost always about money. It is 
seldom, however, that these quarrels result in 
blows. It was just as we reached the hotel that 
an Arab, enveloped in an enormous amount of 
blankets, rode up on a donkey, followed by a 
man, the proprietor of the animal ; and as they 
came in front of us, the donkey, whose gallop 
was more swift than safe, stumbled and threw 
his rider ten feet over his head, while he him- 
self actually turned a complete somerset, his 
head being pointed in the direction from which 
he had come, and his tail close to the unlucky 
rider. Then came the war of words. Never 
was such a storm heard out of Egypt. They 
seized each other by the garments, they shook, 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



377 



they gesticulated, they shouted, they fairly howl- 
ed, while the poor donkey picked himself up, 
and stood facing them, wondering, doubtless, at 
the donkeys men could be. All this fury was 
about the sum of twenty paras — not far from two 
cents — which was the stipulated hire of the an- 
imal, and which the rider refused to pay because 
the donkey had thrown him, although he frank- 
ly admitted that he was landed at the very spot 
to which he had contracted for the conveyance. 
We left them quarreling, and being joined now 
by the remainder of our party, we started out 
for a ride in the last rays of the sunlight. In 
a few minutes we were outside of the gate on 
the north of the city, and thence rode to one of 
the numerous hills of sand and broken pottery, 
and other rubbish, the accumulation of centu- 
ries, which abound around the walls and over- 
top them. From this we had a fine view of the 
western horizon, the yellow plain of the Great 
Desert, broken only by the great pyramids that 
stood majestically in the foreground, and be- 
hind which the sun went down with all the 
pomp and magnificence that could and should 
attend a sunset over the site of Memphis. 

"We watched its slow descent ; and as it van- 
ished, the ever-ready, never-sleeping watchman 
called, from the lofty minaret of a mosque, the 
words of the Mohammedan creed, and from the 
four hundred mosques of Cairo came, chanted 
on the air, the same call, thrillingly sweet, and 
reaching our hearts, as it has often before done, 
with untold power. 

We rode rapidly homeward, dashing into the 
city at a swift gallop. As we came around the 
corner of the square, I caught sight of one of 
the assemblies of dervises surrounding a pole, 
and commencing their devotional service of 
dancing and singing. We paused to see them, 
and sat on our donkeys outside of the ring, in 
which some fifty men, dressed in various cos- 
tumes, were swinging their heads and bodies 
from side to side, and giving utterance, at each 
jerk, to a hoarse, guttural exclamation. This 
movement became very rapid. Not infrequent- 
ly one of them would cry out "Allah!" in a 
voice of thunder. They then formed two rings, 
those in the inner facing those in the outer, and 
swinging toward each other, they shouted the 
same strange sound at each swing. Their faces 
became convulsed ; they foamed at the mouth, 
they screamed, tossed their hair, embraced each 
other, and called on God witli the same hoarse 
cry. We were deeply impressed with the scene. 
We had gone as closely up to the outside of 
the ring as we could ride, and the crowd of 
spectators had made way for us, so that Ave were 
directly behind the outer ring, and our donkeys' 
heads were close to the performers, when sud- 
denly — imagine our horror ! — May's donkey, be- 
ing evidently taken with the scene and affected 
by it, elevated his head and nose between the 
heads of two of the dervises — one an old man 
with flowing gray hair and beard, the other a 
young man with long dark locks, and gave ut- 
terance to such a cry as none but an Egyptian 



donkey can imitate. It was like the blast of a 
hundred cracked trumpets or fish-horns. Never 
was man so frightened as were the two dervises. 
They nearly fell into the ring with terror. Mo- 
hammed, tlie boy, in an agony of despair, sprang 
to his donkey's head and seized his jaws with 
both hands. Vain endeavor ! He but interrupt- 
ed the terrific sound, and made it ten-fold worse 
as it escaped from, second to second, and at 
length he gave it up and fell to the ground. It 
was too much for Mussulman gravity. They 
looked at us furiously at first, but the next in- 
stant a universal scream of laughter broke from 
the surrounding crowd, and we rode off in the 
midst of it. It was the first time I have seen 
Mussulman gravity disturbed. It was unusual, 
and I am convinced that a growing feeling of 
contempt for superstition may be found among 
the Mohammedans of Cairo. The dervises have 
usually commanded the respect of the worship- 
ers of the Prophet ; but I have conversed with 
intelligent men of the creed of the Prophet, who 
say that they think there is much of what we 
call humbug about the dervises, and that they 
prefer to judge of the sincerity of each man sep- 
arately. 

We attended the worship of the dervises on 
Friday — that is the Mahommedan day for our 
Sunday — when the mosques are crowded. Leav- 
ing the hotel at an early hour in the morning, 
provided with lunch in case of necessity, we went 
first to Old Cairo and visited the Mosque of 
Amer, which is the most ancient of the build- 
ings of the modern Egyptians. It was erected 
about a.d. 860, and there is a tradition con- 
nected] with it, and firmly relied on by the 
Moslems, that when it falls the Crescent will 
wane. If it be true, the fall of the Moslems can 
not be far distant. Already the great walls have 
fallen in, and lie in crumbling heaps within the 
sacred inclosure ; and splendid columns and gor- 
geous capitals are here and there in the sand 
and dust, miserable emblems of the fading glory 
of the power that has so long controlled the 
East. Near the entrance are two marble col- 
umns of somewhat amusing history. They stand 
close together on the same pedestal, and in for- 
mer times, when the mosque Avas in its glory, 
these two pillars Avere the shibboleth of the 
faith. If a man could pass between them he 
might hope to pass the gates of Paradise. If 
he Avere too great in body — if the good things 
of the world had so increased his rotundity that 
he might not squeeze his mortal parts through 
the narroAV passage — then it was A'ery certain 
that his immortal soul could never hope to see 
the houries. Alas ! for the decay of the mosque 
and the trembling of the old faith. There Avas 
no one of us that could not readily pass betAveen 
the pillars, though they stand as firmly as ever, 
and do not seem worn by the myriads who have 
tried themselves here. I did stick at first. I 
confess that the flesh-pots of Egypt have added 
to my usually respectable size so much that my 
vest buttons caught on the inner post, and for a 
moment I thought my anti-Mohammedanism 



378 



HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




ir 7-r»^:/3/' 



THE FEEEY AT OLD CAIEO. 



settled. But doubtless these later years of Frank 
innovations have tended to relax the strictness 
of the faith, for I went through without diffi- 
culty after one vigorous attempt, and the oth- 
ers followed me. 

The service, if I may so call it — the Zikr — 
at the dervish mosque was to commence at one 
o'clock. We had an hour before us, and so we 
took a boat at the ferry from Old Cairo to Ghi- 
zeh, and went over to the island of Rhoda to see 
the Nilometer. 

It is on the upper end of the island, adjoin- 
ing the palace of Hassan Pacha, and close to 
the round building which is prominent in the 
view herewith given. We did not see it. Rea- 
son — the Nile is now high, the meter or well in 
which the column stands is full. We saw three 
inches or so of the top, nothing more. 

But we saw the Nile, the great river, and our 
enthusiasm was now at the fullest. We stood 
on the marble portico of the palace facing up 
the stream, which is divided here, and saw the 
lordly river come down in all its majesty, and 
roll its waves to either side of us and away to 
the great sea. Here it was the Nile. No 
dream, no half river, no small stream of dash- 
ing water, but that great river of which we had 
read, thought, and dreamed ; the river on which 
princes in long-forgotten years had floated pal- 
aces and temples from far up, down to their 
present abode ; the river which Abraham saw, 
and over which Moses stretched out his arm in 
vengeance, where the golden barge of Cleopa- 
tra swept with perfumed breezes, and when, but 
a few years later, she was dead and her mag- 



nificence gone, the feeble footsteps of the Son 
of God, in infancy on earth, hallowed the banks 
that the idolatry of thousands of years had 
cursed ; the river of which Homer sang, and 
Isaiah prophesied, and in whose dark waters 
fell the tears of the weeping Jeremiah ; the 
river of which all poets wrote, all philosophers 
taught, all learning, all science, all art spoke for 
centuries. The waters at our feet, murmuring, 
dashing, brawling against the foundation of the 
palace, had come by the stately front of Abou 
Simbel, had loitered before the ruins of Philae, 
had dashed over the cataracts and danced in 
the starlight by Luxor and Karnak. From 
what remote glens of Africa, from what Ethio- 
pian plains they rose, we did not now pause to 
think, but having looked long and earnestly up 
the broad reach of the river, we turned into the 
palace, and after pipes and coffee, the universal 
gift of hospitality here, we returned to our boat, 
and drifted slowly down the river by the spot 
where tradition says that Moses was hid in the 
rushes, and near the grotto that sheltered Mary 
and Joseph, to the village of the clervises that 
stands on the bank, about midway from Old 
Cairo to Boulak. 

Imagine us seated in the court-yard of the col- 
lege, on mats spread on the ground, green trees 
over us, and a group of fifty wild-looking men 
with long hair and beards surrounding us, and 
looking curiously at our costumes. Coffee came 
here too, for we were too early for the Zikr; 
and the tiny cups are never unwelcome. When 
the hour of commencing worship arrived, we 
entered the mosque and took our seats on the 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



379 



matting at the western side. About eighty men 
stood in a semicircle, with their faces to the 
southeast, the centre of the circle being the 
arched niche which is always left in a mosque 
on the side toward Mecca, by way of guiding 
the prayers of the faithful in that direction. 
Musical instruments hung on the wall, and 
some of the worshipers used them, taking down 
one and putting up another from time to time, 
The service was simply swinging backward and 
forward in time with the leader, a noble-looking 
man, who walked around the inner side of the 
circle, and uttering at each swing a violent 
groan, or rather a deep, strong sob. For half 
an hour this motion was steady. Then it be- 
came more rapid. They swung the body for- 
ward, leaning down until their hair swept the 
floor in front, and threw themselves backwarcf 
with a sudden, swift bend until it again touch- 
ed the floor behind them. The velocity of this 
motion may be guessed at from the fact, that 
for the space of more than an hour the hair 
never rested or fell on the head, but continu- 
ally described a larger circle than the head in 
this motion. 




THE AVHIEEING PEEVISE. 



In the mean time a man dressed in a long 
white hooped dress, tight at the waist and some 
twenty feet in circumference at the bottom of 
the skirt, slid into the centre of the half cir- 
cle and commenced a slow revolution, appa- 
rently as gentle and easy as if he stood on a 
wheel turned by machinery. After a minute, 
during which lie swung out his skirts and start- 
ed fairly, his speed increased. His hands were 
at first on his breast, then one on each side of his 
head, and when the full speed was attained they 
were stretched out horizontally, the right hand 
on his right side, with the palm turned up and 
the left hand on its side, with the palm down. 
For twenty-four minutes, without pause, rest, or 
change of speed, he continued to whirl around 
like a top. The velocity was exactly fifty-five 
revolutions to the minute. I timed it frequent- 
ly, and was astonished at the regularity. This 
was not a long performance. It is oftentimes 



an hour, or even two or three hours, in duration. 
After this man retired another took his place, 
and all the time the excitement in the outer 
circle was increasing. Some shouted, some 
howled out the name of God. " Allah ! Al- 
lah I" rang in the dome of the mosque from 
eighty voices ; and now all the musical instru- 
ments, including a dozen large and small drums, 
added to the terrible noise. Suddenly the no- 
ble-looking man, the leader of the revel, turned 
and faced the city of the Prophet, and instant- 
ly all was silent. Some fell on the pavement 
in convulsions, others stood trembling from 
head to foot, evidently past all self-control, while 
others pounded their heads on the stones and 
gnashed their teeth. Those who were in fits — 
for it was nothing else — of epilepsy were taken 
care of by attendants, who also advanced to 
those who were still standing, and, placing their 
arms around them, bent them gently down to 
their knees, and left them so. It was a scene 
not a little touching, after the terrible confusion, 
to see those silent frames bowed down before 
their God in the dim mosque ; and we came 
away and left them there. 

I asked a very intelligent Mussulman what 
he thought of it all. He put his hand up to his 
chin, and looked soberly at me. In spite of 
himself his finger slipped up to the side of his 
nose in a most American fashion, and he said 
nothing. 

It is vain to resist the impression, which is 
here gathering strength every day, that the days 
of the Moslem power are nearly numbered. It 
can not be long before the Crescent will wane. 
Of the thousands who now surround us, but a 
few show even outward respect to the forms of 
the faith of the Prophet, and very few of these 
pursue the routine prescribed to all true be- 
lievers. I think not one in five of the inhabit- 
ants of Cairo obey the call to prayer. Infidelity 
prevails now. Another faith must soon follow. 

One of the pleasantest incidents of life in 
Cairo has been the meeting with our friend Dr. 
Abbott, whose name is so familiar to American 
readers. He has been resident here for nearly 
thirty years as a physician, has devoted his life 
to the study of the climate, and diseases which 
are here met with, while his leisure hours have 
been given to forming the collection of Egyp- 
tian antiquities now in New York, which is 
scarcely, if indeed at all, inferior to any in the 
world. That in the British Museum possesses 
many large objects and splendid specimens, but 
as illustrating the manners and customs, lives 
and deaths of the men and women of the times 
of the Pharaohs, the collection of Dr. Abbott is 
said to be superior to those in Europe. 

In fact, one may be in Egypt for years and 
not see so much of ancient Egypt as in an hour 
in the New York rooms. And this, not because 
it is not here, not because there are not under 
these mounds treasures of unknown value, but 
because here we see the temples and pyra- 
mids that defy time, but the desert sand covers 
every thing else. Here was Memphis. Here 



380 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



is Memphis, but far below the surface of the 
shifting soil, and you must work and dig, and 
keep out the sand-storm while you dig, and if 
you open one tomb, after a week's labor you will 
have found an empty sarcophagus, robbed by the 
Arabs of centuries ago. None can appreciate 
how invaluable such a collection becomes ex- 
cept by standing on the pyramid and looking 
toward Sakkara over the wastes of sand that 
hide the glories of Memphis. Out of this des- 
olation have been brought the memorials of old 
life, of mornings when the sun rose on the homes 
of millions around the pyramids, when young 
men and maidens, who have been dust three 
thousand years, walked, and talked, and sang, 
and danced ; when they braided their locks with 
pearls for the evening revel, or when others 
braided them or laid their heads down calmly 
on the lotus leaves for long slumber. It is some- 
what strange that I, in Egypt, should write to 
tell Americans that they may see more of an- 
cient Egypt than I do here, but it is even so. 
I hope there is no danger of the removal of the 
collection from New York, but I hear of great 
prices offered in England for single articles from 
it, and but for his love for the complete collec- 
tion, and his desire to preserve its unity, Dr. 
Abbott would long ago have deprived it of its 
finest specimens, and placed them among the 
great collections of Europe. 

We stood together on the hill of which I have 
spoken on the north of the city. This has be- 
come a favorite place with us. The sun was dis- 
appearing. A cool north wind was blowing fresh- 
ly. The donkeys stood facing it, their sharp ears 
erect. The boys lay on the sand chattering in 
Arabic to each other. The dragoman, in full 
and flowing dress, a short distance in the rear, 
stood in that attitude of grace that no one but 
an Oriental can hope to attain to. We four, 
the only Americans in all the land of Egypt 
who do not call this their home, stood close to- 
gether, watching the sun go down the western 
sky. It was high noon at home. New York 
was bustling, shouting, noisy New York ; and in 
our homes — how much we would have given to 
know of them at that instant — who could tell 
us of the beloved ones there ? The moon came 
out from the sky, silver as never moon was sil- 
ver to our eyes before. The muezzin calls had 
ceased, and the faithful had ceased to pray. 
As the night deepened object after object disap- 
peared, and only Cairo the Blessed was before 
us, shining in the soft light, but away on the ho- 
rizon, standing on the Libyan desert edge, calm, 
silent, solemn, and awful, we still saw the ma- 
jesty of the pyramids. 

CHARLES DICKENS. 

THIS is the Charles Dickens of to-day. The 
famous youth with the flowing curls, quick 
eye, and mobile mouth, whom we feted so fond- 
ly some fifteen years ago, and abused so soundly 
a few months after, is gone. In his stead we 
have the sober and matured man, whom we 
must acknowledge as a benefactor and revere 



as a teacher. Time and thought have thinned 
the redundant locks, developed the full temples, 
marked the brow, given strength to the lines of 
the mouth and a firmer set to the figure, with- 
out taking away, or scarcely diminishing, the 
old picturesqueness in aspect and costume. The 
Dickens of Maelise's well-known picture, which 
has seemed to us the only possible "Boz," is 
the author of "Pickwick," " Oliver Twist," and 
"Nicholas Nickleby." This is the Dickens of 
"Dombey," and "Bleak House," and "House- 
hold Words." 

The career of Dickens has been one of uni- 
form success. He was never " cradled into po- 
esy by wrong." The lessons of endurance which 
he teaches were never learned in the school of 
adversity. He has never been forced to lay the 
cherished children of his brain at the door of an 
unwilling publisher or an unsympathizing pub- 
lic. Only once during his literary life has he 
known the alternations from hope and doubt 
and fear to certainty, so familiar to all young 
writers, as they eagerly peruse the contents of 
the periodical to which they have timidly offer- 
ed the offspring of their thoughts. This was 
when he paced up and down Westminster Hall, 
"with eyes so dimmed with joy and pride that 
they could not bear the light street," clasping 
to his bosom the Magazine which contained 
that first effusion " dropped stealthily one even- 
ing at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a 
dark letter-box up a dark court." If he has 
escaped many of the bitterest sorrows, he has 
missed some of the most exquisite pleasures of 
an author's life. This was a score of years ago. 
To write his subsequent biography is to speak 
of labor worthily done, and abundantly reward- 
ed ; of a life happy at home and honored abroad; 
of a name familiar in men's mouths as house- 
hold words. The literary life of Scott alone 
offers a parallel — may the gods avert the omen 
of a like disastrous close. 

Dickens was born forty-four years ago, this 
month of February, at Portsmouth. His father, 
who had held a clerkship in the navy pay de- 
partment during the war, retired from his office, 
with a pension, when peace was concluded. 
Betaking himself to London, he became a re- 
porter for the newspaper press. His son fell 
naturally into the same profession, and thus 
escaped the cramping necessity of depending 
for subsistence upon his first purely literary 
labors. 

Hawthorne, in one of his most characteristic 
papers, makes the poor lunatie "P." narrate 
events, not as they are, but as they might have 
been. 

" I had expectations," he writes, " from a 
young man — one Dickens — who published a few 
magazine articles very rich in humor, and not 
without symptoms of genuine pathos; but the 
poor fellow died shortly after commencing an 
odd series of sketches entitled the 'Pickwick 
Papers.' Not impossibly the world has lost 
more than it dreams of in the untimely death 
of Mr. Dickens." 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



381 




CIIAEI.ns DI0KEN8. 



Wo can not, indeed, well estimate what we 
should have lost by the untimely death of this 
Mr. Dickens. We should have been the poorer 
by all the happy hours we have spent in the 
company of Mr. Pickwick and his admiring 
friends; in listening to the sayings of Samuel 
Weller, the eloquence of Sergeant J'uzfuz, and 
the solemn wisdom of Captain Bnnsby. Many 
a grave man has assisted, with more gratification 
than he would care to own, at the performances 
Vol. XII.— No. GO.— 15 ■ 



of Mr. Crummies and the Infant Phenomenon : 
has thought Dick Swivcller a charming com- 
panion ; inhaled with gusto the odors of the 
fragrant punches compounded by the blighted 
being Wilkina Micawber; and while listening to 
Sain Gamp, has come almost to believe in Mr . 
Harris. And surely the most law-abiding cit- 
izen would never have called the police to pnt 
a stop to the ducking of the Shepherd, the 
pommeling of Squccrs, the cudgeling of Peck- 



582 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



sniff, or the divers personal assaults committed 
upon Uriah Heep. 

With what a crowd of living and moving 
characters has Dickens peopled our literature. 
What children were ever like his children ? 
How varied, yet how true are they all ! The 
pauper children in Oliver Twist have dimmed 
many an eye with tears. Poor Smike is more 
terribly tragic, for he lived longer. Little Nell 
is a heart-child to thousands. Paul Dombey, 
the quaint, the loving, with his early doom writ- 
ten upon his brow, has passed away from many 
a hearth. Joe All-Alones, alas, moves on to 
death through more streets than those of Lon- 
don. We can understand the subtle affinities 
of affection that caused him to assume as his 
nom de plume that of "Boz" — an abbreviation of 
"Bozes," which is itself a nasal mispronuncia- 
tion of "Moses" — a nickname bestowed upon a 
pet brother, in honor of the ever-youthful pur- 
chaser of the shagreen spectacles. 

Wonderful is the art with which Dickens 
paints characters that in the hands of an author 
of coarser nature would be simply ridiculous. 
He contrives to inspire not merely love, but 
positive respect, for Newman Noggs and Toots. 
They scarcely speak a word or do an act with- 
out exciting laughter, but they are never made 
contemptible. Of a higher order are Tom 
Pinch, Betsey Trotwood, Mr. Peggotty, and 
Ham. Their very oddities and deficiencies are 
turned into a crown of glory. 

Mr. Dickens often attempts, but never with 
complete success, the sneering melodramatic 
scoundrel, acting upon deep internal motives. 
Monck, Quilp, the Blind Man in Barnaby Rudge, 
Murdstone, and Carker are examples of this. 
So too his tragedy-women, Rose Dartle and the 
Frenchwoman in Bleak House, are not half so 
fearful as the author would have liked them to 
be. James Steerforth belongs to a different 
class. The brilliant, high-spirited, spoiled, ru- 
ined youth, in whom lay wrapped up so many 
glorious possibilities, is sketched with a light 
but masterly hand. We look at him through 
the eyes of his boyish friend, who mourns over 
his fate as the benignant Raphael might have 
bent over the crystal battlements, grieving for 
the fate of Belial, "fairest of the spirits that 
fell." Mr. Dickens's strong point is certainly 
not the construction of a plot or the evolution 
of a catastrophe. But the death of Ham and 
Steerforth — the injured dying in the vain at- 
tempt to save the injurer, on the very spot 
where the wrong was perpetrated, will compare 
with the disappearance of the Heir of Ravens- 
wood among the treacherous quicksands. We 
feel that they ought to have met once more ; 
and that the wrong was one that the strong, 
simple-minded man could neither forgive nor 
avenge. 

Mr. Dickens's genuine villains are of the low, 
creeping sort, whose sole motive is material, 
palpable self-interest. Yet what a variety in 
the species of this genus. Compare and con- 
trast Ralph Nickleby and Fagin, Squeers and 



Creakle, Stiggins and Chadband, Sampson Brass 
and Uriah Heep, Snawley and Pecksniff. Mr. 
Pecksniff is certainly the master-piece of them 
all. From first to last he is Pecksniff. From 
boot to hat he is Pecksniff. Drunk or sober 
he is Pecksniff. He is the virtuous Pecksniff 
always. What is most wonderful of all, he is 
perfectly persuaded of his own exceeding vir- 
tue. He contemplates his portrait by Spiller 
and his bust by Spoker with the loftiest moral 
approbation. He hugs himself to his own heart 
as the embodiment of all the virtues of the Dec- 
alogue and the Beatitudes. No matter into 
what rascality he may be plunging, no matter 
how thoroughly he may be detected and ex- 
posed, his serene self-conscious virtue never for- 
sakes him. 

The name brings up the person always. It 
needs no more than this, and the child-wife 
passes before us to the spirit-land ; the holy 
eyes of Agnes shed soft love and trust; the 
calm sad face of Florence looks timidly in upon 
us ; Mrs. Jellyby sends us a circular about Bor- 
rioboola Gha, suggesting a subscription for that 
interesting mission ; Mr. Turveydrop displays 
his most elaborate bow to Ada and Esther, 
while Caddy, with Peepy clinging to her skirts, 
bids good-by to Prince, who rushes out to give 
a lesson, with the crumbs of his hasty lunch 
clinging to the corners of his mouth; Pegotty 
passes us by in his long journeyings ; Uriah 
Heep clasps our hand with his clammy fingers ; 
or Mr. Micawber, who has passed the evening 
jollily with us, sends a letter, telling us that no- 
thing has turned up, and hinting darkly at razors 
or laudanum. 

This sharp individualization is not confined 
to leading characters. Many that we meet but 
once we should recognize any where. Once 
seen they can never be mistaken. Mrs. Jeffer- 
son Brick sat opposite us at dinner. General 
Fladdock called to propose a series of papers, 
showing up the English aristocracy, " with whom 
I lived while I was abroad," said he. This very 
day, dining at a restaurant's, we were served by 
the identical waiter who drank up David Cop- 
perfield's ale, devoured his chops, and ate his 
pudding on a race. 

Of the charming Christmas Tales who shall 
write after Thackeray, who acknowledges that 
his own spectacled eyes were dimmed with tears 
for the imagined death of Tiny Tim, and who 
sung a song of triumph when he found that, 
after all. Bob Cratchit's child did not really 
die ? We owe Mr. Dickens a debt of gratitude 
for sparing his life, contrary to his usual habit. 
We know that those whom the gods love die 
young; but we can not help feeling that the 
killed and missing of his children bear a fright- 
ful proportion to the whole number. 

Humor, pathos, and sound manliness of 
thought and feeling are the prominent charac- 
teristics of Mr. Dickens's genius. But there is 
a broad line of distinction between him and the 
humorists of the preceding century. We are 
disgusted with the coarseness of Rabelais, while 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



383 



we laugh at his humor. We lock up Congreve 
from our wife and daughters. We hide some 
volumes of Swift from our sons. You would 
not like to have your darling Matilda own to a 
familiar acquaintance with Fielding. You never 
introduce to her Tom Jones or Captain Booth. 
But you have no such scruples with regard to 
Dickens. She has Copperneld and Domhey 
and Bleak House, with "From a friend," fol- 
lowed by your initials, on the fly-leaf; and you 
have promised that she shall in like manner 
have Little Dorrit. Yet he has gone deeply 
into low life. He conducts us through dens of 
infamy and haunts of vice into which the older 
humorists would scarcely dare to set their foot; 
but no foul odor clings to his garment or ours 
a3 Ave emerge from those noisome dens. Though 
he has written so largely of low life, of vulgar 
life, of outcast life, there is not a volume we 
would hide from mother or sister or daughter; 
not a page which Ave should blush to hear read 
by a Avoman. 

The personality of a living Avriter, Avho does 
not choose to publish his autobiography, is hard- 
ly a matter for public comment. Hoav Mr. 
Dickens looks and dresses, the portrait sIioavs. 
How indefatigably he works his writings attest. 
For the rest, it is enough to say that he married 
early a buxom Englislnvoman, and has noAv a 
houseful of stout English boys and girls ; that 
— as he can Avell afford — he lives well, eats Avell, 
drinks Avell, and probably sleeps Avell ; that he 
talks well, acts well, and speaks Avell ; that he 
is an early riser, and a stout pedestrian, good at 
any time for a ten miles' walk. In a Avord, that 
he touches life at as many points as most men ; 
and as fortune has smiled upon him, that he has 
a constitution, bodily and mental, which enables 
him to enjoy her favors. 

He has not, of course, escaped the attacks of 
sneercrs and backbiters. Whispers have reach- 
ed us across the Atlantic that he is a fop, a 
spendthrift, a bankrupt. Once or tAvice, if gos- 
sip is to be credited, he has been shut up in a 
mad-house. All else failing, Ave have been as- 
sured that he could not last — that he had Avrit- 
ten himself out — that each new work Avould cer- 
tainly be a failure. But somehoAv, the public 
A-erdict has failed to confirm these amiable pre- 
dictions. 

Certainly the opening chapters of Little Dor- 
rit afford no confirmation to these ill-omened 
prophecies. The prison scene at Marseilles 
shows no trace of aA\orn-out imagination. The 
hand has lost none of its former cunning, that 
drew and contrasted the gay Italian and the 
sombre Gaul ; the cheery Mcagles and the 
world-wearied Arthur ; the bright Bet and her 
passionate attendant ; the inflexible Mrs. Clen- 
nam and the irresolute Father of the Marshal- 
sea. Little Dorrit — the Child of the Frison — 
gives promise of proving a new creation, worthy 
of the matured powers of the author. Our read- 
ers can hardly look forward with other than 
pleasant anticipations to the eighteen months 
of intimacy Avith her. 




BY CHARLES DICKENS. 

CHAPTER V.— FAMILY AFFAIRS. 
A S the city clock struck nine on Monday morn- 
-£-*- ing, Mrs. Clennam Avas AA'heeled by Jere- 
miah Flintwinch of tile cut-doAvn aspect, to her 
tall cabinet. When she had unlocked and open- 
ed it, and had settled herself at its desk, Jere- 
miah AvithdreAv — as it might be, to hang him- 
self more effectually — and her son appeared. 

"Are you any better this morning, mother?" 

She shook her head, with the same austere 
air of luxuriousness that she had shoAvn over- 
night AAdien speaking of the Aveather. "I shall 
never be better any more. It is Avell for me, 
Arthur, that I knoAv it and can bear it." 

Sitting with her hands laid separately upon 
the desk, and the tall cabinet toAvering before 
her, she looked as if she Avere performing on a 
dumb church-organ. Her son thought so (it 
Avas an old thought with him), Avhile he took 
his seat beside it. 

She opened a draAver or two, looked over 
some business papers, and put them back again. 
Her severe face had no thread of relaxation in 
it, by which any explorer could have been guid- 
ed to the gloomy labyrinth of her thoughts. 

"Shall I speak of our affairs, mother? Arc 
you inclined to enter upon business?" 

"Am I inclined, Arthur? Bather, arc you? 
Your father has been dead a year and more. 
I have been at your disposal, and waiting your 
pleasure, ever since." 

"There Avas much to arrange before I could 
leave ; and Avhcn I did leave, I traveled a little 
for rest and relief." 

She turned her face toward him, as not haA'- 
ing heard or understood his last Avords. 

" For rest and relief." 

She glanced round the sombre room, and ap- 
peared from the motion of her lips to repeat the 
words to herself, as calling it to Avitness Iioav lit- 
tle of either it afforded her. 

'• Besides, mother, you being sole executrix, 
and having the direction and management of 
the estate, there remained little business, or I 
might say none, that I could transact, until you 
had had lime to arrange matters to your satis- 
faction." 



384 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



"The accounts are made out," she returned ; 

"I have them here. The vouchers have all 

been examined and passed. You can inspect 

them when you like, Arthur; now, if you please." 

" It is quite enough, mother, to know that the 

business is completed. Shall I proceed then ?" 

"Why not?" she said, in her frozen way. 

"Mother, our House has done less and less 

for some years past, and our dealings have been 

progressively on the decline. We have never 

shown much confidence, or invited much ; we 

have attached no people to us ; the track we 

have kept is not the track of the time ; and we 

have been left far behind. I need not dwell on 

this to you, mother. You know it necessarily." 

"I know what you mean," she answered, in 

a qualified tone. 

"Even this old house in which we speak," 
pursued her son, " is an instance of what I say. 
In my father's earlier time, and in his uncle's 
time before him, it was a place of business — 
really a place of business,* and business resort. 
Now, it is a mere anomaly and incongruity here, 
out of date and out of purpose. All our con- 
signments have long been made to Rovinghams' 
the commission-merchants ; and although, as a 
check upon them, and in the stewardship of my 
father's resources, your judgment and Avatchful- 
ness have been actively exerted, still those qual- 
ities would have influenced my father's fortunes 
equally if you had lived in any private dwell- 
ing : would they not ?" 

"Do you consider," she returned, without an- 
swering his question, "that a house serves no 
purpose, Arthur, in sheltering your infirm and 
afflicted — justly infirm and righteously afflicted 
— mother?" 

"I was speaking only of business purposes." 
"With what object?" 
"I am coming to it." 

"I foresee," she returned, fixing her eyes 
upon him, "what it is. But the Lord forbid 
that I should repine under any visitation ! In 
my sinfulness I merit bitter disappointment, and 
I accept it." 

" Mother, I grieve to hear you speak like this, 
though I have had my apprehensions that you 
would—" 

' ' You knew I would. You knew me" she in- 
terrupted. 

Her son paused for a moment. He had struck 
fire out of her, and was surprised. "Well!" 
she said, relapsing into stone. "Go on. Let 
me hear." 

"You have anticipated, mother, that I de- 
cide, for my part, to abandon the business. I 
have done with it. I will not take upon myself 
to advise you ; you will continue it, I see. If I 
had any influence with you, I would simply use 
it to soften your judgment of me in causing you 
this disappointment : to represent to you that I 
have lived the half of a long term of life, and 
liave never before set my own will against yours. 
I can not say that I have been able to conform 
myself, in heart and spirit, to your rules ; I can 



not say that I believe my forty years have been 
profitable or pleasant to myself, or any one ; but 
I have habitually submitted, and I only ask you 
to remember it." 

Woe to the suppliant, if such a one there were 
or ever had been, who had any concession to 
look for in the inexorable face at the cabinet. 
Woe to the defaulter whose appeal lay to the 
tribunal where those severe eyes presided. Great 
need had the rigid woman of her mystical re- 
ligion, vailed in gloom and darkness, with light- 
nings of cursing, vengeance, and destruction, 
flashing through the sable clouds. "Forgive us 
our debts as we forgive our debtors," was a 
prayer too poor in spirit for her. Smite thou 
my debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them ; do 
Thou as I would do, and thou shalt have my 
worship : this was the impious tower of stone 
she built up to scale Heaven. 

" Have you finished, Arthur, or have you any 
thing more to say to me ? I think there can be 
nothing else. You have been short, but full of 
matter ?" 

"Mother, I have yet something more to say. 
It has been upon my mind, night and day, this 
long time. It is far more difficult to say than 
what I have said. That concerned myself; this 
concerns us all." 

"Us all! who are us all?" 
"Yourself, myself, my dead father." 
She took her hands from the desk; folded 
them in her lap ; and sat looking toward the fire, 
with the impenetrability of an old Egyptian sculp- 
ture. 

"You knew my father infinitely better than I 
ever knew him ; and his reserve with me yield- 
ed to you. You were much the stronger, moth- 
er, and directed him. As a child, I kneAV it as 
well as I know it now. I knew that your ascend- 
ency over him was the cause of his going to 
China to take care of the business there, while 
you took care of it here (though I do not even 
now know whether these were really terms of 
separation that you agreed upon); and that it 
was your will that I should remain with you un- 
til I was twenty, and then go to him as I did. 
You will not be offended by my recalling this, 
after twenty years ?" 

" I am waiting to hear why you recall it." 
He lowered his voice, and said, with manifest 
reluctance, and against his will : 

"I want to ask you, mother, whether it ever 
occurred to you to suspect — " 

At the word Suspect she turned her eyes mo- 
mentarily upon her son with a dark frown. She 
then suffered them to seek the fire as before ; 
but with the frown fixed above them, as if the 
sculptor of old Egypt had indented it in the hard 
granite face to frown for ages. 

" — that he had any secret remembrance 
which caused him trouble of mind — remorse? 
Whether you ever observed any thing in his 
conduct suggesting that, or ever spoke to him 
upon it, or ever heard him hint at such a thing ?" 
"I do not understand what kind ©f secret re- 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



385 



membrance you mean to infer that your father 
was a prey to," she returned, after a silence. 
"You speak so mysteriously." 

"Is it possible, mother" — her son leaned for- 
ward to be the nearer to her while he whispered 
it, and laid his hand nervously upon her desk — 
" is it possible, mother, that he had unhappily 
wronged any one, and made no reparation ?" 

Looking at him wrathfully, she bent herself 
back in her chair to keep him further off, but 
gave him no reply. 

"I am deeply sensible, mother, that if this 
thought has never at any time flashed upon you, 
it must seem cruel and unnatural in me, even in 
this confidence, to breathe it. But I can not 
shake it off. Time and change (I have tried 
both before breaking silence), do nothing to wear 
it out. Remember, I was with my father. Re- 
member, I saw his face when he gave the watch 
into my keeping, and struggled to express that he 
sent it as a token you would understand, to you. 
Remember, I saw him at the last with the pen- 
cil in his failing hand, trving to write some word 
for you to read, but to which he could give no 
shape. The more remote and cruel this vague 
suspicion that I have, the stronger the circum- 
stances that could give it any semblance of prob- 
ability to me. For Heaven's sake let us examine 
sacredly whether there is any wrong intrusted 
to us to set right. No one can help toward it, 
mother, but you." 

Still so recoiling in her chair that her over- 
poised weight moved it, from time to time, a 
little on its wheels, and gave her the appearance 
of a phantom of fierce aspect gliding away from 
him, she interposed her left arm, bent at the el- 
bow with the back of her hand toward her face, 
between herself and him, and looked at him in 
a fixed silence. 

"In grasping at money and in driving hard 
bargains — I have begun, and I must speak of 
such things now, mother — some one may have 
been grievously deceived, injured, ruined. You 
were the moving power of all this machinery be- 
fore my birth ; your stronger spirit has been in- 
fused into all my father's dealings, for more 
than twoscore years. You can set these doubts 
at rest, I think, if you will really help me to dis- 
cover the truth. Will you, mother?" 

lie stopped in the hope that she would speak. 
But her gray hair was not more immovable in 
its two folds than were her firm lips. 

" If reparation can be made to any one, if 
restitution can be made to any one, let us know 
it and make it. Nay, mother, if within my 
means, let me make it. I have seen so little 
happiness come of money ; it has brought with- 
in my knowledge so little peace to this house, or 
to any one belonging to it, that it is worth less 
to me than to another. It can buy me nothing 
that will not be a reproach and misery tome, if 
I am haunted by a suspicion that it darkened 
my father's last hours with remorse, and that it 
is not honestly and justly mine." 

There was a bell-rope hanging on the paneled 



wall, some two or three yards from the cabinet. 
By a swift and sudden action of her foot she 
drove her wheeled carriage rapidly back to it 
and pulled jt violently — still holding her arm up 
in its shield-like posture, as if he were striking 
at her, and she warding off the blow. 

A girl came hurrying in, frightened. 

" Send Flintwinch here!" 

In a moment the girl had withdrawn, and the 
old man stood within the door. " What ! You're 
hammer and tongs already, you two?" he said, 
coolly stroking his face. " I thought you would 
be. I was pretty sure of it." 

"Flintwinch!" said the mother, "look at my 
son. Look at him !" 

"Well! I am looking at him," said Flint- 
winch. 

She stretched out the arm with which she 
had shielded herself, and as she went on, point- 
ed at the object of her anger. 

"In the very hour of his return almost — be- 
fore the shoe upon his foot is dry — he asperses 
his father's memory to his mother! Asks his 
mother to become, with him, a spy upon his 
father's transactions through a lifetime ! Has 
misgivings that the goods of this world, which we 
have painfully got together early and late, with 
wear and tear and toil and self-denial, are so 
much plunder ; and asks to whom they shall be 
given up, as reparation and restitution !" 

Although she said this raging, she said it in a 
voice so far from being beyond her control, that 
it was even lower than her usual tone. She also 
spoke with great distinctness. 

" Reparation !" said she. "Yes truly! It is 
easy for him to talk of reparation, fresh from 
journeying and junketing in foreign lands, and 
living a life of vanity and pleasure. But let him 
look at me, in prison, and in bonds here. I en- 
dure without murmuring, because it is appoint- 
ed that I shall so make reparation for my sins. 
Reparation ! Is there none in this room ? Has 
there been none here this fifteen years ?" 

Thus was she always balancing her bargain 
with the Majesty of heaven, posting up the en- 
tries to her credit, strictly keeping her set-off, 
and claiming her due. She was only remarkable 
in this, for the force and emphasis with which 
she did it. Thousands upon thousands do it, 
according to their varying manner, every day. 

"Flintwinch, give me that book!" 

The old man handed it to her from the table. 
She put two fingers between the leaves, closed 
the book upon them, and held it up to her son 
in a threatening way. 

" In the days of old, Arthur, treated of in this 
Commentary, there were pious men, beloved of 
the Lord, who would have cursed their sons for 
less than this: who would have sent them forth, 
and sent whole nations forth, if such had sup- 
ported them, to be avoided of God and man, 
and perish, down to the baby at the breast. But 
I only tell you that if you ever renew that theme 
with me, I will renounce you; I will so dismiss 
you through that doorway, that you had better 



386 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



JLpg ^glM | 



^55 







MR. FLINTWINCII MEDIATES AS A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY. 



have been motherless from your cradle. I will 
never see or know you more. And if, after all, 
you were to come into this darkened room to 
look upon me lying dead, my body should bleed, 
if I could make it, when you came near me." 

In part relieved by the intensity of this threat, 
and in part (monstrous as the fact is) by a gen- 
eral impression that it was in some sort a relig- 
ious proceeding, she handed back the book to 
the old man, and was silent. 

"Now," said Jeremiah; "premising that I'm 
not going to stand between you two, will you let 
me ask (as I have been called in, and made a 
third) what is all this about ?" 

"Take your version of it," returned Arthur, 
finding it left to him to speak, "from my moth- 
er. Let it rest there. What I have said, was 
said to my mother only." 

"Oh!" returned the old man. "From your 
mother? Take it from your mother? Well! 
But your mother mentioned that you had been 
suspecting your father. That's not dutiful, Mr. 
Arthur. Who will you be suspecting next ?" 

"Enough," said Mrs. Clennam, turning her 
face so that it was addressed for the moment to 
the old man only. " Let no more be said about 
this." 

"Yes, but stop a bit, stop a bit," the old man 
persisted. "Let us see how we stand. Have 
you told Mr. Arthur that he mustn't lay offenses 



at his father's door? That he has no right to 
do it? That he has no ground to go upon?" 

" I tell him so now." 

"Ah! Exactly," said the old man. "You 
tell him so now. You hadn't told him so before, 
and you tell him so now. Ay, ay ! That's right ! 
You know I stood between you and his father so 
long, that it seems as if death had made no dif- 
ference, and I was still standing between you. 
So I will, and so in fairness I require to have 
that plainly put forward. Arthur, you please to 
hear that you have no right to mistrust your fa- 
ther, and have no ground to go upon." 

He put his hands to the back of the wheeled 
chair, and muttering to himself, slowly wheeled 
his mistress back to her cabinet. "Now," he 
resumed, standing behind her : "in case I should 
go away leaving things half done, and so should 
be wanted again when you come to the other 
half and get into one of your flights, has Arthur 
told you what he means to do about the busi- 
ness?" 

"He has relinquished it." 

" In favor of nobody, I suppose ?" 

Mrs. Clennam glanced at her son, leaning 
against one of the Avindows. He observed the 
look, and said, "To my mother, of course. She 
docs what she pleases." 

"And if any pleasure," she said, after a short 
pause, " could arise for me out of the disappoint- 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



387 



ment of my expectations, that my son in the 
prime of his life would infuse new youth and 
strength into it, and make it of great profit and 
power, it would be in advancing an old and faith- 
ful servant. Jeremiah, the captain deserts the 
ship, but you and I will sink or float with it." 

Jeremiah, whose eyes glistened as if they saw 
money, darted a sudden look at the son, which 
seemed to say, " I owe you no thanks for this ; 
j/cmhave done nothing toward it!" and then told 
the mother that he thanked her, and that Affery 
thanked her, and that he would never desert her, 
and that Affery would never desert her. Final- 
ly, he hauled up his watch from its depths, said 
"Eleven. Time for your oysters!" and with 
that change of subject, which involved no change 
of expression or manner, rang the bell. 

But Mrs. Clennam, resolved to treat herself 
with the greater rigor for having been supposed 
to be unacquainted with reparation, refused to 
eat her oysters when they were brought. They 
looked tempting; eight in number, circularly set 
out on a white plate on a tray covered with a 
white napkin, flanked by a slice of buttered 
French roll, and a little compact glass of cool 
wine and water ; but she resisted all persuasions, 
and sent them down again — placing the act to 
her credit, no doubt, in her Eternal Day-book. 

This refection of oysters was not presided over 
by Affery, but by the girl who had appeared 
when the bell was rung ; the same who had been 
in the dimly-lighted room last night. Now that 
he had an opportunity of observing her, Arthur 
found that her diminutive figure, small features, 
and slight spare dress, gave her the appearance 
of being much younger than she was. A wo- 
man, probably of not less than two-and-twenty, 
she might have been passed in the street for lit- 
tle more than half that age. Not that her face 
was very youthful, for in truth there was more 
consideration and care in it than naturally be- 
longed to her utmost years ; but she was so lit- 
tle and light, so noiseless and shy, and appeared 
60 conscious of being out of place among the 
three hard elders, that she had all the manner 
and much of the appearance of a subdued child. 

In a hard way, and in an uncertain way that 
fluctuated between patronage and putting down, 
the sprinkling from a watering-pot and hydraulic 
pressure, Mrs. Clennam showed an interest in 
this dependent. Even in the moment of her 
entrance upon the violent ringing of the bell, 
when the mother shielded herself with that sin- 
gular action from the sou, Mrs. Clennam's eyes 
had had some individual recognition in them, 
which seemed reserved for her. As there are 
degrees of hardness in the hardest metal, and 
shades of color in black itself, so, even in the 
asperity of Mrs. Clennam's demeanor toward all 
the rest of humanity and toward Little Dorrit, 
there was a fine gradation. 

Little Dorrit let herself out to do needlework. 
At so much a day — or at so little — from eight 
to eight, Little Dorrit was to be hired. l'im<- 
tual to the moment, Little Dorrit appeared; punc- 



tual to the moment, Little Dorrit vanished. What 
became of Little Dorrit between the two eights 
was a mystery. 

Another of the moral phenomena of Little 
Dorrit. Besides her consideration money, her 
daily contract included meals. She had an ex- 
traordinary repugnance to dining in company ; 
would never do so, if it were possible to escape. 
Would always plead that she had this bit of work 
to begin first, or that bit of work to finish first ; 
and would, of a certainty, scheme and plan — not 
very cunningly it would seem, for she deceived 
no one — to dine alone. Successful in this ; hap- 
py in carrying off her plate any where, to make 
a table of her lap, or a box, or the ground, or 
even as was supposed, to stand on tip-toe, dining 
moderately at a mantle-shelf; the great anxiety 
of Little Dorrit's day was set at rest. 

It was not easy to make out Little Dorrit's 
face; she was so retiring, plied her needle in 
such removed corners, and started away so scared 
if encountered on the stairs. But it seemed to 
be a pale transparent face, quick in expression, 
thou h not beautiful in feature, its soft hazel 
eyes excepted. A delicately bent head, a tiny 
form, a quick little pair of busy hands, and a 
shabby dress — it must needs have been very 
shabby to look at all so, being so neat — were 
Little Dorrit as she sat at work. 

For these particulars or generalities concern- 
ing Little Dorrit, Mr. Arthur was indebted in 
the course of the day to his own eyes and to 
Mrs. Affery's tongue. If Mrs. Affery had had 
any will or way of her own, it would probably 
have been unfavorable to Dorrit. But as "them 
two clever ones" — Mrs. Affery's perpetual refer- 
ence, in whom her personality was swallowed 
up — were -agreed to accept Little Dorrit as a 
matter of course, she had nothing for it but to 
follow suit. Similarly, if the two clever ones had 
agreed to murder Little Dorrit by candle-light, 
Mrs. Affery, being required to hold the candle, 
would no doubt have done it. 

In the intervals of roasting the partridge for 
the invalid chamber, and preparing a baking- 
dish of beef and pudding for the dining-room, 
Mrs. Affery made the communications above set 
forth ; invariably putting her head in at the door 
again, after she had taken it out, to enforce re- 
sistance to the tw r o clever ones. It appeared to 
have become a perfect passion with Mrs. Flint- 
winch that the only son should be pitted against 
them. 

In the course of the day too, Arthur looked 
through the whole house. Dull and dark he 
found it. The gaunt rooms, deserted for years 
upon years, seemed to have settled down into a 
gloomy lethargy from which nothing could rouse 
them again. The furniture, at once spare and 
lumbering, hid in the rooms rather than fur- 
nished them, and there was no color in all the 
house; such color as had ever been there, had 
long ago started away on lost sunbeams — got it- 
self absorbed, perhaps, into flowers, butterflies, 
plumage of birds, precious stones, what not. 



138 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



There was not one straight floor, from the foun- 
dation to the roof; the ceilings were so fantas- 
tically clouded by smoke and dust, that old wo- 
men might have told fortunes in them, better 
than in grouts of tea; the dead-cold hearths 
showed no traces of having ever been warmed, 
hut in heaps of soot that had tumbled down the 
chimneys, and eddied about in little dusky whirl- 
winds when the doors were opened. In what 
had once been a drawing-room, there were a 
pair of meagre mirrors, with dismal processions 
of black figures carrying black garlands, walking 
round the frames ; but even these were short of 
heads and legs, and one undertaker-like Cupid 
had swung round on his own axis and got up- 
side down, and another had fallen off altogether. 
The room Arthur Clennam's deceased father had 
occupied for business purposes, when he first re- 
membered him, was so unaltered that he might 



have been imagined still to keep it invisibly, aa 
his visible relict kept her room up stairs ; Jere- 
miah Flintwinch still going between them nego- 
tiating. His picture, dark and gloomy, earnestly 
speechless on the wall, with the eyes intently look- 
ing at his son as they had looked when life de- 
parted from them, seemed to urge him awfully 
to the task he had attempted ; but as to any 
yielding on the part of his mother, he had now 
no hope, and as to any other means of setting 
his distrust at rest, he had abandoned hope a 
long time. Down in the cellars, as up in the 
bedchambers, old objects that he well remem- 
bered were changed by age and decay, but were 
still in their old places ; even to empty beer- 
casks hoary with cobwebs, and empty wine-bot- 
tles with fur and fungus choking up their throats. 
There, too, among unused bottle-racks and pale 
slants of light from the yard above, was the strong 




LITTLE DORRIT. 



S89 



room stored with old ledgers which had as mus- 
ty and corrupt a smell as if they were regularly 
balanced, in the dead small hours, by a nightly 
resurrection of old book-keepers. 

The baking-dish was served up in a peniten- 
tial manner, on a shrunken cloth at an end of 
the dining-table, at two o'clock, when he dined 
with Mr. Flintwinch, the new partner. Mr. 
Flintwinch informed him that his mother had 
recovered her equanimity now, and that he need 
not fear her again alluding to what had passed 
in the morning. "And don't you lay offenses 
at your father's door, Mr. Arthur," added Jere- 
miah, " once for all, don't do it ! Now we have 
done with the subject." 

Mr. Flintwinch had been already re-arrang- 
ing and dusting his own particular little office, 
as if to do honor to his accession to new dignity. 
He resumed this occupation when he was re- 
plete with beef, had sucked up all the gravy in 
the baking-dish with the flat of his knife, and 
had drawn liberally on a barrel of small beer in 
the scullery. Thus refreshed, he tucked up his 
shirt-sleeves and went to work again ; and Mr. 
Arthur, watching him as he set about it, plain- 
ly saw that his father's picture, or his father's 
grave, would be as communicative with him as 
this old man. 

"Now, Affery, woman," said Mr. Flintwinch, 
as she crossed the hall. "You hadn't made Mr. 
Arthur's bed when I was up there last. Stir 
yourself. Bustle." 

But Mr. Arthur found the house so blank and 
dreary, and was so unwilling to assist at another 
implacable consignment of his mother's enemies 
(perhaps himself among them) to mortal disfig- 
urement and immortal ruin, that he announced 
his intention of lodging at the coffee-house where 
he had left his luggage. Mr. Flintwinch taking 
kindly to the idea of getting rid of him, and his 
mother being indifferent, beyond considerations 
of saving, to most domestic arrangements that 
were not bounded by the walls of her own cham- 
ber, he easily carried this point without new of- 
fense. Daily business hours were agreed upon, 
which his mother, Mr. Flintwinch, and he, were 
to devote together to a necessary checking of 
books and papers ; and he left the home he had 
so lately found with a depressed heart. 

But Little Dorrit? 

The bnsiness hours, allowing for intervals of 
invalid regimen of oysters and partridges, during 
which Clennam refreshed himself with a walk, 
were from ten to six for about a fortnight. Some- 
times Little Dorrit was employed at her needle, 
sometimes nor. sometimes appeared as an hum- 
ble visitor: which must have been her charac- 
ter on the occasion of fiis arrival. I lis original 
curiosity augmented every day, as lie watched 
for her, saw* or did not see her, and speculated 
about her. Influenced by his predominant idea, 
he even fell into a habit of discussing with him- 
self the possibility of her being in some way as- 
sociated with it. At last he resolved to watch 
Little Dorrit and know more of her story. 



CHAPTER VI.— THE FATHER OF THE MAR- 
SHALSEA. 

Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short 
of the Church of Saint George, in the Borough 
of Southwark, on the left hand side of the way 
going southward, the Marshalsea Prison. It 
had stood there many years before, and it re- 
mained there some years afterward ; but it is 
gone now, and the world is none the worse with- 
out it. 

It was an oblong pile of barrack-building, par- 
titioned into squalid houses standing back to 
back, so that there were no back rooms ; envi- 
roned by a narrow paved yard, hemmed in by 
high walls duly spiked at top. Itself a close and 
confined prison for debtors, it contained within 
it a much closer and more confined jail for smug- 
glers. Offenders against the revenue laws, and 
defaulters to excise or customs, who had incur- 
red fines which they were unable to pay, were 
supposed to be incarcerated behind an iron- 
plated door, closing up a second prison, consist- 
ing of a strong cell or two, and a blind alley 
some yard and a half wide, which formed the 
mysterious termination of the very limited skit- 
tle-ground in which the Marshalsea debtors bowl- 
ed down their troubles. 

Supposed to be incarcerated there, because 
the time had rather outgrown the strong cells 
and the blind alley. In practice they had come 
to be considered a little too bad, though in the- 
ory they were quite as good as ever : which may 
be observed to be the case at the present day 
with other cells that are not at all strong, anf3 
with other blind alleys that are stone-blind. 
Hence the smugglers habitually consorted with 
the debtors (who received them with open arms), 
except at certain constitutional moments when 
somebody came from some Office, to go through 
some form of overlooking something, which 
neither he nor any body else knew any thing 
about. On those truly British occasions, the 
smugglers, if any, made a feint of walking into 
the strong cells and the blind alley, while this 
somebody pretended to do his something; and 
made a reality of walking out again as soon as 
he hadn't done it — neatly epitomizing the ad- 
ministration of most of the public affairs in our 
right little, tight little, island. 

There had been taken to the Marshalsea Pris- 
on, long before the day when the sun shone on 
Marseilles and on the opening of this narrative, 
a debtor with whom this narrative has some 
concern. 

He was, at that time, a very amiable and very 
helpless middle-aged gentleman, who was going 
out again directly. Necessarily, he was going 
out again directly, because the Marshalsea lock 
never turned upon a debtor who was not. lie 
brought in a portmanteau with him, which he 
doubted its being worth while to unpack ; he was 
so perfectly clear — like all the rest of them, the 
turnkey on the lock said — that he was going out 
again directly, 

Uv was a shy, retiring man; well-looking, 



390 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



though in an effeminate style ; with a mild voice, 
curling hair, and irresolute hands — rings upon 
the fingers in those days — which nervously wan- 
dered to his trembling lip a hundred times in 
the first half hour of his acquaintance with the 
jail. His principal anxiety was about his wife. 

"Do you think, Sir," he asked the turnkey, 
"that she will be very much shocked if she 
should come to the gate to-morrow morning ?" 

The turnkey gave it as the result of his ex- 
perience that some of 'em was and some of 'em 
wasn't. In general, more no than yes. "What 
like is she, you see?" he philosophically asked: 
"that's what it hinges on." 

"She is very delicate and inexperienced in- 
deed." 

"That," said the turnkey, "is agen her." 

" She is so little used to go out alone," said 
the debtor, "that I am at a loss to think how 
she will ever make her way here, if she walks." 

" P'raps," quoth the turnkey, " she'll take a 
ackney coach." 

" Perhaps." The irresolute fingers went to 
the trembling lip. " I hope she will. She may 
not think of it." 

"Or p'raps," said the turnkey, offering his 
suggestions from the top of his well-worn wooden 
stool, as he might have offered them to a child 
for whose weakness he felt a compassion, " p'raps 
she'll get her brother, or her sister, to come 
along with her." 

" She has no brother or sister." 

"Niece, nevy, cousin, serwant, young 'ooman, 
greengrocer. Dash it ! One or another on 'em," 
said the turnkey, repudiating beforehand the re- 
fusal of all his suggestions. 

"I fear — I hope it is not against the rules — 
that she will bring the children." 

"The children?" said the turnkey. "And 
the rules ? Why, lord set you up like a corner 
pin, we've a reg'lar playground o' children here. 
Children? Why, we swarm with 'em. How 
many a you got ?" 

" Two," said the debtor, lifting his irresolute 
hand to his lip again, and turning into the prison. 

The turnkey followed him with his eyes. 
"And you another," he observed to himself, 
" which makes three on you. And your wife 
another, I'll lay a crown. Which makes four 
on you. And another coming, I'll lay half-a- 
crown. Which'll make five on you. And I'll 
go another seven and sixpence to name which 
is the helplessest, the unborn baby or you !" 

He was right in all his particulars. She came 
next day with a little boy of three years old, and 
a little girl of two, and he stood entirely corrob- 
orated. 

" Got a room now ; haven't you ?" The turn- 
key asked the debtor after a week or two. 

" Yes, I have got a very good room." 

"Any little sticks a-coming, to furnish it?" 
said the turnkey. 

" I expect a few necessary articles of furni- 
ture to be delivered by the carrier this after- 
noon." 



"Missis and the little 'uns a-coming, to keep 
you company ?" asked the turnkey. 

"Why, yes, we think it better that we should 
not be scattered, even for a few weeks." 

"Even for a few weeks, of course," replied 
the turnkey. And he followed him again with 
his eyes, and nodded his head seven times when 
he was gone. 

The affairs of this debtor were perplexed by 
a partnership, of which he knew no more than 
that he had invested money in it ; by legal mat- 
ters of assignment and settlement, conveyance 
here and conveyance there, suspicion of unlaw- 
ful preference of creditors in this direction, and 
of mysterious spiriting away of property in that ; 
and as nobody on the face of the earth could be 
more incapable of explaining any single item in 
the heap of confusion than the debtor himself, 
nothing comprehensible could be made of his 
case. To question him in detail, and endeav- 
or to reconcile his answers ; to closet him with 
accountants and sharp practitioners, learned in 
the wiles of insolvency and bankruptcy, was only 
to put the case out at compound interest of in- 
comprehensibility. The irresolute finders flut- 
tered more and more ineffectually about the 
trembling lip on every such occasion, and the 
sharpest practitioners gave him up as a hope- 
less job. 

" Out ?" said the turnkey, " /*e'll never get out. 
Unless his creditors take him by the shoulders 
and shove him out." 

He had been there five or six months, when 
he came running to this turnkey one forenoon 
to tell him, breathless and pale, that his wife 
was ill. 

" As any body might a-known she would be," 
said the turnkey. 

" We intended," he returned, "that she should 
go to a country lodging only to-morrow. What 
am I to do ! Oh, good Heaven, what am I to do !" 

" Don't waste your time in clasping your hands 
and biting your fingers," responded the practical 
turnkey, taking him by the elbow, "but come 
along with me." 

The turnkey conducted him — trembling from 
head to foot, and constantly crying under his 
breath, What was he to do ! while his irreso- 
lute fingers bedabbled the tears upon his face — 
up one of the common staircases in the prison 
to a door on the garret story. Upon which door 
the turnkey knocked with the handle of his key. 

"Come in," cried a voice inside. 

The turnkey opening the door, disclosed in a 
wretched, ill-smelling little room, two hoarse, 
puffy, red-faced personages seated at a rickety 
table, playing at all-fours, smoking pipes, and 
drinking brandy. 

"Doctor," said the turnkey, "here's a gentle- 
man's wife in want of you without a minute's 
loss of time !" 

The doctor's friend was in the positive degree 
of hoarseness, puffness, red-facedness, all-fours, 
tobacco, dirt, and brandy ; the doctor in the com- 
parative — hoarser, puffer, more red-faced, more 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



391 



all-foury, tobaccoer, dirtier, and brandier. The 
doctor was amazingly shabby, in a torn and darn- 
ed rough-weather sea-jacket, out at elbows and 
eminently short of buttons (he had been in his 
time the experienced surgeon carried by a pas- 
senger ship), the dirtiest white trowsers conceiv- 
able by mortal man, carpet slippers, and no vis- 
ible linen. " Childbed ?" said the doctor. " I'm 
the boy!" With that the doctor took a comb 
from the chimney-piece and stuck his hair up- 
right — which appeared to be his way of wash- 
ing himself — produced a professional chest or 
case, of most abject appearance, from the cup- 
board where his cup and saucer and coals were, 
settled his chin in the frowzy wrapper round his 
neck, and became a ghastly medical scarecrow. 

The doctor and the debtor ran down stairs, 
leaving the turnkey to return to the lock, and 
made for the debtor's room. All the ladies in 
the prison had got hold of the news, and were 
in the yard. Scms of them had already taken 
possession of the two children, and were hospita- 
bly carrying them off; others were offering loans 
of little comforts from their scanty store ; others 
were sympathizing with the greatest volubility. 
The gentlemen prisoners, feeling themselves at 
a disadvantage, had for the most part retired, 
not to say sneaked, to their rooms; from the 
open windows of which some of them now com- 
plimented the doctor with whistles as he pass- 
ed below, while others, with several stories be- 
tween them, interchanged sarcastic references 
to the prevalent excitement. 

It was a hot summer day, and the prison 
rooms were baking between the high walls. In 
the debtor's confined chamber, Mrs. Bangham, 
charwoman and messenger, who was not a pris- 
oner (though she had been once), but was the 
popular medium of communication with the 
outer world, had volunteered her services as 
fly-catcher and general attendant. The walls 
and ceiling were blackened with flies. Mrs. 
Bangham, expert in sudden device, with one 
hand fanned the patient with a cabbage-leaf, 
and with the other set traps of vinegar and su- 
gar in gallipots; at the same time enunciating 
sentiments of an encouraging and congratulato- 
ry nature, adapted to the occasion. 

"The flies trouble you, don't they, my dear?" 
said Mrs. Bangham. "But p'raps they'll take 
your mind off of it, and do you good. What 
between the buryin' ground, the grocer's, the 
wagon-stables, and the paunch trade, the Mar- 
shalsea flies gets very large. P'raps they're sent 
as a consolation, if we only know'd it. How arc 
you now, my dear? No better? No, my dear, 
it an't to be expected; you'll be worse before 
you're better, and vou know it, don't you? Yes. 
That's right ! And to think of a sweet little 
cherub being born inside the lock! Now ain't 
it pretty, ain't that something to carry you 
through it pleasant? Why, wc ain't had such 
a thing happen here, my dear, not, for I couldn't 
name the time when. And you a-crying too?" 
eai'd Mrs. Bangham, to rally the patient more 



and more. " You ! Making yourself so famous ! 
With the flies a-falling into the gallipots by fif- 
ties ! And every thing a-going on so well ! And 
here if there ain't," said Mrs. Bangham, as the 
door opened, "if there ain't your dear gentle- 
man along with Doctor Haggage ! And now 
indeed we are complete, I think /" 

The doctor was scarcely the kind of apparition 
to inspire a patient with a sense of absolute com- 
pleteness, but as he presently delivered the opin- 
ion, "We are as right as we can be, Mrs. Bang- 
ham, and we shall come out of this like a house 
a-fire ;" and as he and Mrs. Bangham took pos- 
session of the poor, helpless pair, as every body 
else and any body else had always done, the 
means at hand were as good on the whole as bet- 
ter would have been. The special feature in 
Doctor Baggage's treatment of the case, was his 
determination to keep Mrs. Bangham up to the 
mark. As thus : 

" Mrs. Bangham," said the doctor, before he 
had been there twenty minutes, " O o outside and 
fetch a little brandy, or we shall have you giving 
in." 

" Thank you, Sir. But none on my accounts," 
said Mrs. Bangham. 

"Mrs. Bangham," returned the doctor, "I am 
in professional attendance on this lady, and don't 
choose to allow any discussion on your part. .Go 
outside and fetch a little brandy, or I foresee 
that you'll break down." 

"You're to be obeyed, Sir," said Mrs. Bang- 
ham, rising. "If you was to put your own lips 
to it, I think you wouldn't be the worse, for you 
look but poorly, Sir." 

"Mrs. Bangham," returned the doctor, "I am 
not your business, thank you, but you are mine. 
Never you mind me, if you please. What you 
have got to do, is, to do as you are told, and to 
go and get what I bid you." 

Mrs. Bangham submitted ; and the doctor, 
having administered her potion, took his own. 
He repeated the treatment every hour, being 
very determined with Mrs. Bangham. Three 
or four hours passed ; the flies fell into the traps 
by hundreds ; and at length one little life, hard- 
ly stronger than theirs, appeared among the mul- 
titude of lesser deaths. 

" A very nice little girl indeed," said the doc- 
tor ; " little, but well-formed. Halloa, Mrs. Bang- 
ham ! You're looking queer ! You be off, ma'am, 
this minute, and fetch a little more brandy, or 
we shall have you in hysterics." 

By this time the rings had begun to fall from 
the debtor's irresolute hands, like leaves from a 
wintry tree. Not one was left upon them that 
night, when he put something that chinked into 
the doctor's greasy palm. In the mean time 
Mrs. Bangham had been out an errand to a 
neighboring establishment decorated with three 
golden balls, where she was very well known. 

"Thank you," said the doctor, 'thank you. 
Your good lady is quite composed. Doing charm- 
ingly." 

"I am very happy and very thankful to know 



392 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



it," said the debtor, "though I little thought 
once, that — " 

" That a child would be born to you in a place 
like this ?" said the doctor. "Bah, bah, Sir, what 
does it signify ? A little more elbow-room is all 
we want here. We are quiet here ; we don't get 
badgered here ; there's no knocker here^ Sir, to 
be hammered at by creditors and bring a man's 
heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to 
ask if a man's at home, and to say he'll stand 
on the door mat till he is. Nobody writes threat- 
ening letters about money to this place. It's 
freedom, Sir, it's freedom ! I have had to-day's 
practice at home and abroad, on a march, and 
aboard ship, and I'll tell you this : I don't know 
that I have ever pursued it under such quiet cir- 
cumstances as here this day. Elsewhere, peo- 
ple are restless, worried, hurried about, anxious 
respecting one thing, anxious respecting another. 
Nothing of the kind here, Sir. We have done 
all that — we know the worst of it ; we have got 
to the bottom, we can't fall, and what have we 
found ? Peace. That's the word for it. Peace." 
With this profession of faith, the doctor, who 
was an old jail-bird, and was more sodden than 
usual, and had the additional and unusual stim- 
ulus of money in his pocket, returned to his as- 
sociate and chum in hoarseness, puffmess, red- 
facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy. 

Now the debtor was a very different man 
from the doctor, but he had already begun to 
travel, by his opposite segment of the circle, to 
the same point. Crushed at first by his impris- 
onment, he had soon found a dull relief in it. 
Pie was under lock and key ; but the lock and 
key that kept him in kept numbers of his troub- 
les out. If he had been a man with stren th 
of purpose to face those troubles and fight them, 
he might have broken the net that held him, or 
broken his heart ; but being what he was, he 
languidly slipped into this smooth descent, and 
never more took one step upward. 

When he was relieved of the perplexed affairs 
that nothing would make plain, through having 
them returned upon his hands by a dozen agents 
in succession who could make neither beginning, 
middle, nor end of them, or him, he found his 
miserable place of refuge a quieter refu e than 
it had been before. He had unpacked the port- 
manteau long ago ; and his elder children now 
played regularly about the yard, and every body 
knew the baby, and claimed a kind of proprietor- 
ship in her. 

"Why, I'm getting proud of you," said his 
friend the turnkey, one day. "You'll be the old- 
est inhabitant soon. The Marshalsea wouldn't 
be like the Marshalsea now, without you and 
your family." 

The turnkey really was proud of him. He 
would mention him in laudatory terms to new- 
comers, when his back was turned. " You took 
notice of him," he would say, " that went out of 
the Lodge just now ?" 

New-comer would probably answer yes. 

il Brought np as a gentleman, he was, if ever 



a man was. Ed'cated at no end of expense. 
Went into the Marshal's house once, to try a 
new piano for him. Played it, I understand, 
like one o'clock — beautiful ! As to languages — 
speaks any thing. We've had a Frenchman here 
in his time, and it's my opinion he knowed more 
French than the Frenchman did. We've had an 
Italian here in his time, and he shut him up in 
about half a minute. You'll find some characters 
behind other locks, I don't say you won't ; but if 
you want the top sawyer, in such respects as I've 
mentioned, you must come to the Marshalsea." 

When his youngest child was eight years old, 
his wife, who had long been languishing away — ■ 
of her own inherent weakness, not that she re- 
tained any greater sensitiveness as to her place 
of abode than he did — Avent upon a visit to a 
poor friend and old nurse in the country, and 
died there. He remained shut up in his room 
for a fortnight afterward ; and an attorney's 
clerk, who was going through the Insolvent 
Court, engrossed an address of condolence to 
him, which looked like a Lease, and which all 
the prisoners signed. When he appeared again, 
he was grayer (he had soon begun to turn gray); 
and the turnkey noticed that his hands went 
often to his trembling lips again, as they had 
used to do when he first came in. But he got 
pretty well over it in a month or two ; and in 
the mean time the children played about the 
yard as regularly as ever, but in black. 

Then Mrs. Bangham, long popular medium 
of communication with the outer world, began 
to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual 
comatose on pavements, with her basket of pur- 
chases spilt, and the change of her client's nine- 
pence short. His son began to supersede Mrs. 
Bangham, and to execute commissions in a 
knowing manner, and to be of the prison prison- 
ous and of the streets streety. 

Time went on, and the turnkey began to fail. 
His chest swelled, and his legs got Aveak, and he 
was short of breath. The well-worn wooden 
stool was "beyond him," he complained. He 
sat in an arm-chair with a cushion, and some- 
times wheezed so, for minutes together, that he 
couldn't turn the key. When he was over- 
powered by these fits, the debtor often turned 
it for him. 

"You and me," said the turnkey one snowny 
winter's night, when the Lodge, with a bright 
fire in it, was pretty full of company, " is the 
oldest inhabitants. I wasn't here myself above 
seven year before you. I shan't last long. When 
I'm off the lock for good and all, you'll be the 
Father of the Marshalsea." 

The turnkey went off the lock of this world 
next day. His words were remembered and re- 
peated ; and tradition afterward handed down 
from generation to generation-— a Marshalsea 
generation might be calculated as about three 
months — that the shabby old debtor with the 
soft manner and the white hair was the Father 
of the Marslmlsea. 

And he grew to be proud of the titlo. If any 



LITTLE DOPJtlT. 



393 



impostor had arisen to claim it, lie would have 
shed tears in resentment of the attempt to de- 
prive him of his ri hts. A disposition began to 
be perceived in him to exaggerate the number 
of years he had been there ; it was generally 
understood that you must deduct a few from his 
account ; he was vain, the fleeting generations 
of debtors said. 

All new-comers were presented to him. He 
was punctilious in the exaction of this cere- 
mony. The wits would perform the office of in- 
troduction with overcharged pomp and polite- 
ness, but they could not easily overstep his sense 
of its gravity. He received them in his poor 
room (he disliked an introduction in the mere 
yard, as informal — a thing that might happen to 
any body), with a kind of bowed-down benefi- 
cence. They were welcome to the Marshalsea, 
he would tell them. Yes, he was the Father of 
the place. So the world was kind enough to 
call him ; and so he was, if more than twenty 
years of residence gave him a claim to the title. 
It looked small at first, but there was very good 
company there — among a mixture — necessarily 
a mixture — and very good air. 

It became a not unusual circumstance for let- 
ters to be put under his door at night, inclosing 
half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and then at 
long intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Fa- 
ther of the Marshalsea, "With the compliments 
of a collegian taking leave." He received the 
gifts as tributes, from admirers, to a public char- 
acter. Sometimes these correspondents as- 
sumed facetious names, as the Brick, Bellows, 
Old Gooseberry, Wide Awake, Snooks, Mops, 
Cutaway, the Dogs-meat Man ; but he consid- 
ered this in bad taste, and was always a little 
hurt by it. 

In the fullness of time this correspondence 
showing signs of wearing out, and seeming to 
require an effort on the part of the correspond- 
ents to which in the hurried circumstances of 
departure many of them might not be equal, he 
established the custom of attending collegians of 
a certain standing to the gate, and taking leave 
of them there. The collegian under treatment, 
after shaking hands, would occasionally stop to 
wrap up something in a bit of paper, and would 
come back again, calling "Hi!" 

lie would look round surprised. "Me?" he 
would say. with a smile. 

By this time the collegian would be up with 
him, and lie would paternally add, "What have 
you forgotten? What can I do for you?" 

"I forgot to leave this," the collegian would 
usually return, " for the Father of the Marshal- 
sea." 

"My good Sir," he would rejoin, "he is in- 
finitely obliged to you." But, to the last, the 
irresolute hand of old would remain in the pock- 
et into which he had slipped the money, during 
two or three turns about the yard, lest the trans- 
action should be too conspicuous to the general 
body of collegians. 

One afternoon he had been doing the honors 



of the place to a rather large party of collegians, 
who happened to be going out, when, as he was 
coming back, he encountered one from the poor 
side who had been taken in execution for a 
small sum aVeek before, had "settled" in the 
course of that afternoon, and was going out too. 
The man was a mere plasterer in his working 
dress ; had his wife with him, and a bundle ; 
and was in high spirits. 

"God bless you, Sir!" he said in passing. 

"And you," benignantly returned the Father 
cf the Marshalsea. 

They were pretty far divided, going their sev- 
eral ways, when the Plasterer called out, "I 
say, Sir !" and came back to him. 

"It an't much," said the Plasterer, putting a 
little pile of halfpence in his hand, "but it's 
well meant." 

The Father of the Marshalsea had never been 
offered tribute in copper yet. His children often 
had, and with his perfect acquiescence it had 
gone into the common purse, to buy meat that 
he had eaten, and drink that he had drunk ; but 
fustian splashed with white lime bestowing half- 
pence on him, front to front, was new. 

" How dare you !" he said to the man, and 
feebly burst into tears. 

The Plasterer turned him. toward the wall, 
that his face might not be seen ; and the action 
was so delicate, and the man was so penetrated 
with repentance, and asked pardon so honestry, 
that he could make him no less acknowledgment 
than, " I know you meant it kindly. Say no 
more." 

"Bless your soul, Sir," urged the Plasterer, 
"I did indeed. I'd do more by you than the 
rest of 'em do, I fancy." 

" What would you do ?" he asked. 

"I'd come back to sec you after I was let 
out." 

"Give me the money again," said the other, 
eagerly, " and I'll keep it, and never spend it. 
Thank you for it, thank you! I shall see you 
again ?" 

" If I live a week you shall." 

They shook hands and parted. The collegi- 
ans, assembled in Symposium in the Snuggery 
that night, marveled what had happened to 
their Father; he walked so late in the shadows 
of the yard, and seemed so downcast. 



CHAPTER VII.— THE CHILD OF THE MARSHAL- 
SEA. 

The baby whose first draught of air had been 
tinctured with Doctor Ilaggagc's brandy, was 
handed down among the generations of colle- 
gians like the tradition of their common parent 
In the earlier stages of her existence she was 
handed down in a literal and prosaic sense; it 
being almost a part of the entrance footing of 
every new collegian to nurse the child who had 
been born in the college. 

" By rights," remarked the turnkey, when she 
was first shown to him, "I ought to be her god- 
father." 



394: 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



The debtor irresolutely thought of it for a 
mimvte, and said, "Perhaps you wouldn't object 
to really being her godfather ?" 

"Oh! / don't object," replied the turnkey, 
" if you don't," 

Thus it came to pass that she was christened 
one Sunday afternoon, when the turnkey, being 
relieved, was off the lock ; and that the turnkey 
went up to the font of Saint George's church, and 
promised, and vowed, and renounced on her be- 
half, as he himself related when he came back, 
" like a good 'un." 

This invested the turnkey with a new propri- 
etary share in the child, over and above his 
former official one. When she began to walk 
and talk, he became fond of her ; bought a little 
arm-chair and stood it by the high fender of the 
Lodge fire-place; liked to have her company 
when he was on the lock; and used to bribe 
her with cheap toys to come and talk to him. 
The child, for her part, soon grew so fond of the 
turnkey, that she would come climbing up the 
Lodge steps of her own accord at all hours of the 
day. When she fell asleep in the little arm- 
chair by the high fender, the turnkey would 
cover her with his pocket handkerchief; and 
when she sat in it dressing and undressing a 
doll — which soon came to be unlike dolls on the 
other side of the lock, and to bear a horrible 
family resemblance to Mrs. Bangham — he would 
contemplate her from the top of his stool with 
exceeding gentleness. Witnessing these things, 
the collegians would express an opinion that the 
turnkey, who was a bachelor, had been cut out 
by nature for a family man. But the turnkey 
thanked them, and said, "No, on the whole it 
was enough for him to see other people's chil- 
dren there." 

At what period of her early life the little 
creature began to perceive that it was not the 
habit of all the world to live locked up in nar- 
row yards surrounded by high walls with spikes 
at the top, would be a difficult question to settle. 
But she was a very, very, little creature indeed, 
when she had somehow gained the knowledge 
that her clasp of her father's hand was to be al- 
ways loosened at the door which the great key 
opened ; and that while her own light steps were 
free to pass beyond it, his feet must never cross 
that line. A pitiful and plaintive look, with 
which she had begun to regard him when she 
was still extremely young, was perhaps a part 
of this discovery. 

With a pitiful and plaintive look for every 
thing indeed, but something in it for only him 
that was like protection, this Child of the Mar- 
shalsea and child of the Father of the Marshal- 
sea, sat by her friend the turnkey in the lodge, 
kept the family room, or wandered about the 
prison yard, for the first eight years of her life. 
With a pitiful and plaintive look for her way- 
ward sister ; for her idle brother ; for the high 
blank walls ; for the faded crowd they shut in ; 
for the games of the prison children as they 
whooped and ran, and played at hide and seek, 



and made the iron bars of the inner gateway 
"Home." 

Wistful and wondering,.she would sit in sum- 
mer weather by the high fender in the Lodge, 
looking up at the sky through the barred win- 
dow, until bars of light would arise, when she 
turned her eyes away, between her and her 
friend, and she would see him through a grat- 
ing too. 

" Thinking of the fields," the turnkey said 
once, after watching her, "ain't you?" 

"Where are they?" she inquired. 

"Why, they're — over there, my dear," said 
the turnkey, with a vague flourish of his key. 
"Just about there." 

"Does any body open them and shut them? 
Are they locked ?" 

The turnkey was discomfited. "Well!" he 
said — "not in general." 

"Are they very pretty, Bob?" She called 
him Bob by his own particular request and in- 
struction. 

"Lovely. Full of flowers. There's butter- 
cups, and there's daisies, and there's" — the turn- 
key hesitated, being short of floral nomenclature 
— " there's dandelions, and all manner of 
games." 

"Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?" 

" Prime," said the turnkey. 

"Was father ever there?" 

" Hem !" coughed the turnkey. " Oh yes, he 
was there, sometimes." 

" Is he sorry not to be there now ?" 

"N — not particular," said the turnkey. 

" Nor any of the people ?" she asked, glancing 
at the listless crowd within. " Oh ! are you quite 
sure and certain, Bob ?" 

At this difficult point of the conversation Bob 
gave in, and changed the subject to hard-bake : 
always his last resource when he found his little 
friend gettL g him into a political, social, or 
theological corner. But this was the origin of 
a series of Sunday excursions that these two 
curious companions made together. They used 
to issue from the Lodge on alternate Sunday 
afternoons with great gravity, bound for some 
meadows or green lanes that had been elabo- 
rately appointed by the turnkey in the course of 
the week ; and there she picked grass and flow- 
ers to bring home, while he smoked his pipe. 
Afterward there were tea-gardens, shrimps, ale, 
and other delicacies ; and then they would come 
back hand in hand, unless she was more than 
usually tired, and had fallen asleep on his 
shoulder. 

In those early days the turnkey first began 
profoundly to consider a question which cost 
him so much mental labor, that it remained un- 
determined on the day of his death. He de- 
cided to will and bequeath his little property of 
savings to his godchild, and the point arose how 
could it be so "tied up" as that only she should 
have the benefit of it? His experience on the 
lock gave him such an acute perception of the 
enormous difficulty of "tying up" money with 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



395 



any approach to tightness, and contrariwise of 
the remarkable ease with which it got loose, that 
through a series of years he regularly propound- 
ed this knotty point to every new insolvent agent 
and other professional gentleman who passed in 
and out. 

"Supposing," he would say, stating the case 
with his key, on the professional gentleman's 
waistcoat; "supposing a man wanted to leave 
his property to a young female, and wanted to 
tie it up so that nobody else should ever be able 
to make a grab at it ; how would you tie up that 
property ?" 

" Settle it strictly on herself," the profession- 
al gentleman would complacently answer. 

"But look here," quoth the turnkey. "Sup- 
posing she had, say a brother, say a father, say 
a husband, who would be likely to make a grab 
at that property when she came into it — how 
about that ?" 

"It would be settled on herself, and they 
would have no more legal claim on it than you," 
would be the professional answer. 

" Stop a bit !" said the turnkey. " Supposing 
she was tender-hearted, and they came over her. 
Where's your law for tying it up then ?" 

The deepest character whom the turnkey 
sounded was unable to produce his law for ty- 
ing such a knot as that. So the turnkey thought 
about it all his life, and died intestate after all. 

But that was long afterward, when his god- 
daughter was past sixteen. The first half of 
that space of her life was only just accomplish- 
ed, when her pitiful and plaintive look saw her 
father a widower. From that time the protec- 
tion that her wondering eyes had expressed to- 
ward him become embodied in action, and the 
Child of the Marshalsea took upon herself a new 
relation toward the Father. 

At first, such a baby could do little more than 
sit with him, deserting her livelier place by the 
high fender, and quietly watching him. But 
this made her so far necessary to him that he 
became accustomed to her, and began to be 
sensible of missing her when she was not there. 
Through this little gate she passed out of child- 
hood into the care-laden world. 

What her pitiful look saw, at that early time, 
in her father, in her sister, in her brother, in 
the jail ; how much, or how little, of the wretch- 
ed truth it pleased God to make visible to her, 
lies hidden with many mysteries, It is enough 
that she was inspired to be something which was 
not what the rest were, and to be that something, 
different and laborious, for the sake of the rest. 
Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of the inspira- 
tion of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart 
impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowli- 
est work in the lowliest way of life ! 

W T ith no earthly friend to help her, or so much 
as to sec her, but the one so strangely assorted; 
with no knowledge even of the common daily 
tone and habits of the common members of the 
free community ^ho are not shut up in prisons ; 
born and bred, in a social condition, false even 



with a reference to the falsest condition outside 
the walls ; drinking from infancy of a well whose 
waters had their own peculiar stain, their own 
unwholesome and unnatural taste, the Child of 
the Marshalsea began her womanly life. 

No matter through what mistakes and discour- 
agements, what ridicule (not unkindly meant, but 
deeply felt) of her youth and little figure, what 
humble consciousness of her own babyhood and 
want of strength, even in the matter of lifting 
and carrying; through how much weariness 
and hopelessness, and how many secret tears, 
she drudged on, until recognized as useful, even 
indispensable. That time came. She took the 
place of eldest of the three, in all things but 
precedence ; was the head of the fallen family; 
and bore, in her own heart, its anxieties and 
shames. 

At thirteen, she could read and keep accounts 
— that is, could put down in words and figure.? 
how much the bare necessaries that they want- 
ed would cost, and how much less they had to 
buy them with. She had been, by snatches of 
a few weeks at a time, to an evening-school 
outside, and got her sister and brother sent to 
day-schools, by desultory starts, during three or 
four years. There was no instruction for any 
of them at home ; but she knew well — no one 
better — that a man so broken as to be the Fa- 
ther of the Marshalsea, could be no father to 
his own children. 

To these scanty means of improvement she 
added another of her own contriving. Once, 
among the heterogeneous crowd of inmates, 
there appeared a dancing-master. Her sister 
had a great desire to learn the dancing-master's 
art, and seemed to have a taste that way. At 
thirteen years old the Child of the Marshalsea 
presented herself to the dancing-master, with a 
little bag in her hand, and preferred her hum- 
ble petition. 

"If you please, I was born here, Sir." 

"Oh! You are the young lady, are you?" 
said the dancing-master, surveying the small 
figure and uplifted face. 

"Yes, Sir." 

" And what can I do for you ?" said the danc- 
ing-master. 

"Nothing for me, Sir, thank you," anxiously 
undrawing the strings of the little bag ; " but if, 
while you stay here, you could be so kind as to 
teach my sister cheap — " 

"My child, I'll teach her for nothing," said 
the dancing-master, shutting up the bag. He 
was as good-natured a dancing-master as ever 
danced at the Insolvent Court, and he kept his 
word. The sister was so apt a pupil, and the 
dancing-master had such abundant leisure to 
bestow upon her (for it took him a matter of ten 
weeks to set to his creditors, lead off, turn the 
Commissioners, and right and left back to hi* 
professional pursuits), that wonderful progress 
was made. Indeed the dancing-master was so 
proud of it, and so wishful to display it before 
he left, to a few select friends among the col- 



396 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



legians, that at six o'clock on a certain fine 
morning a minuet de la cour came oil' in the 
yard — the college-rooms being of too confined 
proportions for the purpose — in which so much 
ground was covered, and the steps were so con- 
scientiously executed, that the dancing-master, 
having to play the kit besides, was thoroughly 
blown. 

The success of this beginning, which led to 
the dancing-master's continuing his instruction 
after his release, emboldened the poor child to 
try again. She watched and waited months for 
a seamstress. In the fullness of time a milliner 
came in, and to her she repaired on her own 
behalf. 

" I beg your pardon, ma'am," she said, look- 
ing timidly round the door of the milliner whom 
she found in tears and in bed, "but I was born 
here." 

Every body seemed to hear of her as soon as 
they arrived ; for the milliner sat up in bed, 
drying her eyes, and said, just as the dancing- 
master had said : 

" Oh ! You are the child, are you?" 

"Yes, ma'am." 

"I am sorry I have'nt got any thing for you," 
said the milliner, shaking her head. 

"It's not that, ma'am. If you please I want 
to learn needlework." 

" Why should you do that," returned the mil- 
liner, "with me before you? It has not done 
me much good." 

"Nothing — whatever it is — seems to have 
done any body much good who comes here," 
she returned in all simplicity; "but I want to 
learn just the same." 

" I am afraid you are so weak, you see," the 
milliner objected. 

"I don't think I am weak, ma'am." 

"And you are so very, very little, you see," 
the milliner objected. 

"Yes, I am afraid I am very little indeed," 
returned the Child of the Marshalsea ; and so 
began to sob over that unfortunate defect of 
hers, which came so often in her way. The 
milliner — who was not morose or hard-hearted, 
only newly insolvent — Avas touched, took her in 
hand with good-will, found her the most patient 
and earnest of pupils, and made her a cunning 
workwoman in course of time. 

In course of time, and in the very self-same 
course of time, the Father of the Marshalsea 
gradually developed a new flower of character. 
The more Fatherly he grew as to the Marshal- 
sea, and the more dependent he became on the 
contributions of his changing family, the great- 
er stand he made by his forlorn gentility. With 
the same hand that had pocketed a collegian's 
half-crown half an hour ago, he would wipe away 
the tears that streamed over his cheeks if any 
reference were made to his daughters' earning 
their bread. So, over and above her other daily 
cares, the Child of the Marshalsea had always 
upon her the care of preserving the genteel fic- 
tion that they were all idle beggars together. 



The sister became a dancer. There was a 
ruined uncle in the family group — ruined bv 
his brother, the Father of the Marshalsea and 
knowing no more how than his miner did but 

accepting the fact as an inevitable certainty 

on whom her protection devolved. Naturally a 
retired and simple man, he had shown no par- 
ticular sense of being ruined, at the time when 
that calamity fell upon him, further than that 
he left off washing himself when the shock was 
announced, and never took to that luxury any 
more. He had been a very indifferent musical 
amateur in his better days ; and when he fell 
with his brother, resorted for support to playing 
a clarionet as dirty as himself in a small Thea- 
tre Orchestra. It was the theatre in which his 
niece became a dancer; he had been a fixture 
there a long time when she took her poor sta- 
tion in it ; and he accepted the task of serving 
as her esoort and guardian, just as he would 
have accepted an illness, a legacy, a feast, starv- 
ation — any thing but soap. 

To enable this girl to earn her few weekly 
shillings, it was necessary for the Child of the 
Marshalsea to go through an elaborate form 
with the Father. 

" Fanny is not going to live with us, just now, 
father. She will be here a good deal in the 
day, but she is going to live outside with uncle." 

"You surprise me. Why?" 

"I think uncle wants a companion, father. 
He should be attended to, and looked after." 

" A companion ? He passes much of his time 
here. And you attend to him and look after 
him, Amy, a great deal more than ever you* 
sister will. You all go out so much ; you all go 
out so much." 

This was to keep up the ceremony and pre- 
tense of his having no idea that Amy herself 
went out by the day to work. 

" But we are always very glad to come home, 
father? now, are we not? And as to Fanny, 
perhaps besides keeping uncle company and tak- 
ing care of him, it may be as well for her not 
quite to live here, always. She was not born 
here as I was, you know, father." 

" Well, Amy, well. I don't quite follow you, 
but it's natural, I suppose, that Fanny should 
prefer to be outside, and even that you often 
should, too. So you and Fanny and your un- 
cle, my dear, shall have your own way. Good, 
good. I'll not meddle ; don't mind me." 

To get her brother out of the prison ; out of 
the succession to Mrs. Bangham in executing 
commissions, and out of the slang interchange 
with very doubtful companions, consequent upon 
both, was her hardest task. At eighteen he 
would have dragged on from hand to mouth, 
from hour to hour, from penny to penny, until 
eighty. Nobody got into the prison from whom 
he derived any thing useful or good, and she 
could find no patron for him but her old friend 
and godfather. • 

"Dear Bob," said she, "what is to become 
of poor Tip ?" His name was Edward, and 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



397 



Ted had been transformed into Tip, within the 
walls. 

The turnkey had strong private opinions as to 
what would become of poor Tip, and had even 
gone so far with the view of averting their ful- 
fillment, as to sound Tip in reference to the 
expediency of running away and going to serve 
his country. But Tip had thanked him, and said 
he didn't seem to care for his country. 

"Well, my dear," said the turnkey, "some- 
thing ought to be done with him. Suppose I 
try and get him into the law ?" 

" That would be so good of you. Bob !" 

The turnkey had now two points to put to the 
professional gentlemen as they passed in and 
out. He put this second one so perseveringly, 
that a stool and twelve shillings a week were at 
last found for Tip in the office of an attorney in 
a great National Palladium called the Palace 
Court, at that time one of a considerable list 
of everlasting bulwarks to the dignity and safe- 
ty of Albion, whose places know them no more. 

Tip languished in Clifford's Inn for six months, 
and at the expiration of that term sauntered 
back one evening with his hands in his pockets, 
and incidentally observed to his sister that he 
was not going back again. 

"Not going back again?" said the poor little 
anxious Child of the Marshalsea, always calcu- 
lating and planning for Tip in the front rank of 
her charges. 

"I am so tired of it," said Tip, "that I have 
out it." 

Tip tired of every thing. With intervals of 
Marshalsea lounging, and Mrs. Bangham suc- 
cession, his small second mother, aided by her 
trusty friend, got him into a warehouse, into a 
market garden, into the hop trade, into the law 
again, into an auctioneer's, into a brewery, into 
a stockbroker's, into the law again, into a coach- 
office, into a wagon -office, into the law again, 
into a general dealer's, into a distillery, into the 
law again, into a wool house, into a dry goods 
house, into the Billingsgate trade, into the for- 
eign fruit trade, and into the docks. But what- 
ever Tip went into he came out of tired, an- 
nouncing that he had cut it. W T herever he went, 
this foredoomed Tip appeared to take the pris- 
on walla with him, and to set them up in such 
trade or calling; and to prowl about within their 
narrow limits in the old slip-shod, purposeless, 
down -at -heel way, until the real immovable 
Marshalsea walls asserted their fascination over 
him, and brought him back. 

Neverthless, the brave little creature did so 
fix her heart on her brother's rescue, that while 
he was ringing out these doleful changes she 
pinched and scraped enough together to ship 
him for Canada. When he was tired of no- 
thing to do, and disposed in its turn to cut even 
that, he graciously consented to go to Canada. 
And there was grief in her bosom over parting 
with him, and joy in the hope of his being put 
in a straight course at last. 

"God bless you, dear Tip! Don't be too 
Vol. XII.— No. GD.— Cc 



proud to come and see us when you have made 
your fortune." 

"All right!" said Tip, and went. 

But not all the way to Canada ; in fact, not 
further than Liverpool. After making the voy- 
age to that port from London, he found himself 
so strongly impelled to cut the vessel that he re- 
solved to walk back again. Carrying out which 
intention, he presented himself before her at the 
expiration of a month, in rags, without shoes, 
and much more tired than ever. 

At length, after another interval of successor- 
ship to Mrs. Bangham, he found a pursuit for 
himself, and announced it. 

"Amy, I have got a situation." 

"Have you really and truly, Tip?" 

"All right. I shall do now. You needn't 
look anxious about me any more, old girl." 

"What is it, Tip?" 

" Why, you know Slingo by sight ?" 

"Not the man they call the dealer?" 

"That's the chap. He'll be out on Monday, 
and he's going to give me a berth." 

"What is he a dealer in, Tip?" 

"Horses. All right. I shall do now, Amy." 

She lost sight of him for months afterward, 
and only heard from him once. A whisper passed 
among the elder collegians that he had been seen 
at a mock auction in Moorfields, pretending to 
buy plated articles for massive silver, and paying 
for them with the greatest liberality in bank- 
notes ; but it never reached her ears. One even- 
ing she was alone at work — standing up at the 
window, to save the twilight lingering above the 
wall — when he opened the door and walked in. 

She kissed and welcomed him ; but was afraid 
to ask him any question. He saw how anxious 
and timid she was, and appeared sorry. 

"I am afraid, Amy, you'll be vexed this time. 
Upon my life I am !" 

"I am very sorry to hear you say so, Tip. 
Have you come back ?" 

"Why— yes." 

"Not expecting this time that what you had 
found would answer very well, I am less sur- 
prised and sorry than I might have been, Tip." 

" Ah ! But that's not the worst of it." 

"Not the worst of it?" 

"Don't look so startled. No, Amy, not the 
worst of it. I have come back, you see ; but — 
don't look so startled — I have come back in what 
I may call a new way. I am off the volunteer list 
altogether. I am in now as one of the regulars." 

"Oh I Don't say you are a prisoner, Tip! 
Don't, don't! 

"Well, I don't want to say it," he returned in 
a reluctant tone; "but if you can't understand 
me without my saying it, what am I to do? I 
am in for forty pound odd." 

For the first time in all those years she sunk 
under her cares. She cried, witli her clasped 
hands lifted above her head, that it would kill 
their father if he ever knew it ; and fell down at 
Tip's graceless feet. 

It was easier for Tip to bring her to her senses 



398 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



than for her to bring him to understand that the 
Father of the Marshalsea would be beside him- 
self if he knew the truth. The thing was in- 
comprehensible to Tip, and altogether a fanci- 
ful notion. He yielded to it in that light only, 
when he submitted to her entreaties, backed by 
those of his uncle and sister. There was no 
want of precedent for his return; it was ac- 
counted for to the father in the usual way ; and 
the collegians, with a better comprehension of 
the pious fraud than Tip, supported it loyally. 

This was the life, and this the history, of the 
Child of the Marshalsea, at twenty-two. With 
a still surviving attachment to the one miserable 
yard and block of houses as her birth-place and 
home, she passed to and fro in it shrinkingly 
now, with a womanly consciousness that she 
was pointed out to every one. Since she had 
begun to work beyond the walls, she had found 
it necessary to conceal where she lived, and to 
come and go as secretly as she could, between 
the free city and the iron gates, outside of which 
she had never slept in her life. Her original 
timidity had grown with this concealment, and 
her light step and her little figure shunned the 
thronged streets while they passed along them. 

Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, 
she was innocent in all things else. Innocent, 
in the mist through which she saw her father, 
and the prison, and the turbid living river that 
flowed through it and flowed on. 

This was the life, and this the history, of 
Little Dorrit, now going home upon a dull Sep- 
tember evening, observed at a distance by Arthur 
Clennam. This was the life, and this the history, 
of Little Dorrit, turning at the end of London 
Bridge, recrossing it, going back again, passing 
on to Saint George's church, turning back sud- 
denly once more, and flitting in at the open out- 
er gate and little court-yard of the Marshalsea. 



CHAPTER VIII.— THE LOCK. 

Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting 
to ask some passer-by what place that was. He 
suffered a few people to pass him in whose faces 
there was no encouragement to make the in- 
quiry, and still stood pausing in the street, when 
an old man came up and turned into the court- 
yard. 

He stooped a good deal, and plodded along in 
a slow, preoccupied manner, which made the 
bustling London thoroughfares no very safe re- 
sort for him. He was dirtily and meanly dressed, 
in a threadbare coat, once blue, reaching to his 
ankles and buttoned to his chin, where it van- 
ished in the pale ghost of a velvet collar. A 
piece of red cloth with which that phantom had 
'been stiffened in its lifetime was now laid bare, 
and poked itself up, at the back of the old man's 
neck, into a confusion of gray hair and rusty 
stock and buckle which altogether nearly poked 
his hat off. A greasy hat it was, and a napless ; 
impending over his eyes, cracked and crumpled 
at the brim, and witli a wisp of pocket handker- 
chief dangling out below it. His trowsers were 



so long and loose, and his shoes so clumsy and 
large, that he shuffled like an elephant; though 
how much of this was gait, and how much trail- 
ing cloth and leather, no one could have told. 
Under one arm he carried a limp and worn-out 
case, containing some wind instrument ; in the 
same hand he had a pennyworth of snuff in a 
little packet of whity-brown paper, from which 
he slowly comforted his poor old blue nose with 
a lengthened-out pinch as Arthur Clennam look- 
ed at him. 

To this old man, crossing the court-yard, he 
preferred his inquiry, -touching him on the shoul- 
der. The old man stopped and looked round, 
with the expression in his weak gray eyes of 
one whose thoughts had been far off, and who 
was a little dull of hearing also. 

"Pray, Sir," said Arthur, repeating his ques- 
tion, "what is this place?" 

"Ay! This place?" returned the old man, 
staying his pinch of snuff on its road, and point- 
ing at the place without looking at it. " This is 
the Marshalsea, Sir." 

"The debtors' prison?" 

" Sir," said the old man, with the air of deem- 
ing it not quite necessary to insist upon that des- 
ignation, "the debtors' prison." 

He turned himself about, and went on. 

"I beg your pardon," said Arthur, stopping 
him once more, " but will you allow me to ask 
you another question? Can any one go in 
here?" 

"Any one can go in" replied the old man; 
plainly adding, by the significance of his em- 
phasis, " but it is not every one who can go out." 

"Pardon me once more. Are you familiar 
with the place ?" 

" Sir," returned the old man, squeezing his 
little packet of snuff in his hand, and turning 
upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt 
him, "I am." 

" I beg you to excuse me. I am not imperti- 
nently curious, but have a good object. Do yon 
know the name of Dorrit here?" 

"My name, Sir," replied the old man most 
unexpectedly, " is Dorrit." 

Arthur pulled off his hat to him. " Grant me 
the favor of half a dozen words. I was wholly 
unprepared for your announcement, and hope 
that assurance is my sufficient apology for hav- 
ing taken the liberty of addressing you. I have 
recently come home to England after a long ab- 
sence. I have seen at my mother's — Mrs. Clen- 
nam in the city — a young woman working at her 
needle, whom I have only heard addressed or 
spoken of as Little Dorrit. I have felt sincerely 
interested in her, and have had a great desire to 
know something more about her. I saw her, not a 
minute before you came up, pass in at that door." 

The old man looked at him attentively. " Are 
you a sailor, Sir?" he asked. He seemed a lit- 
tle disappointed by the shake of the head that 
replied to him. " Not a sailor ? I judged from 
your sunburnt face that you might be. Are you 
in earnest, Sir?" 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



399 



"I do assure you that I am, and do entreat 
you to believe that I am, in plain earnest." 

"I know very little of the world, Sir," return- 
ed the other, who had a weak and quavering 
voice. "I am merely passing on, like the shad- 
ow over the sun-dial. It would be worth no 
man's while to mislead me ; it would really be 
too easy — too poor a success, to yield any satis- 
faction. The young woman whom you saw go 
in here is my brother's child. My brother is 
William Dorrit ; I am Frederick. You say you 
have seen her at your mother's (I know your 
mother befriends her), you have felt an interest 
in her, and you wish to know what she does 
here. Come and see." 

He went on again, and Arthur accompanied 
him. 

"My brother," said the old man, pausing on 
the step, and slowly facing round again, "has 
been here many years ; and much that happens 
even among ourselves, out of doors, is kept from 
him for reasons that I needn't enter upon now. 
Be so good as to say nothing of my niece's work- 
ing at her needle. Be so good as to say nothing 
that goes beyond what is said among us. If you 
keep within our bounds, you can not well be 
wrong. Now! Come and see."' 

Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at 
the end of which a key was turned, and a strong 
door was opened from within. It admitted them 
into a lodge or lobby, across which they passed, 
and so through another door and a grating into 
the prison. The old man, always plodding on 
before, turned round, in his slow, stiff, stooping 
manner, when they came to the turnkey on duty, 
as if to present his companion. The turnkey 
nodded, and the companion passed in without 
being asked whom he wanted. 

The night was dark ; and the prison lamps in 
the yard, and the candles in the prison windows 
faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old 
curtain and blind, had not the air of making it 
tighter. A few people loitered about, but the 
greater part of the population was within doors. 
The old man, taking the right hand side of the 
yard, turned in at the third or fourth doorway, 
and began to ascend the stairs. " They are rath- 
er dark, Sir, but you will not find any thing in 
the way." 

He paused for a moment before opening a 
door on the second story. lie had no sooner 
turned the handle than the visitor saw Dorrit, 
and saw the reason of her setting so much store 
by dining alone. 

She had brought the meat home that she 
should have eaten herself, and was already 
warming it on a gridiron over the fire, for her 
father, clad in an old gray gown and a black 
cap, awaiting his supper at the table. A clean 
cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, 
and spoon, salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and 
pewter ale-pot Such zests as his particular 
little phial of cayenne pepper, and his penny- 
worth of pickles in a saucer, were not wanting. 

She started, colored deeply, and turned white. 



The visitor, more with his eyes than by the 
slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated 
her to be reassured and to trust him. 

" I found this gentleman," said the uncle — 
"Mr. Clennam, William, son of Amy's friend — 
at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, 
of paying his respects, but hesitating whether to 
come in or not. This is my brother William, Sir." 
"I hope," said Arthur, very doubtful what to 
say, "that my respects for your daughter may 
explain and justify my desire to be presented to 
you, Sir." 

"Mr. Clennam," returned the other, rising, tak- 
ing his cap off in the flat of his hand, and so hold- 
ing it, ready to put on again, "you do me honor. 
You are welcome, Sir." With a low bow. " Fred- 
erick, a chair. Pray sit down, Mr. Clennam." 

He put his black cap on again as he had taken 
it off, and resumed his own seat. There was a 
wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his 
manner. These were the ceremonies with which 
he received the collegians. 

"You are welcome to the Marshalsea, Sir. I 
have welcomed many gentlemen to these walls. 
Perhaps you are aware — my daughter Amy may 
have mentioned — that I am the Father of this 
place." 

" I — so I have understood," said Arthur, dash- 
ing at the assertion. 

"You know, I dare say, that my daughter 
Amy was born here. A good girl, Sir, a dear 
girl, and long a comfort and support to me. 
Amy, my dear, put the dish on ; Mr. Clennam 
will excuse the primitive customs to which we 
are reduced here. It is a compliment to ask 
you if you would do me the honor, Sir, to — " 

"Thank you," returned Arthur. "Not a 
morsel." 

He felt himself quite lost in wonder at the 
manner of the man, and that the probability of 
his daughter's having had a reserve as to her 
family history should be so far out of his mind. 
She filled his glass, put all the little matters 
on the table ready to his hand, and then sat 
beside him while he ate his supper. Evidently 
in observance of their nightly custom, she put 
some bread before herself, and touched his 
glass with her lips ; but Arthur saw she was 
troubled and took nothing. Her look at her 
father, half admiring him and proud of him, 
half ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, 
went to his inmost heart. 

The Father of the Marshalsea condescended 
toward his brother as an amiable, well-meaning 
man ; a private character, who had not arrived 
at distinction. "Frederick," said he, "you and 
Fanny sup at your lodgings to night, I know. 
What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?" 
" She is walking with Tip." 
"Tip — as you may know — is my son, Mr. 
Clennam. He has been a little wild, and diffi- 
cult to settle, but his introduction to the world 
was rather" — he shrugged his shoulders with a 
faint sigh, and looked round the room — " a little 
adverse. Your first visit here, Sir?" 



400 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" My first." 

"You could hardly have been here since your 
boyhood without my knowledge. It very seldom 
happens that any body — of any pretensions — 
any pretensions — comes here without being pre- 
sented to me." 

"As many as forty or fifty a day have been 
introduced to my brother," said Frederick, faint- 
ly lighting up with a ray of pride. 

" Yes !" the Father of the Marshalsea assent- 
ed. "We have even exceeded that number. 
On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a 
Levee — quite a Levee. Amy, my dear, I have 
been trying half the day to remember the name 
of the gentleman from Camberwell, who was in- 
troduced to me last Christmas week by that 
agreeable coal merchant who was remanded for 
six months." 

"I don't remember his name, father." 

"Frederick, do you remember his name?" 

Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it. 
No one could doubt that Frederick was the last 
person upon earth to put such a question to, with 
any hope of information. 

"I mean," said his brother, "the gentleman 
who did that handsome action with so much 
delicacy. Ha! Tush! The name has quite 
escaped me. Mr. Clennam, as I have happened 
to mention a handsome and delicate action, you 
may like, perhaps, to know what it was." 

"Very much," said Arthur, withdrawing his 
eyes from the delicate head beginning to droop, 
and the pale face with a new solicitude steal- 
ing over it. 

"It is so generous, and shows so much fine 
feeling, that it is almost a duty to mention it. I 
said at the time that I always would mention it 
on every suitable occasion, without regard to 
personal sensitiveness. A — well — a — it's of no 
use to disguise the fact — you mvist know, Mr. 
Clennam, that it does sometimes occur that peo- 
ple who come here, desire to offer some little — 
Testimonial — to the Father of the place." 

To see her hand upon his arm in mute en- 
treaty half repressed, and her timid little shrink- 
ing figure turning away, was to see a sad, sad 
sight. 

" Sometimes," he went on in a low, soft voice, 
agitated, and clearing his throat every now and 
then; "sometimes — hem — it takes one shape 
and sometimes another; but it is generally — 
ha — Money. And it is, I can not but confess it, 
it is too often — hem — acceptable. This gentle- 
man that I refer to, was presented to me, Mr. 
Clennam, in a manner highly gratifying to my 
feelings, and conversed not only with great po- 
liteness, but with great — ahem — information." 
All this time, though he had finished his sup- 
per, he was nervously going about his plate with 
his knife and fork, as if some of it were still be- 
fore him. "It appeared from his conversation 
that he had a garden, though he was delicate of 
mentioning it at first, as gardens are — hem — are 
not accessible to me. But it came out, through 
my admiring a very fine cluster of geranium — 



beautiful cluster of geranium to be sure — which 
he had brought from his conservatory. On my 
taking notice of its rich color, he showed me a 
piece of paper round it, on which was written 
' For the Father of the Marshalsea,' and present- 
ed it to me. But this was — hem — not all. He 
made a particular request, on taking leave, that 
I would remove the paper in half an hour. I — 
ha — I did so ; and I found that it contained — 
ahem — two guineas. I assure you, Mr. Clen- 
nam, I have received — hem — Testimonials in 
many ways, and of many degrees of value, and 
they have always been — ha — unfortunately ac- 
ceptable ; but I never was more pleased than 
with this — ahem — this particular Testimonial." 

Arthur was in the act of saying the little he 
could say on such a theme, when a bell began 
to ring, and footsteps approached the door. A 
pretty girl of a far better figure, and much more 
developed than Little Dorrit, though looking 
much younger in the face when the two were 
observed together, stopped in the doorway on 
seeing a stranger ; and a young man who was 
with her, stopped too. 

"Mr. Clennam, Fanny. My eldest daughter 
and my son, Mr. Clennam. The bell is a sig- 
nal for visitors to retire, and so they have come 
to say good-night ; but there is plenty of time, 
plenty of time. Girls, Mr. Clennam will excuse 
any household business you may have together. 
He knows, I dare say, that I have but one room 
here." 

"I only want my clean dress from Amy, fa- 
ther," said the second girl. 

"And I my clothes," said Tip. 

Amy opened a drawer in an old piece of fur- 
niture that was a chest of drawers above, and a 
bedstead below, and produced two little bundles, 
which she handed to her brother and sister. 
"Mended and made up?" Clennam heard the 
sister ask in a whisper. To which Amy an- 
swered "Yes." He had risen now, and took 
the opportunity of glancing round the room. 
The bare walls had been colored green, evi- 
dently by an unskilled hand, and were poorly 
decorated with a few prints. The window was 
curtained, and the floor carpeted; and there 
were shelves, and pegs, and other such conven- 
iences, that had accumulated in the course of 
years. It was a close, confined room, poorly 
furnished ; and the chimney smoked to boot, or 
the tin screen at the top of the fireplace was su- 
perfluous ; but constant pains and care had made 
it neat, and even, after its kind, comfortable. 

All the while the bell was ringing, and the un- 
cle was anxious to go. "Come Fanny, come 
Fanny," he said, with his ragged clarionet case 
under his arm; " the lock, child, the lock!" 

Fanny bade her father good-night, and whisked 
off airily. Tip had already clattered down stairs. 
"Now, Mr. Clennam," said the uncle, looking 
back, as he shuffled out after them, "the lock, 
Sir, the lock." 

Mr. Clennam had two things to do before he 
followed ; one, to offer his testimonial to the Fa- 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



401 



ther of the Marshalsea, without giving pain to 
his child; the other to say something to that 
child, though it were but a word, in explanation 
of his having come there. 

"Allow me," said the Father, "to see you 
down stairs." 

She had slipped out after the rest, and they 
were alone. "Not on any account," said the 
visitor, hurriedly. " Pray allow me to—" chink, 
chink, chink. 

" Mr. Clennam," said the Father, " I am deep- 
ly, deeply — " But his visitor had shut up his 
hand to stop the chinking, and had gone down 
stairs with great speed. 

He saw no Little Dorrit on his way down, or 
in the yard. The last two or three stragglers 
were hurrying to the Lodge, and he was follow- 
ing, when he caught sight of her in the door- 
way of the first house from the entrance. He 
turned back hastily. 

** Pray forgive me," he said, " for speaking to 
you here ; pray forgive me for coming here at 
all! I followed you to-night. I did so that I 
might endeavor to render you and your family 
some service. You know the terms on which I 
and my mother are, and may not be surprised 
that I have preserved our distant relations at 
her house, lest I should unintentionally make 
her jealous, or resentful, or do you any injury in 
her estimation. What I have seen here, in this 
short time, has greatly increased my heartfelt 
wish to be a friend to you. It would recompense 
me for much disappointment if I could hope to 
gain your confidence." 

She was scared at first, but seemed to take 
courage while he spoke to her. 

"You are very good, Sir. You speak very 
earnestly to me. But I — but I wish you had 
not watched me." 

He understood the emotion with which she 
said it to arise in her father's behalf; and he 
respected it, and was silent. 

" Mrs. Clennam has been of great service to 
me ; I don't know what we should have done 
without the employment she has given me ; I am 
afraid it may not be a good return to become 
secret with her ; I can say no more to-night, Sir. 
I am sure you mean to be kind to us. Thank 
you, thank you !" 

" Let me ask you one question before I leave. 
Have you known my mother long?" 

"I think two years, Sir. — The bell has 
stopped." 

" How did you know her first? Did she send 
here for you ?" 

"Ny. She does not even know that I live 
here. We have a friend, father and I — a poor 
laboring man, but the best of friends — and I 
wrote out that I wished to do needlework, and 
gave his address. And he got what I wrote out 
displayed at a few places where it cost nothing, 
and Mrs. Clennam found*me that way, and sent 
for me. The gate will be locked, Sir!" 

She was so tremulous and agitated, and he 
iras 60 moved by compassion for her, and by 



deep interest in her story as it dawned upon 
him, that he could scarcely tear himself away. 
But the stoppage of the bell, and the quiet in 
the prison, were a warning to depart ; and with 
a few hurried words of kindness he left her 
gliding back to her father. 

But he had remained too late. The inner 
gate was locked, and the Lodge closed. After a 
little fruitless knocking with his hand, he was 
standing there with the disagreeable conviction 
upon him that he had to get through the night, 
when a voice accosted him from behind. 

"Caught, eh?" said the voice. "You won't 
go home till morning. — Oh ! It's you, is it, Mr. 
Clennam ?" 

The voice was Tip's ; and they stood looking 
at one another in the prison-yard, as it began 
to rain. 

"You've done it," observed Tip; "you must 
be sharper than that next time." 

"But you are locked in too," said Arthur. 

" I believe I am !" said Tip, sarcastically. 
" About ! But not in your way. I belong to the 
shop, only my sister has a theory that our govern- 
or must never know it. I don't see why, myself." 

" Can I get any shelter ?" asked Arthur. 
"What had I better do?" 

" We had better get hold of Amy, first of all," 
said Tip, referring any difficulty to her as a 
matter of course. 

" I would rather walk about all night — it's not 
much to do — than give that trouble." >. 

"You needn't do that, if you don't mirid pay- 
ing for a bed. If you don't mind paying, they'll 
make you up one on the Snuggery table, under 
the circumstances. If you'll come along, I'll in- 
troduce you there." 

As they passed down the yard, Arthur looked 
up at the window of the room he had lately left, 
where the light was still burning. " Yes, Sir," 
said Tip, following his glance. " That's the gov- 
ernor's. She'll sit "with him for another hour 
reading yesterday's paper to him, or something 
of that sort ; and then she'll come out like a lit- 
tle ghost, and vanish away without a sound." 

"I don't understand you." 

" The governor sleeps up in the room, and she 
has a lodging at the turnkey's. First house 
there," said Tip, pointing out the doorway into 
which she had retired. "First house, sky par- 
lor. She pays twice as much for it as she would 
for one twice as good outside. But she stands 
by the governor, poor dear girl, day and night. n 

This brought them to the tavern-establishment 
at the upper end of the prison, where the col- 
legians had just vacated their social evening club. 
The apartment on the ground floor in which it 
was held was the Snuggery in question ; the pres- 
idential tribune of the chairman, the pewter- 
pots, glasses, pipes, tobacco-ashes, and general 
flavor of members, were still as that convivial 
institution had left them on its adjournment. 
The Snuggery had two of the qualities popularly 
held to be essential to grog for ladies, in respect 
that it was hot and strong ; but in the third point 



402 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



of analogy, requiring plenty of it, the Snuggery 
was defective : being but a cooped-up apartment. 

The unaccustomed visitor from outside natu- 
rally assumed every body here to be prisoners 
— landlord, waiter, bar-maid, pot-boy, and all. 
Whether they were or not, did not appear ; but 
they all had a weedy look. The keeper of a 
chandler's shop in a front parlor, who took in gen- 
tlemen boarders, lent his assistance in making 
the bed. He had been a tailor in his time, and 
had kept a phaeton, he said. He boasted that 
he stood up litigiously for the interests of the 
college ; and he had undefined and undefinable 
ideas that the marshal intercepted a "Fund" 
which ought to come to the collegians. He liked 
to believe this, and always impressed the shad- 
owy grievance on new-comers and strangers ; 
though he could not, for his life, have explained 
what Fund he meant, or how the notion had got 
rooted in his soul. He had fully convinced him- 
self, notwithstanding, that his own proper share 
of the Fund was three and ninepence a week ; 
and that in this amount he, as an individual 
collegian, was swindled by the marshal regular- 
ly every Monday. Apparently, he helped to 
make the bed, that he might not lose an oppor- 
tunity of stating this case ; after which unload- 
ing of his mind, and after announcing (as it 
seemed he always did, without any thing com- 
ing of it), that he was going to write a letter to 
the papers and show the marshal up, he fell 
into miscellaneous conversation with the rest. It 
was evident from the general tone of the whole 
party that they had come to regard insolvency 
as the normal state of mankind, and the payment 
of debts as a disease that occasionally broke out. 

In this strange scene, and with these strange 
spectres flitting about him, Arthur Clennam 
looked on at the preparations as if they were 
part of a dream. Pending which, the long-ini- 
tiated Tip, with an awful enjoyment of the Snug- 
gery's resources, pointed out the common kitch- 
en fire maintained by subscription of collegians, 
the boiler for hot water supported in like man- 
ner, and other premises generally tending to the 
deduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy, 
and wise, was to come to the Marsh alsea. 

The two tables put together in a corner, were, 
at length, converted into a very fair bed ; and 
the stranger was left to the Windsor chairs, the 
presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, saw- 
dust, pipe-lights, spittoons, and repose. But the 
last item was long, long, long in linking itself 
to the rest. The novelty of the place, the com- 
ing upon it without preparation, the sense of 



being locked up, the remembrance of that room 
up stairs, of the two brothers, and above all of 
the retiring childish form, and the face in which 
he now saw years of insulficient food, if not of 
want, kept him waking and unhappy. 

Speculations, too, bearing the strangest rela- 
tions toward the prison, but always concerning 
the prison, ran like nightmares through his mind 
while he lay awake. Whether coffins were kept 
ready for people who 'might die there, where 
they were kept, how they were kept, where 
people who died in the prison were buried, how 
they were taken out,' what forms were observed, 
whether an implacable creditor could arrest the 
dead ? As to escaping, what chances there were 
of escape ? Whether a prisoner could scale the 
walls with a cord and grapple, how he would de- 
scend upon the other side : whether he could 
alight on a housetop, steal down a staircase, let 
himself out at a door, and get lost in the crowd? 
As to Fire in the prison, if one were to break 
out while he lay there ? 

And these involuntary starts of fancy were, 
after all, but the setting of a picture in which 
three people kept before him. His father, with 
the steadfast look with which he had died, pro- 
phetically darkened forth in the portrait; his 
mother, with her arm up, warding off his suspi- 
cions ; Little Dorrit, with her hand on the degrad- 
ed arm, and her drooping head turned away. 

What if his mother had an old reason she well 
knew for softening to this poor girl! What if 
the prisoner now sleeping quietly — Heaven grant 
it ! — by the light of the great Day of Judgment 
should trace back his fall to her. What if any 
act of hers, and of his father's, should have 
even remotely brought the gray heads of those 
two brothers so low ! 

A swift thought shot into his mind. In that 
long imprisonment here, and in her own long 
confinement to her room, did his mother find a 
balance to be struck ? I admit that I was acces- 
sory to that man's captivity. I have suffered for 
it in kind. He has decayed in his prison ; I in 
mine. I have paid the penalty. 

When all the other thoughts had faded out, 
this one held possession of him. When he fell 
asleep, she came before him in her wheeled 
chair, warding him off with this justification. 
When he awoke, and sprang up causelessly 
frightened, the words were in his ears, as if her 
voice had slowly spoken them at his pillow, to 
break his rest : " He withers away in his prison ; 
I wither away in mine ; inexorable justice is 
done ; what do I owe on this score !" 



Blantjjltj JUrntfr nf Cttrmtt (tok 

THE UNITED STATES. first ballot the following votes were registered : 

CONGRESS, as we have previously stated, met William A. Richardson, Democrat, of Illinois, 74 ; 
at Washington on the 3d of December, but we Lewis D. Campbell, Free Soil, of Ohio, 53; Hum- 
are again compelled to close this Record without phrey Marshall, Democrat and Know Nothing, of 
announcing the organization of the House of Rep- Kentucky, 30; N. P. Banks, Republican and Know 
resentatives by the election of a Speaker. At the Nothing, of Massachusetts, 21 ; and H. M. Fuller, 



MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 



403 



YYhig and National Know Nothing, of Pennsyl- 
vania, 17. The balloting continued with nearly 
the same result until the 7th of December, when 
Mr. Campbell withdrew, urging, in explanation, 
that if he remained a candidate " it would be im- 
possible for his friends to succeed unless he repu- 
diated his principles on slavery, or gave pledges 
concerning the organization of committees, neither 
of which courses he could honorably pursue." 
Upon the retirement of Mr. Campbell, the vote for 
Mr. Banks was immediately increased, running up 
at one time as high as 107, with 113 necessary for a 
choice. Down to the 29th of December the ballot- 
ing had not materially changed — the three most 
prominent candidates being Messrs. Banks, Rich- 
ardson, and Fuller. A motion to elect a Speaker by 
a plurality of votes had been previously negatived. 
Under these circumstances the President adopt- 
ed the unusual course of sending in his Message 
before the organization of the House. It was re- 
ceived and read in the Senate on the 31st of Decem- 
ber. Alluding to the treaty between Great Britain 
and the United States, passed 19th of April, 1850, 
by which it was stipulated that neither of these 
powers should colonize or hold dominion over 
Central America, the President, in the first place, 
states that, while Great Britain holds the United 
States to its obligations, she claims a right to con- 
tinue her dominion over the Mosquito Coast, and 
to regard portions of Honduras as her absolute do- 
main — a construction of the treaty in which it is 
impossible, in the judgment of the President, for 
the United States to acquiesce. In regard to for- 
eign recruiting, the Message says that ordinary 
steps were taken to arrest and punish persons en- 
gaged in this violation of our laws ; and suitable 
representations on the subject having been ad- 
dressed to Great Britain, the latter thereupon ad- 
mitted her attempt to draw recruits from the 
United States, but declared that "stringent in- 
structions" had been given to her agents not to vi- 
olate our municipal law. The fact that the recruit- 
ment was not even then discontinued, but was 
prosecuted on a systematic plan by " high public 
functionaries," impelled the President to demand 
not only its cessation, but reparation for the wrong. 
The Message recommends the appointment of a 
commissioner, in conjunction with Great Britain, 
to survey and establish the Boundary Line between 
Washington Territory and the British Possessions. 
In reviewing the history of the Danish Sound dues, 
payment of which is refused by the United States, 
the President assigns as one, among other reasons 
for declining to participate in the late Congress at 
Copenhagen, that Denmark did not offer to submit 
the question of her right to levy the dues. As to 
our relations with Spain, the Message states that 
compensation has been made for the illegal seizure 
of the Black Warrior, and that indemnity will be 
given for the sudden revocation of the decree, 
passed in 1814, permitting the importation of build- 
in a; materials to the island of Cuba free of duty, by 
which many citizens of the United States suffered 
severe pecuniary losses. The President has also 
reason to believe that satisfaction will be accorded 
for the arrest of the El Dorado. The distracted 
internal condition of Central America, says the 
President, has rendered it necessary to adopt meas- 
ures to prevent unlawful intervention in the affairs 
of Nicaragua. In relation to the public Treasury 
it appears from the Message that " the balance on 
hand at the beginning of the present fiscal year, 



July 1, 1855, was $18,931,976, and that the re- 
ceipts for the first quarter, and the estimated re- 
ceipts for the remaining three quarters, amount 
together to $07,918,734 ; thus affording in all, as 
the available resources of the current fiscal year, 
the sum of $80,856,710. If, to the actual expend- 
itures of the first quarter of the current fiscal year, 
be added the probable expenditures for the remain- 
ing three quarters, as estimated by the Secretary 
of the Treasury, the sum total will be $71,226,846, 
thereby leaving an estimated balance in the Treas- 
ury on July 1, 1856, of $15,623,863 41." The Pres- 
ident continues to recommend the partial reorgan- 
ization of the army, and suggests an appropriation 
for the construction of six steam sloops of war. In 
the Post-office department the excess of expendi- 
tures over receipts for the last fiscal year was 
$2,625,206 — attributed to the large quantity of 
printed matter conveyed by mails at a low rate. 
Alluding to the difficulties in Kansas, the Message 
says that nothing has occurred there to justify the 
interference of the Executive. It avers that the 
people of that Territory have the right to determ- 
ine their own domestic institutions without inter- 
ference from any other State. The President 
dwells at some length on State rights, with partic- 
ular reference to the Fugitive Slave Law. He re- 
views in a measure the history of the South ; de- 
nies that it " has persistently asserted claims and 
obtained advantages over the North in the practi- 
cal administration of the General Government," 
and finally defends the principles of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill. A Convention, composed of del- 
egates from the Irish Emigrant Aid Society, was 
held in the city of New York on the 4th of Decem- 
ber, and continued in secret session during three 
days. Before adjourning the Convention issued an 
address to " the Irish race, and the friends of Irish 
independence in the United States, in Ireland, the 
British Colonies, and elsewhere." The design of 
the organization thus initiated, as set forth in the 
address ajid resolutions annexed, is to further " the 
restoration to Ireland of that sovereignty which 
she has never conceded." The reasons given for 
urging action at this time is "the present condi- 
tion of affairs in Europe." The Convention dis- 
avows the intention of violating the laws of the 
United States, which forbid the arming or equip- 
ping of any force for the invasion of a state Avith 
which the country is at peace. No little excite- 
ment was created in the city of New York, on the 
23d of December last, by the arrest and detention 
of the steamer Northern Light, which was to have 
sailed that day for San Juan de Nicaragua. The 
United States District Attorney, it seems, enter- 
tained suspicions that a party of filibusters would 
embark in the Northern Light for Central America, 
and, accordingly, he appeared on the wharf just as 
the vessel was about to sail, and forbade her leav- 
ing the harbor. His prohibition was, however, 
disregarded, for shortly after the Northern Light 
steamed into the river and stood out for sea. Find- 
ing this to be the ca .•£, the District Attorney pro- 
cured the assistance of two government vessels, 
one of which intercepted the Northern Light in New 
York Bay, and brought her back to the wharf, 
where she remained for three days safely guarded. 
The vessel was carefully overhauled, but no arms 
or munitions of war were found on board; and lost 
any should be concealed beneath the great quantity 
of coal that she carried, two officers wore dispatch- 
ed in her to San Juan, there to watch the disem- 



404 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



barkation of her freight. The passengers and their 
tickets were also examined, and after this had 
been done the vessel was permitted to proceed 
upon her voyage. Several persons were arrested 
and held for trial on the charge of setting on foot 
in the city of New York a military enterprise 

against the State of Nicaragua. The trial of 

Lewis Baker for the murder of William Poole in 
in the city of New York, having been prolonged 
for upward of a fortnight, was brought to a close on 
the 15th of December. After forty hours' delibera- 
tion, the jury, unable to agree upon a verdict, were 
discharged by the Court. It was understood that of 
the twelve jurymen nine were for murder, with a 
recommendation to mercy, one for manslaughter in 
the first degree, and two for manslaughter in the 
second degree.— — Some additional and highly in- 
teresting particulars of the fate of Sir John Frank- 
lin and his companions have at length been brought 
to light. An overland exploring party, specially 
dispatched by the Hudson's Bay Company to ex- 
amine the locality where it was supposed Frank- 
lin and his associates perished, have returned, and 
their efforts to gain information of the lost navi- 
gators have been rewarded with some success. The 
party traveled north to the mouth of Great Fish 
or Back River, and having there fallen in with 
Esquimaux, were directed by them to examine 
Montreal Island and the adjoining coast. Accord- 
ing to the reports of the Esquimaux, it was in this 
neighborhood that, four years ago, the brave ad- 
venturers died from famine and exhaustion. One, 
they alleged, died on Montreal Island, and the rest 
wandered along the opposite coast, until, worn out 
by fatigue and starvation, they one by one ex- 
pired. In confirmation of this story, which other- 
wise would only rest on the questionable veracity 
of Esquimaux, a snow-shoe of undoubted English 
make, the part of a ship's boat with the word Terror 
yet distinctly visible upon it, and other articles that 
had once belonged to the Franklin expeditionists, 
were found by the explorers on Montreal Inland, No 
bones or traces of any human body were discovered, 
and it is supposed that the remains of the naviga- 
tors were devoured by the wolves which were seen 
in large bands throughout the neighborhood. The 
subject of arctic explorations seems to have been 
suddenly revived, for, in addition to the foregoing, 
the British relief bark Resolute, abandoned in the 
arctic ice by Captain Kellett, of the expedition 
under Sir Edward Belcher, has been recovered by 
a New London whaler, and brought in safety to 
that port. The Resolute has yet all the armaments, 
stores, and equipments that she possessed when she 
was abandoned. When discovered she had drifted 
a thousand miles from the place of her desertion. 
In this connection it may also be mentioned that 
the British Minister at Washington has written to 
Dr. Kane, tendering him and his associates the 
congratulations and thanks of Her Britannic Ma- 
jesty's Government for their efforts in the search 
,for Sir John Franklin.— — The events that have 
taken place in Kansas during the past month have 
ibeen of the most exciting nature. To such an ex- 
tremity have the differences between the pro-slav- 
ery and anti-slavery parties been carried, that an 
actual appeal to arms was at one time considered 
most imminent. The trouble originated in a quar- 
rel, near Hickory Point, between a man named 
Coleman and one Charles W. Dow — the former 
being pro-slavery and the latter free-soil. Dow was 
killed by Coleman, and at a public meeting, held 



subsequently in the neighborhood, resolutions were 
passed denouncing Coleman (who had fled to Mis- 
souri) and those connected with him as murderers, 
A party of men who were present at this meeting, 
while returning home at a late hour encountered 
another party, headed by the Sheriff of Douglass 
County, and in his custody a prisoner — Branson 
by name, and one of their friends — who had just 
been arrested. They called to Branson to come 
to them, which he did in despite of the opposition 
of the Sheriff. In justification of this act, the free- 
state men urged that they did not recognize as 
valid the warrant by which Branson had been ar- 
rested. The most exaggerated versions of this 
story spread like wild-fire throughout the Territory 
and fanned the flame of party feeling. Beyond 
the border, Missourians were told that a large band 
of free-state men had rescued from the Sheriff of 
Douglass County a person accused of murdering a 
pro-slavery man ; that this same band were de- 
stroying and burning down the houses of peaceful 
citizens; and that their own property, if such a 
state of things continued, would not be safe. Gov- 
ernor Shannon issued a proclamation calling out 
the militia, and, subsequently, demanded permis- 
sion from the President to summon to his assist- 
ance the United States troops stationed at Fort 
Leavenworth. The Missourians, greatly excited 
by these reports, crossed the borders in large num- 
bers to protect the pro-slavery people, whom they 
imagined to be in danger, and (as they threatened) 
to attack Lawrence if the rescuers of Branson were 
not delivered up to justice. The citizens of Law- 
rence prepared to defend, if necessary, their city. 
No attack was, however, attempted, though a large 
body of Missourians encamped for several days at 
different places in the vicinity. In the mean while. 
Governor Shannon visited Lawrence, and conclud- 
ed an agreement with its citizens, by means of 
which the fearful consequences of an armed col- 
lision were happily averted. By the terms of that 
agreement the citizens, on their part, protested 
that the rescue of Branson had taken place without 
their knowledge, and pledged themselves, if any 
one in the town of Lawrence had been a participant 
in said rescue, to aid in the execution of legal pro- 
cess against him. The people further declared that 
they had no knowledge of the existence Of any or- 
ganization for the resistance of the laws, but wish- 
ed it to be understood that they expressed no opin- 
ion as to the validity of the enactments of the Ter- 
ritorial Legislature. Governor Shannon, on his 
part, promised that any persons arrested in Law- 
rence or its vicinity, while a foreign force remained 
in the Territory, should only be examined before 
a United States District Judge and admitted to 
bail, and that all persons arrested without legal 
process by the Sheriff's posse should be set at lib- 
erty, and remuneration be made for damages sus- 
tained. On these terms hostilities were suspend- 
ed, and the Missourians, breaking up their camp, 

returned home. From Oregon and Washington 

Territories there are reports of Indian depredations. 
Whole families had been massacred, and the utmost 
consternation was felt by settlers in unprotected 
parts of the country. Several severe encounters had 
taken place between the troops and large bands of 
savages, and though the latter were beaten and 
many of them killed or taken prisoners, they are 
not yet disposed to come to terms. General Wool 
had left San Francisco for Portland, O. T., wher* 
he was organizing a plan of campaign against the 



MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 



405 



hostile tribes which would be speedily put in opera- 
tion. 

MEXICO. 

The news from Mexico is of some importance. 
A conspiracy to overthrow the Government of 
Alvarez and elevate General Uraga to the Presi- 
dency, was discovered in the latter part of Novem- 
ber. The plot was an extensive one, and had its 
adherents at Puebla, Culiacan, and San Miguel. 
It was, however, frustrated, and its leaders, in- 
cluding Uraga, were promptly arrested. The Gov- 
ernment was altogether too weak to proceed to ex- 
treme measures against the conspirators, for it was 
generally believed that the Church had at least 
winked at their doings, if it had not instigated the 
movement. Alvarez, by abolishing some of the 
privileges of the clergy, and annulling the law 
which exempted Church property from taxation, 
made enemies at once of the most powerful polit- 
ical body in Mexico, and the natural result of such 
policy has already appeared. Alvarez is an old 
man ; the climate of the capital did not agree with 
him ; and his efforts to reconcile party factions 
have proved unavailing. So he has resigned the 
office he held for so brief a period, and has returned 
to his own state of Guerrero, where he has lived 
from early youth. General Comonfort, of revolu- 
tionary reputation, is his successor to the Presi- 
dency. 

GREAT BRITAIN. 

Some changes have been announced in the Brit- 
ish Cabinet. The Duke of Argyle has been ap- 
pointed Postmaster-General, and the Privy Seal — ■ 
which the Duke of Argyle's acceptance of the Post- 
mastership has placed at the disposal of the Prem- 
ier — has been given to Lord Harrowby, w r ho va- 
cated the Chancellorship of the Dutchy of Lancaster 
to make room for Mr. Baines. Frederick Peel, Un- 
der-Secretary of the War Department, had resigned, 
and it was not understood to be the intention of 
Government to appoint a successor. The Colonial 
Secretaryship, vacated by the death of Sir William 
Molesworth, after being successively refused by 
Lord Stanley and Mr. Sidney Herbert, to whom 
it was offered, has been accepted by Mr. Labou- 

chere. Parliament, it was announced, would 

meet for dispatch of business on the 31st of Jan- 
uary. 

THE CONTINENT. 

General Canrobert has returned to Paris, but the 
public are still in the dark as to the precise object 
of his late mission to Sweden. The only informa- 
tion we have upon the subject is the semi-official 
announcement in a London ministerial paper, 
" that there is at present no convention existing 
between Sweden and the Western Powers." 



Austria is reducing her army to the usual effective 

force of a peace establishment The Prussian 

Chambers were opened by the King in person on 
the 29th of November. In the course of his speech, 
which was chiefly devoted to local matters, his 
Majesty said that, "in the attitude assumed by 
Prussia, Austria and Germany behold a solid se- 
curity for the further maintenance of that indepen- 
dent position, which is equally conducive to the 
attainment of an equitable and lasting peace, and 

compatible with sincere good wishes for all." 

Russia has opened subscriptions for a loan of five 
millions of roubles. It is stated that one-third of 
this loan will be offered in Berlin, one-third in 
Hamburg, and the remainder in Amsterdam. 



THE EASTERN WAR. 
The most important intelligence from the East 
is the report that Kars had at length fallen from 
famine, and was in possession of the Russians. 
With all his provisions exhausted, General Will- 
iams had been compelled to send a flag of truce to 
the Russian camp, offering capitulation. No offi- 
cial account of the fall of Kars has yet appeared ; 
and for this reason the story is believed by many 
to be premature, though all concede that, from the 
desperate condition of the garrison and citizens of 
the town, the event must be considered highly prob- 
able. From the Crimea we learn that another 

unsuccessful attack had been made by the Russians 
on the lines of the Allies. The only account of 
the affair yet received is contained in a brief tele- 
graphic dispatch from Marshal Pelissier, announc- 
ing that about 2500 Russian infantry and some 400 
cavalry had attacked Baga-Orkousta-Skrada — 
three villages situated at the eastern extremity of 
the valley of Baidar — and that, after an hour's 
sharp fighting, they retreated, leaving thirty pris- 
oners in the hands of the victors, besides other 
losses in killed and wounded. With the exception 
of this incident, active operations in the field seem 
to have been suspended for the winter. Accord- 
ing to latest advices, the Russians on the North 
side of Sebastopol kept up a very heavy fire against 
the South side. The Allies replied but little. The 
Russians have been occupied in erecting new bat- 
teries and otherwise strengthening their position, 
and there are no indications yet that they intend to 
abandon the Crimea. General Simpson has been 
superseded as Commander-in-chief of the British 
army by General Codrington. The latter an- 
nounced his assumption of the command in an ad- 
dress which was welcomed with satisfaction by the 
army. Dispatches received by the English and 
French Governments mention a serious accident that 
recently occurred near Inkermann by the blowing 
up of a French park of artillery. Thirty French 
troops were killed and one hundred wounded ; and 
of the English, one officer was killed and one hun- 
dred and thirty-seven men were wounded. It 
seems that three magazines exploded, containing 
30,000 kilogrammes of powder, 600,000 cartridges, 

300 charged shells and other projectiles.' A 

brilliant victory had been achieved by Omar Pa- 
sha. The scene of the conflict was at the River 
Ingour, the passage of which was forced by the 
Turks in the face of Russian batteries on the op- 
posite bank. The Turks were superior to their 
opponents in numbers, but the difficulties they sur- 
mounted were so great that their courage, and the 
skill displayed by their commander on the occa- 
sion, have drawn forth general admiration. The 
Russians, obliged to evacuate their batteries, im- 
mediately commenced a retreat upon Kutais. This 
victory is considered important from the supposed 
influence it will exercise on the policy of the East- 
ern nations. In the mean while diplomacy is 

again at work, and peace rumors are abundant; 
as yet, they have been but rumors. It is asserted 
that Austria has re-opened negotiations, and vari- 
ous accounts are given of the temper with which 
they have been received by the belligerent powers. 
But we have no authentic information on the sub- 
ject, and newspaper articles and correspondence 
are too contradictory to be considered reliable. 
The war preparations by the three Great Powers 
go on, nevertheless, with unremitting energy. 



ftartj Unto. 



History of the Reign of Philip the Second, by 
William H. Prescott. (Boston: Phillips, Samp- 
son, and Co.) The abdication of Charles V. in 
1555 furnishes an appropriate opening to the main 
subject of these volumes. Philip the Second was 
born on the twenty-first of May, 1527, and as- 
cended the throne on the abdication of his fa- 
ther, having previously been intrusted with the 
regency of Spain under the direction of the Duke 
of Alva. His history is brought down, in the 
present volumes, to the death of Queen Isabella of 
France, in 1568, comprising a period of signal im- 
portance in the affairs of Europe, and crowded with 
events adapted to tempt forth the noblest efforts 
of the historian. 

The early days of Philip are described at length 
in the unpretending and generally agreeable style 
of narrative for which Mr. Prescott is remarka- 
ble. Philip, from a boy, exhibited the reserve and 
haughtiness which were the ancient characteristics 
of the Spanish nation. Wrapt up in contemplations 
beyond his age, he was always cautious and self- 
possessed, never for a moment thrown off his guard, 
and never betraying a trace either of the hilarity 
or the petulance which naturally belonged to his 
years. At the age of fifteen he was betrothed to 
his cousin, the Infanta Mary of Portugal, and the 
marriage took place in 1513. The union was short- 
lived. After giving birth to a son, the celebrated 
Don Carlos, whose peculiar fate has afforded a 
fruitful subject to romance as well as history, she 
died in July, 1545. 

Three years after this event he surrendered the 
regency into the hands of his brother-in-law, and 
set out on a royal progress through Italy. Upon 
his arrival at Genoa, he was received with impos- 
ing ceremonies by the Doge and the principal sen- 
ators. He was lodged in the palace of the Dorias, 
and nattered with every hospitable attention. Em- 
bassies from the different Italian states waited upon 
him, while the Pope presented him with a conse- 
crated sword, as an emblem of his character as the 
champion of the Church. Resuming his journey, 
after a fortnight's stay in Genoa, he crossed the 
battle-field of Pavia and passed on to Milan, at 
that time the second city in Italy in population, 
but surpassed by no capital in Christendom in ma- 
terial splendor and social luxury. As he approach- 
ed the suburbs he was welcomed by a numerous 
host of people. Triumphal arches were thrown 
across the road; the noble ladies of Milan, glit- 
tering in gay apparel, mingled in the concourse, 
and a cavalcade of two hundred mounted gentle- 
men, arrayed in fine Milanese armor, formed his 
escort. He entered the gates of the city under a 
canopy of state, and was received by the governor 
and senate in their official robes. During his res- 
idence in Milan he was courted with every descrip- 
tion of social festivity. Amidst these gay scenes 
his habitual reserve was softened, and he even be- 
came a favorite with the beautiful dames of Italy. 
After spending some weeks in this seductive capital 
he pursued his journey to the North, crossing the 
Tyrol and proceeding toward Flanders. Upon all 
the route he was beset by a multitude of curious 
spectators; the magistrates of the cities through 
which he passed complimented him with civic hon- 
ors and costly gifts ; until, after a progress of four 



months, he made his first entrance into the capital 
of Belgium. 

Philip was now twenty-one years of age. He 
was distinguished by personal beauty. His fair 
and delicate complexion had not yet exchanged 
its freshness for the sallow hue of disease, nor did 
his features wear the sombre expression which was 
given to them in after life by anxiety and care. 
The contrast between his light yellow hair and blue 
eyes presented an agreeable harmony. His nose 
was well-proportioned, but his thick lips betrayed 
the Austrian blood. His stature was below the 
middle height, and his figure compact and grace- 
ful. 

The policy of Charles the Fifth was deeply im- 
pressed on the mind of Philip. It included the 
two cardinal principles of maintaining the royal 
authority without diminution, and of enforcing con- 
formity to the Catholic Church. His visit to the 
Netherlands was intended to prepare the people for 
his recognition as their future monarch. Though 
sharing, according to the humor of the age, in the 
chivalrous displays which were celebrated in hon- 
or of his arrival, they were entirely foreign to his 
taste. He was fond neither of the exercises of the 
tournament nor of the sports of hunting. His 
constitution was not robust. He endeavored to 
strengthen it by the most nutritious diet. Abstain- 
ing from fish, and even from fruit, he confined him- 
self almost entirely to animal food. Nor had he 
any relish for the gaudy spectacles which were the 
fashion of the times. The pomp and parade of 
court-life was a burden, though he insisted on rigid 
ceremony from all who approached him. He de- 
lighted in the privacy of his own apartment, and 
in the conversation of the few persons for whom he 
cherished a regard. This reserved demeanor was 
little in accordance with the social and lively tem- 
per of the Flemings. They contrasted it, to his 
disadvantage, with the affability of his father, who 
knew how to adapt himself perfectly to the differ- 
ent nations of his empire. Philip, on the contrary, 
was exclusively a Castilian. Spain was ever up- 
permost in his thoughts. He had little sympathy 
with the Netherlands, which he regarded as a for- 
eign nation. 

Nor did he better succeed in gaining the favor 
of the Germans. He attempted to win their good 
graces by drinking at their banquets an unusual 
quantity of wine, but in vain ; his natural haugh- 
tiness of temper betrayed itself on every occasion, 
until it became odious and almost intolerable. The 
Castilians, on the other hand, regarded Philip with 
national pride and self-complacency. They wished 
for a prince of their own lineage and breeding, who 
would emancipate Spain from the Empire, and ele- 
vate her to an independent position among the na- 
tions. It was under such influences that Philip 
was born and educated ; his peculiar temperament 
fitted him for their reception; he grew up with all 
the innate tendencies of the old Castilian race ; 
exhibiting, to the proud admiration of the Span- 
ish people, the most perfect form of the national 
character. 

Such, at the time of his accession to the throne, 
was the monarch whose varied fortunes, during 
his subsequent career, have furnished the mate- 
rials for the picturesque narrative of these vol- 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



407 



umes. The subject is in admirable harmony with 
the tastes of the historian. Mr. Prescott has treat- 
ed it with his accustomed ability. The work dis- 
plays the characteristic merit of his previous pop- 
ular productions. Founded on wide and conscien- 
tious research, for which the author was in posses- 
sion of peculiar facilities — every where showing the 
utmost temperance and impartiality of judgment — • 
with no preconceived theories to allure the under- 
standing from the contemplation of facts, and per- 
vaded by an air of elegant learning and personal 
refinement, it is evidently destined to an honorable 
place among the great historical works which dis- 
tinguish the literature of the age. It does not pre- 
tend to the dignity of a philosophical history; it 
is wanting in the comprehensive generalizations 
which group the panoramic scenes which it de- 
scribes around a grand central idea ; its style is 
more remarkable for smoothness than strength, and 
often falls into a languid movement by its profu- 
sion of epithets ; but its copious learning, its brill- 
iant descriptive passages, its integrity of research, 
and its agreeable mode of imparting information, 
will always make it w r elcome at the firesides of the 
people, as well as in the library of the scholar. 

The latest volumes of Harper's Classical Libra- 
ry contain " Herodotus," translated by Henry 
Cary, " Thucydides," translated by Dale, and 
" Sophocles," translated by Buckley, on the basis 
of the standard Oxford version, after the text of 
Dindorf. The naive simplicity of the father of 
history and the terse vigor of his successor are 
well preserved in these translations, while the prin- 
cipal difficulties of the original are elucidated by 
brief notes. " Sophocles" is reproduced in literal 
prose, showing the framework of his lofty tragedies, 
and affording important aid to the beginner in that 
comprehension of their sense which is essential to 
the perception of their beauties. 

Mimic Life, by Anna Cora Ritchie, consists 
of a series of reminiscences connected with the the- 
atrical career of Mrs. Mowatt, and embellished 
with various fancy touches, forming a succession 
of readable narratives. The characters are evi- 
dently taken from real life, but are vested in a thin 
disguise of fiction, which, however, will probably 
not conceal their identity from readers who have 
any inkling of the scenes in which they are intro- 
duced. Although of inferior interest to the au- 
thor's " Autobiography of an Actress," this volume 
describes many amusing incidents, and presents 
some curious revelations of the manners of the his- 
trionic world. (Ticknor and Fields.) 

Flora's Dictionary, by Mrs. E. W. Wirt, is a new 
edition of a favorite ornamental work on the lan- 
guage of flowers. The definitions are illustrated 
by choice poetical extracts from the best English 
writers, forming a beautiful anthology of literature 
as well as of nature. A brief view is added of the 
general principles of botany, presenting a conven- 
ient introduction to the science in a pleasing form. 
The volume is admirably suited to the holiday sea- 
son by the elegance of its decorations ; but it also 
possesses a perennial interest for the family circle. 
(Baltimore : Lucas Brothers.) 

The Irish Abroad and at Home. (D. Appleton 
and Co.) The recollections of an emigrant Mile- 
sian presented in this volume afford a variety of 
amusing illustrations of the I rish character. They 
extend over a period of a hundred years, from the 
emigration with James II. in 1G90, to the close of 
the last century, with occasional excursions into 



more recent times. The book is crowded with his- 
torical and biographical incidents, related with 
great vivacity. 

The Christian Life, by Thomas Arnold, D.D. 
(Lindsay and Blakiston.) The course, the hin- 
drances, and the helps of the Christian life are set 
forth in this volume with the delightful fervor and 
force that characterized the late admirable author. 
It was originally written with reference to the 
Puseyite controversy in the English Church, but 
contains an exhibition of principles that are of 
universal interest to religious readers. 

Home Comforts, by Lillie Savory, is devoted 
to an exposition of the art of living in a rational 
manner with limited means. It abounds in illus- 
trations of domestic economy, founded on wide ob- 
servation and excellent practical sense. Its lan- 
guage is often homely, for it treats of homely de- 
tails, but is always forcible and impressive. No 
housekeeper, especially a novice, but may profit by 
its shrewd suggestions. (Bunce and Brother.) 

Village and Farm Cottages, by H. W. C leave- 
land. William Backus, and S. D. Backus. (D. 
Appleton and Co.) The subject of domestic archi- 
tecture, which has received such a fresh impulse 
within the last few years, is treated in this volume 
with copiousness and good judgment. Its special 
feature is its adaptation to the wants of persons in 
moderate circumstances, who wish to prepare a 
residence combining economy with comfort, good 
taste, and substantial value. In connection with 
the practical details of the work, the authors have 
introduced a multitude of suggestions in regard to 
various topics of domestic and rural economy, which 
can scarcely be read without profit. 

A New System of English Grammar, by W. S. 
Barton (Gould and Lincoln), proposes to simplify 
the common methods, and thus initiate the learner 
more rapidly into a knowledge of the subject. With 
the study of grammar it also combines a series of 
exercises in English composition. The arrange- 
ment of the volume is strictly progressive in its 
character, and appears to be well adapted for the 
convenience of the teacher and the advancement 
of the student. 

The Russian Empire (Moore and Co., Cincinnati) 
purports to be written by "A Looker-On" from 
America, and, whoever he may be, he is evidently 
a man of shrewd observation, discriminating judg- 
ment, and logical skill. His point of view is doubt- 
less sympathy with Russia and distrust of the mo- 
tives of England and France in the conflict now 
pending. But this view is daily gaining ground 
among the most intelligent American thinkers, who 
will be confirmed in their tendencies by the state- 
ments of this volume. Russia, in the opinion of 
the author, possesses a vigorous national life, em- 
bodied in a true organic unity, and destined to 
exert an incalculable influence on the progress of 
modern civilization. His volume presents an 
abundance of impressive considerations in support 
of this opinion, derived mainly from a careful ex- 
amination of Russian resources, but sustained by a 
variety of profound theoretical deductions. It is 
written from ample knowledge, and with signal 
ability, and at the present juncture of European 
politics, challenges the attention of thinking minds 
in both hemispheres. 

India, Ancient and Modern, by David 0. Allen, 
D.D. (John P. Jewett and Co.) In this volume 
an elaborate view is presented of the geography, 
history, government, and manners and customs of 



408 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



India, including a succinct sketch of the progress 
of Christianity in that nation. The author aims 
not only to exhibit the state and character of the 
people of India, but the causes that are now in op- 
eration to change that state and character. He 
writes from accurate personal information, having 
resided, as a missionary, in India for a period of 
twenty-six years. His volume will be found of equal 
interest to the student of history and of ethnology. 

Man- of -War Life and The Merchant -Vessel, 
(Moore and Co., Cincinnati.) Vivid pictures of 
nautical experience compose the substance of these 
anonymous volumes. The author is singularly fe- 
licitous in giving a fresh and life-like air to his de- 
scriptions, without any approach to exaggeration 
or attempt at fine writing. He has certainly no 
passion for the sea, although he is not insensible to 
its wild and strange excitements. But he aims at 
truth rather than effect, and, in our opinion, he is 
scarcely surpassed by any modern writer in the 
naturalness and force of his maritime sketches. 

Fetridge and Co. have issued a reprint of My 
First Season, by Beatrice Reynolds, edited by 
the author of " Charles Auchester," the famous mu- 
sical novel of the past season. It is in the form of 
a female autobiography, and interweaves many 
piquant social delineations into a narrative of more 
than common interest. Miss Pardoe's Rival Beau- 
ties, an English story of fashionable life, is publish- 
ed by the same house. It deals in scenes of pas- 
sionate intensity, and is well suited to gratify the 
taste of professed novel readers. 

The Heart of Mabel Ware, is a romance portray- 
ing the darker passions of the human heart in lurid 
and terrific colors. Written with a singular pow- 
er of expression, it unfolds a terrible domestic trag- 
edy, enforcing the great ethical lesson of the cer- 
tainty of retribution upon the transgression of the 
laws on which the foundation of society reposes. 
The incidents of the plot are so strange and unnat- 
ural, that nothing but an inherited taint of insan- 
ity in the heroine can explain their occurrence. 
This, with an excess of horror in the denouement, 
is the pervading defect of the story ; and it is scarce- 
ly relieved by the uncommon energy of description 
and frequent enticing beauty of language which 
mark its composition. (J. C. Derby.) 

A delightful juvenile book by Mrs. Child, en- 
titled, A New Flower for Children, is published by 
Francis and Co. It consists of a collection of orig- 
inal stories, mostly founded on incidents in real 
life, and displaying the freshness, tenderness, and 
sympathy with the young which have made the 
author such an especial favorite with both juvenile 
readers and children of a larger growth. 

Hampton Heights, by Caleb Starbuck. (Ma- 
son Brothers.) From the preface to this volume it 
would appear to be the first production of the writ- 
er, but this may only prove to be the disguise un- 
der which some acknowledged favorite wishes to 
present a new form before the public. At any 
rate, it bears few marks of the carelessness and 
want of finish which betray the composition of an 
inexperienced author. The plot is compact and 
well arranged, proceeding in the orderly course of 
natural development, and sustained throughout its 
manifold details with truthfulness and interest. 
The heroine is a forsaken child, whose complicated 
wrongs and miseries are vividly portrayed, though 
without the commonplaces of pathos which pre- 
sent such perilous snares to inferior writers. Sev- 
eral characters of quaint originality are introduced 



in the background, among whom the unprogress- 
ive spinster, Miss Mary Fish, figures to great ad- 
vantage. The delineation of Miss Mary is a de- 
cided success. Nor is this remark less applicable 
to several others of the side personages, whose apt 
dramatic action, in connection with the leading 
character of the scene, help to complete a truly ef- 
fective story. 

Our Cousin Veronica, by Mary Elizabeth 
Wormley. (Bunce and Brothers.) The story of 
"Amabel," by the author of this volume, secured 
to her an enviable position among the female nov- 
elists of this country. The present work will in no 
respect diminish her reputation, but on the contra- 
ry, exhibits a greater power of invention and more 
genial facility of handling than her former produc- 
tion. The scene is chiefly laid among the mount- 
ains of Virginia, and the characters are taken from 
the aristocracy of the Old Dominion. In the un- 
folding of the plot, we are, however, taken both to 
England and the Northern States, giving the writer 
an opportunity for several contrasts of scenery and 
character, which she certainly uses with excellent 
artistic effect. Her power, we think, is greater in 
dialogue than in description, though numerous 
highly graphic passages of the latter kind might 
prevent some of her readers from conceding the 
correctness of our remark. As a whole, we can 
not hesitate to regard this work as possessing su- 
perior merit, showing a large and refined culture, 
a justness of thought, and a home-bred naturalness 
of feeling, which are not always discovered in the 
popular novels of the day. 

Ballads, by William Makepeace Thack- 
eray. (Ticknor and Fields). Every production 
of Thackeray has such a genuine stamp of reality, 
as to make it a revelation of the man as well as 
the author. We can not read his writings with- 
out gaining the assurance that he is never the dupe 
of imagination or sentiment. He looks nature, or 
rather society, which is the special object of his 
study, directly in the face, and then gives a fear- 
fully faithful transcript of what he sees. The 
fleeting shows of life make an indelible impression 
upon his mind, and his most striking pictures are 
copies from memory more than creations of art. 
If he dwells upon the sombre side of things, it is 
because he finds it every where, while the sunny 
aspects of life often derive their warmth and col- 
oring from the enthusiasm of the spectator. No 
modern writer perceives this more clearly than 
Thackeray, yet he is not a cynic nor a misan- 
thrope. A true manly heart beats beneath his 
satirical causticity. He has too much real kind- 
liness of nature to anathematize with grim im- 
precations the follies of his race, and hence he 
loves to sport with sarcastic fancies. No trace of 
the ridiculous escapes his calm, piercing eye. He 
delights to present it in all its comic relations, to 
gain a laugh at the expense of absurdity, but not 
to pursue it with rankling malice. In these bal- 
lads he only exhibits, in another form, the same 
sincere, robust nature, which we have before rec- 
ognized in the great novelist. They pierce the in 
flated pretensions of social falsehood with darts of 
the gayest persiflage. Often approaching a rollick- 
ing license of expression, they cover a wholesome 
significance beneath the wildest humor. His ex- 
periments in comic versification betray new re- 
sources in the vernacular, and are as irresistible 
in their wa} r as the French attempts at English 
writing in the Newcomes. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



409 



Meister Karl's Sketch-Book, by Charles G. Le- 
land. (Parry and M'Millan). The genial sketch- 
er who here opens his portfolio to the public has 
anticipated one of the privileges of " lettered ease" 
after a long life devoted to study. His book is one 
that a universal reader like Southey might have 
amused his old age in concocting, if he had not de- 
canted the contents of his rich literary stores into 
that unique production, "The Doctor." Meister 
Karl, however, has not waited for the evening 
twilight to gather up the fragments from a long 
day of studious toil. He has poured out the treas- 
ures of learning, travel, and wide observation of 
men and things with a certain youthful abandon, 
that is sure to win sympathy if it does not awaken 
admiration. No doubt his Sketch-Book contains 
much that is fantastic, something probably that a 
riper judgment may disclaim, but still it is remark- 
able for its curious erudition, and attractive by its 
quaint confessions of personal experience. It often 
has a genuine antiquarian flavor, is redolent of 
great libraries, and then rapidly alternates to the 
most stirring scenes of social life. For the popular 
taste, it abounds too much in learned allusions, has 
too many scraps of foreign languages, and is too re- 
mote from the sphere of immediate utility ; but 
scholarly readers will ever prize Meister Karl for 
his excursive, rambling episodes into every field of 
stud}% and for his rare bookish accomplishments, 
while no one can fail to appreciate his pleasant hu- 
mor, and the youthful frankness with which he 
takes his reader into his intimate confidence. 



Among the novelties in London w r hich the new 
year ushers in, are a variety of illustrated works, 
including Longfellow's Poems, Lockhart's Spanish 
Ballads, Goldsmith's Traveler, and John Keats r s 
Eve of St. Agnes. Of the Annuals, once so popu- 
lar, only two survive, the Keepsake, still edited by 
Miss Power, niece to the late Lady Blessington, 
and the Court Album, which merely consists of 
portraits of some of the female aristocracy. The 
Picturesque Scenery of the Rhine, from the pencil 
of Birket Foster and the pen of matter-of-fact Hen- 
ry Mayhew, is also of the "Annual" class. 

The number of books for children, all more or 
less illustrated, is very considerable this season ; 
and among the leading authors in this line are 
Fanny Kcmble, Alfred Crowquill (Mr. Forester, of 
the London Stock Exchange), Mrs. Lee, the Afri- 
can traveler, Mrs. Alaric A. Watts, Miss Yonge, 
Dr. Score.sby, of Arctic celebrity, Captain Mayne 
Read, and Henry Mayhew. 

A new volume (the twelfth) of Thiers's " L'His- 
toire du Consulat et de l'Empire," narrating the 
events between April, 1810, and May, 1811, has 
appeared. Three or four more volumes, which are 
written, will complete the work. Alexander Du- 
mas, who is said to meditate retiring from Paris, 
has brought out a new work, full of personal in- 
terest, called Let Grands Homines en Robe-de-cham- 
bre (Great Men in their Dressing-Gowns) ; the 
opening volume is occupied with Henri IV. Gui- 
zot's latest publication is a trifle entitled JSAmour 
dans le Mortage, Etude Historique. Dr. Veron, as 
a sort of continuation of Les Memoires d'un Bour- 
geois de Paris, has written Cinq Cent Mille Francs 
de Rente, said to contain much truth in the guise 
of fiction ; part of it was dramatized, before publi- 
cation, for the Vaudeville Theatre. Paul de Kock 
has brought out another novel, Madame de Mnvt- 
fanqidn. The first portion of De Lamcnnais's 



posthumous works has appeared; his correspond- 
ence is expected to be at once interesting and im- 
portant. 

The actual first edition, in London, of the new 
volumes of Macaulay's History of England is said 
to amount to 25,000 copies. There will be 5000 
reams of paper, tons of milled board, and 7000 
yards of calico used up in this edition ; and the 
paper-tax alone will amount to £900. The retail 
sale will realize £45,000. 

The English press, without any exception to our 
knowledge, are warm in praise of the opening num- 
ber of Dickens's Little Dorrit. Many of them give 
very copious extracts. 

Robert Montgomery, at one time a very popular 
and prolific verse writer, has died at the age of 
forty-eight. At the age of seventeen he edited a 
Magazine, at Bath, in the West of England, in 
which he displayed considerable taste for trenchant 
satire, great facility at verse-spinning, and a con- 
siderably high estimate of his own abilities. In 
1828, before he had reached his twenty-first year, 
he produced a religious poem, entitled " The Om- 
nipresence of the Deity," filled with high-sounding 
sentences, which speedily obtained great popular- 
ity. It was dedicated to Dr. Howley (then Bish- 
op of London, and soon after Archbishop of Can- 
terbury), who repaid the compliment by contrib- 
uting liberally to a fund which was raised to de- 
fray the expenses of Montgomery's education at 
the University of Oxford, where he graduated as 
Master of Arts. Having been ordained a Minister 
of the Church of England, he soon became popular 
as a fervid and sometimes even eloquent preacher,, 
For some years he occupied an Episcopal Chapel 
in Scotland, but, for the last fifteen years, officiated 
as minister of a Church in London. While at the 
University and after he took Holy Orders, his pen 
was constantly occupied. He published, as poems, 
"An Universal Praver," "Satan," "Woman, the; 
Angel of Life," "The Messiah," and "Luther," 
besides editing Sacred Annuals. His last work, 
published a few months ago, consisted of medi- 
tations, and was called "The Sanctuary, a Com- 
panion in Verse for the English Prayer-Book." 
Early in his career he was subjected to the se- 
vere critical censure of Macaulay, conveyed in 
the pages of the Edinburgh Revieio. Other crit- 
ics, from time to time, slightingly discussed Rob- 
ert Montgomery's pretensions to the laurel. But 
his poetry sold. " The Omnipresence of the De- 
ity" has reached a thirty-fifth edition, we be- 
lieve. To the last his personal appearance was 
singularly youthful ; it was evident, even in the 
pulpit, that he was aware of his good looks. Mont- 
gomery, of Sheffield, is understood to have been 
much annoyed at the poetical effusions of his youth- 
ful namesake being taken or mistaken for his, and 
gave willing credence to a report that the bardling 
was son of Gomery, a theatrical clown of some re- 
pute half a century ago. In fact, however, this 
rumor is believed to have originated with Alaric 
A. Watts, when editor of the " Literary Souvenir," 
who had been severely handled by Robert Mont- 
gomery in "The Pufiiad," a satire in verse. In 
the Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters, 
drawn by Maclise, the painter, for Eraser's Maga- 
zine, over twenty years ago, Montgomery was 
represented looking, in admiration, at a por- 
trait of himself, behind which was visible the 
painted face and down-pointing finger of a Circus 
Clown ! 



$M& €Mt 



COWARDS AND BRAVE MEN. — To fight a 
battle is not the highest mark of courage. 
Soldiers are accounted brave by profession, but 
they are not all heroes. The soldier fights be- 
cause he must. He can not help himself. He 
belongs to an army, and it is death to desert his 
flag. When he enters the battle, he is wedged in 
by ranks so that he can not retreat. A thousand 
bayonets behind push him on. The foe is before 
him, and his life depends on fierce and desperate 
combat. In such extremity the greatest coward 
would contend to the last. Indeed, a panic of ter- 
ror often has the same effect as the enthusiasm of 
courage, to produce a frantic rage that is called 
bravery. Were it not for this stern necessity, the 
soldier might sometimes think " discretion the bet- 
ter part of valor," and slyly decamp, saying to him- 
self, 

" He that fights and runs away 
May live to fight another day." 

Still, no man will deny that great courage is dis- 
played in War. But it is not the highest kind of 
courage, for it is a forced bravery ; and where not 
forced, it is artificial. It is roused by all the in- 
struments of war, the glittering array, the waving 
of flags, and the roll of drums. Thus is mustered 
up a factitious courage — not the ardor of heroic 
minds, but a wild fury kindled by smoke and gun- 
powder. The deeds done in such a state of frenzy 
are no proof of the native temper of the soul. 

Contrast this rage of battle with a less doubtful 
heroism. Pestilence is a more appalling calamity 
than War, and requires a stouter heart to meet it. 
Napoleon never showed such courage in the field 
as when he entered the hospital at Jaffa, and with 
his own hand pressed the sores of those smitten 
with the plague, for never did he incur such peril. 
And when the physician goes into such a charnel- 
house, filled with patients dying of a contagious 
disease, and exposes his life to save theirs, we may 
say in truth, "There is a brave man!" The cool 
intrepidity of the act shames the noisy courage of 
the soldier. This calm and quiet man advances 
into the place of danger, not with an army at his 
side, but alone and unattended he wages his silent 
battle with death. He is not cheered on by drum 
and trumpet. No sound from the outward world 
reaches his ear. He can listen only to the beating 
of his own heart, and to the groans of the dying. 
Yet in that awful stillness death comes nearer. It 
is not descried dimly and afar off, under the dark- 
rolling clouds of war. He sees it right before 
him ; he talks with it ; he takes it in his arms. 

This is true courage ; but it is something more. 
It is courage ennobled by a pure and generous ob- 
ject. Of this lofty heroism we have had a recent 
example in our own country. Not many weeks 
have passed since Norfolk and Portsmouth, in Vir- 
ginia, were desolated by pestilence. The inhabit- 
ants fled in terror from their doomed cities. Yet 
hundreds, who could not depart, remained to suffer 
and to die. When this dreadful calamity was 
known throughout the country many hastened to 
their relief. Physicians from other cities offered 
their services, and delicate women came to watch 
by the dying. These acts of devotion were not 
constrained. Those who periled their lives were 
not forced to this step by their position, or by any 



special obligations which rested upon them more 
than others. Many lived far away in the distant 
North or South. Some knew these places only by 
name ; yet the)' heard that their brethren were in 
distress, and they came to offer themselves a vol- 
untary sacrifice. Of this noble band many fell 
victims to their devotion; but long will their 
names be cherished where they died, and their 
graves will be watered with many tears. If the 
heroes who fell on the fields of Mexico deserve a 
monument to testify a nation's gratitude, what a 
column should be reared to the physicians and 
nurses who died at Portsmouth and Norfolk ! 

But such heroism as this is called out only b) T 
great dangers and sufferings. In ordinary life, 
when left to sink down into sluggish selfishness, 
men and women shrink from disease, even when 
there is no danger. They have not the courage 
to look at it. They recoil from loathsome wretch- 
edness. They can not stoop to enter low hovels, 
and to gaze on the poor sufferers. Their delicate 
senses will be offended, or an appeal be made to 
their sympathies which shall agitate their trem- 
bling nerves. So dainty and fastidious is ordinary 
virtue ! Yet perhaps they go to the theatre, and 
delight to weep over unreal distress, while they 
turn away from the living tragedies that are act- 
ing all around them. 

Of course it is more pleasant to look upon a liv- 
ing man than upon a dead body ; to visit a person 
in health than in sickness ; to see rosy and smiling 
faces than faces pale and sunken. But herein is 
the courage — to encounter what is felt to be pain- 
ful — to make taste and sensibility subordinate to 
duty and humanity. It requires an ardor in doing 
good which subdues the natural repulsion, to visit 
not only hospitals and prisons, but wretched dwell- 
ings, unshocked by filth and squalor, for the sake 
of relieving objects of charity. And the timidity 
Avith which men and women shrink from these 
lighter labors, shows how unprepared they are for 
great acts of courage or devotion. 

But it is not only in avoiding bodily exposure 
that men betray cowardice. There are other dan- 
gers and other fears — the fear of private loss or of 
public odium — the fear of ridicule or unpopularity, 
against all of which courage is opposed. There is 
a pusillanimity which meets us every day, and 
which almost disgusts us with human nature. It 
is that which shrinks from misfortune. 

We but repeat the common experience of the 
world when we say that the rich have more friends 
than the poor, and that the attitude of society 
changes with the rise and fall of fortune. A man 
of wealth, whose riches suddenly crumble, learns 
a painful lesson of human nature. How many 
who courted his friendship yesterday shun him to- 
day ! The fawning, cringing, sneaking creatures ! 
how they run ! Their conduct says, as plainly as 
language could, We are afraid that this unfortu- 
nate man will ask our assistance, and we shall be 
called upon to stretch out a hand to save a drown- 
ing brother ! Oh, terrible hardship and necessity ! 

We do not slander human nature when we say 
that this is the first impulse of most men. They 
shrink nervously from misfortune. They are 
alarmed lest they should be involved in a falling 
house, and their own property be wrecked. They 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



411 



seek friends among the rich and the powerful, and 
drop their poor acquaintances. And, openly or 
secretly, they withdraw from the unfortunate. 

True, there are men who would act differently ; 
who, instead of avoiding a friend on account of 
misfortune, would instantly go to his rescue. But 
these are the exceptions. For one such good Sa- 
maritan, there are many priests and Levites who 
pass by on the other side. But this contrast shows 
how noble is the courage and the friendship that 
can bear adversity. He who stands by a totter- 
ing friend and tries to hold him up, acts a manly 
and heroic part. For he exposes himself to loss, 
if not to failure. He assumes responsibilities. He 
stakes his own credit. But he has his reward in 
saving from utter ruin 

"A forlorn and shipwrecked brother." 

But let a man get into deeper trouble, and a 
shadow darken round his name, and the cour- 
age of his friends is put to a severer test. Then 
is the trial of their constancy and fidelity, when 
his name is cast out as evil, and he is the object 
of hatred or scorn. Men do not like to have 
their names connected with an unpopular friend, 
and they readily find an excuse for leaving him to 
shut for himself. Their respectability is at stake ! 
If it Avere a mere matter of money, they would not 
mind a few hundreds to help a friend out of diffi- 
culty. But this involves character. Men trem- 
ble at suspicion. They shrink nervously from con- 
tact with a person who is spoken against. Even 
strong ties of friendship give way to the terrible 
fear of public opinion. Affection is sacrificed to 
avert the odium of society. This dastardly deser- 
tion is disguised under the name of prudence. Men 
call it taking care of their reputations, preserving 
their respectability. But its true name is a vile 
cowardice ! 

"Would that men had the courage to act out their 
own better impulses — to follow the noble instincts 
of the heart rather than the selfish calculations of 
interest ! But so fearful are they of offending pub- 
lic opinion, that they are afraid to do right. They 
do not dare to do a generous action, lest society 
should disapprove it. 

Here then, in the common intercourse of life, 
courage is a virtue next to charity. It alone gives 
to friendship a sacred and inviolable character. A 
fearful and timid man can not be a fast friend, for 
the first breath of unpopularity will lead him to 
desert you. In true friendship there is always a 
heroic element, which imparts to it a firmness and 
constancy, which cling to a loved being in any mis- 
fortune and danger. To stand by a friend when 
exposed to imminent peril, is the most touching 
proof of a brave and noble heart. The very dan- 
ger of such a position — which deters most from 
taking it — becomes the occasion of manifesting he- 
roic constancy. There are no pages of history more 
fascinating than those which record an affection 
unchilled by misfortune, which adversity only 
made to cling closer to its object, and which perse- 
cution could not tear asunder. 

Times of revolution and anarchy — like the French 
Reign of Terror — give the most painful impression 
of human nature, from the fact that the common 
ties of affection were, sundered by one universal 
fear. Friends grew cold and distant, lest they 
should be compromised by their companions. Yet 
amid those terrible scenes, as is well known, ap- 
peared some most touching instances of faithful 
love. Brothers stood upon the place of execution 



— like Damon and Pythias of old — locked in each 
other's arms, refusing to be separated even in death ! 

But the days are gone by, when men were called 
to show their courage in mounting the scaffold or 
going to the stake. In these peaceful times there 
is no such danger and no such glory. Yet there 
is often as much intrepidity in facing public oblo- 
quy, as in facing danger or death. When a friend 
has become unpopular, even to show sympathy for 
him will cause us to suffer from the odium which 
attaches to his name. In this case Ave may with- 
draAV from him Avithout disgrace, and, in fact, be 
applauded for it. Nothing, therefore, can keep us 
at his side but a chivalrous feeling of honor, or the 
true and noble instinct of affection. 

But the strange timidity of men appears in other 
things, Avhich are more common and familiar. For 
example, in manners Ave detect a species of cow- 
ardice Avhich is almost universal. Society is full 
of affectation and pretense, and this, when analyzed, 
is the result of a weak fear of each other. Every 
kind of affectation is a pusillanimous attempt to 
shoAV ourselves before the Avorld other than we are. 
Pretension is the mark of a timid mind, fearful of 
obserA r ation and ridicule. Yet Iioav common is this 
disguise ! How few, who haA r e a position in soci- 
ety to keep, ■will oAvn that they are poor ! They 
tremble at the prospect of humiliation — of being 
obliged to go doAvn from a higher position to a 
loAver. And thus their whole life is a struggle be- 
tAveen poverty and pride. On the other hand, a 
braA r e man is knoAvn by his simplicity. He is 
Avilling to take his true place in the world ; to ap- 
pear just what he is, and no more. If he is poor, 
he does not deny or conceal the fact, but accepts 
his lot, and faces it Avith a manly heart. 

Still greater courage and firmness are required 
to remain poor, Avhen there is a chance of becoming 
rich by means which most men do not scruple to 
employ, but which a sensitive conscience shrinks 
from as wrong. A man needs a high degree of 
intrepidity to dare to maintain principle in the 
common transactions of life. Indeed such are the 
maxims of trade, that he is likely to get little credit 
for his extreme conscien tiousness. To be governed 
by a sense of duty rather than by self interest, is 
regarded by the world as an extravagance of devo- 
tion. Many who would sacrifice themselves for a 
friend, Avill not do it for a principle, because they 
are swayed by their attachments rather than their 
convictions. A friend is a living being, but a 
principle is an abstract idea. That a man should 
be ruled by a vague, general notion of virtue or 
rectitude, so far as to sacrifice to it solid and sub- 
stantial interests, appears to them a romance of 
moral sentiment. To be deterred by conscientious 
scruples from seizing advantages Avithin their power, 
is fanaticism and folly. And not a feAV have a 
feeling of indignation or contempt for him who lets 
opportunities of fortune slip by on such frivolous 
pretenses. 

Thus men excuse themseU'es in dishonesty. And 
one must have a clear head and a firm will, never 
to be deceived by such reasoning, nor seduced by 
such temptations. Mercantile courage is more rare 
than military courage. To preserve an unstained 
integrity through life; to see others profiting by 
fraud, and never stoop to deception, requires more 
nerve than to fight a battle. A man might stand 
je with heroic firmness, who can not resist the 
temptations to unfair dealing, and the excitement 
of competition and rivalry. 



412 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



The tremendous power of these temptations to 
break down all courage and manliness is seen no- 
where so conspicuously as in political life. Every 
year we are betrayed by the cowardice of our pub- 
lic men. The cause is not that they lack patriot- 
ism. They share in the common pride and love 
of country. But they are exposed to great temp- 
tations — the spoils of office, and the drill of party 
— and it requires rare independence and courage to 
shake off these trammels, and to do honestly and 
firmly what is right. Most men are too selfish to 
run the risk of losing popularity, and thus in their 
moral timidity the public interests are sacrificed. 
It is cowardice which makes our slippery politi- 
cians. Machiavelli says, "Men have rarely the 
courage to be wholly good or wholly bad." Few 
have firmness enough to be fit for high places of 
trust. What the nation needs, therefore, is not 
merely patriotic men, but brave men — men utter- 
ly without fear of party or people ; but who only 
fear God and love their country. 

The same courage which is required to maintain 
integrity in business and in political life, is also 
needed to support the finer moral sentiments, when 
opposed to the current maxims of society, and 
covered perhaps with ridicule and sneers. A man 
of delicate sensibility, who feels that it is wrong to 
do what others do without hesitation, sometimes 
blushes for his scruples, and is ashamed of this 
tenderness of moral feeling. 

Alas ! public opinion is the tyrant of the world. 
It is that which makes cowards of us all — that 
drowns the voice of conscience, and the law of God. 
The fear of losing the esteem of others makes even 
those whose intentions are virtuous retire abashed 
and silent. Men are afraid, not only of being 
worse than others, but also of being better. Many 
a good man conceals his worth lest he should be 
sneered at as a Puritan or a saint. Until this 
weakness is overcome there can be no independ- 
ence of mind. A man is not the master of himself. 
He is the slave of other men ; and not of their 
power or superiority, but the slave of their con- 
tempt. 

To this fear of ridicule no class is so sensitive as 
young men. They boast much of their courage, 
yet in this respect they are the greatest cowards 
in the world. Physically they are strong and 
brave, but morally they are weak and timid. No- 
where is this more manifest than in our literary 
institutions. A college is a perfect democracy, in 
which public opinion rules with absolute sway ; 
and to be laughed at by his comrades is the keen- 
est torture one can endure. A sneer cuts through 
him like a sword. Hence he is apt to shrink from 
any decided stand, which may provoke derision. 
He will sacrifice duty, conscience, and honorable 
feeling, to escape the jeer of his companions. Here 
is the weakness and cowardice of young men. They 
vaunt their bravery, and are ready to fight a duel 
to vindicate their juvenile honor. Yet one look of 
acorn subdues their manly spirit. They shrink 
before the brazen and the bold, and are cowed by 
coarse, vulgar, swaggering boasters. 

And what is yet more humiliating, young men 
who are pure are made ashamed of their virtuous 
habits and principles. In a party of drinkers one 
is ashamed to own that he is a temperance man ; 
among debauchees he is ashamed of his innocence. 
Through this weak fear, he is led into acts which 
are mean and base, and at which every noble in- 
stinct revolts. 



Young men even affect to regard lightly their 
domestic affections. How many think it a mark 
of manliness to care little for the love of a mother 
or sister, and to pay small respect to a father's gray 
hairs. Thus, by their want of firmness and cour- 
age, they are shamed out of all that is truest, and 
noblest, and manliest in their feelings. All their 
moral ideas are reversed. They are ashamed of 
their virtues, and proud of their vices ; ashamed 
of what they ought to be proud of, and proud only 
of what is low, corrupt, and rotten in their hearts 
and lives. Surely, if no other class need to be - 
armed with courage, a young man's salvation de- 
pends upon it. 

Besides, we may whisper in his ear, that a little 
more independence and self-respect would be hon- 
ored even by those who now stride over him, and 
who despise him for his cowardice. So long as he 
is afraid of them, he must expect to be lightly re- 
garded. No one was ever truly respected by his 
comrades, when cowed by their sneers into irre- 
ligion, or vulgarity, or vice. They scorn the timid 
creature whom the pointing of a finger can make 
to tremble. Wherefore, if a young man desires 
an absolute independence of mind, let this be the 
first act of his emancipation, to lay aside the un- 
manly fear of his fellows. Let him not be ashamed 
of his purity and innocence, for these are the beau- 
ty of the soul, and when joined with an intrepid 
spirit, they form a manhood which is " earth's 
best nobleness." Next to right principle, there is 
no element of character so necessary as the cour- 
age to declare and maintain It by word and ex- 
ample. 

But the most decisive proof of independence and 
courage is to be truly religious among infidels and 
scoffers, or even in a gay, and worldly, and proud 
society. 

It costs, indeed, no sacrifice of pride to profess a 
general faith in Christianity, for that is the nom- 
inal belief of the civilized world. So it is the fash- 
ion to go to church. Certain forms of worship are 
popular. But sincere, earnest piety is never a 
fashion. That word can not be applied to the 
secret feelings of the soul' — to humility, and pen- 
itence, and prayer. The form of devotion may be 
imitated, but fashion can not inspire the feeling in 
the heart. To be sincerely religious will always 
cost a struggle with passion and with pride. It 
was almost as hard to be truly a Christian in the 
court of Louis XIV., when that monarch turned 
devotee, as in the reign of his profligate successor. 
So now, though Christianity is rather popular, to 
fear and obey God is as far from the maxims of the 
world as ever. Earnestness in religion is sneered 
at as fanaticism. The influence of the last century 
still remains. Then philosophers supported the 
cause of infidelity by their learning, and fine writ- 
ers by their graceful wit. That influence still per- 
vades philosophy and literature, and though more 
restrained, it betrays its presence by a general 
chilling skepticism and an occasional sneer. How 
sad to read, in a letter of Charles Lamb to Cole- 
ridge, the confession that among all his literary 
friends there was not one to whom he could un- 
bosom the religious yearnings of his fine and noble 
heart ! " Coleridge, I have not one truly elevated 
character among my acquaintance ; not one Chris- 
tian ; not one but undervalues Christianity. Singly 
what am I to do ?" So rare was it to find a pop- 
ular writer who was a Christian. The same was 
true in other distinguished classes. In the army 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



413 



it was hardly possible to find a religious officer. 
Among public men the same neglect and contempt 
were universal. When Wilberforce published his 
work on Practical Christianity, it is well known 
what a commotion his decided opinions excited in 
the gay society of London. He stood almost alone 
in Parliament. Thus the great influences of Liter- 
ature and Politics and Fashion were all adverse to 
religion. And so it is, to a great extent, now. 
Those who stand at the head of society, and give 
tone to the popular mind — writers and leaders of 
fashion, politicians and soldiers, men of pleasure 
and men of war — are more than half infidel. In 
their sphere what does it imply to be religious ? 
It is to be narrow-minded, to be wedded to ancient 
follies and superstitions, instead of having a broad 
philosophy, a free and soaring spirit. It is to be 
timid and scrupulous. Conscience checks lofty 
daring, and lays a restraint upon high ambition. 
Hence the frequent laugh among men of wit at 
doting superstition and weak-minded credulity. 
Thus in the higher classes of society there attaches 
a certain ignominy to the character of an humble 
Christian. So wide has spread this feeling that 
probably some of our readers have a secret associ- 
ation between a very devout piety and narrowness 
of mind. And it requires no ordinary firmness to 
breast this popular contempt — to stand up amid 
skeptics and scoffers and say, " I am a follower of 
Jesus !" 

So necessary is Courage in every post of danger 
and of duty. It is a first requisite to form an actor 
on the stage of life. Without it all high designs 
fall to the ground ; vague desires for the Avorld's 
good are faintly uttered, and vanish into air ; friend- 
ship has no pledge of fidelity, and patriotism is 
capable of no sacrifice. Courage, therefore, is one 
of the highest virtues of the human character. 
Indeed it is that quality without which all the 
duties of life are but imperfectly performed. With- 
out it one can not be "greatly good" in any rela- 
tion — as friend, or citizen, or Christian. Friend- 
ship, Patriotism, and Religion — love of kindred, 
of country, and of God — all are mere sentiments, 
which disappear at the slightest danger. The 
value, therefore, of every noble quality of mind — 
Honor, Love, and Truth — depends on being braced 
and backed by an Intrepid Will. 



THERE has been a very pretty quarrel of late 
between the Publishers and the Press. It all 
grew out of "Hiawatha," that poem which has 
made the English critics shout for joy that at 
length there is an American poem. In this Chair 
we do DOl discuss any thing but manners, and the 
minor morals, perhaps. But this question belongs 
strictly to that sphere, we suppose. At least, in 
other countries the morals of the Press arc decided- 
ly minor morals, according to young Flam, who 
came home in the last steamer. Happily, with us 
it is not BO : and notices of every kind, including 
artistic and literary criticism, are of the austerely 
sincere character, as are also all political and eco- 
nomical statements. 

It is the great good fortune of all questions that 
they have two sides. To bear young Nix talk, you 
would suppose that every man who entered a 
newspaper office became by that fact th*' very soul 
of honor. It is refreshing to think what a school 
of moralitv Nix believes that mysterious place, "a 
Vol. XII.— No. CO.— I) d 



sanctum," to be. It is, in his fancy, a place sym- 
bolical of the public conscience, in which a vast 
abstract moral indignation resides, ready to plunge 
out upon any hapless sin or sinner. It is the great 
meter of public morals ; and any attempt to coerce 
the press is what the stultification of conscience 
would be to a monk, or compassing the king's 
death to a royalist. To be mentioned in the news- 
papers is, to the ardent mind of Nix, the same as 
being famous. To be condemned by the press is 
moral and social exile to the sensitive Nix. He 
reads with avidity the account of the first appear- 
ances of famous theatrical and musical people, and 
believes in the enthusiasm. He reads the hot con- 
demnation of great wrongs, and believes in the 
anger. Nix has unbounded revererence for a read- 
ing-room. To know an editor is like knowing an 
emperor to Nix. 

Flam, on the other hand, is utterly incredulous. 
" Do you Avant a puff in the ' Palladium of Free- 
dom and Bungtown Banner?'" says Flam. " No- 
thing so easy. Have Squashton to dinner" (S. is 
the editor of the "Palladium and Banner"); "or 
send a brace of canvas-backs to Squashton ; or 
beg Mrs. Squashton's acceptance of the accom- 
panying trifle, as an indication of your admiration 
for the moral intrepidity and aesthetic independence 
with which the k B. B.' is conducted. Inclose a 
muff*. You will get your puff". Then look at the 
beautiful sentiments of this morning's leader in 
that admirable paper. Evidently the man who 
wrote that has no other than disinterested mo- 
tives, of course !" sneers Flam, recently from Paris. 

" My dear Easy Chair," says this arrogant 
young man, " do you really suppose that I think 
a book to be a good and valuable, or even interest- 
ing work, because I see it called so in a newspa- 
per? Do you suppose I believe a musical critic 
says what he really thinks of the Prima Donna? 
My dear Easy Chair, it is all understood. It is a 
matter of oysters and game suppers, and other lit- 
tle favors. Hcrr Boanerges, the famous trombon- 
ist, invites a select circle of critics to dinner, and 
looks into the paper to see what they say of him 
next morning. Madame Taugnix has a pocketful 
of commendatory notices which she wrote herself 
for country papers, and then clips them out to have 
inserted in the city journals as the impression of 
an unbiassed rural judgment. Spears, the editor, is 
only too glad to insert them, and get rid of the 
dreadful bore, Madame Taugnix, who appears in 
his columns next morning as ' that famous and 
charming woman.' These are all patent facts, 
dear Easy Chair. Do you talk of newspapers 
manufacturing public opinion? Why, don't you 
know that a free and independent elector kicks out 
of the house a newspaper which does not echo his 
opinions. I am a free-trader or a free-soiler, a 
tariff man or a bank man, upon my private con- 
victions, and I will have no newspaper that does 
not say what I think. Suppose ' The Rienzi' should 
turn round and deny the obliquity of the earth's 
axis, instead of insisting upon it so stoutly as it 
does now — do you suppose it Avould carry any pub- 
lic with it? Not at all; it would only shift sub- 
scribers with 'The Slowcoach,' and the Obliqui- 
tarians would swear at it as roundly as they now 
swear by it. In a country like this, where men 
have the chance of knowing several things, and 
making up their minds about them, a newspaper 
can lie little more than a vehicle of news and the 
capable critic of the time in every department. It 



414 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



may be a powerful advocate, but it can not be a 
leader by virtue of being a newspaper. It can 
only be a leader when its editor has a perceptive 
and controlling genius. 

"The Press in this country, my well-meaning 
but slow Easy Chair, considering its extent, has by 
no means the amount of talent engaged in it that 
there is in London and Paris. The Yankee begins 
a newspaper as he takes to school-keeping, or doc- 
toring, or preaching. It is a makeshift ; and the 
editor is a chameleon, taking the color of the pub- 
lic feeling by which he happens to be surrounded. 
And I want to know if you delight in slang-whang- 
ing — if you think any question which is worth dis- 
cussing is not worth discussing decently — if you 
think any force or influence which is worth getting 
is gained by invective ? A man is not an utter 
idiot and debauched scoundrel because he does not 
hold my opinions ; and it is I who come nearer to 
those pleasing states of being when I call him so 
for that reason. A man is not a villain, a rascal, 
and a malefactor because he holds that slippers 
may sometimes be worked in floss instead of wor- 
sted ; nor is he trying to ruin mankind because he 
likes his waffles without butter. 

" Now, in respect of the relative excellence of 
men, their differences are of no greater importance 
than these. When the tri-weekly ' Bootjack' came 
thundering out upon the individuals who, for their 
country's good, as they solemnly asserted, went in 
for drinking tea with only one lump of sugar to 
the cup, I could not help asking, ' Who is your 
friend of the " Bookjack ?" ' and I learned that he was 
by no means St. Antony. The moral I draw is 
evident. v If you believe in your cause, stand to it, 
and stick to it, and light for it, and die for it, if it 
comes to that; but spare your easy vituperation. 
If you've time to call hard names, you are not 
fighting ; and if you believe in your cause for your 
cause, you will not care to satisfy those who re- 
quire all this foaming at the mouth to believe you 
are in earnest. If fine words butter no parsnips, 
foul words hit no blows. 

"And are newspapers to have no self-respect? 
no esprit du corps? They act like buccaneers. 
The great point seems to be to get your neighbor 
in ' a tight place.' I read telegraphic dispatches 
1 to the Morning Star,' as if the very same thing 
were not in ' the Evening Moon' and ' the Mid- 
night Sun.' And once or twice a month each 
newspaper must needs smooth its trowsers compla- 
cently, and say that it is happy to remark that it 
is the most enterprising affair ever heard of, as 
witness a letter from the mummied Bull on the 
other page — as if the one thing for which the pub- 
lic does not care were not the private and public 
quarrels carried on in newspapers ; and the indi- 
vidual prosperity of the papers themselves, unless 
there is a chance for investment in their stock, is 
not of the slightest importance. I want my news- 
paper to be modest, my Easy Chair, as if it were a 
person. In fact, if a man loves his paper very 
much as he does a friend, why, when it misbe- 
haves, he blushes for shame. Pooh ! pooh ! we 
hear a great deal about the Press, and it certainly 
has the power of ' posting' any man it may choose 
to treat in that way ; but that it is so dreadfully 
dignilied, so sternly honest, so loftily principled, 
and so desperately in love with the public good, 
I, for one, my incredulous Easy Chair, do not 
believe!" 

And Flam hung upon the arm of our Chair, ex- 



hausted by this very creditable oratorical perform- 
ance. 

Now here were the two, sides of this question at 
least unfairly stated. The Press is certainly nei- 
ther so good nor so bad as these young gentlemen 
state. A cause is often very much better than its 
supporters ; but it would go hard with the world 
if only the perfectly sinless were to condemn sin. 
You have no right to judge the truthfulness of a 
preacher's sentiments by his practice. There is 
many a good Parson Adams who, in the midst of 
exhorting you not to give way to grief, is beside 
himself Avith a sudden sorrow. The views held by 
a journal are to be measured by their intrinsic 
value. Of course, you know it is only Smith who 
is thundering through that tremendous speaking- 
trumpet. But if what he says is true, it does not 
become false because poor old Smith blows it out 
with such a dreadful twang ; and, with equal cer- 
tainty, all the noise does not make it truer. 

As for talking softly and smoothly, that can not 
always be comfortably done. You can not be very 
polite with a gentleman who is trying, for instance, 
to pick 3 r our pocket. When a journal takes a side 
very seriously, and the question is a very import- 
ant question, if it believes, and has reason to be- 
lieve, that its adversaries are unscrupulous, it is as 
fair for it to expose their character as it is to de- 
bate the question. But it is not fair for a paper 
or a man to generalize scoundrelism from the in- 
dividual instance, nor to suppose that what seems 
a very bad side may not be very loyally and sin- 
cerely supported. 

One who knows, says that the Press has greatly 
improved ; that the old system of praising what- 
ever is advertised in the columns is generally dis- 
continued ; that the stereotyped notices of amuse- 
ments are superseded by honest expressions of in- 
telligent views ; that the book notices are now the 
work of scholars and capable men, and not of ig- 
norant hacks. But so many people yet labor under 
the impression that the editorial notice of any thing, 
except politics, is only an advertisement in the 
leading columns ; so many have been forever de- 
ceived about books, and music, and plays, that they 
look with eyes of entire incredulity upon every 
thing in a newspaper but the advertisements. They 
have yet to learn the changes. They have yet to 
know that journalism has now become a profession 
in this country, and that it counts famous men and 
men of genius in its ranks. They have not yet 
become aware that, on the whole, the most forci- 
ble ciuticism, upon every aspect of the times, is to 
be found in the daily and weekly newspapers. Of 
course, editors will still be invited to suppers and 
begged to accept hats, and coats, and boxes of 
wine. That is to say, they will still be subject to 
the offer of indirect bribes. But it is one thing to 
make a man eat } r our dinner, and another to make 
him praise it. It will be often hard for an editor 
to decline a civility; but the civility creates no 
obligation. 

On the whole, as the case is now, Flam has the 
worst of the argument. 



The New Year comes gently in. We have all 
made our bows and wished the compliments of the 
season. We have all vowed our vows, and, if the 
future could be sure of fulfilling all that on Syl- 
vester's eve, or the last night of the year, we are 
determined it shall fulfill, the millennium would 
come with the first visitor on New-Year's morning. 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



415 



We listened in vain on the last night of the year 
for the sweet songs that we remember to have 
heard in Germany, in the land where old tradi- 
tions have so firm a root and bear so many lovely 
flowers. We can not fail to see, however demo- 
cratic we may be, that in the old countries there 
are a hundred amenities and graces of life that we 
lack in our system. It is perfectly true that there 
is no occult relation between despotism and public 
amusement, except that it is always the policy of 
a severe government to keep its people amused; 
for they then persuade themselves that thej' are 
happy. There is no government so supremely ab- 
solute as that of the Catholic Church ; but there is 
none which provides so many days of recreation — 
so much feasting, and gala-making, and tinsel, and 
baby-house diversion as that venerable nurse of 
man. It is always the policy of an autocrat to 
keep the people children ; because they are then 
more innocent of troublesome investigation, and 
more readily amused. And it is interesting and 
droll to see that the moral of most papal arguments 
drawn from the well-being of Catholic countries, 
hinges upon the fact that there is more pretty idle- 
ness in such countries than in any other. It is 
very true, and the argument shall stand for what 
it is worth. It comes out very pleasantly in Cath- 
olic novels and polemical works in general, and 
corresponds with that sweet state of things for 
which Young England, with Captain Disraeli at 
its head, sighed a few years ago. 

No, we allow to that fierce damocrat, Flam, that 
there is no reason why a beer-drinking, meer- 
schaum-smoking Nuremberg shoemaker, who has 
small earnings and smaller brains, should be able, 
on the whole, to get more juice out of the orange 
of life than the hardy, etc., etc., etc., etc. (for the 
"filling up" inquire of any prosperous Lodge of 
K. N's. !) Lynn shoemaker. But the American, 
with all his intelligence, and industry, and civic 
responsibility, has a hard, weary air, as if he were 
engaged in living because it is a highly moral and 
heroic thing to do, rather than because he enjoys 
it. Granting that the foreign mechanic is a child, 
has it never occurred to you that the enjoyment of 
a child is xiore complete, though less intense, than 
that of a man ? 

There is something picturesque in those gardens 
under the gray walls of old Nuremberg, where there 
is indifferent music, and very indifferent conversa- 
tion, and a multitude of people who are as ill-favor- 
ed (in respect of beauty), and as devoid of personal 
attraction, cither physical or mental, as any people 
can be, but who sip, and smoke, and doze, and lis- 
ten to music while the sun sets, and the vesper- 
bells ring out from the old town. 

Foreign life is profusely decorated with holidays. 
It is an easy skip from one to another. That care- 
ful old nurse of morals who sits on the seven hills, 
names each day in the year from a saint, and so 
makes the year a garland of festivals. There is no 
particular argument in the mere fact of the many 
fetas; because with all their festivals they are a 
very sorry people over the sea. But while we turn 
up our indignant noses at the silliness of our cous- 
ins, let our eyes look over it a moment, if it has 
not rolled too high, at one of our holidays. 

Take your choice ; they are all equally pleasant. 
There is the public Fourth of July — the general 
and domestic Thanksgiving — merry Christmas, 
and happy New Year. We leave it all to the 
children. It is Ned, and Tom, and Joe, who are 



out in the morning before light on the Fourth, blow- 
ing off ten packs of crackers in a barrel. It is 
the same company who really give thanks on the 
day appointed by the Governor. It is they who 
fumble round" the Christmas stocking in the dark, 
and they who plash round on thawy New-Year's 
days to make calls. We submit, and think it a 
good thing for the young people, and, on the whole, 
are very much bored. 

It all comes of our preposterous self-conceit. 
We think it not manly to be amused with little 
things — as if there were any particularly great 
jokes in the world, except our views of amuse- 
ment. Your Frenchman, and German, and Ital- 
ian sings his song, and does the best he can, and 
neither he nor the company care that Lablache 
and Rubini sing better. The same gentlemen 
make their pretty sketches in pencil, in water-col- 
ors, in oil, and are not dismayed that they have 
not belittled Michael Angelo and Raphael. But 
we remember that somebody has done a thing bet- 
ter than we can do it, and excuse ourselves. How 
many Americans can sing a glee when they meet? 
How many can act an impromptu charade ? How 
many are not nervously afraid of being considered 
monkeyish if they give full swing to the vivacity 
which is trying to make them lively, and earnest, 
and picturesque in manner and conversation ? The 
amount of solemnity and sadness clad in black 
broadcloth which makes up an American assem- 
blage is frightful to contemplate. 

It is not strange that Ave early capitulate to Time, 
and begin to grow old at forty -five. " I leave dan- 
cing to the young men," says Trowrigg, aged twen- 
ty-five. His sister, Tilly Trowrigg, is married at 
twenty, and immediately begins to fade, a prema- 
ture matron, against the wall. At thirty-five the 
venerable Tilly speaks of her youth. At forty, be- 
cause she is a grandmother, she dresses as the tra- 
ditional stage grandmothers dress, who are always 
at least seventy years old, and lively at that. Why 
should Tilly cut youth out of her life ? Why re- 
fuse to be gay and to enjoy because she is happily 
married ? 

Alas ! it is too true, we can not be merry and 
young by trying. No brownness and curliness of 
wig will act upon the heart and the limbs like the 
waters of the fountain of youth. No braces and 
girdles will supply the sinews that Time has sapped, 
and the determined jerk in the gait is not that 
elastic spring with which youth treads the world, 
and leaps into the future. We can not be rosy 
when we wish, nor cheerful. And yet, if we wish 
so betimes — if when we are rosy we behold the beau- 
ty of health and vow to retain it — if when we see 
the consolation of cheerfulness we resolve to man- 
age ourselves wisely, and not grow too grave, 
there will be a difference. If human will counts 
in human life, there will be a difference. Tilly 
Trowrigg can never wish herself into a beauty like 
that of the Lady Una, whom to see is to love, and 
whose immortal youth of freshness and purity no 
other woman may hope to rival ; but Tilly Trow- 
rigg can determine whether she will therefore sulk 
and look sour, or whether she will be glad that a 
generous Fate has permitted us all to know and 
love the Lady Una, and thereby grow sweeter in 
mind, and face, and manner, every day she lives. 

Here is a kind of sermon upon cheerfulness 
preached from the Easy (hair quite inadvertently. 
But at this season (for it is New-Year's as we write) 
who can resist the cordial of the cold air (which 



416 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



is yet very bitter and stinging)? or the sparkling 
eyes of the children ? Even if a private sorrow 
lie heavy on the heart at this time, no one can re- 
coil from the general gladness; and so ennobling 
and humanizing is sorrow, that whoever is touch- 
ed by it, wakes inwardly those vows which the sea- 
son suggests, and longs to begin the New Year 
with more charity and kindness than ever before. 



How can a humane, or even a decent Easy Chair, 
walk up and down Broadway and not cry aloud : 
What have those noble friends of man, the horses, 
done that they must be so cruelly treated ? Yes- 
terday a horse fell heavily, and the brute upon the 
box smiled to his neighbor driver, and really sup- 
posed, doubtless, in his heart, that he was a being 
superior to that which lay panting upon the pave- 
ment. The other morning a noble horse fell, and 
the shafts of the express wagon he was drawing 
stabbed him in the flank. This morning, in the 
cold snow-mud, laya poorold omnibus-horse against 
the curbstone, dead. He was "well out of that." 
Perhaps if we were omnibus-horses we should like 
to slip up on the Russ pavement and drop stunned 
and dead. Perhaps, also — we will not play Sterne 
on the dead omnibus-horse, but this Ave must say — 
that whoever has not enough feeling to protest, in 
every possible way, against all kinds of cruelties 
to all kinds of animals, deserves never to have a 
horse carry him, nor a canary sing at his window. 

We have already quoted in this Chair the noble 
things Goldsmith says of the dog. Perhaps there 
was some occult sympathy. Goldsmith led out- 
wardly the life of a dog. He was snubbed, and 
scratched, and barked at. He could not see a poor 
devil of a dog running along as if he expected every 
man to lend him a kick, without a sad conscious- 
ness that that was about all the loan ha himself 
could raise with facility. Goldsmith had such a 
great heart that it had plenty of room for animals 
as Avell as men. What would Goldsmith have said 
had he promenaded Broadway one of these clear, 
bright days, when the Russ pavement is polished to 
ice, and Broadway is a great equestrian battle- 
field strewn with wounded and dead horses. There 
is the common mother of all of us citizens, Mayor 
Wood, whose name is known upon the Mississippi 
and upon the shores of the great Gulf, to whom we 
instinctively look for redress. Also the horses in- 
stinctively look to the Mayor, remembering their 
dams. 

Now it is just a year since our supreme civic 
functionary issued that great address, full of point 
and promise, which gave us all assurance of an 
orderly city. All we do-nothings trembled in 
our shoes. Fernando Wood was the Christopher 
Columbus of a new era. He discovered a possi- 
bility of good city government. He was going to 
have clean streets and quiet Sundays. He was go- 
ing to have polite hackmen and obsequious omni- 
bus-drivers. We were going to get across Broad- 
way when we wanted to. Buildings were not to 
obstruct the passage of passengers. There was to 
be a policeman at every corner, who was to do 
every thing at once, and without noise. In gen- 
eral, Astraea was to return, and grog-shops were 
to disappear. Finally, whatsoever things were 
doubtful, whatsoever powers were disputable, were 
to be assumed, and no more words about it! 

Heavens! what a civic Millennium was implied 
by that inaugural speech of our Mayor ! How we 
timid people, who hate noise at night, and lock the 



doors during the day to keep out the ruffians who 
prey upon hats and coats, nestled in the shadow 
of that great functionary ! . Who would not be hap- 
py to think that he should escape from a hackney- 
coach without "sarse" from the coachey, and a 
swindle upon his purse ? Who would not calmly 
proclaim the joyful tidings from Trinity spire, 
with the full chimes melodiously playing " See the 
conquering hero comes !" if he had crossed Broad- 
way without mortal terror of slipping upon the 
glassy pavement, and coming down under" the 
wheel of an omnibus? Who wouldn't be a Cock- 
ney, with such a Lord Mayor ? 

Probably the doubtful powers have been as- 
sumed, and every thing accomplished. Fortu- 
nately, an Easy Chair can go on its own legs — so 
we are not able to speak about the coaches — also, 
we live upon that side of Broadway which does 
not require crossing, so that it is probably all right 
there. Also, we avoid policemen and corner shops, 
so that all may be as the Lord Mayor promised, 
for any thing we know to the contrary. In fact. 
New York may have the model of city govern- 
ments ; certainly, as dutiful New Yorkers, it is our 
duty to believe it has. 

But then how the Mayor suffers the horses to be 
abused ? To see the poor dumb animals, who have 
no arms to save themselves by, suddenly thrown 
into the air, and falling heavily, is great fun for 
every body but those who know and love horses. 
Those who do, think hardly of a city which allows 
such shameless and unnecessary torture. Of course, 
the city is very sorry to be thought hardly of — and 
there has been a little inclosing of a square foot of 
street, and a little delicate grooving of the pave- 
ment by the Park. But every where the horses 
slip, and stagger, and fall. Fine carriage-horses, 
sad old omnibus-horses, prancing express-horses, 
reckless butcher-horses, steady milk-horses, and 
quiet bread-horses — they all go. Harnesses break, 
shafts and poles snap, people arc delayed and lose 
their temper, ladies are handed out to the sidewalk 
by " a galliant pleaceman," through a crowd of ad- 
miring loafers. It is an evil ; there is a loss in 
that most sensitive part — the pocket. But mean- 
while Broadway glares with its smooth surface, 
and as the citizen, remembering the manifesto of 
our great functionary last winter, sees the suffer- 
ing of the brutes — sees the slipping and the fall- 
ing — he believes with Swedenborg, that "ani- 
mals also are immortal," that the feeling we have 
for the domestic and serviceable brutes is sufficient 
proof of a relation that Nature will not let perish : 
and as the horse of the omnibus in which he makes 
these reflections whacks upon the stones, he con- 
soles himself, upon stepping out, with the profound 
faith that there is a heaven for horses, and, in all 
justice, a higher heaven for horses than for mayors. 



" Our loss is insignificant," are the last words 
of one of Marshal Pelissier's dispatches to the Em- 
peror of France. There had been a sally, an alarm, 
a skirmish, and retreat. Only a few men were left 
upon the field — not more than ten, perhaps — it Avas 
hardly Avorth mentioning: "Our loss is insignifi- 
cant," says the Captain General. 

This is one of the terrible episodes of a great 
Avar. Only great results are considered — individ- 
ual suffering is OA-erlooked. It must be so. There 
can be no personal mention of the fi\ r e thousand 
Avho fall. The thing in vieAV is the national aim — 
the benefit of hundreds of thousands. And yet in 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



417 



the smallest skirmish, as in the bloodiest battle, 
what issues are involved in every event? As 
every soldier drops, there drops the welfare of a 
family — there breaks a lonely and longing heart — 
there are blighted hopes that make life worth liv- 
ing to some distant soul. 

" Our loss is insignificant ;" but what now are 
the losses of Marathon and the battles of Hanni- 
bal ? What to us, sitting upon the western shore 
of the sea, were the losses in the taking of Sebas- 
topol itself? Imagination will not sit down with 
the gray Marshal in his hut and pen this dispatch 
to the Emperor in his palace, and forget the dead 
with the day. Imagination goes home to Norman- 
dy or the South of France, and hears the arrival 
of the news in some quiet country town. There 
are no names mentioned — they will come by-and- 
by. But the son of this house was with the army 
in the Crimea— the son of many hopes and pray- 
ers — and he was only a private. What was the 
regiment, and the company engaged? Was our 
son there ? Is this his only obituary — " Our loss 
is insignificant ?" 

Names come slowly — only after many weeks of 
anxious doubt and long suspense shall the parents, 
and brothers, and lovers of those whose loss is in- 
significant know tliat they are lost. Then the 
fathers and the brothers will bury their sorrow in 
" the glory of France." But the mothers, and the 
sisters, and the lovers will feel that their hearts 
are tombs, and will smile, yet not be comforted. 
Then let some village cure, on some tranquil sum- 
mer morning, when the breath of the blossoming 
vineyards is sweet in the gray old church, remind 
his flock — and, most of all, the stricken and the 
weary, that there is a sweeter pasturage, even a 
heavenly, to gain which, indeed, " our loss is in- 
significant." 

When this venerable Easy Chair was a sapling 
and swung round the world, it found itself one 
lovely summer at Interlachen, a place which, who- 
ever has been in Switzerland or has read " Hype- 
rion," knows and loves. There it befell that sun- 
dry clerks of Oxenford in England, came to stay, 
and were supposed to study under the superintend- 
ance of several rosy-cheeked, mutton-chop-whisk- 
ered youths, who were called fellows of colleges. 
They were also good fellows and jolly fellows. In 
truth both students and tutors were fellows for 
whom any Alma Mater might ring its meditative 
twilight bells in praise. They were fair-cheeked 
and honest-hearted. They had that air of robust 
health which is so common with the Englishman 
and bo rare with every other nation under heaven, 
especially the parboiled Germans with their porce- 
lain stoves. 

We used to hoar of study, but we used to see 
riding, and walking, and leaping, and playing ball. 
Perhaps they were studying the development of 
the muscles; at least they were practicing it. 
There were parties formed and expeditions per- 
formed to every height in the neighborhood. The 
" fellows" ran up the Wenzern Alp from Lauter- 
brunnen and down on the other side into Grindel- 
wald, and rowed home by the Lake of Brienz. 
They sealed the Little Jungfrau, and even passed 
over the great and terrible Aar glacier, and came 
out at the Grimsel hospice. They went off for 
days among the mountains. They looked from the 
Fanthorn : they picnicked under the Losenlaire 
glacier, the youngest and bluest of all the Alpine 



crystals. They penetrated the green valley of 
Meyringen, and returned with sketches of every 
thing, including that famous maid of the inn. 
They knew the mountains by heart, and to know 
any thing by heart, is not that to love it ? 

There was an easy, frank, generous waj r with 
all these students and " fellows." They were sim- 
ple and hearty, and devoid of imagination and sen- 
timent. If the Count Storia, who had just come 
up from Italy, and who was and is beloved of this 
Easy Chair, allowed his tongue to obey his glow- 
ing heart and gave us a kind of Titianesque de- 
scription of a sunset, or a scene by the way, or an 
incident of travel, the good English youths listened 
with all their shirt-collars acutely pointing toward 
the Count, and, when he had finished, the "fel- 
lows" always ejaculated, " how odd !" and the 
clerks of Oxenford, " how poetic !" 

Now it is singular that if a man says a poetic 
thing, he does not wish to hear some one immedi- 
ately mention that it is poetic. If that criticism 
is made, there is a present end of the poetry. 

And so as we stood in many a pleasant sunset at 
the door of the Hotel des Alpes, and saw the light 
flickering and fading up the valley of Lauterbrun- 
nen — " the Valley of Fountains only" Paul Flem- 
ming translates it — and saw the Jungfrau as Ten- 
nyson saw Monte Rosa from the Milan Cathedral, 
"A thousand shadowy painted valleys, 
And snowy dells in a golden air," 

then Storia, with his imagination yet warm from 
the touch of Italy, would forget the comment that 
would surely follow what he said, and saying a 
few ardent words was crushed by the " odd" and 
the " poetic." 

"Nasty snobs," w r as the Count Storia's concise 
way of reviewing his reviewers. 

And yet they listened with perfect respect, and 
sincerely meant what they said. But it was very 
droll, and Storia's chagrin was very intelligible. 

When we fell into conversation with the young 
Englishmen, it was curious to find how natural 
their unmeaning exclamations were. There was 
not one of them who was not the senior of the sap- 
ling which this Easy Chair then was,* but they 
were mere schoolboys in mind. They had little 
cultivation and no knowledge of the world, and 
were traveling in charge of the "fellows." If a 
difference arose in conversation, involving any prin- 
ciple, they instantly referred to precedent, appa- 
rently supposing that it was then settled. They 
could not see any ground, for instance, upon which 
a poacher could be excused. While the Game Laws 
existed every poacher ought to be shot, or fined, or 
imprisoned. But when Storia thundered in the 
question whether the Game Laws were not unjust 
in principle, they could not understand. Their 
reverence for precedent, for authority, for the pow- 
ers that w r ere, was so profound, that, for its own 
part, this sapling felt like a very flippant and fool- 
ish iconoclast. These young Englishmen reposed 
in tradition as a babe in its mother's bosom. There 
was something fascinating in such implicit faith. 
There was something beautiful in their respect for 
power, and their obedience to law as Law. 

The ethics of their faith, and the probable prac> 
tical results of their mental condition, the sapling, 
now grown into the Easy Chair, thinks about, but 
says nothing about here. Memory has a hundred 
times refreshed that Swiss landscape with figures, 
like a sponge tfoin^ over an old picture, whenever 

* The witty reader will here supply — "and still is." 



418 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



we have seen the total want of a similar respect 
among the young saplings around our chair. 

Lately Ave have been especially reminded of it 
by the tone of criticism upon " Hiawatha," and, in 
the summer, upon "Maud." Has a poet ceased 
to be revered ? Shall genius in itself have no re- 
spect? Are we so jealous of the fame of the dead 
singers, that we are unjust to the living? Flip- 
pant criticism of the works of great men is only an 
injury to the critic, but it is an insult to the author. 
Tennyson was not one of the gods of the "fellows" 
at Interlachen, but they confessed their ignorance 
of him, while of Macaulay, and those who were 
their pets, they spoke with an admiring respect, 
which is a tone unknown to American appreciation. 
Their tone implied that the author's genius and 
studies, and the literary achievements which had 
made his name famous, were of themselves to be 
respected ; and whatever came from him was to 
be received as the work of a master who was to be 
emulated, not of a tyro who was to be tried. This 
feeling gives to English criticism in general a dig- 
nity and persuasion which is not found in ours, and 
which is always felt in our final literary estimates. 
It does not accept as perfect whatever Shakspeare 
does, but it treats Shakspeare like a gentleman. 
It supposes a world of gentlemen. It honors gen- 
ius. It loves the poet ; and when one strain is not 
so sweet to its ear as another, it does not cry out, 
" Ho ! ho ! that doesn't do. Look here ! you can't 
cram this sort of stuff down, you know. No rest- 
ing on your oars, and using your reputation. No 
Sir-ee, Mr. Homer! toe the mark of the Iliad, or 
shut up your ' potatoe-trap.' " 

The Hon. Vulcan Bellerophon, editor of the "Pal- 
ladium of Freedom and Bungtown Banner," says : 
"That is criticism which the masses understand; 
none of your hi'falutin about reverence and senti- 
ment," adds that pillar of an uncoerceable press. 
"Besides," says he, "in this country no man is to 
be allowed any thing for what he has done. If he 
can't do better, let him stand aside. There ain't 
no room for the fogies. An independent press 
brings 'em all up to the scratch, Sir. We are not 
to be blinded by respect for things, Sir. We want 
the genuine article, or none at all, Sir — pork or 
poetry." 

The Hon. V. Bellerophon is probably a judge of 
both. But have we not said that there are two 
sides to every question ? and when we read and 
hear the Bellerophon style of criticism, we long to 
be a sappling once more, lounging in summer In- 
terlachen, and hearing the dear, healthy, check- 
trowsered, peaked-collared, short-waisted, grace- 
less, gawky young Bulls, listening with delight to 
Storia's stories, and exclaiming, "How odd! how 
poetic !" 

During the happy Christmas season — which 
lasts as long as the longest cornucopeia of candy 
found in the stocking, there have been endless 
books for children. But two — and two of the best 
— came late: "The Magician's Show-Box" and 
" The Last of the Huggermuggers." The anony- 
mous author of the first-named is already known 
by " Rainbows for Children ;" the author of the 
last is Mr. C. P. Cranch, the painter. They are both 
beautiful books ; and they have that real charm of 
children's books, that they are interesting and full 
of meaning to children of a larger growth. 

The Last of the Huggermuggers is a good giant, 
which is a novelty in fairy lore. Giants are usu- 



ally only dreadful ogres — as if the human being 
became worse by growing larger. It is the pret- 
tiest child's book ever issued in America ; and we 
hope every friend of the Easy Chair who has little 
people around him will introduce them to the good 
giant Huggermugger. He will be good company 
at all times, for his agreeability does not end with 
the holidays. He is such a simple-hearted, good- 
natured mountain of flesh, that the children will 
be sure to love him, as they would an overgrown 
puppy. 

The " Magician," whose " show-box" is better 
than many a magic-lantern, slides his pictures 
along, so gently and winningly, that papas and 
mammas must look with the children. And papas 
and mammas will find a subtle and tender beauty 
in them which the children will understand when 
they have children of their own. 

The best judges of children's books are children, 
and many whom this Easy Chair knows and loves 
have read these stories, and report that they are of 
the right kind. 

OUR FOREIGN GOSSIP. 

Mourning and rejoicing have belonged largely 
to the year we have left behind us ; but the mur- 
mur of the mourning lingers, now when the paeans 
are dead. Far and wide over the French plain 
country — the country of shepherds and of vine- 
dressers — the pretty Loire banks and on the Rhone 
cliffs, the peasant mothers of France are reckoning 
up in this season their divided households ; and 
counting, with sighs, the lost boys who a twelve- 
month ago wore brave ribbons in their hats, and 
went away cheerily to a drum-beat toward the 
camp — to the port — to the East — to the great siege 
— to death. 

The noise of the guns, of fight and of rejoicing, 
has passed long ago ; but the lower sounds, with 
which the gathered Christmas households talk of 
some one who died there, linger still. 

What hopes cut off! what hearts wrung! what 
desolated firesides find no gazetting ! 

Sometimes, at a general's bier, or with our eye 
resting on some wreck of a man shattered in bat- 
tle, we think of the ghastly trail which war makes ; 
but presently forget it in a reading of some official 
list of dead and wounded, and we wait again for 
guns. 

Not long ago there was a military funeral in a 
Paris church — we think the church was the palace 
church of St. Germain TAuxerrois. The sable 
trappings at the door were princely ; the tapers 
burning before the shrine counted by hundreds. 
People stopped, and wondered what great general 
was dead. No one could tell them. The body had 
come home from the Crimea. Among the mourn- 
ers were titled men, who were known at the palace 
and throughout France. Mourning ladies wore a 
wealth of black. Who could be the distinguished 
victim ? 

Upon the richly-appareled coffin (as if to mock 
public curiosity still more) was the dress and arms 
of a simple sergeant of the Zouaves, the uniform of 
the deceased. 

But the dead sergeant of the Zouaves (whose fel- 
low-sufferers lay yet under the soil of South Rus- 
sia) had worn the title of a Marquis : hinc ilia 
splendidissimce lachrymce,. He had been also at one 
time an attache at the Foreign Office of the gov- 
ernment ; he had been a marked man at the clubs, 
and had tasted to the full whatever of sweetness 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



419 



belongs to society in Paris. But overcome with 
that craving appetite for glory which grows easily 
out of French blood, he had forsworn his friends of 
the Faubourg St. Germain, had enlisted in a cav- 
alry regiment, had subsequently secured a transfer 
to a corps more immediately engaged, and in his 
first brave push after the coveted glory had been 
thrust down a corpse by the bayonet of a Musco- 
vite serf. 

He has gained, however, a great funeral ; and 
the weepers who followed the pageant are no more 
heart-stricken (and maybe no less) than the unga- 
zetted ones. who weep for the dead sergeants and 
privates Avhose bodies never come home. 

We dropped a note some time ago about the 
death of that veteran sculptor, Rude, avIio fell away 
from his work just at the time when his fame had 
been stamped by the admiration of Europe. 

Another great death in France was that of Mon- 
sieur Paillet, than whom no member of the Paris 
bar was more widely known and more deservedly 
respected. The papers have told us how his last 
illness came upon him in the Chambers of the 
French Hall of Justice ; how he struggled with it 
bravely, as a strong man will ; how he asked for a 
glass of water to revive him ; how he sank upon 
his bench ; how he was borne out for air ; how he 
was carried home — to die. 

A little after this came the news that the Ad- 
miral Bruat was dead. He had commanded suc- 
cessfully the Black Sea fleet ; he had escaped all 
the storms and the perils of at least two bombard- 
ments; he had but just received a splendid recep- 
tion at the hands of the Sultan in Constantinople, 
and on his way homeward, under the balmy sky 
of the southern Mediterranean, he died upon the 
deck of his vessel. 

After Bruat comes the memory and mention (in 
all Paris talk) of the Count Mole — one time chief 
minister of the government of Louis Philippe ; 
again holding place under Louis XVIII.; and, 
still earlier, a protege of the great Napoleon. And 
notwithstanding this variety of masters he pre- 
served throughout, with a curious French elasticity 
of principle, the reputation of an honest and con- 
scientious man. Even before the closing scenes in 
the Orleans drama of 1848, the old Count Mole had 
grown weary of official cares, and disgusted with 
the liberalism of the French deputies. His meas- 
ures could gain no votes ; his speeches could com- 
mand very little of applause. Guizot had suc- 
ceeded to his position as first adviser of the Crown, 
and the old Count had retired to his country-place 
at Champlatreux, where, the other day, he died. 
He was one of those few men of noble family in 
France whose reputation and whose title had ex- 
tended unbroken across the chasms which revolu- 
tion had made between four successive dynasties ; 
and who, with wealth untouched, person unharm- 
ed, quiet undisturbed, was seated in the old coun- 
try-home of his fathers, waiting for the summons 
of his last Master. 

During the summer past he had made a short 
run into Germany, in the course of which he had 
met and held conference with the Duke of Cham- 
bord.l A singular conference it must have been — 
of this monarch without a throne with a statesman 
who had outlived all influence. Champlatreux, 
where the decayed statesman died, is as pretty a 
country estate as the traveler can find in France. 
The lawn is broad, and flanked with thick belts of 
foliage. The chateau is of that picturesque min- 



gling of brick and stone which characterizes the 
old royal establishment of St. Germains, and dates 
from the time of Louis XIV. But even in that gay 
period the titled family of Mole was indebted to 
plebeian wealth for its splendor ; for the count who 
built the chateau was only rescued from poverty 
and a very humble farm dwelling by his marriage 
with a daughter of Samuel Bernard, who brought 
to him a dot of nearly four millions of dollars. 
Such fortunes are not dissipated rapidly in France, 
and the octogenarian with whose name we began 
this mention died in the midst of luxury. 

We had almost added another great name to our 
month's necrology ; no less a one than that of the 
Queen Marie Amelie, now wearing the more modest 
title of Countess of Neuilly. 

European report speaks of the old lady (near 
seventy-five) as lying very ill in a Sardinian town 
near to the city of Genoa. The sons, Prince de 
Joinville and the Due de Nemours, are with her. 
Her old Paris physician, Chomel, has run away 
from his later patients to be near the bedside of the 
august sufferer ; and the journalists, who chroni- 
cled not very long ago the confiscation of the Or- 
leans estates in France, amuse their readers with 
a mention of the regal shadows of luxury which 
still linger around the Orleans queen, and tell us 
that her physician chartered one of the imperial 
mail-steamers for his transport from Marseilles to 
Genoa. 



Shall we listen to the doubtful scandal which, 
not yet in European journals, but in talk, throws 
its shade upon the Sardinian King, and which ac- 
cuses him of bearing unworthy persons in his train ? 
We are no apologists for the Court morals of Tu- 
rin, and believe they might show, at times,as shame- 
less a blazon as once belonged to those of Munich ; 
but still we count Victor Emmanuel too discreet a 
man — under all his vices — to taint his first royal 
visiting Avith the lewd follies of a boy. 

Moreover the Sardinian King has now a prize 
to play for. There may be, not far hence in point 
of time, a kingdom of Italy, and Victor Emmanuel 
may be King of Italy. It were surely worth no 
little check to grosser follies to be able to count 
coolly the chances of such gain. The more sober 
republicans of Italy have already declared their 
first resolve for Italian independence — whether as 
kingdom or republic — and have asserted their will- 
ingness to follow the lead of the Sardinian King, 
if he will but hazard a blow for Lombard}*. 

We are loth to think or to speak badly of one 
upon whom so much of weal and so much glory 
may hang. Who can tell what may be the result 
of the closet councils of Napoleon and Victor with 
the map of Southern Europe under their eye, and 
the rejoicing guns of the Malakoft" in their ear? 
The French monarch is a man of grand surprises, 
and some say those surprises may be wakened be- 
yond the Alps. 

Meantime Austria, with her splendid arts of di- 
plomacy, is coming again into the field of political 
manoeuvres, and is quickening those hopes of peace 
which she has already kindled and smothered a 
score of times. Her armies still shine on the Wal- 
lachian plains and the Transylvanian mountains— 
at once a brilliant threat and a brilliant promise 
British opinion still deals gently with the arch-de- 
ceiver of Ilapsburg, and bangs, like a daft lover 
upon the humors of a coquettish mistress. 

But while I be British journals, beguiled by the 



420 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



new whims of the German mediators, are hazard- 
ing hopes of peace, the Emperor Alexander, true 
to his barbarian instinct, is thanking his Crimean 
soldiery in terms that augur no speedy termination 
to their battles, and is bidding them God-speed in 
their defense of Russia and of their patron saints. 

" It has been," says he, " my greatest pleasure 
to have been with you, and to greet personally my 
valiant soldiers. With all my heart I thank you 
for your brave deeds, and for the sturdy virtues 
you maintain. These warrant me in believing that 
the glory of our arms will be sustained, and that 
the resolution of my brave men to sacrifice them- 
selves for their faith, their country, and their Czar 
will never have an end." 

There seems little promise of peace in such lan- 
guage. Among other war items we count, more- 
over, the increased activity in all the great naval 
depots of England and of France : no new liners, in- 
deed, are being built, but huge iron-covered hulks, 
proof against bomb and ball, which, with the balmy 
return of another June, people whisper, will plow 
their way toward the shallows and creeks of the 
Baltic. Cronstadt will lie in the next summer's 
thought like another Sebastopol, and the fears and 
hopes which waited so long on the Southern cita- 
del may find a transfer to the sea-port of the North. 



We barely hinted, in our last, at the splendors 
which were to belong to the closing scenes of the 
Great Exhibition : the wonder has come and gone. 
The forty thousand guests of the nation were there 
in gala dress. The Duke of Cambridge, with his 
long beard, of Crimean growth, sat beside the 
Empress, who was more brilliant than ever in her 
crimson velvet robe, with the premium point lace 
d'Alencon, and she wore upon her head a tiara of 
pearls. The news-writers surpass themselves in 
their story of the brilliant costumes, and we seem 
to see through their spirited paragraphs the mag- 
nificent nave of the palace, hanging, like a crystal 
shadow, in the hazy atmosphere conjured by the 
forty thousand breathing men and women who 
looked and listened. Nearly every country had 
its representatives ; and the curious in costume 
could see at a glance the crimson liveries of En- 
gland, the white of Austria, the green of Sardinia, 
the blue of France, the violet of Spain, with here 
and there the fez of some Mussulman ally. 

The gorgeous hundred Guards, in their lively 
blue, their huge boots, their steel corselets decked 
with gold, stood grouped around the imperial cir- 
cle — a chivalrous frieze stolen from the Middle Age 
chronicles. The Emperor, they tell us, was in the 
best of tone and spirits, and achieved an oratorical 
triumph. After this came the movements of the 
banner-men marshaling the Avinners of the medals 
of honor ; and as they came forward, trooping to 
the music under the light of forty thousand eyes, 
it revived the story of old tournaments; and there 
was only needed some Queen of Love and Beauty 
to bestow the awards, and some score of bleeding 
knights in the background, to make the illusion 
complete. 

Eight white horses, magnificently caparisoned, 
drew away the imperial carriage, and the Indus- 
trialize was ended. 

Among the premiums awarded to those repre- 
senting American interests were three crosses of 
the legion of honor to three Commissioners of 
American States — of which one to Monsieur Vatte- 
mare, the indefatigable advocate for international 



exchanges. We are compelled to add, with shame, 
that the bestowal of the last named honor was the 
occasion of ill-feeling among our sensitive country- 
men abroad. 

Can it be that our representatives were so greedy 
for imperial honors that they could not waive the 
compliment to that Frenchman who, we boldly 
say, has done more to help forward and establish 
a European appreciation of American successes than 
any native ? 

M. Vattemare received unsolicited the appoint- 
ment of Commissioner from vrrious States ; with- 
out any pecuniary emolument he has devoted him- 
self to the interests of American exhibitors ; by his 
individual exertions he has succeeded in establish- 
ing a permanent American library in Paris — em- 
bracing, we venture to say, a more ample exhibi- 
tion of our intellectual accomplishment than any 
single collection in the United States — and yet, 
when this gentleman receives at the hands of the 
Government a token of their appreciation of his 
efforts, our over-sensitive representatives make an 
outcry about foreign birth and lack of nationality ! 
Can the follies of Know-Nothingism go farther than 
this ? 

The time will come, we trust, when the zeal of 
M. Vattemare and his disinterested labor for Amer- 
ican interests will have full and hearty apprecia- 
tion ; meantime, we freely give our tribute to his 
excellence of endeavor and to his modest worth. 



The Hotel de Ville has again been lighted up 
with one of those splendid and magical fetes which 
have given a European reputation to the civic balls 
of Paris. The object of honor in this last display 
was the^/eta-loving monarch of Sardinia. Rumor, 
gadding about those decorated halls, tells us of the 
presence of many a beauty of doubtful character ; 
and points its moral with allusion to that imperial 
sinner the Princess Mathilde. 

While upon the subject of complimentary fetes, 
we must not omit to mention a worthy and a joy- 
ous one which the men of Antwerp have just now 
given to M. Leys, the Belgian artist who bore off 
the only medal of honor to the painters of his coun- 
try. It would seem that no jealousies have ignored 
the justice of this award, and he has received the 
best possible evidence in a home and hearty con- 
firmation. The story of his reception on his return 
from Paris and on his arrival in his native city, 
carries us back to the enthusiastic times when a 
great artist drew a throng after him in the streets, 
and when the people all recognized that nobility 
of thought which finds expression in colors, and 
which writes poems and prayers upon canvas. 

First of all, these men of Antwerp met their 
painter at the station with a round of cheers ; they 
invited him to a great civic banquet in his honor; 
and a Minister of State brought to the banquet a 
welcome and a new reward from the Belgian King. 
A delegate from the people presented to the artist 
an enameled crown of gold ; and the painter, in his 
acceptance, gave a new warrant of their regard and 
admiration by his modest reply. " I accept the 
crown," said he, "but I accept it for the Belgian 
School of Art, which has been my teacher." 

A procession attended the painter as he left the 
banquet-hall, and only quieted their shouts of 
greeting when he was again within his own home. 
This smacks strongly of a simpler and honester 
age, when there were no artist coteries — no pre- 
Raphaelite combinations — and none of those nau- 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



421 



seating jealousies which, in our American world of 
art, divide the workers and embitter criticism. 

When will American art-lovers arrive at such 
harmony as to join in any paean to a single deserv- 
ing artist? But, apart from those ignoble jeal- 
ousies which appear to belong to all American 
workers in art or in letters, there seems lacking in 
us that disposition to declare and honor merit 
which is a part of European education. 

We hear of Professor Morse as the discoverer or 
inventor of the magnetic telegraph ; but the chances 
are that the first American scientific paper which 
your eye falls upon will, in its discussion of the 
topic, labor zealously to prove that the merit is 
not so much belonging to Professor Morse as to 
some client of the journal, of whom the world never 
before heard. 

The Paris Association of Industry, and many 
competent bodies before it, have done honor to Mr. 
Goodyear as the inventor of the great improve- 
ments in manufacturing India-rubber ; yet, ten to 
one, the home journals will spend their bile upon 
this recipient of honor, and stoutly defend the 
claims of some litigious and braggart manufacturer 
who has oiled their palms with his money. 

M'Cormick has won a world-wide reputation by 
putting our farmers, and farmers every where, in 
the possession of an implement which shortens their 
harvest labor by two-thirds, and adds so much to 
their annual profits. And yet, in place of a gener- 
ous recognition of these claims, we find American 
scientific journals disputing his honor, and Avill- 
fully counterfeiting foreign opinions, which may 
establish the boasts of some rival manufacturer. 

Are we grown so impertinently republican and 
equal that we can not recognize and honor merit ? 
Must Ave straightway fall to picking away the tro- 
phy which any earnest worker among us gains by 
covert attack ? 



The Emperor's speech, which w r as for so long a 
time on the lips of the Paris world, has not wholly 
passed away yet from the dinner-talk of the me- 
tropolis. His grand appeal to opinion, and his 
challenge of the neutrals to make a bold show of 
their sympathies, whatever they may be — the pas- 
sage, in short, which startled the most earnest 
plaudits, and set astir all the quidnuncs of Ger- 
many, has latterly received an official explication 
at the hands of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. 
It is in the form of a circular addressed by M. 
Walewski to the agents of France at foreign courts, 
and is too remarkable a document, in the present 
conjuncture of European affairs, to be passed over. 
It explains the curt Imperial speech thus : 
"Monsieur — From various quarters of Germany 
I learn that the speech of the Emperor, pronounced 
at the close of the Industrial Exhibition, has pro- 
duced, as might indeed have been foreseen, a pro- 
found impression. It has not, however, been uni- 
formly correctly interpreted. It has, nevertheless, 
but one signification ; nor does it reflect in any 
manner upon any of the neutral states. The Em- 
peror expressed himself desirous of a prompt and 
established peace — there can be no misunderstand- 
ing of such a wish — and, in addressing himself to the 
neutral states, he asked only their hearty co-opera- 
tion in the furtherance of this wish. He does not, 
nor has he from the beginning overlooked the in- 
fluence of their opinion upon the progress of events; 
nay, he conceives, that if the neutral powers had 
in the outset expressed clearly and strongly their 



judgment upon the questions at issue, such expres- 
sion would have been attended with the happiest 
results. He does not, at this late day, undervalue 
the weight of their opinion ; and in this view, he 
has begged a clear expression of such opinion, that 
it may have its due force in the decision of the great 
questions at issue." 

This appeal to opinion is something new in a 
monarch — new, indeed, in a Government. How 
unlike any thing that Palmerston or Lord John 
Russell could, or would do! 

Yet it is not a new art in battle. Some Hyer and 
Morrissey fall out in bar-room talk, and presently 
warm the matter into blows. Hyer, after a parry 
or two and a slight show of blood, gives a stunning 
blow under Morrissey's left jaw that fairly makes 
his teeth clatter ; and at the instant, while Mor- 
rissey is taking breath and clearing his throat of 
blood, Hyer makes appeal to the by-standers : 
"Gentlemen, isn't this Morrissey's job ? Is Tom 
Hyer to blame?" 

And the pugilist counts upon a confirmatory 
wink as the best possible salvo to his conscience; 
nor does he undervalue its depreciating effects 
upon the fighting qualities of his adversary. 

But observe, Tom Hyer, in the heat of the con- 
test, does not once consider or reflect that the wink 
may be withheld — that sympathy may rest with 
the cracked jaw — that opinion may after all snub 
his pretensions. 

How is it now with the Emperor ? people ask 
themselves. What if neutral nations should 
chance to think very differently from France or 
England in the matter, and should give very open 
expression to their thoughts? What, if Prussia 
and Sweden, being pressed for an opinion, should 
reply, " We fear that the ambition of the Emperor 
has more to do with this Crimean matter than any 
Christian sympathy for the weak Turkish sister?" 
Or suppose they were to reply to England's vigor- 
ous assertions about balance of power, and defense 
of isolated nationality, and standard of civiliza- 
tion : "We count this the twaddle of a very great 
and far-seeing merchant-nation, which is very mis- 
sionary and charitable, but which still keeps a close 
eye upon her great highway to India, and wants no 
giant Gog or Magog to sit beside the door-posts." 

Would such opinions, boldly expressed, help the 
Emperor toward peace-making? There is some- 
thing grand, indeed, in the thought enunciated by 
Napoleon, that opinion is, after all, the arbiter, 
however much swords may cut, or guns bellow 
death. But, unfortunately, that great body of 
opinion, which we call Public Opinion, must — like 
wine — have its season for ripening ; heat keeps up 
fermentation, and until fermentation be past you 
can not judge of quality. 

Opinion ripens by calm repose, and is only judge 
when it ceases to be advocate. Opinion on great 
national questions must have the benefit of inter- 
national filtration ; the gusts of ambition or preju- 
dice must spread themselves over wide sweeps of 
land and sea before the elements of opinion settle 
into a just calm. 

Public opinion will not come by calling it ; if so, 
its force would be gone. It presides, not by the 
loudness of any spasmodic utterance, but by its 
slow, cumulative Aveight. 

Apropos to this subject, the King of Prussia has 
already re-affirmed that strict neutrality which he 
has guarded from the first. "Our country," says 
he, "is still the asylum of peace, and I hope in 



422 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



God that it will remain so. I hope that Prussia 
may be able to maintain her honor and her posi- 
tion as a state without any of the sacrifices of war. 
I am proud to know that no people is more ready 
to make such sacrifice, if it be demanded, for the 
protection either of its honor or its interests. And 
this confident belief only imposes on me the more 
the duty of maintaining those declarations already 
made, to accept of no engagements whose issue, 
both political and military, can not be clearly un- 
derstood and appreciated." 

The British papers will declaim upon the selfish- 
ness of such a programme ; the Government of 
Prussia has a single eye to its home interests. 
But so long as she violates no engagements, and 
infringes upon no rights of others, is she not pur- 
suing the wisest course ? 

Ought not Governments to consult simply and 
purely the interests of the peoples committed to 
their charge ? Is not such width of action — what- 
ever Kossuth may say — enough for the legitimate 
exercise of national wealth and force ? 



From eastward of Berlin, we learn that the Rus- 
sian officials at Warsaw have just lighted up the 
city with a brilliant fete in honor of the anniver- 
sary of the triumph of 1830. No less than 15,000 
picked troops formed part of the festal procession. 
The poor Prince Paskiewitch, however, the Vice- 
roy of the city, is summoning his relatives about 
his sick bed for his last adieus. 

In St. Petersburg another fete has grown out 
of the recent marriage of the Grand Duke Nich- 
olas, youngest brother of the reigning Emperor, to 
a Princess of a small German State. 

The northern papers of Europe are still full of 
their mention of the progress of General Canro- 
bert through the Scandinavian country. They 
count confidently upon his return in the spring- 
time at the head of a French army, which shall 
make a landing in the Baltic realms of the Czar. 



The British journals have made a pretty politic- 
al episode of the visit of Victor Emmanuel. The 
nation has honored him with fastening the royal 
name upon a new war-ship, and with a civic recep- 
tion at Guildhall. The King, whether doubtful or 
no of his French, replies to French addresses of 
gratulation and welcome in his native Italian 
tongue. The gossips of the Court have watched 
narrowly his bearing toward the Princess Mary 
of Cambridge ; and albeit, the English maiden is 
a zealous Churchwoman, they persist in hinting 
that she may shortly become the affianced of the 
gallant and royal widower. 

The King goes back through France, perhaps to 
discuss the Princess Mary over a cup of the Emper- 
or's wine, and he closes his traveling foray with a 
deer-hunt in the forests of Compeigne. 

The Crimean letter-Avriters to the London pa- 
pers are making merry over the steeple-chases and 
theatric shows which now enliven the life of the 
camp. The weather is represented as of the finest, 
and the Crimean markets are overstocked with 
fish, flesh, and fowl. 

Young Bonaparte, we observe, of West Point 
education, has been awarded a cross of the Legion 
of Honor for " uniform good conduct during the 
campaign." He still holds the rank of second 
lieutenant in the Dragoons. 

The Emperor, who makes easy gifts out of the 
ample store-house of the Louvre (the magnificent 



property of his Majesty), has just now delighted 
the buxom Princess Alice of England with a rich 
fan, which once belonged to the beautiful Marie 
Antoinette ; and upon the Prince, her brother, he 
has bestowed a gem of a watch whose inclosing 
case is wrought out of a single ruby. 

As a Christmas offering to poets, he has offered 
a prize of twenty thousand francs for the best poem 
upon the Capture of Sebastopol ; another, of equal 
amount, upon the Imperial Epochs in France ; and 
a third, on dit, whose subject shall be the Indus- 
trial Exhibition. 

The levying of the new dog-tax has just startled 
all the old ladies of France, and many a lamented 
poodle has fallen sacrifice to the ten-franc impost. 
Money never loses love in the gay capital ; and it 
would seem that the current of play-house satire 
was just now turning its conceits upon the omnip- 
otence of wealth. The young Dumas has chimed 
with the feeling of the hour in dramatizing " Mr. 
Money ;" and we hear of a drawing play-bill at the 
Porte St. Martin which reads — " The baker-woman 
who had the cash." 

The Bourse is so jostled with eager speculators 
that there is serious talk of removing the great 
shrine of mammon to the crystal palace of Indus- 
try. 

The "Mobilier," whose stock a year ago was 
dull at six hundred francs, is now in demand at 
thirteen hundred; so the great Joint Omnibus 
Company, which has been organized under the 
Mobilier patronage, and with the Mobilier funds, 
is the favorite investment of the day. 

Meantime snow has fallen on the Paris roofs 
(4th December), before the New York trottoir has 
been whitened ; and the Boulevard is showing its 
fur-trimmed mantles, while this-side cities are 
wearing their autumn shawls. 



itnr'a Drattm:, 



THAT the Drawer is the richest and most ea- 
gerly sought of all the departments of this Mag- 
azine, we might fairly infer from the repeated re- 
quests that come to us to print again the good things 
that have been relished so highly in previous Num- 
bers. To these requests we are, of course, com- 
pelled to turn a deaf ear, preferring always to find 
something new, which, thanks to our courteous 
correspondents all over the country, we are able to 
do. But Flora R., of this city, prefers a request, 
with a reason for it, that would almost tempt us to 
go back to the old Numbers to gratify her and oth- 
ers who may fare as well as she has done. She, 
writes : 

" In your Magazine of July, 1853, there appear- 
ed an article in the Drawer concerning Bashful 
Men. I read it, and it has been the means of pro- 
curing for me a good husband! Now, as it has 
done so much for me, I would ask you, as a great 
favor to the ladies, to republish it, and by so doing 
you will benefit the world, and oblige vours truly, 

"Flora R." 

As it was the reading of it by the young lady 
herself that was the means of securing the good 
husband, it will surely repay the trouble for any 
of our fair friends in want of Flora's blessing, to 
turn to the fortunate Number indicated, and, like 
her, become the drawer of a prize. 



A Boston gentleman, himself one of the orna- 
ments of the modern Athens, sends us some excel- 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



423 



lent things, and here we would remark, that con- 
tributions to the Drawer are always acceptable. 
Our Boston friend says: "Sheridan's Pudor vetat 
is matched by an epitaph on a cat, ascribed to Dr. 
Johnson : 

"'Mi-cat inter omnes.'" 
But even this is not equaled by the inscription 
which a pedantic bachelor placed upon his tea- 
cady : 

"Tu DOCES — THOU TEA-CHEST." 



The same Athens furnishes us a capital anec- 
dote, which is now going the rounds of the literary 
circles of that city. 

"Soon after the publication of ' In Memoriam,' 
a number of the literati happened to meet at Tick- 
nor's bookstore, talking over the latest bits of news 
in the literary world, and, of course, Tennyson's last 

came under discussion. Professor L was of the 

party, and in the course of his pertinent contribu- 
tion to the conversation, he remarked, with his 
epigrammatical acuteness, in reference to the poem, 
that " Tennyson had done for friendship what Pe- 
trarch had done for love." The saying became 
popular at once, and forthwith served as a general 
critique, whenever second-hand wares could be 
put off without detection. Mr. A . who some- 
times writes small reviews of small authors, in- 
ferred that it ought to have point and merit from 
the reputation of its author, and determined to 
avail himself of the capital. The opportunity soon 
offered. At an evening party a friend was asked 
his opinion of the new poem, and he then proceed- 
ed to give his own, and concluded by saying, 
" To sum up my opinion in a word, Tennyson has 
done for friendship what PHE-tarch has done for 
love." 



person, he marked his own name, and recorded him- 
self among the absentees." 

The same North Carolina correspondent tells a 
very good story which has been related, how- 
ever, long before his day, of others besides Uncle 
Hector ; but he tells it so well it must be repeat- 
ed. 

" Old Uncle Hector was famous for having the 
largest nose in all Cape Fear region. He could not 
help that, though, but unfortunately his habits gave 
it a bright, rosy color, which, with its size, made it 
a natural and artificial curiosity. One night he 
retired to rest after indulging pretty freely all the 
evening, and waking up in the course of the night 
with a raging thirst, he rose and set off for some- 
thing to drmk. It was pitch dark, and for fear he 
would pitch against the door of his room, which 
was usually left standing open, he groped along, 
took the door directly between his hands, and re- 
ceived the edge of it full tilt against the end of his 
nose. It knocked him over backward, and he 
screamed out with an oath and agony : 

" ' Well, I always knew I had a big nose, but I 
never thought it was longer than my arm be- 
fore:"' 



Father M'Iver was one of the worthiest of the 
Presbyterian clergymen in the South, but, like his 
ancestors, very much set in his own way. He 
came from the Scotch, and it was one of his fore- 
fathers who prayed at the opening of one of their 
ecclesiastical courts, " Lord, grant that we may 
be right, for thou knowest Ave are very decided." 
So with Father MTver, he was very decided; but 
it was not of this trait in his character that our 
correspondent writes, who says of him : 

" Sometimes he was remarkably absent-minded, 
and the apostolic benediction which he used in dis- 
missing the congregation, he would pronounce when 
sitting down to table, instead of the customary 
blessing. 

" Once he went into his garden just as the beans 
were coming up, and was surprised to see the old 
bean on the top of the young stems. Forgetting 
for the moment that thi3 was the way in which he 
had always seen them coming up, he took his hoe, 
and for two hours worked away most diligently 
among them. His wife now made her appearance, 
and astonished, as she well might be at his work, 
exclaimed : 

" ' My dear Mr. Mac, what on earth are you do- 
ing?' 

" ' Why, you see, wife,' he replied, very inno- 
cently, ' the beans have all come up bottom up- 
ward, and I was setting them right again !' 

" When he was stated clerk of the Fayetteville 
Presbytery, and was calling the roll at the opening 
of the meeting, he came to his own name, and called 
it out louder and louder three times. Receiving 
do answer, and not once thinking of himself as the 



And Alabama writes to us of a Methodist preach- 
er who introduced the services with the hymn com- 
mencing : 

"Purge me with hysop." 
The chorister led off with a tune not very familiar 
to the choir, and after repeating the first line again 
and again, and breaking down in the tune with 
every attempt, the chorister looked to the preacher 
in great distress, and said : 

" Brother Nixon, won't you please to try some 
other yarb V 

It was in Alabama also that the preacher was 
accustomed to distinguish the I. and II. epistles of 
John by saying, John with one eye, and John with 
two eyes. It was a long time before the people got 
the hang of it, but when they did, the distinction 
answered very well. 



A better story than the following, which comes 
from North Carolina, we have not found in the 
Drawer in many a month. 

About thirty miles above Wilmington, North 
Carolina, lived three fellows, named respectively 
Barham, Stone, and Gray, on the banks of the 
North East River. They came down to Wilming- 
ton in a small row-boat, and made fast to the wharf. 
They had a time of it in the city, but for fear they 
would be dry before getting home, they procured 
a jug of whisky, and after dark, of a black night 
too, they embarked in their boat, expecting to reach 
home in the morning. They rowed away with all 
the energy that three half-tipsy fellows could mus- 
ter, keeping up their spirits in the darkness by pour- 
ing the spirits down. At break of day they thought 
they must be near home, and seeing through the 
dim gray of the morning a house on the river side, 
Stone said : 

"Well, Barham, we've got to your place at 
last." 

" If this is my house," said Barham, " somebody 
has been putting up a lot of outhouses since I went 
away yesterday ; but I'll go ashore and look about, 
and see where Ave are, if you'll hold her to." 

Barham disem harks, takes observation, and soon 
conns stumbling along back, and says: 

" Well, I'll be whipped if avc ain't at Wihning- 



424 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ton here yet ; and, what's more, the boat has been 
hitehed to the wharf all night!" 

It was a fact, and the drunken dogs had been 
rowing away for dear life without knowing it. 



But they did not suffer so much as the man who 
fell into a pit as he was wandering in the dark. 
He managed to catch fast by the top of the pit ; 
but his agony was so great, as he held on all night 
expecting to fall and be dashed to pieces, that his 
hair turned white with fright. In the morning he 
found that his feet came within two inches of the 
bottom ! 



During the visit of Rachel in this city an en- 
thusiastic collector of autographs sent his book to 
her with an earnest request that she would write 
in it, because " he was so young." The great tra- 
gedienne complied with the request, writing as fol- 
lows: 

"A tons les cceurs bien nes que la Patrie est chere, 
Ma Patrie est la vie, en Ton comprend les arts. 

" Rachel." 

The very next person to whom the inveterate 
collector submitted his book was John Brougham, 
actor, author, artist, etc., who inscribed this compli- 
mentary quatrain under the couplet which Rachel 
had quoted : 

"I dare to write my name upon the page 
With hers which Fame has written on the age ; 
That will endure until the ' crack of doom,' 
But this will live no longer than John Brougham." 



The Hard Shell Baptists seem to be furnishing 
a rich variety of amusing matters just now. A 
correspondent writes : 

" This sect (the Hard Shells) are in the habit of 
holding a yearly association in our vicinity, gen- 
erally in a piece of woods near to a good spring. 
The brethren from abroad are quartered upon those 
in the neighborhood of the meeting ; and these are 
required, of course, to lay in a good supply of the 
creature-comforts, and among them, as the most 
important, a plenty of whisky. A short time ago, 
such a place having been selected, the brethren 
near by were busy putting up benches, and making 
the place ready, when Brother Smith said, 

" ' Wa'll, Brother Gobbin, what preparations 
have you made to home for the big association ?' 

" ' Why, I've laid in a barrel of flour or so, and 
a gallon of whisky.' 

Brother Smith expressed great contempt at this 
preparation. " A gallon of whisky for a big meet- 
in'. Why, I've laid in a whole bar'l ; and you're 
just as well able, Brother Gobbin, as I am to sup- 
port the Gospel!" 

Advertising has become one of the fine arts, 
and promises to take its rank among the first of 
them. Many a firm now keeps its poet, and the 
profits of the business depend more upon his genius 
than upon the quality of the wares he celebrates. 
This would be tolerable if the said poetaster would 
expend his energies upon the production of orig- 
inal verse ; but that he should desecrate our favor- 
ite and most cherished melodies with the profane 
parodies which he perpetrates for want of wit to 
make something new, is an outrage on the Muses 
and " the rest of mankind." What can be worse 
than compelling Ben Bolt and Lily Dale to do duty 
in extolling the merits of the Russia Salve? Red- 



ding and Co., of Boston, are the men who have 
thus injured us ; and they have even taken Old 
Uncle Ned, and, instead of the refrain 

" Then lay down the shovel and de hoe," 
we have such stanzas as these : 

"I once went to Bedding's for some Salve for Uncle Ned, 
For he'd met with a dreadful blow, 
And he had a deep cut on the side of his head, 
And the blood o'er his wool did flow ! 

Chorus — Spread out the Salve just so, 
Eight upon the cut let it go, 
And there's no more pain for Uncle Ned, 
For that Salve never fails, we know. 

"A day or two after, we went to Uncle Ned — 
He was brisk and bright to see, 
For the sore was well on the side of his head — 
'Dat Salve is the stuff!' said he. 
Chorus — So when you get an awkward blow, 

Lose no time, but unto Jtedding's go, 
And quickly you'll be cured, like Uncle Ned, 
For the Salve never fails, we know." 



Henry Vevor is a fair specimen of the slow- 
going, old-fashioned, money-lending settlers of 
Southwestern Ohio. He has accumulated a large 
fortune by close-shaving and saving, and more by 
keeping his hired men hard at work, getting out 
of them the last and most that human nature will 
yield Avhen pushed. Not long ago he was out on 
his farm with his team and one man to help him 
in loading a saw-log. The team was hitched by a 
long chain to the log, which was to be rolled on 
the wagon. Old Vevor placed himself behind the 
log to push, when, by some accident, the chain 
parted, the log rolled back upon the old man, crush- 
ing him down into the soft, plowed ground. The 
man who was helping, frightened by the sudden 
change of affairs, and supposing that old Vevor 
would be squeezed to death if not rescued instant- 
ly, was bawling lustily to the men at work in the 
next field, when, to his surprise, Vevor spoke up 
— his ruling passion strong even under the press- 
ure of the log — and said, " Never mind, John ; 
don't call the men from their work ; I guess you 
can manage to pry the log off yourself." 

And so he did after a while, but John said after- 
ward that he was half sorry when he got the old 
man out alive. 



" Come, kiss me," said Robin. I gently said "No; 

For my mother forbade me to play with men so." 

Ashamed by my answer, he glided away, 

Though my looks pretty plainly advised him to stay. ] 

Silly swain, not at all recollecting — not he — 

That his mother ne'er said that he must not kiss me. 



One more is added to the " Randolph of Roan- 
oke" stories, by a Virginian correspondent, who 
says it has never been published before : 

When John Randolph visited Richmond, it was 
his habit to stop at the Eagle Hotel, and to drive 
his own Jiorse around to the stables, on another 
street. On one of these occasions, while perform- 
ing this latter operation, he was arrested by a 
country wagon standing before the grocery store 
kept by one Simpson and his wife — the wife being 
the man of the two — and Randolph being impeded 
in his passage of the narrow street, ordered the 
countryman to get out of his way. The frighten- 
ed fellow tried to do so, but Randolph was too im- 
patient, and springing out of his own wagon, put 
after the countryman, who took refuge in the 
grocery. As Randolph rushed in, Mrs. S. was 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



4i'n 



coming out with a bucket of dirty water in her 
hand, and seeing the excitement of the intruder, 
demanded of him where he "was going. 

"Madam," said Randolph, in his shrillest key, 
"do you know who you are speaking to ?" And 
then drawing himself up to his fullest lankitude, he 
exclaimed, "I am John Randolph, of Roanoke!" 

" I don't care," said she, "who you are; but if 
you ain't out of this house in a minute you'll get 
tliis bucket of slops in your face." 

Suiting the action to the threat, she raised the 
bucket, and would have dashed it over the states- 
man, had not his discretion, for the first and only 
time, got the better of his valor. Turning on his 
heel he beat a hasty retreat, and left the woman 
mistress of the field. 



The church in Billington a few years ago was 
earnest in the matter of reform, and banished all 
drinkers of strong liquors from its communion. 
Old Deacon Manton had lived threescore years, 
taking his bitters three times a day, but he could 
not resist the pressure of the times ; he submitted 
to the new measures, and resigned his favorite bev- 
erage without a word, but not without a groan. 
Next came the crusade against tea and coffee, and 
as the Deacon was never very fond of them, he 
yielded them more readily, and indeed rather made 
a virtue of taking the lead. But when a new 
preacher came in, and lifted up his voice like a 
trumpet against the use of tobacco, Deacon Man- 
ton felt called upon to take a stand against the 
radicalism of the church. He had chewed the 
weed forty years, and loved it too well to give it 
up without a struggle. At the church meeting he 
said, " I'll tell you what it is, brethren ; when you 
went agin sperituous likers I went agin 'em too, 
and store-tea, and coffee, and all them sort of 
things ; but now I say, you take rale good tobak- 
ker, and it's what J call pretty good eatin\ and I ain't 
going to quit it." And he stuck to it. The most 
of the male brethren were of the Deacon's mind, 
and the lady-reformers had to give in. 



Dean PbACOCK is said to have solved the fol- 
lowing enigma, which is in our Drawer without an 
answer. If any Yankee can guess as well as the 
Dean, and will send his work to the Drawer, we 
shall find it and print it: 

Charade. 

" I sit here on a rock while I'm raising the wind, 
But the storm once abated, I'm gentle and kind. 
I have king! at my feet, who await hut my nod, 
To kneel down in the dust on the ground I have trod. 
I am seen by the world, I am known but to few; 
The Gentiles detest me I I'm 'pork 1 to the Jew! 
I never bave passed but one nigbt in the dark, 
And thai was with Noah, all alone in the ark. 
My weight is '.', lbs. ! my length is a mile ! 
And when I'm discovered, you'll say, with a smile, 
My first and my last are the best in our isle !" 



The late Abbott Lawrence, when offered the 
post of Minister to the Court of St. James, hes- 
itated some time before accepting it, and going to 
Edward Everett for advice, said to him : 

"I wish to know whether there is any founda- 
tion, any reality for that ancient jest, that a for.i_m 
minister is a man sent abroad to till lies for his 
government; for. it this i-. the case, it i- no place 
for me. I never told a li<' yet, and I am not go- 
ing to begin at the age of fifty." 



Mr. Everett replied : " Of course, that is a jest : 
for my part I have never* said a word, never writ- 
ten a line, so far as my personal character or the 
honor of the government was concerned, that I 
should not care to find its way into the newspapers 
next day." 

It is difficult to say on which of these men this 
conversation reflects the most credit. They had 
the true feeling of the statesman, as distinct from 
the politician, and their sentiment is worthy of' 
being written on their monuments. 



"A professor of universal knowledge" had put 
up his sign near the palace of an Oriental prince. 
w r ho suddenly came in upon the pretender, and put 
his wisdom to the test. 

"So thou knowest all things," said the King: 
" then tell me to-morrow morning these three 
things only, or thou shalt lose thy head. First, 
how many baskets of earth there are in yonder 
mountain ? Secondly, how much is the king 
worth ? And, thirdly, what is the King thinking 
of at the time." 

The Professor w r as distressed beyond measure, 
and in his apartments rolled upon the carpet in 
agony, for he knew that he must die on the mor- 
row. His servant learned the trouble, and offered 
to appear before the King and take his chance of 
answering the questions. The next morning the 
servant, clothed in his master's robes, presented 
himself to his Majesty, who was deceived by his 
appearance, and the King proceeded : 

" Tell me, now, how many baskets of earth arc 
in yonder mountain ?" 

" That depends upon circumstances. If the 
baskets are as large as the mountain, one will hold 
it ; if half as large, two ; if a quarter, four ; and so 
on." 

The King had to be satisfied, and proceeded : 

"Now, tell me how much the King is worth?" 

"Well, your Majesty, the King of Heaven and 
Earth was sold for thirty pieces of silver, and I con- 
clude you are worth one piece." 

This was so witty an escape, that the King 
laughed, and went on : 

"Now, once more, tell me what am I thinking 
of?" 

" You are now thinking that you are talking 
with the Professor, whereas it is only his servant.*'' 

"Well done," said the King, you shall have 
your reward, and your master shall not lose his 
head." 



Oliver Wendell Holmes, the doctor who 
gives people fits — of laughing, sent a letter to the 
post-office of a Ladies' Fair at Pittslield. On the 
first page he wrote : 

M Fair lady, whosoe'er thou art, 

Turn this poor leaf with tenderest care, 
And hush, oh hush thy breathing heart — 
The one thou lovest will be there." 
On turning the " poor leaf," there was found a 
one dollar bill, with some verses beginning: 

"Fair lady, lift thine eyes and tell, 
If tins is not a truthful letter; 
This is the one (1) thou lovest well. 
And nought (0) can make thee love it better." 



We have occasionally recorded remarkable \\ 
pographieal errors, but the following are more pe 
cu'liar than any we have lately met with. 

A correspondent says: "A religions newspapei 



426 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



published in Richmond, Virginia, fell in my way 
the other day, and to my astonishment the first 
article that met my eye was the startling head- 
line — 

'to an unconverted fiend.' 

Reading on a few lines, I found that the letter, in- 
stead of being written to a lost spirit, as I at first 
supposed, was intended for a friend, and I cer- 
tainly hope it did him good. I turned to another 
article, which was an account of the life and death 
of a fine young man, who left a large number of 
'inconsolable fiends to mourn his loss.' Here, 
again, the man's friends were turned into fiends; 
but to make up for the loss of the letter, we are 
told, at the close of the account, that after the re- 
mains were committed to the grave, his friends 
stood riveted to the sport — evidently meaning the 
spot." 

There is no end to the good things told of 
Lamb, Charley Lamb, as every body loves to call 
the gentle Elia. He and his sister Mary lived 
snugly at No. 4 Inner Temple Lane, and often 
had a friend dropping in to spend a social even- 
ing. On such an evening it chanced that they 
were disturbed by the whining of a dog, which 
had attracted Lamb's attention that day, and as it 
was starving, he had brought it home, fed it, and 
tied it in the back j^ard. Charles was chatting 
away when Mary interrupted him by saying : 

" Charles, that dog yelps so." 

"What is it, Mary — the dog? — oh! he's enjoy- 
ing himself." 

" Enjoying himself, Charles !" 

"Yes, Mary, yes, just as much as he can on 
whine and water." 



Preaching politics has become so common in 
these days, that the following brief conversation 
has a pretty sharp point to it : 

Passenger. " Well, Mr. Conductor, what news 
in the political world ?" 

Conductor. "Don't know, Sir; I haven't been 
to church for the last two Sundays." 



Here is a good hint for ministers who marry 
rich wives : 

The Rev. William Jay, of Bath, author of Morn- 
ing and Evening Exercises, a patriarch indeed, a 
friend and companion of Hannah More, Wilber- 
force, and others Avhose names are among the past, 
has but lately deceased. When far advanced in 
life, and preaching on a special occasion, when 
man} 7 " of the clergy were before him, he said : 

" It is to be regretted that many enter the min- 
istry after they have been educated, to whose serv- 
ices the church has a claim ; they look round and 
select a lady for their wife, but they are careful she 
possesses a fortune. After a time they begin to 
get weary in well doing. They take a cold, it re- 
sults in a cough ; they are so weak that they can 
not attend to the duties of their office. They re- 
sign and live upon their wife's fortune. I know 
five cases of this kind — may it never be your lot." 

During the delivery of this kind rebuke there 
was a young minister, or rather an ex-minister, 
who did not seem very comfortable. After the 
service was closed, the merits of the discourse were 
canvassed, and the general opinion was, that it was 
only such a one as could be delivered by Mr. Jay. 
Said one to the ex-pastor: 



" How did you like Mr. Jay ? It was fine, quite 
a treat, wasn't it ?" 

"Well, 1 liked him very well, but I think he 
was rather personal." 

" Personal, eh ? how so ?" 

" Why, you must have noticed his reference to 
ministers out of health resigning." 

" Yes, yes; he was a little close there, I must 
admit." 

" I shall speak to him about it," said the deli- 
cate, fastidious ex-minister. 

He sought the vestry, and found Mr. Jay there. 
He congratulated him on his health and discourse, 
but hinted that he was personal in his remarks, 
and would like to know if he referred to him. 

"Personal?" said the patriarch ; "eh! in what 
part of the discourse ?" 

"When you were speaking about ministers re- 
signing." 

" Oh !" said Mr. Jay, " I see ; yes — have you re' 
signed ?" 

"Yes, Sir." 

" Did you marry a rich wife ?' 

"Yes,"Sir." 

" Ah ! my friend, yours is the sixth case, then !' r 



In the times of Henry V. the following lines 
were written : 

" Two wymen in one house, 
Two cattes and one mowce, 
Two dogges and one bone, 
May never accord in one." 



Georgia, as well as Italy, has its Rome ; in 
which place a jury, evidently not as civilized as 
the Romans of old, brought in the following ver* 
diet : " We the gury choazen and SAVoarn, agree 
that torn Kamyron must pa abe gonsing the full 
amount of 20 sents that the planetif pa over the 
won kwart of licker for the benefit of the gury and 
Kosts will be ruled out." 

The following was written on the tomb-board 
of Isaac Greentree, in Harrow churchyard, by Lord 
Byron : 

" Beneath these green trees rising to the skies, 
The planter of them, Isaac Greentree, lies; 
A time shall come when these green trees shall fall, 
And Isaac Greentree rise, above them all." 



A young man in one of our Western towns had 
patronized the fine arts so far as to buy a picture 
of the Temptation of Adam and Eve. Some one 
asked him if it was a chaste picture. "Yes," he 
said, " chased by a snake." This would have been 
witty if he had known it, but he didn't. 



Captain Jones was a great traveler, and, like 
other travelers, fond of telling large stories, some 
of which being doubted, he proved by making his 
affidavit of their truth. When he died, the follow- 
ing epitaph was inscribed on his tomb-stone : 

44 Tread softly, mortals, o'er the bones 
Of the world's wonder, Captain Jones! 
Who told his glorious deeds to many, 
But never was believed by any. 
Posterity, let this suffice : 
He swore all's true, yet here he lies." 



Very beautiful, because true to the faith of every 
right man's heart, are the following lines by a Ger- 
man poet : 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



427 



WOMAN'S HEART. 
" That hallowed sphere, a woman's heart, contains 
Empires of feeling, and the rich domains 
Where love, disporting in her sunniest hours, 
Breathes his sweet incense o'er ambrosial flowers. 
A woman's heart, that gem, divinely set 
In native gold — that peerless amulet ! 
Which, firmly linked to love's electric chain, 
Connects the world of transport and of pain!" 



The best pun now going is that of a friend of 
the late lamented Hood, who says of the departed 
punster : 

" Poor Hood, he died out of pure generosity to 
gratify the undertaker, who wished to urn a lively 
Hood." 

Dave Constable says there is one advantage 
about old-fashioned frigates. One evening, while 
running up the Mediterranean under a one-horse 
breeze, Captain Pompous, the commander of the 
Wash-tub, came on deck just before sundown, and 
entered into the following conversation with Mr. 
Smile, the first-lieutenant : 

" I heard a little noise on deck just now, Mr. 
Smile ; what was the cause of it ?" 

11 A man fell from the fore-yard." 

Without saying another word, Captain Pompous 
entered the cabin, and was not seen again until 
next morning after breakfast, when he once more 
refreshed the deck with his presence, and again 
entered into conversation with the first-lieutenant : 

" I think you told me, Mr. Smile, that a man 
fell overboard from the fore-yard last evening?" 

" I did, Sir." 

" Have vou picked him up yet ?" 

"No, Sir." 

" Well, you had better do it some time during 
the morning, or the poor fellow will begin to 
starve." 

The lieutenant obeyed orders, lowered a boat 
about noon, and found the gentleman who disap- 
peared from the fore-yard but eighteen inches far- 
ther astern than he was fourteen hours before. He 
was lying on his back fast asleep ! 

" Walk in, gentlemen, walk in ! Come in, and 
see the turkeys dance! It's cur'ous — real cur'ous. 
You won't wish you hadn't if you du see it once, 
but you vill wish you had, a theousand times, if you 
don't see it !" 

" Turkeys dancing? Fact, and no mistake ?" 

"Sartain! Come in and see, if you don't be- 
lieve it. If 'taint so, you can have back your two 
sbillin'. Perhaps them other gentlemen that's 
with you would like tu come in, tew. It's only 
tew shillin', any heow !" 

This was a dialogue which I heard before the 
door of a shanty at a " General Training" — an Oc- 
tober gathering in one of the interior towns of our 
own Empire State, in one of its midland counties. 

I was one of "them other gentlemen" referred 
to, and I disbursed the "two shillin'" referred to, 
and entered, as did many others, who, similarly 
attracted, followed us into the shanty. 

" Wal. gentlemen," said the exhibitor, who was 
an out-and-out Yankee, " expect wo might as well 
begin. You see that 'ere long coop of turkeys. 

Wal, I shall feed 'em fust, and pretty soon arter, 
when they begin to fee! their oats (but that's a 
joke, 'cause • m corn), you'll see 'em, as 

soon as the music strikes up, you'll see 'em begin 
to dance." 



The coop, which ran along the end of the shanty, 
farthest from the door, was about fifteen feet long, 
and must have contained some twenty or thirty tur- 
keys ; heavy fellows they were, too, most of them — 
perfect treasures for a Christmas or a New-Year's 
table. Into this coop our exhibitor threw perhaps 
a peck — or at least half a peck — of corn. 

This was soon gathered up, not without much 
squabbling and fighting on the part of the feath- 
ered recipients, who wanted to see fair play— that 
kind of "fair play" meaning, which would give 
to the complainants the largest half of the "prov- 
ant." 

Presently it was all devoured; and the "au- 
dience" called for the "performance," as prom- 
ised. 

" Yes, yes," said the exhibitor, " don't be in tew 
big a stew. Give us time, if yon please. Strike 
up, music — give 'em a lively teewn !" 

At this, a cracked flute, an old black, greasy 
fiddle, " manned" by a big thick-lipped negro, and 
an " ear-piercing fife," started off with " Yankee 
Doodle," at very quick time ; and sure enough, 
every turkey in the coop began to dance, hopping 
from one leg to another, crossing over, balancing, 
chasseeing — doing every thing, in short, known to 
the saltatory art except "joining hands" and 
"turning partners." 

" Well, that is curious !" exclaimed the auditors, 
simultaneously. " I never saw any thing like it 
before !" 

"No," said the exhibitor, "expect you didn't. 
1 It's all in edication,' as the poet says. / edica- 
ted them turkeys ; and there ain't one on 'em that 
hasn't a good ear for music." 

Hereupon he turned to the audience, and added : 

" Wal, you've seen it, and seen how natural they 
do it; now we want you to vacate the room, and 
give them a chance that's on the outside. There's 
new customers out there a-waitin', and if you only 
tell 'em outside what you've seen with your own 
eyes, you'll be doin' a service to me, and give to 
them a equal pleasure with what you have enjoy- 
ed." 

This was soon done ; the audience retired, and 
another took their place — including, however, one 
who had been an auditor at the last exhibition. 
The same scene was gone through with ; the same 
feeding, "music, and dancing," only it was ob- 
served that the motion of the turkeys was even 
more lively than before. 

It struck the twice-observer that just before the 
music began a man was seen to leave the room on 
both occasions; and, unnoticed, he stepped out 
himself the last time, and saw the man busying 
himself with putting some light kindling-wood 
under an opening beneath the shanty. 

The mystery was now out. The turkey-cage 
rested over a slow fire, with a thin tin floor, and 
when the music struck up the fire had become so 
hot that the turkeys hopped about — first on one 
leg, then on the other — and changed positions, 
• Beeking rest and finding none," till the fire had 
gone down, and they were ready for another feed ! 

It is proper to add that the author of this inven- 
tion was a Yankee of the first water— the Orpheus 
of Turkeydom. 

The reply of Mr. Prentice, of the LouisvUU (Ken- 
tucky) Journal, some months since, to a person who 
had challenged him while on a business visit at 
Little Pock, Arkansas, has been much commented 



428 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



upon by the public press North and South. In that 
reply Mr. Prentice said : 

"Presuming that your notes are written to me 
with a view to a duel, I may as well say here, that 
I have not the least thought of accepting a chal- 
lenge from you There are many persons to 

whom my life is valuable ; and however little or 
much value /may attach to it, on my own account, 
I do not see fit at present to put it voluntarily 

against yours I don't want your blood upon 

my hands, and I don't want mine upon any body's. 
.... I have not the least desire to kill you, or to 
harm a hair of your head, aud I am not conscious 
of having done any thing to make you wish to kill 
me," etc., etc. 

When we first saw this correspondence in the 
daily newspapers, we called to mind a very laugh- 
able circumstance said to have occurred in Albany, 
during a session of the Legislature at the Capitol, 
several years ago — of course before the prohibition 
of dueling by statute in this State. 

It was an exciting political time, and owing to 
some " words spoken in debate" by a heated mem- 
ber, during the "heated term," touching somewhat 
upon the private character of a brother member, 
a challenge was forthwith dispatched to the offend- 
ing member by " a friend," as such a messenger is 
called in the language of the code of honor. 

The challenge was at once accepted : 

Pleased with this promptness, the second said : 

" When can we expect your friend ?" 

"Don't want any friend," said the challenged 
party. " I waive all such advantages. He can 
have a dozen if he wishes." 

"This is magnaminous, but it is not according 
to the ' code.' Well, Sir — if I am to confer with 
you directly — what weapons ?" 

" Broad-swords." 

" The time ?" 

" Day after to-morrow, at twelve o'clock at noon, 
precisely." 

"At what place?" 

" At , on the Saint Lawrence. Your 

principal shall stand on one side of the river, and 
I will stand on the other, and we will fight it out !" 

The " second" frowned : " This is no jesting mat- 
ter, Sir. You are not serious !" 

"Why, yes I am, too! Hasn't the challenged 
party a right to the choice of weapons and place ?" 

"Well — yes — Sir; but not to unusual weapons 
in unusual places." 

"Very well: pistols will not be objected to, of 
course ?" 

" Assuredly not : the gentleman's weapon." 

" Very good, then. We will meet to-morrow in 

the little village of B< , and at twelve o'clock, 

precisely, we will fight on the top of ' Sugar-loaf 
Hill ;' standing back to back, marching ten paces, 
then turning and firing. Will that arrangement 
be satisfactory?" 

" It will. We shall be there." 

And the parties separated. Now " Sugar-loaf 
Hill," " at the place aforesaid," was exactly what 
its name imports ; a sharp, conical pillar of ground, 
remarkable all the immediate country round for its 
peculiar formation. 

The time arrived, and "the parties" appeared 
on the ground; but the state of the case "leaked 
out" very quick. 

"Sir!" said the second, as he arrived with his 
almost breathless " principal" at the apex of the 
Sugar-loaf, and surveyed the ground — " Sir ! this 



is another subterfuge ! What kind of a place is 
this for a duel with pistols, back to back, and a for- 
ward march of ten paces ?,, Why, Sir, both par- 
ties would be out of sight at eight paces, let alone 
ten ; and in turning to fire you must fire into the 
side-hill !" 

" So much the better for both of us !" answered 
the " party of the second part ;" "we are on terms 
of perfect equality, then, which is not always the 
case in modern duels." 

Outspake the challenging " principal" then, in 
words too plain to be misunderstood : 

" Sir-r !" he said, to the second "principal," at 
the same time looking daggers at him ; " Sir-r-r ! 
you are a coward!" 

" Well ! s'posin' / am ? You knew I was, or you 
would not have challenged me !" 

" They do say" that the two " parties" that went 
down the steep sides of Sugar-loaf Hill, on that 
memorable occasion, were as difficult of reconcilia- 
tion as when they ascended its sides ; and, more- 
over, that they were as different in temper as pos- 
sible. One party was laughing, and the other 
"breathing out threatening and slaughter;" but 
nothing came of it after all. This was the last of 
that duel. 

And, thoughtfully regarded, it seems to us that 
there is really something of a lesson in it, " indif- 
ferently well" as we have set the actual occurrence 
before our readers. 



At a recent celebration of the New England So- 
ciety of New York, at the Astor House, a very good 
"Box" pun-toast was given; but there was one 
" box" omitted, which was supplied about the same 
time by a toast given at an assemblage of Ameri- 
cans in Paris. It was as follows : 

" The Cartridge-box, the Ballot-box, and The 
Band-box ! The external, the internal, and the 
eternal preservatives of Republicanism !" 

The "rights of women" are here fully recog- 
nized ! 



A Saint Louis poet has a communication on 
" The Kurrincy," which indicates " hard times" 
and harder spelling in that region. The poet re- 
joices in the name of A. P. L. Parin (Apple Parin, 
perhaps !) and the following is a favorable sample 
of the product of his teeming muse : 

" The paper-mills is a bustin' up ! 
The German, Dutch, and the Irish Grekes 
Is runnin' round to the munny restaurants, 
An' inquire for their propty, witch was s'posed 
To be ' shoved up' by them for palace-houses, 
And ecxlent furnitour. The American 
Folkes is likewais in a swet, 'cause their bills 
Ain't enny better then furriner's; and all are 
Ekally hipothecatydid. I had half a 
Dollar on their bills ; and on a-coming 
To the place, there wasn't enny half dollars 
Where the half dollars ort to be ; and so 
I gave it to a man of big size, if he 
Would let me out of the crowd to get hoam. 
The restaurants as don't pay their labrin' 
Men as works a hull week for a nine 
Dollar bill, wich is a suspended bank when 
They git it, ort to be blode !" 

There is " more truth than poetry" in Mr. A. P. 
L. Parin's verse ; but to say that he is a " poet 
born, and not made," would perhaps be assuming 
too much. His spelling is not of the best, certain- 
ly ; but as a similar "poet" has asked, " What part 
of poetic genus is spellin' ?" 



fnlrttfa Miwnb in nor i'tmt. 







Miss Seraph ina Poppy's Valentine 
"Too good to be true." 



Tom Lightfoot's Valentine. 
" That's into you, Tom !" 




Widow Sparkle's Valentine. 
" I can't break the poor fellow's heart." 



Peter Squeezum, Esq.'s Valentine. 
" What can the fellow mean ?" 




Doctor Purgeum's Valentine. 
" I consider that personal!" 




Kev. Narcissus Violet's Valentine. 
" Dear Lambs of my flock." 



Singleton Jinks's Valentine. 
" 'Tain't for me. I'm a Bachelor." 




Vol. XII.— No. 69.— D d 



Miss Wiosby's Valentine. 
" What impudence ! Well, I never!" 



430 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




Mr. Done Brown's Valentine. 

" What does Snip mean, I'd like to know?" 



Mr. Lionel Lavender's Valentine. 
" Oh yes, Dinah ! But—" 




Bridget Malony's Valentine. 
" Sure, Patrick is a jewel ov a hoy." 



Caesar Washington's Valentine. 

" Dat is a fac, an' no mistake !" 




Hans Schwillanpuff's Valentine. 
"Ach, mein Vaterland!" 




Mr. Nervous Tremble's Valentine. 
"Why, I'll apologize, of course I will." 



Young America's Valentine. 
" I go in for that. It'll make cigars cheaper." 




Miss Mary Noble's Valentine. 
" That's from Frank, I know. Dear fellow !" 



Itsjjks far /etanmj. 

Furnished ly Mr. G. Bkodie, 51 Canal Street, New York, and drawn by Voigt 

from actual articles of Costume. 




432 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



MOST of the Children's Costumes which we 
here present may be fashioned of any season- 
able material. The manner of construction will be 
apparent from a glance at the Illustration. In 
Figure 1, the velvet surcoat of the boy is trimmed 
with ermine, for which swansdown may be substi- 
tuted. The Cloak worn by the girl, in Figure 2, 
is represented as of cloth, heavily embroidered. 
We have seen it composed of velvet. 

This cloak will serve to indicate the general 
style of garment which is deservedly a great favor- 
ite for ordinary wear. It is made of Scotch plaid, 
or some similar fabric. They are of a circular 
form, and have hoods. They are not, however, 
embroidered, as when worn by children, as repre- 
sented in the Illustration, but are trimmed with 
velvet or moire antique ribbons. Open cloaks and 
sorties du bal are frequently in like manner made 
with hoods. 

Bonnets are increasing somewhat in size, but 
still have flat round crowns. The curtain is deep- 
er, and is drawn up so much at the sides as to cause 
the back to slope considerably. Necklaces are 
again coming into favor. Trimmings of various 
kinds are used with less profusion and with more 
discrimination than heretofore. 

In spite of our prediction to the contrary, we 
are constrained to admit that Hoops are increas- 
ing in favor, diameter, and number. The most 
approved mode is to place one midway from top to 
bottom of the underskirt, and two others above this. 
These are arranged so that the several pieces of 
whalebone of which each is composed slide over 
each other, or else the whalebone does not meet in 
front. Either fashion permits the dress to yield 
to pressure from without. A heavy cord — say of 
the thickness of the finger — is inserted in the bot- 
tom of the skirt. 

The Head-dress below may be fabricated by 
any lady of ordinary ingenuity. It is made of 
worsted, with either white or alternate white and 
red falls of balls and star-shaped rosettes, as shown 
in the Illustration. 




i« ! 



Figure 7. — Coiffure. 



The Coiffure represented above is fashioned of 
the pensile filaments of a white plume tipped with 
silvered sprays, which contrast with nceuds and 
streamers of Napoleon blue velvet ribbon. From 
the junctions of the several loops depend rows of 
pearls, diminishing in size until the last, which is 
of the same size as the first. The bow at the cen- 
tre is ornamented with festoons and droplets of 
pearls. 

The beautiful Coiffure below is emblematical of 
the seasons. Upon the left is a cluster of autumn 
fruit and cereals, of which beautiful imitations are 
now abundant, with leaves of chenille. Upon the 
right is a cluster of jonquils, snow-drops, hyacinths, 
lilacs, flowering almonds, and other spring flowers. 
Between these emblems of autumn and spring, and 
uniting them, is the symbol of winter, a snow-white 
ribbon, frosted at the edges with silver spangles, 
and fringed with silver threads. 





Figure 6. — Head-dress. 



Figure 8. — Coiffure. 



H A J\ P F 1} 'S 

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



No. LXX -MARCH, 1856.— Vol. XII. 




JUNCTION OF TIIE JUNIATA ANT) TnE SUSQUEHANNA. 



THE JUNIATA. 

BY T. ADDISON RICHARDS. 

THAT accomplished English traveler, the 
Hon. Mr. Murray, is reported to have said, 
upon the interesting occasion of his first visit 
to the scenes of our present jaunt, "To my 
shame be it spoken, I have never looked upon 
the Juniata until to-day." Many others, no 
doubt, have thus reproached themselves for 
leaving the fairy beauties of this charming re- 
gion to blush so long unseen. 

To ourself, the very name of the Juniata — 
one of those sweet and apposite Indian words 
of which the barbarous taste of the age has left 
so few — always came with whispers of poctry 
and romance, to be enjoyed in some remote 
"good time coming." In our childish igno- 
rance we dreamed of the Juniata as a mythic- 
al world, or at best as some far-off Mecca, more 
inaccessible than storied Alp or Apennine; nev- 
er imagining that all the dainty charms 'with 



Kntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 185G, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the 
District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

Vol. XII.— No. 70.— E e 



484 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




UP TUE JUNIATA, AT NEW TORT. 



winch our fancy invested it (and fancy, as we 
have since learned, did not tell us one half 
the truth), laid almost within the range of our 
daily walk ; and when we see so many of our 
neighbors making long, painful pilgrimages in 
quest of pleasures which they here leave unseen 
behind them, we can not but think that our an- 
cient error is still too wide awake in the land, 
and that people need to be reminded at least, if 
not informed, that the blue waters which heard, 
and the bold crags which echoed, the glad voice 
of "bright Alfarata,"* may be seen and en- 
joyed with very little cost of time, trouble, or 
money. 

The great State of Pennsylvania is, in its 
physical aspect, nearly equally divided from 
north to south into three distinctly marked 
phases. The central, or mountain region, of 
two hundred miles in breadth, with the rich 
meadow lands of the Atlantic slope on the one 
side, and the fertile basin of the Ohio on the 
other. The genial soils and suns of the east- 
ern and the western regions furnish forth those 
abundant stores for which the State is so fa- 
mous, of " oats, peas, beans, and barleycorns," 
while the mountain ridges yield a great portion 
of the mineral wealth of our country, and send 
us those vast stores of anthracite, of which every 
winter hearth in the land speaks so glowing- 
ly. It is this central region too, which, while 
brightening our homes in winter, warms our 
hearts in summer with every variation of nat- 
ural beauty. Its extent (of nearly two hundred 

* The once popular song: 

"Wild roved an Indian girl, bright Alfarata, 
Where flow the waters of the blue Juniata." 



miles, as we have said) is occupied by numer- 
ous parallel ridges of the great Appalachian 
chain of hills, running in a general course from 
the northeast to the southwest. Nearest to the 
Atlantic division we have the South Mountain ; 
next beyond, the Blue Ridge and the Kittatinny, 
through which the Delaware breaks at the cel- 
ebrated Water Gap, and the Lehigh at Wind 
Gap, and again the noble Susquehanna, not 
far from its meeting with the Juniata. These 
chains of hills have an average elevation of a 
thousand feet or more, not sufficient to make 
them of very great pith or moment to the art- 
ist, though they hold in their laps countless 
gems of water and valley beauty. It is through 
the thirty or forty miles of hill and dale which 
lie between the Kittatinny and the Susquehan- 
na that the great coal-beds which supply so 
much of our fuel are found. Next come the 
Tuscarora and the Sideling Hills, inconsidera- 
ble ridges, extending from the centre of the 
Juniata to Maryland, while yet beyond rise the 
lofty outlines of the Alleghanies, the great west- 
ern walls of the mountain region, though the 
Ohio basin, which now follows, is still broken at 
intervals by lesser elevations, of which the chief 
are Laurel Ridge, twenty-five miles distant, and 
Chestnut Ridge, ten miles more. 

In the very heart of that wild portion of Penn- 
sylvania is the unvisited and almost unknown 
home of the Juniata, one of the loveliest of the 
rivers of America, and, with the neighboring 
waters of the Susquehanna, of which it is the 
principal affluent, most justly the pride of the 
Keystone State. The Juniata, leaping from the 
crags and chasms of the Alleghanies, winds its 



THE JUNIATA. 



435 



lonely and devious way eastward through a hun- 
dred and fifty miles of mountain solitude to its 
final nuptials with the Susquehanna; and great- 
ly is the placid nature of that staid old river-god 
vexed by the madcap moods and the turbulent 
waters of its roystering young mate, shouting 
"Presto! change !" to his ancient bachelor rev- 
erics, and leaving him henceforth nothing but 
toil and trouble. Thirty years ago this region 
of the Juniata was a great highway, as it is now, 
over the mountains to the Ohio, but then the 
rude journey of the ponderous wagons was 
a long and painful matter, while to-day the 
route is traversed with all modern ease and 
speed of locomotion. The Pennsylvania Rail- 
way (next to the Erie Road in New York the 
grandest in the Union) follows the river from 
its mouth to its source, in immediate compan- 
ionship all the way with a canal and telegraph 
line. The river is itself unnavigable. 

Our aproach to the Juniata was through Phil- 
adelphia and Harrisburg, the State capital, to 
the junction of the river with the Susquehanna, 
where we halted for some pleasant days under 
the homely roof of John Miller, whom we cul- 
tivated in our hours of in-door rest, as an agree- 
able example of the honest sturdy yeomen and 
forest character of the people among whom we 
were about to dwell. "John Miller" — he scorns 
to be mister'd — is one of those grave, plodding, 
one-horse Pennsylvania Dutchmen who origin- 
ally settled the region, and have managed to 
withstand all the Yankee galvanism which is 
daily more and more infecting the slumberous 
air they breathe. John Miller had inhaled 
enough of the poison to feel a little curiosity 



as to the character and errand of his unlooked- 
for guest ; indeed he plainly asked us at once 
what might be our business there — a question 
which he seemed to think very rationally an- 
swered when we told him that our business was 
to eat our dinner, which we would attend to in- 
dustriously as soon as he should set it before 
us. To dine was, in John Miller's estimation, 
the employment of a reasonable man, and a 
vigorous appetite did more than any thing else 
in helping us to live down much prejudice 
which our vagabond and, to his eyes, profitless 
wanderings over hill and glade created. We, 
however, failed utterly to convince him of the 
sanity of our daily strolls at dawn or sun-set- 
ting to the tops of the surrounding hills. To 
his incomprehension it was all a stumbling- 
block, and our very choicest "bits" of distance, 
middle-ground, and foreground, only foolish- 
ness, for John Miller's soul had never been 
" Touched by the love of art to learn to know- 
Nature's soft line and colors' varied glow." 

He did, to be sure, seem to be thinking better 
of us when we once gravely listened to his sug- 
gestion to paint his red old homestead, or the 
condemned canal-boat, moored near by. 

From the highlands overtopping John Mil- 
ler's tavern — John had never heard of a hotel — 
we picked up our frontispiece of the meeting of 
the waters. These eminences command charm- 
ing prospects on all hands, northward up the 
winding course of the broad and placid Susque- 
hanna, with its verdant islands and long white 
sand-bars dotted with groups of lazy cattle ; 
and southward over fertile pastures and village- 
gemmed lawns, while the glimpses westward, 




LOOKING NOUTIT, AT NF.WrOKT. 



436 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




THE JUNIATA NEAR LEWISTOWN. 



up the course of the Juniata, make you in haste 
to explore its hidden treasures. 

Our second and third pictures are from the 
hills south of Newport, ten miles onward, and 
the next convenient stopping-place after John 
Miller's. Agreeable bits of middle-lands and 
fine stretches of mountain distance may be gath- 
ered in this vicinage. The banks of the canal 
also afford here charming wooded walks, while 
the surrounding creeks are full of pretty glens 
and forest nooks. Newport itself is a misera- 
ble little hamlet, with few creature comforts to 
tempt the bon vivant. In point of fact, we may 
as well make a clean breast of it, and confess at 
once that the bills of fare are nowhere, in the 
whole sweep of the Juniata, very fascinating. 
The kitchens and tables are as primitive as the 
hills. Not a solitary dinner there comes grate- 
fully to our memory ; and the cigars are as un- 
like the Havanas for which they are sold, as 
are the beautiful creations which embellish the 
mlons of our connoisseurs like the real old mas- 
ters whose names they take in vain. This, how- 
ever, is, of course, a matter of but trifling con- 
sideration to the earnest worshiper of Nature. 

Who would not prefer rosy morn to rosy 
wine? who would not rather gaze into the Ciys* 
tal current of the pebbly brook, than swallow 
the trout which disport therein? who would not 
rather watch the flight of the deer over his na- 
tive heath than dissect him into steaks? who 
would not rather drink in the songs of the bird 
than eat him up, wings and "second joint?" 

who would not ? Don't all speak at once, 

aesthetic readers ! 



The elegancies and luxuries of life will doubt- 
less increase here in due course of time, and 
with the advancing numbers and wealth of the 
people ; and with this social progress, the pres- 
ent lonely physique of much of the landscape 
will become softened and embellished by en- 
larged industry and improved taste. The con- 
veniences and pleasures of polished life can 
hardly be expected in a new and wild forest- 
land, where the dwellers are absorbed in the 
rude labors of mining, manufacturing, and trans- 
porting iron and coal. 

The Juniata is one of the chief thoroughfares 
by which the myriads of European immigrants 
reach their new homes in the Western wilder- 
ness. The vast amount of travel and carriage 
incident to such a highway and to the occupa- 
tions of the people, give the region a more busy 
and bustling aspect than the extent of the popu- 
lation warrants. Long trains of cars pass contin- 
ually, and the horns of the boatmen on the canal 
keep up an incessant jargon of horrid sounds. 
The sudden halting of a line of emigrant cars in 
one of the usually quiet towns creates for the 
time a magical metamorphosis. Seclusaval sud- 
denly becomes Babel. The air so hushed an in- 
stant ago, is noAV rent with the mingled voices of 
the hundreds of strange figures disgorged from 
their narrow dens. The Wapping of some ple- 
thoric metropolis seems to have bounced down 
into the startled forest. A brief space — the bell 
rings, the whistle of the locomotive shrieks, the 
crowds rush back to their lairs, and the demon vis- 
ion passes as though it were in truth but a dream. 

In the neighborhood of Millerstown, Mifflin- 



THE JUNIATA. 



487 



town, and Lewistown — growing villages yet far- 
ther up the river — numerous romantic brooks 
and brooklets come dancing down into the val- 
leys. In these streams the fisherman may find 
abundant and rare sport. The trout here are 
still comfortably unsophisticated, having seen 
too little of society to lose much of their native 
simplicity of character. You may pay your lead- 
en compliments also to the astonished deer as 
they halt in simple wonder at your novel pres- 
ence. In an exploration of one of these minor 
waters at Lewistown we passed successively 
sundry charming mills and cottages, merry cas- 
cades, and much grateful, bower'd walk. The 
fourth picture of this series is a view looking 
down the river east of Lewistown. 

From the old inhabitants of the villages and 
wilds in this gnarled latitude, the curious and 
genial tourist may gather rich pages of Indian 
history and romance, which will give an irresist- 
ible charm to the waters, and islands, and rocks 
of the merry Juniata, where neither nature nor 
art may have done sufficient to win his love; 
or rather, perhaps, where his own perceptions 
•nay prove too duil to detect and appreciate 
sheir beauties. It was on one of our many er- 
ratic peregrinations among the mountain wilds 
of this vicinage that we stumbled upon an unex- 
;>ected, but not the less welcome dinner, at the 
rude homestead of a venerable forester, whose 
memories, early associations, and descent, were 
picturesquely interwoven with the history of the 
ancient occupancy of the soil. His ancestors, 
-luring the stormy days of the early settlers (so 
he informed us, as we smoked the calumet to- 
gether after our homely meal), suffered — as too 



many then did — one fatal night from a murder- 
ous surprise by the jealous and revengeful red 
men. All fell beneath the edge of the toma- 
hawk excepting two youths, whose good fortune it 
was to effect an escape, and a mere child, whom 
the victors bore off into captivity. Perhaps it 
was her magic beauty, her winsome smile, or 
the spell of her gentle nature, that protected her. 
Certainly, as after events proved, these talismans 
won the stern yet impressionable hearts of her 
captors, and bent them in willing obedience to 
her will. Heart's-Ease, as she was called, be- 
came even more than a queen among her adopt- 
ed tribe and race. She exerted an unseen in- 
fluence far beyond her confessed authority, ab- 
solute even as that was. The counsels of Heart's- 
Ease were more than commands — they were in- 
spirations. 

Years fled, and the jealousies and hates be- 
tween the Indians and the aggressive white men 
matured into open struggle. Two brave and 
gallant leaders of the enemy fell at this time, by 
the chances of war, into the hands of the tribe 
of Heart's-Ease. Animosity against the pale 
face had grown so deep, and the conduct of this 
particular encounter had been so deadly on both 
sides, that for once even the voice of Heart's-Ease 
was powerless to avert the terrible fate to which 
her people doomed their captives. The person 
and character of the strange little Indian maid- 
en, did not, of course, fail to attract the especial 
notice of the prisoners. They perceived and ap- 
preciated her interest in their fate, and sought 
by every means to facilitate the accomplishment 
of her generous desires toward them ; more, 
though, out of a sentiment of gratitude to her 




THrc JUNIATA AT HUNTINf;7>ON. 



4;js 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




THE JUNIATA AT WATER STREET. 



than from any selfish feeling, for they were gal- 
lant men, who were ever ready to meet their 
fate, and feared not to die. Suffice it to say, 
that Heart's-Ease, finding both her authority 
and influence in this case unavailing, resolved 
to effect secretly that which she might not ac- 
complish openly. In this emergency her mem- 
ories of her native tongue came happily to her 
assistance. By her daring interposition the 
prisoners were released on the very eve of the 
day assigned for their massacre. But even as 
they fled their purpose became known, and with 
it that of the fair maiden's share therein. To 
complete their own escape was now easy enough, 
but to leave their preserver to the ungoverned 
fury of her savage people was impossible ! In 
an instant they gathered her in their arms, and 
flying unhurt through the terrible shower of ar- 
rows which fell like rain about them, they were 
soon safe beyond pursuit. The brothers bore 
their darling guest far away toward their own 
home. As they traveled, and communed, and 
looked into each other's souls, Heart's -Ease's 
nature seemed to develop into new and won- 
derful phases. The brothers won from her her 
little history, as far as many years and strange 
events had left the memory of it in her mind. 
A vague suspicion, a wild hope, a glad and joy- 
ful certainty sprung up and grew in their hearts 
as nearing, and at length (after weeks of toilsome 
journey) reaching, their native forest-hearth, 
they dreamed, prayed, and knew of a surety 
that their noble captive, their brave little sav- 
iour, Heart's-Ease, was none other than their 
own lon^-lost and beloved sister. 



When the strong passions of the hour were 
calmed, their old love and reverence for their 
stolen queen came back in redoubled force to 
the bosoms of her Indian brethren. They sought 
her unremittingly, and when at last successfully, 
her power over them sufficed not only to obtain 
their pardon for herself and her brothers, but to 
secure their perpetual good-will and protection 
for her race — a treaty which was ever afterward 
kindly and sacredly observed. 

With such touching narratives did the old 
man cheer our way ; and so, in the wildernesses 
of our vast territory, north, south, east, and 
west, every where have such unwritten romances 
beguiled us. Let the historian seize their subtle 
and sweet aroma while they yet live in the mem- 
ory of men, for in the incidents and emotions 
which they created and developed we may best 
read the secrets of that strong and noble nature 
which in after days so indignantly shook off the 
hand of oppression when it bore too rudely, and 
which has taught the people of to-day to feel 
and maintain themselves true and gallant men. 
Let the romancer snatch them, for in them is 
hidden the very essence of fiction — the poetn 
of truth. 

In the time and space which we have just de- 
voted to memories of other days, we had pur- 
posed transporting the reader westward from 
Lewistown, past many attractive scenes, to the 
subject of our fifth picture, near the pleasant vil- 
lage of Huntingdon. This scene meets the eye a* 
you stroll on the river shore, close by your inn ; or 
as you look back for an instant while entering the 
village, on the railway. As we now approach the 



THE JUNIATA. 



430 



upper waters of the Juniata, the character of the 
country grows momently more strongly marked. 
The hills wear a more imposing front, and en- 
croach more and more upon the area of the val- 
leys. At Petersburg the railway, which thus far 
has very closely hugged the river, flies off for a 
while, and flirts with the Little Juniata. By 
either route — the river and canal or the railway 
— the voyager will be well amused. On the 
main river we pass through the village of Alex- 
andria, the social centre of a pleasant country. 
Our next halt is at a little hamlet called Water 
Street. Here the canal merges in the river, 
forming what the boatmen style slack water. 
The hills at this point are of commanding ele- 
vation, and the river road is for a few miles 
charmingly sheltered and secluded. The mount- 
ain flanks are in many places marked with the 
debris of the land slides which give so weird a 
look to much of the Juniata scenery ; an expres- 
sion which led John Miller to remark that the 
whole country looked as though it had been 
struck by lightning and knocked wrong side up. 

From Water Street the river continues on- 
ward, though gradually losing its distinctive 
character, some twenty or thirty miles to Hol- 
lidaysburg, at the base of the Alleghanies. Here 
the boats and cars were, at the time of our visit, 
transported over the mountains at Blair's Sum- 
mit Gap by a portage railroad. This is a con- 
struction of great extent and enterprise. It is 
forty miles in length, and in its ascent and de- 
scent overcomesanaggregateof two thousand five 
hundred and seventy feet. There are on the route 
ten inclined planes, varying in inclination from 4^ 
to 5& degrees ; a tunnel eight hundred and sev- 
enty feet long through the Staple Bend Mount- 
ain of the Conemaugh ; and also four great via- 
ducts — one of which, over the Horse-shoe Bend, 
is a semicircular arch of eighty feet span. The 
cost of this road was nearly two millions of dol- 
lars. The cars are elevated by stationary steam- 
engines at the head of each plane. The neces- 
sity for these inclined planes has been since ob- 
viated by the substitution of a grand tunnel. 

Here we terminate our journey westward; 
and, returning to Water Street, take a pleasant 
walk of three miles across to the railway at 
Spruce Creek. A noble view is disclosed as we 
reach the lofty ground overlooking the village 
and the waters of the Little Juniata. Far be- 
low the rapid cars vanish in the Plutonian mouth 
of the tunnel deep in the mountain side. Spruce 
Creek is a new but prosperous town, possessing 
the nearest approach to metropolitan appoint- 
ment, in the way of a hotel, which the Juniata 
region can boast. If we recollect, the table is 
provided with napkins, and the office with a 
modern patent " annunciator." In a house with 
acoustic and " annunciator" privileges, one must, 
of course, be happy. We found newspapers, 
too, in the reading-room — but they were too an- 
tique to interest us very much. 

We close our chapter with a memento of a 
pleasant morning's ramble upon the banks of 
the Little Juniata. Carefully folding our nap- 



kin at the breakfast-table of the Great Spruce 
Creek Hotel, we soon brushed the dew from 
the heather and the unaccustomed polish from 
our boots, on the grassy banks of the sparkling 
little stream. For half a dozen miles we wan- 
dered on, over glittering lawns, through dense- 
ly-shaded glens, and by rolling cascades, whose 
joyous humor blackened the brows of the beet- 
ling cliffs and precipices above. We have 
rarely found a greater variety of scene within 
the same distance than in the course of this 
morning's walk on the Little Juniata. The con- 
stant and marked alternations of the grave and 
gay kept our interest ever alive and alert. The 
sterner feature of the landscape here reminded 
us continually of the picturesque ravines of the 
Catskills. When our walk had extended a few 
miles, the secluded character of the way changed 
very completely and unexpectedly. From glen 
and ravine we suddenly emerged into a culti- 
vated valley stretch, full of the shops and shan- 
ties of an iron foundry. Here we were agree- 
ably surprised to encounter our whilom host, 
John Miller. We were not a little astonished 
to find him venturing so far from home, and 
still more to learn that he had been more than 
a week on the journey. 

"You must, like ourself, have explored the 
country on your way, John Miller," said we. 
"The cars run up from the junction to this re- 
gion in a few hours." 

"Yes, I know they do; but I came on the 
canal. Don't catch me on any of your whizz 
and spit railroads ! I prefer the good old-fash- 
ioned way of traveling on dry land." 

We knew before that John Miller belonged 
to the solemn race of old fogies — a numerous 
class in his section of country — and we subse- 
quently discovered that this humor colored not 
only all his moral and social notions, but even 
his religious and political creeds. The masses 
in all this latitude, every body knows, appertain 
to the go-ahead school of progressive democracy, 
except John Miller, as we learned on the occa- 
sion of our third and last encounter with him. 

We were once again, by the chances of trav- 
el, near the junction of the Susquehanna and 
Juniata. It was during the heat of the Scott 
and Pierce campaign in 1852. While sketch- 
ing on the banks of the canal, our attention was 
drawn for a moment to the passage of a bat- 
teau pulled lustily by a dashing steed, and 
crowded by roaring electors, on their way to a 
county convention. Flags and banners bear- 
ing the names of " Pierce and King" floated 
from all parts of the boat. 

"Take us down right!" shouted the captain 
to us, as he sailed past. "Take us down right; 
we're Pierce and King! Them chaps below is 
Scott and Graham !" Turning our head, we 
observed, slowly following, an old lumbering 
barge, laboriously pulled by a dozen wearied 
fellows, while, lounging at the helm, the only 
man on board, was — John Miller! 

The primitive and rude character which we 
have remarked in the physical aspect of much 



+40 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




THE LITTLE JTTN1ATA. 



of the Juniata region, is quite as strongly seen 
in the morale of the people. They have among 
them too great a leaven of plodding Deutschland 
to evince much of that restless progress which 
Yankee speed of invention and unrelenting exe- 
cution is so brilliantly manifesting in other parts 
of the country. They have, no doubt, all the 
infallible certainty of Vaterland, but it is clogged 
with the equally national characteristic of slow- 
ness. There must be fewer John Millers among 
them before roses will grow very thickly and 
luxuriantly in their wildernesses. The Ger- 
manic populations of Pennsylvania are as in- 
dolent in their way as are the self-indulgent 
Southrons ; but the indolence of the former is 
widely different from that of the latter, and less 
bearable, inasmuch as being with the one the 
development of a sluggish nature rather than 
of an enervating climate, it is never roused into 
corresponding earnestness as with the other. 
This very inert humor appeared to us in many 
ways while on the Juniata. At our various 
halts, half a dozen men would tremble under 
the weight of our baggage, which a New En- 
gland porter or a Southern darkey would have 
tossed about like "brown paper parcels." At 



the stirring town of Petersburg our traps laid 
about loose for half a day while our host nego- 
tiated, by. committee and caucus, for a porter 
hardy enough to undertake the labor of trans- 
porting them. The question was who should 
sacrifice himself at the shrine of the public honor. 
The active spirit which the everlasting flight 
of rail-cars is spreading through their valleys, 
will, no doubt, soon quicken the people into 
more earnest life. Steam and electricity must 
stir up the Juniata folk, as they are rattling the 
dry bones of all other communities. Tell a 
man nowadays the most marvelous tale of the 
great world beyond the confines of his native 
hills, or without the bosom of his drowsy val- 
ley, and the old prejudiced smile of disbelief 
will vanish as he turns his eyes upward to the 
wires of the telegraph, and is compelled to ad- 
mit that there are of a truth more things in 
heaven and earth than are dreamed of in his 
philosophy. These mighty wires, as they look 
down upon the solitudes of the world, are every 
where rebuking presumptuous ignorance and in- 
credulity, arousing dormant thought, and giving 
nobler purpose and braver faith to all earth's 
workers. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



441 




COMMODORE PEEEY. — (I EOM A PHOTOGEAPII EY EEADY.) 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION 
TO JAPAN. 

" I am for bombarding all the exclusive Asiatics, who 
shut up the earth, and will not let me walk civilly and 
quietly through it, doing no harm, and paying for all 
I want." — Sydney Smith. 

FIRST Vf SIT. 

THE successful issue of the expedition of 
Commodore Perry to Japan was hailed with 
a proud acclamation by the American people. 
The strict isolation of the Japanese, amidst the 
busy intermingling of all the nations of the 
world in an age of extraordinary commercial 
activity, marked them out as a peculiar race. 
There was in this exceptional position of Japan 
something irresistibly provocative of American 
enterprise, the indomitable energies of which 
tiad hitherto mastered every opposition, whether 
of man or of nature. The change in the geo- 
graphical position of the United States in rela- 
tion to the East, by the acquisition of the golden 
territory of California, establishing our domain, 
as it were, the " middle kingdom" between Eu- 



rope and Asia, while it brought the Americans 
closer to Japan, served also to reveal more clear- 
ly the remoteness of that strange country from 
all national communion. 

Prompted by a natural curiosity to know a na- 
tion which boastingly defied the intelligence of 
the civilized world, and seemed to think, like a 
child that, by shutting its own eyes, it put out the 
light of the universe, and wrapped itself forever 
in darkness ; stimulated with a desire to estab- 
lish commercial relations with a people known 
to be industrious and wealthy; and eager to 
expand a profitable intercourse with Asia, to- 
ward which the newly-acquired shores of Cali- 
fornia directly pointed, and the perfected de- 
velopment of steam communication brought the 
United States so near, it was not surprising thai 
American enterprise should be impatient to dis- 
perse the obscurity which shut out Japan from 
the view of the world, and darkened the direct 
passage to the East. Some thoughtful minds 
pondered the subject, and as they looked to the 
intercourse with Japan as inevitable, carefully 



442 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



considered the means by which commercial re- 
lations could be established with that country, 
without a sacrifice of national dignity on the 
one hand, or a cruel exercise of power on the 
other. 

Commodore Perry had been among the first 
to urge upon the government the necessity and 
advantage of sending an embassy to Japan, for 
the purpose of establishing commercial rela- 
tions between that country and the United 
States. Others, it is true, had speculated upon 
the subject, and it is known that the great 
statesman, Daniel Webster, had — though at first 
with the characteristic slowness of delibera- 
tion of his massive intellect he received the 
suggestion with an apparent lack of interest — 
finally, with a clear vision of the important re- 
sults to his country, exercised his great powers 
toward the consummation of a treaty with Ja- 
pan. The immediate efforts, however, which 
led to the expedition came from the active en- 
ergies of Commodore Perry, and to him was re- 
served the honor of conducting and bringing to 
a successful result the mission to Japan. 

The public, with the pride it feels in a na- 
tional triumph, has naturally awaited with eager 
curiosity the full revelation of the details of the 
Japanese expedition. It is known that the in- 
terest of the nation is to be fully gratified by a 
complete narrative, on the part of Commodore 
Perry, of his mission ; and the work will, un- 
doubtedly, be a worthy record of his great serv- 
ices. In the mean while we proceed to give our 
readers a rapid narrative of the Commodore's 
movements, from the inception to the close of 
his mission, drawn from the most authentic 
sources. 

When it became known that the United States 
government had resolved upon an expedition to 
Japan, an eager desire was evinced on the part 
of many scientific persons, and others governed 
by a liberal curiosity, to join Commodore Perry 
on a journey which promised to add so much to 
the interest and information of the world. There 
were others, however, actuated by less worthy 
motives, who used every influence, direct and 
indirect, to participate in the advantages of the 
occasion. Among the latter was the well-known 
author of the famous work on Japan, the Ger- 
man Von Siebold, who, having been banished 
from Japanese territory, where hf- had forfeited 
his life by a violation of law, was desirous of 
defying the Japanese authorities under the pro- 
tection of the American flag. There was every 
reason, too, to suspect that Russia, ever on the 
alert to advance her interests, and never very 
scrupulous about the means, had employed the 
subtle German to act as a spy, and to counter- 
act, in behalf of the government of which he 
was a servile tool, the proceedings of the United 
States in the contemplated mission to Japan. 
Commodore Perry had, however, reserved the 
duties of the expedition exclusively for the na- 
val officers, as they alone could be thoroughly 
controlled by the naval discipline which was so 
essential toward preserving a perfect unity of 



action. The offers of all external aid were there- 
fore refused, and though in some instances with 
regret, yet not without the highest satisfaction 
in the case of Von Siebold, whose affectation 
of disinterestedness was exposed by the exact- 
est information of his real character. 

After the usual delays and obstructions which 
seem inseparable from public business, Commo- 
dore Perry finally sailed in the steamer Missis- 
sippi from Norfolk, on the 24th of November, 
1852, on the mission to Japan. It was orig- 
inally intended that the Princeton should have 
accompanied him, but this vessel had hardly 
steamed down the Chesapeake Bay, when her 
total unfitness for the voyage was proved by a 
serious accident to her machinery. The Com- 
modore, therefore, determined to put to sea with 
the Mississippi alone, with the understanding 
that he should be reinforced by the steamer 
Susquehanna, the sloops of war the Plymouth 
and Saratoga, already on the East Indian sta- 
tion, and other vessels and store-ships. We need 
not dwell upon the visit of the Commodore to 
Madeira, St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, 
the Mauritius, Ceylon, Singapore, Macao, Hong 
Kong, and Canton, at all of which places he suc- 
cessively touched for supplies of fuel and refresh- 
ments, but will pass at once to those compara- 
tively unknown countries in which the experi- 
ences of the expedition will supply new sources 
of interest and information. 

Arriving at Shanghae on the 4th of May, 1853, 
the Commodore found the Susquehanna there, 
and his first movement was to transfer his pen- 
nant from the Mississippi to that steamer. The 
Commodore's arrival at Shanghae was hailed 
with a joyful welcome by the American mer- 
chants, whose patriotic fervor and interest in the 
public weal happened just at that time to coin- 
cide with a due regard for their own, private 
concerns. The Chinese rebels had been mak- 
ing formidable headway, and were threatening 
to march upon Shanghae, much to the discom- 
posure of the wealthy foreign traders, who, with 
their millions at stake, were very joyful at the 
opportune arrival of an American Commodore, 
and were very well pleased to have their money- 
bags guarded by a formidable battery of American 
guns. It was not surprising, then, that these 
gentry were disposed to make the most of their 
visitors, which, it may be stated to the credit 
of their hospitality, they did in the handsomest 
possible style. 

Although Shanghae has only been opened to 
foreign commerce since the English opium war, 
it has already become an immense mart for 
American and European trade, surpassing in 
extent that of Canton, and destined, probably, 
to monopolize the whole in the course of time. 
The foreign merchants have erected immense 
storehouses and palatial residences, which they 
term Hongs, along the quay which borders the 
dirty, shallow stream of the Yang-tse-keang. 

The foreign merchants who reside in China 
do their best to compensate themselves for their 
absence from home by building magnificent res- 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



448 




idences, where they succeed admirably in com- 
bining civilized comfort with Oriental splendor. 
To do them justice, they are the most hospita- 
ble of men, and the visitor finds his letter of 
introduction something more than a "ticket for 
soup," for it immediately gives him the run of 
palatial quarters, where he is at home at once, 
and has all the advantages of a first-rate hotel 
without the disagreeable reminder that there 
is a bill to pay. All the guest has to do is to 
express a wish and it is gratified by the Chinese 
major-domo on the instant, and no want is too 
preposterous for the universal power this om- 
nipotent provider seems to have over the wide 
domain of flesh, fish, and fowl. Nor is his con- 



trol confined to the solid substantials of life, for 
he seems equally absolute in his dominion over 
the liquid luxuries, as was fairly tested when 
the order for some Saratoga water was respond- 
ed to immediately by a bottle just fresh, as it 
were, from the Congress Spring. Commodore 
Perry had, however, no time to dally in the lux- 
uriance of the palatial residences of the foreign 
merchants of Shanghae ; so eating his last din- 
ner, and making his farewell bow at the gay 
but rather hot balls, he prepared to embark on 
his mission. 

The Plymouth being left at Shanghae to quiet 
the fears of the American merchants, and to 
protect their interests should they be endanger- 



444 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ed, the Commodore sailed on the 23d of May 
for Loo-Choo, in the steamer Susquehanna, 
accompanied by the Mississippi and the store- 
ship the Caprice. The Plymouth was ordered to 
join him when she could consistently with the 
state of things in China; and the Saratoga was 
expected to reach Loo-Choo from Macao about 
the time of the Commodore's arrival. During 
the voyage general orders were read to the of- 
ficers and crew to the effect that, as all amica- 
ble means were to be used before resorting to 
force, to obtain the object of the expedition, 
each one, in his relations with the Japanese, 
should be as friendly as possible. It was, how- 
ever — although it was hoped a conciliatory 
policy would effect all that was desired — evi- 
dently the resolute purpose of the Commodore 
to open Japan to American intercourse at all 
hazards. To be prepared for every emergency 
the crews of the ships were kept thoroughly 
drilled, and being beaten daily by the sound of 
the trumpet and the roll of the drum to quar- 
ters, reached such a state of discipline as would 
have made them very dangerous to quarrel with. 
With smooth seas and light winds the steamers 
soon traversed the short space of six hundred 
miles, and made the land after three days' sail. 

Nothing could be more grateful to the eye 
after the sea voyage, although it had only been 
of three days' duration, than the first view of 
the islands of Loo-Choo, which rose in pictur- 
esque elevations from the sea, covered with the 
freshest verdure. 

The large island — Great Loo-Choo, as it is 
called — towered above the numerous islets of 
she group, and the slopes of its sides, which 
here rolled in gentle undulations of fertile fields, 
from a central ridge, and there broke into pre- 
cipitous crags and irregular rocks down to the 
coral shore, were beautifully diversified by wav- 
ing rice, groves of pines, tropical palms, and the 
greatest variety of vegetation of varied hues of 
the richest green. A pleasing contrast of the 
wildest nature in its most eccentric forms of 
rock and headland with the highest culture, 
where lawns, gardens, and meadow-lands show- 
ed the careful and laborious hand of man, pre- 
sented the most agreeable aspect as the steam- 
ers entered the outer bay of Napa. On the 




TOIIHS AT NAPA. 



low land within the inner harbor the brown- 
tiled roofs of some houses became visible as the 
fleet doubled the Cape, aptly called Abbev 
Point, from the castellated appearance of the 
crags and rocks which crowned its summit, and 
gave it very much the look of the ruins of one 
of those old half military half religious struc- 
tures of the middle ages. On the acclivities of 
the green hills that arose on either side of the 
houses which formed the town of Naf>a, the 
tombs of white limestone glittered brightly out 
of the surrounding verdure. A fleet of Japa- 
nese junks lay closely within the shore, and gave 
a look of commercial activity to the place. 

The first movement from the land was tho 
hoisting of the ubiquitous British ensign from 
the summit of a crag which rises to the south 
of the town, and soon some persons were dis- 
cerned in the distance, apparently watching with 
eager curiosity the approach of the vessels, to 
which was now added the Saratoga, that had 
arrived simultaneously with ihe steamers. The 
whole fleet presented quite a formidable appear- 
ance, and naturally awakened a great interest 
on shore, and as the steamers closed in with the 
land the stir among the natives, who could be 
seen busily moving about with their white um- 
brellas — for a pattering rain kept briskly falling 
— was quite apparent. 

The ships had hardly come to anchor when a 
boat came alongside the Susquehanna, bringing 
a couple of native dignitaries from the shore. 
Those gentlemen of Napa made quite an im- 
posing appearance, and would have gladdened 
the heart of an artist in search of a couple of 
model patriarchs of the time of Joseph and his 
brethren. Their costume, complexion, and rev- 
erend air were quite in character with the patri- 
archal worthies, the thought of whom their 
presence suggested. They wore long flowing 
robes of yellow and blue grass-cloth, which were 
gathered in at the waist with sashes, and fell be- 
low in folds nearly to their white-sandaled feet. 
On their heads were bright yellow caps, of a 
round, oblong form, resembling somewhat the 
Turkish fez in shape, termed, in the Loo-Choo 
dialect, Hatchee-Matchee, which were tied under 
their chins with strings, while from their swarthy 
Oriental faces, down upon their breasts, flowed 

long beards. The 
Loo-Choo dignita- 
ries came on board, 
bowing so pro- 
SS^5^§ 1 foundly that they 

nearly touched the 
deck at each salaam 
with their yellow 
caps, and then, after 
assuming a tempo- 
rary perpendicular, 
3 - presented to one of 
H the officers their 
cards. These cards 
were no doubt the 
fashion then pre- 
vailing in Napa, but 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



445 







FIRST VISIT OF DIGNITAP.IES FROM TUB SHORE. 



were of a kind that, with all the sizes and shapes 
the caprice of the beau monde has given fashiona- 
ble pasteboard with us, has never yet produced 
the like. The cards were three feet in length, and 
of a red color, and, being so large, it was found 
convenient to carry them folded. A Napa lady, 
with a large number of morning calls on her 
list, must be obliged, we should think, to make 
use of a mail-bag for her card-case, and hire an 
express wagon to carry it. As Mr. Williams, 
the Chinese interpreter, had only just arrived 
from Macao in the Saratoga, and had not yet 
come on board the flag-ship, the Susquehanna, 
it was necessary to have recourse to one of the 
Chinese stewards to make out what was written 
on the Brobdignag cards of the Loo-Choo vis- 
itors. He understood the writing sufficiently 
to discover that the visit was only one of polite- 
ness. They asked very courteously after the 
Commodore, and expressed a wish to have the 
pleasure of seeing him ; but the Commodore, 
knowing the ceremonious kind of people he had 
to deal with, and how necessary it was to con- 
form to their ■ Oriental notions of dignity, re- 
fused to receive them, as he had determined to 
show himself only to the highest in authority, 
and he had reason to suppose his present vis- 
itors, although undoubtedly of the ton, were not 
of the loftiest official position. There seemed 
to be some difference of rank between the two — 
the one in a yellow robe, who gave his name as 
Whang-cha-ching, being the higher. 

No sooner had the Loo-Choans taken their 
departure, somewhat discomposed at not having 
been admitted to the presence of the great Amer- 
ican Mandarin, than a canoe, paddled by a dozen 
swarthy, half-naked natives, who worked lustily 
and sang their wild strain cheerily, dashed along 
nnd brought up alongside of the Susquehanna. 
A very civilized-looking gentleman, with a JeAV- 
ish cast of countenance, and dressed in a Chris- 
tian-like suit of dingy black, now actively stepped 
out, and was in a moment on deck, announcing 



himself as Dr. Bettelheim. This gentle- 
man, a converted Jew, was the English mis- 
sionary, who, with his wife and seven chil- 
dren, had resided for seven years on the 
island of Great Loo-Choo, with a forlorn 
hope of converting the natives. It was 
he who had hoisted the English flag on 
the arrival of the squadron, and he seem- 
ed to be still in a great fervor of excite- 
ment on the occasion, as, without a single 
proselyte to boast of, he was in a very de- 
cided minority on shore, and was accord- 
ingly delighted to have his cause strength- 
ened by the arrival of the Americans. Dr. 
Bettelheim was soon closeted with the 
Commodore, who had no especial reason 
for retaining his reserve toward one about 
whose Western civilized character there 
could be no doubt. In accordance with the 
suggestions of this gentleman, the Commo- 
dore resolved upon sending an embassy to 
the chief authorities at Nnpa to demand 
an immediate conference with the chief 
in authority over Loo-Choo, who was said to be 
aRegent, acting in behalf of the young king, only 
some ten or eleven years of age. 

Next morning the two Loo-Choan visitors pre- 
sented themselves again, bringing in their train 
four boats, loaded with a number of natives, inter- 
mingled with bullocks, pigs, goats, fowls, vegeta- 
bles, and eggs, which— not, however, the natives 
— were offered as presents from the authorities 
to the Americans. The Commodore, however, 
refused them, and the Loo-Choans, much put out 
at the refusal, paddled back very disconsolately 
to the shore with their supplies. The Loo-Choans 
seem to think that the only object of the visits 
of foreigners to their country is to get some- 
thing to eat; and, accordingly, their first move- 
ment, on the arrival of a strange ship, is to send 
on board of her an assortment of eatables such 
as might stock a butcher or green grocer's es- 
tablishment. In the course of the day a lieu- 
tenant was sent, in company with the Chinese 
interpreter, to call on the mayor of Napa, to 
demand an interview on behalf of Commodore 
Perry with the Regent. The Americans were 
courteously received, and treated to soups and 
sweetmeats and a closing pipe of tobacco. The 
mayor seemed deeply wounded that his pres- 
ents had not been accepted, but was relieved 
somewhat when he was told that it was against 
the American laws for our functionaries to re- 
ceive presents. He promised that the Regent 
should be duly informed of the Commodore's 
desire to see him ; and although he seemed to 
be very anxious to impress his visitors with the 
greatness of that high dignitary, assured them 
that he would, no doubt, visit the Susquehanna 
on the following day. 

On the ships coming to anchor the Commo- 
dore had signaled, "No communication with 
the shore !" This injunction was strictly obey- 
ed, although with a feeling of great disappoint- 
ment, as it was difficult to repress the curiosi- 
ty all felt to extend their experiences among 



446 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the strange people on shore, and to wander 
among the beautiful groves and over the ver- 
dant hills, which looked so provokingly inviting 
to those imprisoned on board ship. The arrival 
of the store-ship Supply, the setting out of the 
survey party to examine the depth and bearings 
of the harbor, the movements on shore and 
among the fleet of large-eyed junks moored in 
the inner bay, several of which vessels put to 
sea in the course of the morning, were the chief 
incidents of the second day. The junks were 
supposed to be bound for Japan, where they 
were probably hurrying to convey the news 
of the arrival of the American squadron, that 
the Japanese might be prepared to give a warm 
welcome to the intrusive Yankees, about whose 
reception there were all kinds of sinister rumors. 
The day (Saturday, 28th May, 1853) appoint- 
ed for the visit of the Regent had arrived, and 
every thing looked propitious for the occasion. 
The weather, for two days previous rainy and 
unsettled, had cleared up, and though the heat 
was great, the glare of the hot sun was occasion- 
ally vailed by shifting clouds, the shadows of 
which chased each other rapidly over the beau- 
tiful landscape, varying perpetually the tints of 
green which freshly colored the fields of rice, 
and the rich tropical vegetation which covered 
the hills and filled the vallevs of the island. 




WNjF.iNT OF I.OO-CIIOO AND ATTENDANTS, 



Every thing was in readiness on board the 
Commodore's flag-ship for the reception of the 
august visitor expected. The marines were 
dressed up in their full uniform of blue and white, 
and the officers had turned out all their gold and 
lace, and glittered gayly on the occasion. Short- 
ly after mid-day three native boats were seen to 
put off from the coral reef below Napa, and they 
soon came paddling along in the direction of the 
Susquehanna. There was nothing very regal- 
looking about the craft, or any thing which would 
seem to betoken that they were conveying a re- 
presentative of royalty. They were, however, 
well-manned with some thirty oarsmen or more, 
and contained, in addition to the Regent, a nu- 
merous suite of various Loo-Choo dignitaries and 
attendants. When the boat in which the Regent 
was seated had reached the gangway, an inferior 
official stepped out, and coming up on the deck 
presented one of the usual gigantic red visiting 
cards, which, in accordance with our own prac- 
tice, was meant merely as an announcement of 
the Regent's arrival. Mr. Williams, the Chinese 
interpreter, was summoned to do duty on the oc- 
casion, and having perused the inscription, which 
read, " The High Officer generally Superintend- 
ing the Kingdom of Loo-Choo," the official re- 
turned to his boat; immediately after, that great 
functionary, the Regent himself, or to give him 
his full Loo-Choan title, the 
Tsung-lf-ta-chin, made his ap- 
pearance, mounting the gang- 
way, with the composure that 
became so dignified and vener- 
able a personage, and assisted 
in his ascent up the sides of the 
steamer by two of his suite. No 
sooner had he put his foot upon 
the deck, where he was received 
with all the form and ceremony 
that befitted his exalted rank 
by two captains in full gilt and 
buttons, than a salute, in ac- 
cordance with Chinese practice, 
of three guns was fired off. The 
Regent did not seem to have 
his composure much disturbed, 
but the equanimity and cen- 
tre of gravity of some of his 
attendants were so far dis- 
arranged that they fell upon 
their knees at the loud explo- 
sion of the guns. 

There were some twenty 
Loo-Choans in all composing 
the party, about half a dozen 
of whom were superior offi- 
cers, and the rest inferiors and 
attendants. The Regent, how- 
ever, was the most remarkable- 
looking man in the company. 
He, according to his own ac- 
count, was only fifty-five years 
of age, but his long white beard, 
and general venerableness of 
aspect, made him look like a 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



447 




STREET IN NAr*A, LOO-CHOO. 



patriarch of twice that age in a remarkable 
state of good preservation. The Regent wore 
a red hatchee-matchee, as did also some of 
the other higher dignitaries, while the less dis- 
tinguished officials sported the inferior yellow 
caps. The various grades of the officers of 
government are marked by the color of their 
hatchee-matchees, the highest wearing rose- 
red ones, and the lower yellow. These Loo- 
Choan gentlemen, according to their barbar- 
ian notions, thought it polite to remain cov- 
ered in company, until they had asked permis- 
sion to uncap themselves. Accordingly, al- 
though they were continually making the usual 
salaams of clapping their hands upon their brows, 
and bowing down to the ground with a supple- 
ness that showed evidently that their politeness 
was habitual — for such elasticity of back could 
only be acquired by constant practice — they kept 
their hatchee-matchees on their heads, even 
after they had descended into the state cabin of 
the Commodore. They were, however, graciously 
permitted to uncover themselves after a polite 
request to that effect — a permission which they 
gladly received, as the heat of the weather, and 
the excitement of the occasion, seemed to have 
considerably elevated their temperature, in spite 
of the active fluttering of their fans. 

The Commodore now for the first time re- 
vealed himself to the Loo-Choans, having hith- 
erto preserved the most profound seclusion. 
The highest dignitary, however, of the kingdom 



having presented himself with due state and 
ceremony, there was no further occasion for re- 
serve, as the Loo-Choans were evidently im- 
pressed with the necessity of bestowing all that 
ceremonious respect their Oriental notions teach 
them to exact from others. After the usual pre- 
liminary courtesies, the Commodore stated to the 
Regent, through the interpreter, the object of his 
visit to Loo-Choo. He had come, said the Com- 
modore, to remain in the harbor of Napa until 
the arrival of the rest of his squadron before pro- 
ceeding to Japan. In the mean time he desired 
the consent of the Regent for the officers to visit 
the land for the purpose of relaxation and observ- 
ation. He would like, moreover, to have sup- 
plies of fresh provisions, but would only consent 
to take them on condition that a fair price was 
received in return. The Loo-Choan visitors 
were then invited to partake of refreshments, 
and shared with apparent gusto in the cakes and 
wines with which they were served. Pipes and 
tobacco succeeded the repast, and the Regent. 
with great formality and politeness, offered hifl 
services to the Commodore in filling his pipe, 
which were accepted and reciprocated. 

All the demands of the Commodore were un- 
resistingly acceded to, but with an air of nerv- 
ous anxiety, showing that the Regent was ac- 
tuated more by his fears than his desires. An 
he rose to depart the Commodore promised to 
return his visit at the Palace of Sheudi, a noti- 
fication which seemed greatly to startle the old 



418 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



man. On coming out from the interview the 
Loo-Choan party were conducted over the steam- 
er, but they regarded every thing with an air of 
stolid composure; the great guns, the groups of 
sailors, the lines of armed marines, and the band 
df music, which struck up a lively air as the 
Regent and his suite passed on, did not seem 
to excite the least interest. Upon being shown 
the engine, however, there was some apparent 
curiosity upon their grave and unruffled faces, 
which were ordinarily as unmoved as if wrought 
in bronze. The Regent and his suite, after hav- 
ing made the circuit of the ship from stem to 
stern, and deck to hold, took their departure, 
being honored, as upon their arrival, with a salvo 
of three guns. 

One good effect of their visit, which was ap- 
preciated by all on board, was the permission 
for the officers to go on shore, a privilege they 
were not slow in availing themselves of. Soon 
some thirty or forty officers, with leave from 
their respective ships, were off for a visit to the 
town of Napa. 

The town of Napa commences from the very 
edge of the surf-whitened coral shore, and ex- 
tends along for some distance by the water side 



* ^:\ 



mm «,; 



'■Mfr-r 




LOO-CHOO VKr.OHANT. 



and up the acclivities of the surrounding hills. 
The streets are regular, remarkably clean and 
neat-looking, composed of bamboo-houses cov- 
ered with roofs of red tiles, surrounded with 
gardens, and inclosed within high walls of coral, 
built up with great regularity, and surmounted 
with hedges of cactus, from above the tops of 
which project palm and banana-trees. These 
walled houses would have a very prison-like 
look were it not for the cheerful and comfort- 
able air given them by their pretty gardens and 
snug appointments. 

As soon as the Americans landed most of 
the inhabitants, after having paused a while to 
take a glance at the strangers, made off rapid- 
ly, in order to avoid all communication. The 
shop-keepers quickly closed their shops, and the 
street peddlers dispersed in such haste that they 
left their stocks behind them. The better class 
of people, however, were not quite so shy, and 
although they looked somewhat askance at their 
visitors, stood still as they passed, and made 
them the most profound salutations. Some of 
these, with their flowing robes and long beards, 
made a most venerable appearance, and had 
such a benevolence of aspect, that the American 
officers felt quite disposed to 
strike up an acquaintance, but 
no sooner did they approach 
with the most friendly inten- 
tions, than these Loo-Choan 
gentry turned upon their heels, 
and disappeared. 

The different classes of peo- 
ple were distinguished by their 
costumes. The highest or offi- 
cial wore the caps of various 
colors already described, while 
the middle and lower classes 
were bareheaded. The hair- 
pins seemed to be an import- 
ant indication of rank — those 
of silver marking the supe- 
rior, and those of brass the in- 
ferior. The more respectable 
of the Loo-Choans who were 
not dignitaries, and yet were 
evidently well to do in the 
world, such as the merchants 
and successful traders, wore 
very much the same kind of 
dress in cut as the government 
officials — with the exception of 
the colored caps — consisting 
of the flowing grass-cloth gar- 
ment of gray or yellow, gather- 
ed in at the waist with blue 
silk girdles, from the ends of 
which hung tobacco-pouches. 
Their hair being shaved on 
the crown, and allowed to grow 
to considerable length behind, 
was worn gathered up to the 
top of the head, where it was 
fastened by two long pins, in- 
serted fore and aft. The low- 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



449 




NATIVE PEASANT. 



est class — the mechanics, peasants, and laborers 
— were hardly covered with a veiy scant shirt 
of coarse cotton, while their children were en- 
tirely naked. 

The women, of whom it was difficult to get a 
sight, and whose appearance, when seen, was 
not such as to cause any disappointment at their 
shyness — for they were awfully ugly — were 
dressed very much like the men. They, how- 
ever, wore their robes of grass-cloth without any 
confining girdle about the waist, and were lim- 
ited to a single hair-pin. They should have 
been entitled to the full complement of the Loo- 
Choan dress, for it evidently must have origin- 
allv belonged to the female wardrobe, as it, after 
Vol. XII.— No. 70.— Ff 



all, was little else than an expanded petticoat, 
while the long hair and the hair-pins were un- 
questionably of the feminine gender. Somehow 
or other a reversed social revolution had taken 
place in Loo-Choo, and the men had assumed 
the petticoat, instead of the women, as with us, 
usurping the breeches. The Loo-Choan males, 
too, seemingly had availed themselves of the 
feminine privilege of doing comparatively no- 
thing, while the women were kept hard at work, 
daubing cabinet-ware with dirty lacquer, hoeing 
sweet potatoes in the fields, and vending coarse 
cheese-cakes and dabs of gingerbread in the 
market-place and at the street-corners. They 
had retained, however, that quality of the sex 



450 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



which is believed to be universal from New York 
to Loo-Choo — female curiosity ; for the women 
of Napa, old and young, were observed peeping 
round the lanes and listening through the chinks 
of the coral walls whenever they found a chance. 

Marriages are arranged in Loo-Choo, as with 
us, by match-making relatives, and the natural 
consequence is a good deal of conjugal discord, 
which, however, is more readily settled than by 
our tedious laws, by a very summary process 
of divorce. All the dissatisfied husband has to 
do is to send his wife back to her parents and 
try his luck again. If the parents are too poor 
to receive their rejected child, her former hus- 
band builds a hut near his own house where he 
imprisons her for life with hard labor and harder 
treatment, where she mourns her degradation 
and captivity within the sounds of the endear- 
ments her former partner is bestowing upon her 
successor in his affections. 

The people generally are not remarkable for 
their good looks, having the Mongolian cast of 
features, the bronze complexion, the high cheek- 
ed bones, and slanting eyes. The higher classes 
are, however, somewhat better looking, and, 
with their grave and courteous manners and 
their patriarchal robes and long beards, make 
rather an imposing appearance. They are more 
like the Japanese than the Chinese, and are 
supposed to be an offset from the former, to 
whom it is believed they are subject, although 
what with their religion and education, founded 




LOO-CIIOAN8 OF TnE MIDDLE CLASS. 



on the doctrines of Confucius, and the annual 
tribute they pay to China, it is reasonable to 
suppose that Loo-Choo has been, either by con- 
quest or origin, at some period closely related 
to the Chinese Empire. The people seem di- 
vided into two great classes, with various sub- 
divisions — the rulers and the ruled. The for- 
mer count nearly one-fourth of the total pop- 
ulation of the island, which amounts in all to 
some fifty thousand inhabitants, twenty thou- 
sand of whom live at Napa, about the same 
number in the capital city, named Sheudi, and 
the rest are distributed over the interior of Great 
Loo-Choo and the thirty-five smaller islands 
which compose the whole group. Great Loo- 
Choo is much the largest, being some thirty 
to forty miles long, and twelve to fifteen wide. 
Situated between 26 and 27 degrees of north 
latitude and between 127 and 128 degrees of 
east longitude, with a rich soil, delightful cli- 
mate, and a mingled vegetation of temperate 
and tropical countries, there can be no place to 
surpass it in the prodigality of Nature's gifts. 

The system of government is the most op- 
pressive conceivable, the rulers forming, as has 
been stated, no less than one-fourth of the whole 
population, or one-half of all the males, pre- 
senting an immense number of idle dogs whose 
chief duty it is to watch each other and eat up 
all the substance of the rest of the people. The 
officials are chosen, as in China, from their sup- 
posed knowledge of the books of Confucius, and 
are the literati of the country, 
though no credit, be it said, 
to literature, as they are the 
greatest tyrants and the most 
deceitful rogues possible. 
The non-producing consum- 
ers are altogether too great, 
according to every law of 
political economy and dic- 
tate of common sense, for a 
condition of prosperity. Six- 
tenths of all the productions 
of the island go to the sup- 
port of this indolent* class, 
leaving a very scant propor- 
tion of rice and sweet pota- 
toes, the chief productions 
of the soil, to the hard-task- 
ed laborers who cultivate it, 
and who, with their scant al- 
lowance, may well be termed 
the non-consuming produc- 
ers. The government is 
quite absolute, and forces 
implicit obedience to its laws 
by the most tyrannical ad- 
ministration. The great 
mass of the people are liter- 
ally slaves, the services of 
whom are often bought and 
sold, and the poor wretches 
goaded to their work by the 
frequent application of the 
bamboo. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



451 




BKIDGE AND CAUSEWAY AT MA-CUI-NA-TOO, LOO-CHOO. 



The system of espionage is the moving prin- 
ciple of the government from the highest to the 
lowest official, and the chief functions of a great 
proportion of the officers are merely to watch 
their neighbors. 

The American officers were disposed, with a 
natural curiosity, to extend their observations 
over the island ; and, on their first visit ashore, 
a party of them were tempted to ramble far out 
of the town. As they passed through the sub- 
urbs, along the stream which flows through the 
town, and over the bridge which led into the 
beautiful neighboring country, with a charming 
landscape on all sides, which was particularly 
attractive to those who had been confined close- 
ly on shipboard, they found themselves dogged 
by a couple of very respectable-looking Loo- 
Choans, who were evidently engaged in the dis- 
reputable business of acting as spies upon them. 
As soon as the Americans moved a step from 
the beaten road, these sharp-eyed fellows beck- 
oned to them to keep the regular path. They 
might beckon, however, they were not attended 
to ; and our countrymen pursued their way, for, 
with feet accustomed to 6tep upon a land of 
freedom, they were not prepared to go and come 
at any one's bidding. 

The country in the neighborhood of Napa 
is strikingly picturesque, with its surrounding 
bills rising one above the other to the mount- 
ainous district in the interior. The sides of the 
hills are highly cultivated, with rich fields of 
grain, separated by hedges of cactus, while the 
sheltered valley* are crowded with a tropical 
vegetation of the wild orange, the banana, and 
the luxuriant palm, and the summits of the 
mountains are crowned with groves of the dark 
pine, throwing a wide and deep shade, like that 



of the cedars of Lebanon. A well-paved road r 
as smooth and regular as if Macadamized, com- 
pact with broken corals thoroughly beaten into 
the soil beneath, extends to the neighboring 
villages and the capital of Sheudi. This is 
bordered by beautiful gardens, within the coral- 
walled inclosures of which snug houses of bam- 
boo repose in shady groves. Along the road 
some horsemen were moving briskly upon their 
little high-spirited Loo-Choo nags, out appar- 
ently for an airing. The roads and bridges 
show a very creditable degree of attention on 
the part of the authorities to the internal im- 
provements of the island. The bridges, in fact, 
are quite respectable specimens of masonry, be- 
ing massive and scientifically constructed. 

But to return to the Commodore, who still 
remained on board of his ship with a resolute 
determination to carry out the purposes of his 
visit, and not to budge until he had secured 
those advantages for his country which were 
evidently uppermost in his mind. He had or- 
ganized a party of his officers and men to make 
an exploration of the island, who were accord- 
ingly dispatched on that duty. In the mean 
time the Commodore carried on his negotia- 
tions with the Loo-Choo authorities. He had 
made the very reasonable demand to be fur- 
nished with a house for the accommodation of 
the officers on shore, and had offered to pay a 
fair rent. After some equivocation, in accord- 
ance with the usual Loo-Choan policy, this re- 
quest was granted, and a building was designa- 
ted. The temple at Tumai, a village situated 
on the outskirts of Napa, on the road to Sheudi, 
was the selected place, and accordingly an of- 
ficer was sent by the Commodore to take form.al 
possession. 



452 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



This building was what is called a Cung-qua, 
a place of entertainment for strangers, and for 
various public purposes. Although not so lux- 
uriously appointed as the Koung-kouans or 
Communal Palaces in China, the comfort of 
which Pere Hue describes with such gusto, the 
temple at Tumai was for a similar purpose. 
There were some thirty mats spread on the 
floor, and waiters were at hand with tea and 
pipes, so when the officer and his party arrived 
they were hospitably entertained. In a short 
time, however, an official made his appearance, 
and although he showed an excess of politeness 
by constantly bowing to the ground, he declared, 
when he was told the object of the visit of the 
officer, that it was quite impossible for the Amer- 
icans to have a house on shore. By some means 
or other this accomplished Loo-Choan had ac- 
quired enough English to deliver himself thus : 
" Gentleman, Doo-Choo men very small — Amer- 
ican man not very small — I read of American in 
book — Washington very good man — very good 
— Doo-Choo good friend American — Doo-Choo 
man give American man all eat he want — 
American no have house on shore." The up- 
shot of the matter was that one of the officers 
and the interpreter did sleep upon two of the 
mats all that night, in the temple of Tumai. 
However, on the next day, the authorities of 
Napa sent word to the Commodore that they 
wished the building vacated, to which they re- 
ceived the reply, that it would be done provided 



another suitable place was substituted, but that 
the Americans were determined to have a house 
on shore at all hazards, as such a privilege had 
been granted to previous visitors, as, for example, 
to the English, at the time of Basil Hall's visit 
to the island. Another building, with the high 
sounding title of " Shunghein" — "The Holy 
Presence Temple protecting the Anchorage"— 
was accordingly appropriated. The Loo-Choans 
were resolved to throw every obstruction in the 
way of the Commodore by their shuffling con- 
duct and prevaricating policy, but he was con- 
scious of their manoeuvres, and was resolved to 
defeat them by his direct and resolute bearing. 
The expressed resolution of the Commodore 
to return the visit of the Regent within the 
palace of Sheudi, had apparently created a great 
deal of anxiety on the part of the authorities, 
and they seemed resolved to prevent it if possi- 
ble. They sent word that it was contrary to 
all precedent, and expressly forbidden by their 
laws, for a stranger to intrude within the sanc- 
tuary Of the palace. Receiving no satisfactory 
answer to this protest, the Loo-Choans be- 
thought themselves of trying a ruse upon the 
Commodore, and made the attempt to entrap 
him into an informal visit upon the Regent bv 
preparing a feast at Napa, where that dignitary 
would be present, and to which the Commodore 
was invited. Just at that time, however, the 
Commodore found it convenient to attend to 
the dispatch of the steamship the Caprice, for 




TEMVLE AT TUMAI, LOO-CHOO. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



453 



Shanghae, and sent word that " business unfor- 
tunately prevented his acceptance of the polite 
invitation," etc. They were, however, not to 
be balked of their cunning, civility, aud as the 
Commodore would not go to the feast, they 
sent the feast to him, and accordingly two of 
the high functionaries in yellow caps came off 
to the ship with a supply of poultry, fish, vege- 
tables, fruits, and cakes, all prepared in the high- 
est style of Loo-Choan cookery, which were dis- 
played upon the deck of the Susquehanna. The 
Commodore, however, kept himself secluded 
within his cabin, and left the banquet to be dis- 
cussed by his officers and men, who found Loo- 
Choo fare quite appetizing, and soon cleared the 
decks. The Commodore now informed the au- 
thorities that his promised visit to the palace 
would certainly come off on Monday, the 6th 
of June, after the return of the exploring party. 

The demand of the Commodore to be sup- 
plied with provisions, on the sole condition of 
his paying for them, was granted, after a show 
of considerable reluctance, and, accordingly, a 
daily supply was brought off by the natives to 
the ship, which was duly paid for in cash — the 
Chinese copper money, of which the Commo- 
dore had taken care to have a good quantity, 
having shipped at Shanghae no less than five 
tons. Notwithstanding the primitive simplicity 
with which Basil Hall in his romantic narrative 
has been pleased to attribute to the Loo-Choans, 
who he states had no idea of money, it was 
found that they were sufficiently acquainted 
with cash, of which they demanded 1750 instead 
of 1400, the Chinese valuation, to the dollar. If 
this arose from their ignorance of the true val- 
ue, or from want of familiarity with the coin, at 
any rate their ignorance told very much to the 
advantage of their own pockets. These daily 
supplies were entirely regulated by the authori- 
ties, who pocketed all the profit, while the loss 
fell to the share of the poor natives from whom 
the supplies were wrung. 

The visit to Sheudi was the hardest morsel 
for the Loo-Choan authorities to swallow, and 
they hemmed and coughed, and tried to put it 
off by all manner of imaginable deceit and trick- 
ery. The Regent dispatched a diplomatic mis- 
sive beautifully inscribed upon a long roll of 
the softest of their bark-woven paper, in lines 
of Chinese characters, painted in India ink 
with a camel's-hair pencil. The roll was in- 
closed in an envelope, and duly sealed with the 
regal arms. The purport of this communica- 
tion was to persuade the Commodore not to 
proceed to the palace of Sheudi, on the plea 
of the illness of the Queen Dowager, who had 
received such a shock from the visit of an 
English Admiral who had obstinately intruded 
himself within the sacred precincts of the pal- 
ace some two years ago, that she had not yet 
recovered, and, wrote the Regent, another such 
;i visit might be the death of her Majesty the 
royal mother. The Commodore in answer ex- 
pressed his deep sorrow for the affliction of the 
Queen Dowager, and very humanely offered to 



send her one of his skillful surgeons, who would 
undoubtedly set the royal lady all right again : 
but as he took quite a different view of the 
case of her Majesty, he did not believe that 
his presence could act otherwise than favor- 
ably, as her mind would be diverted by the novel 
sight of the American visitors. The Commo- 
dore, therefore, reiterated his determination to 
go to the palace of Sheudi, as he believed this 
reputed sickness of the King's mother was all 
a sham. In fact, the youthful King and the 
Queen Dowager were suspected, at times, to be 
no more of realities than was Mrs. Harris, and 
to this day, it is by no means certain whether 
Loo-Choo has any other than an imaginary royal 
family reigning over it. 

The Americans, in the mean time, made them- 
selves quite at home within the dominions of the 
putative young King, and went about their daily 
business with as much ease as if they had been 
in the Navy Yard at Brooklyn. The survey boats 
were out daily on duty, the marines were going 
through their exercises on shore, the officers 
were skylarking through the streets and neigh- 
borhood of Napa, and the temple at Tumai 
was all alive with the busy doings of the artists 
and the working men of the expedition. 

The party sent to explore the interior of the 
island of Great Loo-Choo now returned after 
an absence of six days, and reported the result 
to the Commodore. 

The exploration had extended over a dis- 
tance embracing one half of the whole island, 
and had been completed in six days, during 
which nearly one hundred and eight miles had 
been traveled. The course was first across Loo- 
Choo to the east, and thence along the northern 
coast and back through the interior of the isl- 
and. The party had hardly started when they 
were overtaken, on the paved road Avhich leads 
from Napa to Sheudi, by a Loo-Choan, evidently 
of authority, accompanied by two subordinate 
attendants, who presented themselves as guides, 
but turned out to be three very sharp-sighted 
and scrutinizing spies. A crowd of the people 
gathered and followed in the distance, but final- 
ly dispersed, leaving some dozen of their num- 
ber, who joined the Loo-Choan dignitary, and 
were duly recruited into his force of spies ; these 
were utilized by the party from the ship to assist 
them in carrying their arms and provisions, as 
their own Chinese Coolie attendants were a set 
of lazy vagabonds, who were in every body's 
mess and nobody's watch, and always the first 
to break down in their work, and the last to 
rise from their meals. The Loo-Choan leader, 
whose title was Pe-Ching, or treasurer, a ven- 
erable man with a snow-white beard and a most 
benevolent aspect, was of inexhaustible good-na- 
ture, as were his companions. They were, more- 
over, most tenacious of their particular functions 
as spies, and seemed to be always on the alert, 
by night or by day. Every attempt to shake them 
off proved vain — they clung to the heels of the 
party with the tenacity of a pack of hounds. It 
was useless to try to tire them out by rapid walk- 



454 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ing and the most preposterous hard day's work; 
they were determined not to be tired out. The 
old Pe-Ching, who was somewhat pursy, was led 
many a hard march up hill and down, and al- 
though his wind seemed every moment in dan- 
ger of giving out, he always, somehow or anoth- 
er, recovered his breath in time to save his lungs, 
and was never completely blown. He would, it 
is true, often express his sense of all this use- 
less fatigue, by a very significant way he had of 
.slapping his stout flanks, as if to whip on their 
flagging energies, but he never fairly gave in, as 
he was undoubtedly bound, to use a cant phrase, 
" to see the American party through." He was, 
in fact, appointed by the authorities to act as 
a spy, and make a full report of the journey. 
He faithfully performed his functions, and took 
care that his subordinates should perform theirs. 
Every American throughout the exploring tour 
was thus always dogged by several spies, the 
force of which was recruited at the various stop- 
ping-places on the route. No sooner were all 
snugly quartered for the night and supper over, 
than Pe-Ching and his chief confederates pulled 
out their tablets from the folds of their flowing 
robes, and unrolling the silky mulberry bark- 
woven paper, and preparing their Indian ink 
and camel's-hair brushes, painted down line 
after line of puzzling hieroglyphics, which were 
supposed to express the results of the day. 

The scenery of the country was most charm- 
ing, presenting a beautiful combination of culti- 
vated fields and wild tropical vegetation. Green 
rice, in rich growth, waved through the valleys, 
covering the banks of the streams, and growing 
down to the verge of the sea-shore. There was, 
in the various artificial arrangements for irriga- 
tion, an indication of considerable agricultural 
skill, and in the richness and abundance of the 
various crops, signs of great fertility and wealth 
of product ; while the frequent salt vats showed an 
extensive manufacture of that article of univers- 
al consumption. Village after village, as they 
were approached, presented a succession of most 
charming prospects. Here, one was reposing in a 
beautiful valley, by the side of a running stream, 
with the green fields rising from the water, and 
extending far over the undulating hills which 
bounded the scene, and were cultivated to their 
very summits ; and there, another lay almost hid 
away in groves of sago-palm and banana, while 
a third closed the vista through a long avenue 
of waving bamboo, whose bending tops united 
and formed a natural arched hall, through the 
leafy roof of which the sun's rays, as they passed, 
lost their glare, and refreshed the eye with a cool 
green-tinted light which pervaded the shaded 
interior. 

The inhabitants of the villages, under the se- 
vere eyes of the corps of spies who accompa- 
nied the party, were very shy and retreating. 
They would drop down the mats before their 
doors and windows as soon as they heard the 
approaching step of one of the strange visitors, 
and if such should slyly come upon them and 
take them unawares, they would immediately 



let go their spinning-wheel, or leave any other 
household duty, and either prostrate themselves 
imploringly upon the ground, deprecating all 
intercourse, or run .away and hide themselves 
in some corner of their bamboo houses. When, 
however, the Americans were lodged for the 
night in one of the cung-quas, the Loo-Choo 
peasants, male and female, would throng about 
the inclosures, and peep through the chinks, or 
look over the tops of the walls, with the hope 
of seeing the strangers without being discovered 
by the objects of their curiosity, or by the ever- 
watchful eyes of the spies. But as for getting 
an opportunity of seeing any thing of the in- 
terior life of the people, or holding conversation 
with them, it was quite impracticable. 

The party found snug quarters in the various 
cung-quas, or government hotels, provided as 
resting-places for the officials at the public ex- 
pense. These places are liberally distributed 
over the island, and are large wooden buildings, 
with verandas, and various compartments sepa- 
rated by sliding partitions, which can be read- 
ily shifted, converting the whole interior into 
one large hall. Attendants were always in wait- 
ing ready to provide the necessary supplies of 
chickens, eggs, cucumbers, rice, and tea, for the 
suppers of the tired visitors, and mats for their 
accommodation during the night. Many of the 
cung-quas are beautifully situated on pictur- 
esque sites, shaded by the bamboo and sago-palm, 
while their walls inclosed garden plots, regular- 
ly laid out, and adorned with the white and red 
camelia japonicas, chrysanthemums, and other 
flowers of varied color and of fragrant odors. 

In the course of the wanderings of the ex- 
plorers they came upon some gigantic idols of 
Phallic worship, which the more scientific ex- 
amined with the reverent affection of veritable 
antiquarians ; but the Loo-Choans, in their ig- 
norance, treated these obscure relics of antiquity 
with proper contempt. The latter did not seem 
to be curious of their origin or history, while the 
former were disposed to consider them as the in- 
dications of an earlier race than that now inhab- 
iting the island, thinking that these emblems of 
a disgusting worship had probably been intro- 
duced by some early migration from India. Cer- 
tain ancient tombs, for which the natives had 
so little reverence that they called them "the 
houses of the devil's men," were also observed, 
and were supposed to be remains of an earlier 
people, or they would have been held in more 
respect by the present inhabitants. 

Toward the north, upon the summit of a pro- 
jecting point of the backbone of rock which 
runs through the centre of the island, the ex- 
plorers came upon the ruins of an ancient for- 
tress. These bore evidence of great antiquity, 
and yet of wonderful architectural skill. The 
double arches, the inner one of which was com- 
posed of two curved stones, and the outer of 
many, with a key-stone in the centre, and the 
large, well-cut square blocks adjusted with great 
nicety and compactness, showed all the charac- 
teristics of Egyptian structure. The walls of 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



455 




ANCIENT CASTLE OF NA-GA-GTTS-KO, LOO-CHOO. 



the fortress inclosed a wide space, and deeply 
shaded as they were with a rank tropical vege- 
tation, and perched upon a lofty and precipitous 
eminence of rock, had an imposing appearance 
of wild grandeur. 

The explorers, after six days' enjoyment of 
repeated visions of beautiful landscape, with 
all the contrasts of the wildness of nature and 
the most exquisite cultivation, and the pleasur- 
able excitement of ever-recurring daily incident 
and adventure in a country so curious and nov- 
el, paid the old Pe-Ching the cash due him for 
services and provisions, and returned to the 
ships, where they prepared to participate in the 
coming event of the visit to Sheudi, about which 
every officer and man in the whole squadron 
was all agog. 

On Monday morning, June 6th, at an early 
hour, a dozen or more boats, launches, cutters, 
gigs, and other small craft, pushed off for the 
shore, loaded with officers in full uniform, the 
marines with their bayoneted muskets and in 
their gay dress of blue and white, and the sail- 
ors with their black tarpaulins and their neat 
navy shirts. They were soon followed by the 
Commodore, in full feather, seated in his state 
barge, who, upon landing, was received by the 
marines, who, forming into two lines, presented 
arms as he passed between them. The proces- 
sion was now formed at the village of Tumai, 
on the outskirts of Napa, at about two miles 
from Sheudi, with hundreds of the natives, gath- 
ered from the neighborhood, looking on in the 
distance at the novel show. First came a park 
of artillery, consisting of two field-pieces, over 
each of which waved the American flag, borne 
by a stout sailor, then the interpreters, succeed- 
ed by the ships' bands striking up a succession 



of lively airs, and a company of marines, fol- 
lowed by the Commodore in his sedan chair. 
This sedan chair was an extemporaneous affair 
got up for the occasion by the ship's carpenter, 
and although it was somewhat rudely construct- 
ed, and not very elaborately adorned, was alto- 
gether, for its size, a more comfortable con- 
veyance than the native Kagoo, the only kind 
of Loo-Choan carriage extant. The kagoo is a 
mere box, about two feet in height, which puz- 
zles one vastly to get into, and to keep in when 
he is there. The rider is forced to double him- 
self into all the folds his arms, legs, and the 
extent of suppleness of his back will admit. 
He is obliged to sit cross-legged, arms folded, 
back doubled, and neck bent; and then, as he 
is carried by a couple of quick-moving natives 
jogging along, he is reminded by the repeated 
knockings of his head against the hard wooden 
roof that all his packing has been in vain, and 
that the contents of the kagoo are quite too large 
for its capacity. The Commodore, therefore, 
with a due regard for his comfort, had provided 
himself with a sizable sedan chair, which was 
borne on the shoulders of four Chinese Coolies 
from the ship, with a relay of four others to di- 
vide the labor. On either side of the sedan 
walked two marines as body-guards, and the 
Chinese servant of the Commodore ; while, im- 
mediately behind, several Coolies came carry- 
ing the presents wrapped in red flannel. The 
officers of the ships then succeeded, followed by 
another company of marines which brought up 
the rear. The number, all told, amounted to 
more than two hundred; and as they moved 
along with flags flying in the breeze, the sword- 
hilts and bayonets, and the golden adornments 
and bright uniforms of the officers and soldiers 



456 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



flashing in the sun's light, and the bands play- 
in" - a stirring tune, they presented quite a cheer- 
ful spectacle, which the Loo-Choans seemed to 
enjoy wondrously, as they collected every where 
by the roadside, and looked on with evident 
marks of delight — making holiday of the occa- 
sion. 

The road lay along a paved causeway which 
led from Napa to the summit of the hill upon 
which the town and palace of Sheudi rose high 
to the view. Along this road was a succession, 
on either side, of fertile rice-fields and beauti- 
ful gardens, and as the procession advanced, 
reaching the higher ground, a fine view was ob- 
tained of the whole circuit of the island. On 
approaching the capital its houses were seen 
grouped upon the acclivity of a hill, and almost 
hid in thick foliage, while upon the summit rose 
high above the other buildings the fortress-like 
royal palace. The procession now passed, at 
the entrance to the city, through a gate of wood, 
high-arched above, and inscribed with certain 
characters which signified " The Central Hill," 
or " The Place of Authority." Sheudi, the cap- 
ital and residence of the putative young monarch, 
was once the central one of three fortresses, each 
of which was the residence of a king, according 
to the ancient tradition, which records that the 
island of Great Loo-Choo was formerly divided 
into three dynasties. The ruins of Nagugusko 
are supposed to be the remains of the residence 
of the king who ruled over the north ; and an- 
other ruin, at the southern part of the island, 
called Timaguko, seems to indicate the site of 
the fortress of the king of the south ; while the 
palace of Sheudi, the seat of the present mon- 
arch, was the fortified position of the dynasty 
of the middle kingdom, which finally absorbed 
the two others, and still retains its title of 
"The Central Hill." There were three passa- 
ges through the gate — a central and two side 
ones — the former being exclusively for the high- 
er classes. It was through this, of course, that 
the procession made its way out into the wide 
and almost deserted main street of Sheudi, which, 
bounded on either side by high coral Avails in- 
closing the residences of the inhabitants, and in- 
tersected by narrow lanes, led to the palace. A 
throng of officials in their gay, flowing robes, 
with wide sleeves, red and yellow hatchee-mat- 
chees, with fans, umbrellas, and chow-chow 
boxes, being in full toilet for the occasion, met 
the procession with many profound salutations, 
and finding that the Commodore was not to be 
diverted from his resolution, conducted it to the 
palace. This was an irregular structure of wood 
surrounded by a succession of Avails, through 
which opened arched entrances, at one of Avhich 
were tAvo lofty pillars of stone and a couple of 
full-sized rudely carved lions. 

The Commodore, accompanied by his suite, 
was ushered into a hall of no great size, and of 
no great pretensions as to ornament or furni- 
ture ; it had, however, a high-sounding title, if 
<he interpreter correctly translated the charac- 
ters in gold Avhich were inscribed at the head 



of the room, and which were said to mean, "The 
elevated inclosure of fragrant festivities." The 
hall was partly screened off by paper partitions, 
from behind Avhich it was suspected that the 
Queen-mother, if there Avere such, was gratify- 
ing her royal curiosity. The American officers 
Avere conducted to seats, which were very like 
camp-stools, and placed on the right of the room, 
while the Regent and the other Loo-Choan dig- 
nitaries took their position on the left. After a 
ceremonious interchange of compliments, the 
Americans were invited to partake of some re- 
freshments Avhich Avere evidently very hastily 
got up, and consisted of cups of dilute tea, dabs 
of tough gingerbread, and tobacco. The Re- 
gent had evidently calculated upon his powers 
of persuasion to divert the Commodore from 
his fixed purpose of visiting the royal palace, 
and, accordingly, no preparation had been made 
for his reception. The Commodore now invited 
the Regent to A'isit him on board ship, after his 
return from an expedition he proposed to the 
Bonin islands, which Avould be, probably, in the 
course of ten days. This invitation Avas accept- 
ed with many profound salutations, and the 
presents being proffered, Avhich Avere politely re- 
ceived but hardly looked at, the Americans, at 
the solicitation of the Regent, adjourned to that 
dignitary's house, which Avas not far off, being 
situated in a neighboring lane Avhich intersected 
the main street. 

There Avas nothing very regal about the Re- 
gent's quarters, it being a wooden house of the 
ordinary style of those of the city, with a court- 
yard and bamboo verandas, but rather larger in 
size. The interior was plain but neat, Avith 
Avooden rafters painted of a red color, and its 
floors spread Avith matting. 

Every thing here was in readiness for a feast, 
and no sooner had the Commodore entered 
Avith his officers than they were invited to take 
their seats at the Avell-spread boards. There 
Avere ten tables in all — four in the central part 
of the hall, and three in each of its Avings. At 
the tAvo upper ones, on the right, the Commo- 
dore and his chief officers Avere seated, and at 
the same number, on the left, the Regent pre- 
sided, assisted by some of the chief dignitaries 
of the island. The tables were heaped with the 
choicest Loo-Choan fare, consisting of a heter- 
ogeneous collection of strange dishes that no one 
but an expert of the Loo-Choan cuisine or some 
native Monsieur Soyer could possibly describe. 
Numerous dignified-looking attendants, robed in 
long garments, were in Avaiting, and commenced 
the feast by handing round cups of tea, followed 
by earthen goblets, no bigger than thimbles, over- 
flowing with Sakee, the native liquor distilled 
from rice. These Lilliputian bumpers Avould 
not have floored a flea. Then the guests, arm- 
ing themselves with the pairs of chopsticks at 
their sides, commenced the general attack upon 
the spread before them. Surrounded as they 
were by an immense variety, and Avithout any 
knowledge of Loo-Choan cookery to direct 
them, they made an indiscriminate charge upon 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



457 



the bits of hog's liver and of sugar-candy, the 
red slices of eggs and of cucumber, the boiled 
fish and mustard, the fried beef, and the tender 
morsels of various somethings, which, as there 
was no bill of fare, it was impossible to tell 
what, although it was suspected they might be 
dog, cat, rat, or some other choice viand. In 
addition to the dishes on the table the wait- 
ers were constantly bringing in a succession 
of courses in rude earthen bowls, until they 
amounted to twelve, eight of which were differ- 
ent kinds of soup, and the rest were ginger- 
bread, doughnuts, cabbage-sprouts, and an herb 
something like our calamus. 

The Commodore, somewhere about the mid- 
dle of the feast, calling upon the company to fill 
their cups with sakee, proposed the health of the 
Queen-dowager, her royal son, and the toast — 
"Prosperity to the Loo-Choans, and may they 
and the Americans always be friends !" This 
was then put into Chinese by Mr. Williams, for 
the benefit of the official interpreter of the Re- 
gent, a sharp-eyed youth, whose name was com- 
posed of two sneezes and a cough, and is indis- 
tinctly expressed by the word Ichi-raz-ichi. 
Ichi then turned the toast and sentiment into 
the Loo-Choan lingua for the behoof of his mas- 
ter, who received them with very evident marks 
of satisfaction, and taking up his thimbleful of 
sakee, drank it to its last dregs, and slapped 
down the tiny cup bottom upward upon the ta- 
ble, to show that he was a fair drinker and a 



man above heel-taps. Several toasts and healths 
succeeded, and the dinner having reached the 
end of the twelfth course, the Commodore and 
his party took their departure, and, forming in 
procession as before, returned to Tumai and 
embarked on board ship. 

The Commodore, having made fair progress 
in his diplomacy with the slippery authorities 
of Loo-Choo, and leaving the well-armed steam- 
er Mississippi to keep up a wholesome awe, on 
their part, of the American style of negotiation, 
departed from Napa on the ninth of June, in 
his flag-ship, the Susquehanna, with the sloop-of- 
war Saratoga in tow. In five days, with the 
genial and favoring gales of the southwestern 
monsoon, the two vessels arrived and anchored 
in Port Lloyd, the principal harbor of the Bonin 
Islands. These islands are situated in the Ja- 
panese Sea, nearly five hundred miles southeast 
of Japan, and over eight hundred in an easterly 
direction from Loo-Choo. They were first dis- 
covered long since by the Japanese, by whom they 
were called Buna Sima (Island without People), 
but Captain Beech ey, an Englishman, discov- 
ered them over again in 1827, and, with more 
patriotism than justice, took possession of them 
in the name of King George the Fourth, whom 
it used to pleas! his loyal subjects to term the 
" first gentleman in Europe," but in regard to 
whom posterity — with a hint from Tom Moore 
and Thackeray — has settled down into the con- 
viction that he was something quite different. 




EC AT THE REGENT'S, I.OO-OIIOO. 



458 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




VIEW OF BONIN ISLANDS. 



Beech ey gave English names not only to the 
groups of the islands but to the individual ones, 
calling the northern cluster Parry's, and its three 
islands respectively Peel, Buckland, and Staple- 
ton. Not content with this liberal appropri- 
ation, he also took possession of the southern 
group, giving it the name of Bailey, although he 
acknowledged that one Coffin, the captain of a 
whaler out of Nantucket, had been before him. 
lie perhaps thought, in 1827, that a Yankee dis- 
coverer was not of much account ; but Commo- 
dore Perry, in 1853, with his formidable Amer- 
ican squadron to back him, thought differently, 
and accordingly erased the name of Bailey, the 
President of the Royal Society, from its ill-de- 
served prominence, and substituted that of Cof- 
fin, the broad-brimmed Quaker whaling skipper 
of Nantucket. The Commodore also took form- 
al possession of the southern cluster, or Coffin 
Islands, in the name of the United States, and 
thus justly returned the stolen property to its 
proper owners. The inhabitants of the islands, 
with a sort of natural justice, and without much 
regard to euphony, discard entirely the high- 
sounding titles of Stapleton and Peel, and call 
these two islands of the northern group Hog 
and Goat. 

The harbor of Port Lloyd is toward the cen- 
tre of Peel Island on the west, and is good and 
commodious, ships of the largest draught being 
able to run in within the cast of a biscuit of the 
shore, and anchor almost under the shade of 
the forest of vegetation which crowds with its 
luxuriant growth the hills and the valleys of the 
islands. When a vessel arrives, up goes gen- 
erally upon the top of a neighboring summit 
that everlasting British bunting, of which a vag- 
abond Englishman, for the consideration of an 
occasional supply of rum from a chance visitor 
in the shape of one of Her Majesty's men-of- 
war, has undertaken to do the necessary hoist- 
ing, for which the grog is naturally supposed to 
give him the proper degree of elevating power. 

The Commodore, on entering Port Lloyd, had 
fired a gun, which summoned a couple of deni- 
zens of the island, who came off to the ships in 
ft rude dug-out canoe. These were a couple of 
active young fellows, whose lank black hair, 
dark eyes, and milk-and-molasses tint of com- 
plexion, and scant costume of dingy straw hats 
and sailor's trowsers, shewed them to be a 
compromise between savage life and civilization. 
They were evidences of the facility with which 



all races, when left to 
their natural affinities, 
combine their blood, 
and express instinctive^ 
ly their fraternal, or 
rather conjugal, rela- 
tions. The two men 
were, in fact, a mon- 
grel compound of a 
tarpaulin Jack and a 
Kanaka woman. One 
of them called himself 
John Bravo, and was 
the only native at the time of the Commodore's 
visit, though there were not wanting excellent 
prospects for the future in the hopeful fertility 
of the island. 

The Bonin Islands are of volcanic origin, and 
show, by their irregular outlines, their bold, ab- 
rupt cliffs, their broken headlands, their heaped- 
up rocks, their steep gorges, and the generally 
confused surface of the land, that Nature has 
been struggling at some time in one of her wild- 
est convulsions. The imaginative eye, as it 
looks upon the scene, can picture the varied 
forms of castle and tower, and the most gro- 
tesque shapes of animals monstrous in size and 
hideous in form. Though the irregular up- 
heaving of the rocky foundations of the islands, 
and the spasmodic struggling of the volcanic 
force, finding issue in cavernous vents and jag- 
ged fissures through which it has poured torrents 
of lava, have given the shore generally the 
grandeur of wild confusion, yet by some strange 
chance a certain order and regularity of form 
have been preserved here and there amidst the 
universal convulsion. Many passages pass like 
canals through the base of the hills, and have a 
smoothness and regularity as if they had been 
executed by the most skillful art. There is one 
which passes through a headland bounding the 
harbor of Port Lloyd, which is cpnstantly trav- 
ersed by the canoes of the inhabitants, and there 
is another, with a width of fifteen feet and a 
height within of fifty, the roof of which rises in 
an arch, which spans the canal with all the reg- 
ularity of an architectural structure. 

In 1830, a colony of Americans and I^lropeans 
came to Peel Island, from the Sandwich Islands, 
having in their train several native male and fe- 
# male Kanakas. This is the nucleus of the pop- 
ulation, which amounted to only thirty-one, all 
told, on the visit of Commodore Perry. One 
Nathaniel Savery, a New England Yankee, is 
looked up to as a sort of patriarch of the peo- 
ple, and he manages to sustain himself with the 
proper degree of dignity. This man has mar- 
ried a native of Guam, the widow of one of the 
first settlers, and — what with an increasing fami- 
ly of young Saveries, the cultivation of a patch 
of alluvial land, bounded in front toward the bay 
by a coral reef, and in the rear by a wooded 
gorge, which stretches between two hills which 
rise from the interior, and the proverbial inge- 
nuity of his countrymen in making the best of 
the accidental circumstances of life — seems to 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



459 



be in a highly prosperous condition. Savery con- 
trives to raise such abundant harvests of sweet 
potatoes, maize, taro, onions, pine-apples, ba- 
nanas, and water-melons, that he has not only 
enough for himself and family but a surplus to 
spare for the whalers which frequent the Bonins 
for supplies. Whatever may be the theoretical 
views of Savery upon the all-absorbing question 
of a Maine Law, he evidently practically dis- 
proves of it, for he has constructed a still, and is 
famous for making the best rum in all the Bo- 
nins. He has a pretty enough cottage, with neat 
inclosures and a garden, watered by a beautiful 
stream which flows coolly through the tropical 
vegetation that fills in the valley behind. The 



other European inhabitants live very much as 
Savery, and are mostly paired with substantial 
Sandwich Island women, who are doing their 
best to colonize the country. The Kanakas have 
grouped themselves together in a village of palm- 
thatched huts, where they live very much as in 
their native islands, to the genial climate of 
which that of the Bonins is not unlike. 

The soil is remarkably fertile, and with a suf- 
ficient population the islands could be made very 
productive. They have every advantage, with 
an excellent harbor, an abundance of pure water, 
wood, fish, turtle, and other natural products, 
for a stopping-place for whalers and steamers. 
Commodore Perry was greatly impressed with 




460 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the resources of Peel Island, and by purchasing 
from Savery a piece of land in the bay, made 
due provision for the probable wants of our Gov- 
ernment. Explorations throughout the island 
disclosed much fertile land in the valleys, and 
the richest possible variety of tropical vegetation. 
Some forests of palms thronged up the hill- 
sides and through the ravines, giving, with the 
surface of the land, broken into irregular moun- 
tainous elevations and abrupt cliffs, a wild and 
picturesque aspect to the country. Wild boars 
were started from their coverts in the under- 
growth, or suddenly disturbed from their bur- 
rows beneath the overhanging rocks. 

After a visit of four days' duration, during 
which the islands were thoroughly explored, 
and their future interests promoted by an addi- 
tion of some animals to their stock, the Commo- 
dore returned with his two ships to Loo-Choo, 
where he arrived on the evening of June the 
twenty-third. The Commodore found every 
thing at Napa very much as when he had left, 
although the arrival of the Plymouth from Shang- 
hae had supplied a large accession to the force 
of Americans who had remained at Loo-Choo. 
These had nothing to complain of in regard to 
their treatment, which was marked by the usual 
courtesy, though with no diminution of reserve. 
There was some surprise in finding that the ven- 
erable Regent had been deposed and a younger 
man substituted in his place. It was thought 
at first that that aged and respectable dignitary 
had made way with himself, in accordance with 
the Loo-Choan and Japanese practice. When- 
ever an official incurs the serious displeasure of 
liis superiors, he anticipates the consequences 
by what is termed in Japan the HariKari, which 
is a very summary operation of suicide. The 
self-condemned criminal first rips up his bowels 
with his sword, and then cuts his neck, by which 
he forestalls all judiciary proceedings ; and al- 
though he loses his life, which he would have 
done probably in any event, he secures his prop- 
erty to his family, which otherwise would have 
been forfeited to the state. It was, however, a 
very agreeable surprise to find that the venera- 
ble Regent had not been reduced to this un- 
pleasant necessity, and it was quite a relief to 
the anxiety of all to see the old gentleman again, 
though shorn of his honors, in the full possession 
of his head and of his digestive apparatus, ap- 
parently in its original state of integrity. He 
had, it was learned, merely resigned in conse- 
quence of his modest conviction that he was too 
old to cope with the resolute energies of the en- 
terprising Yankees, and a more youthful and 
active man had taken his place. The new Re- 
gent had succeeded, among his other honors, to 
the invitation which the Commodore extended 
to his predecessor, and he and his suite were ac- 
cordingly dined on board the Mississippi, where 
they showed a hearty appreciation of roast beef, 
plum pudding, and of what they were pleased 
to term American sakee — some old Mononga- 
hela whisky. 

The Commodore now mustered all his forces 



for the expedition to Japan, with the determ- 
ination to push with the greatest promptitude 
the designs he had in view. As for the com- 
paratively small business with the Loo-Choans, 
he, after giving ^hem a foretaste of the Yankee 
off-hand manner, proposed settling up his ac- 
count with the authorities on his return. 

Accordingly, at break of day on the morning 
of the second of July (1853), the American 
squadron, composed of the Susquehanna, which 
bore the Commodore's broad pendant, the steam- 
er Mississippi, and the sloops-of-war the Sara- 
toga and Pit/mouth, sailed from Napa. Each 
steamer had in tow a sailing ship, and as all 
the vessels were well appointed, with formida- 
ble batteries of guns, an abundant supply of 
small arms, and a good stock of American self- 
reliance, they probably were equal to any emer- 
gency that might arise, although the Commo- 
dore had hoped to have exhibited to the Japa- 
nese a more imposing show of his country's 
naval force. In fact, twelve vessels had been 
promised originally by the government, which 
number, however, had dwindled down, through 
the remissness of the authorities at home, to 
the very small force of four ships, all told. On 
rather a foggy morning — the 8th of July, six 
days after leaving Napa — the precipitous coast 
of Idzu, a district of Niphon, loomed up through 
the hazy atmosphere, and revealed the first sight 
of Japan to the sharp-sighted sailor at the mast- 
head of the Susquehanna. The course of the 
squadron was now pointed directly to the en- 
trance of the bay of Yedo. It will be found, on 
looking at a map of Japan, that that empire is 
composed chiefly of four islands, the largest one 
of which is Niphon ; the next in size, Yedo, at 
the north ; and the two smaller ones, Sitkoff 
and Kiusou, at the south. The Commodore 
had determined to push his way as near as pos- 
sible to Yedo, the capital, situated at the head 
of the bay of the same name, so he boldly steam- 
ed where steamer had never ventured before, 
and was soon plowing the remote waters of Ja- 
pan, and looking with eager interest upon the 
novel scene which surrounded him. The bay 
at the entrance is hardly eight miles in width, 
but it increases to twelve or more beyond. The 
bold headlands of the precipitous Cape Sagami 
rose on the left, and on the right extended ir- 
regularly the mountainous district of Awa. 

As the ships closed in with the land, and as 
the fog occasionally lifted, a glance was here 
and there caught of the neighboring shores, 
that were observed "to rise in precipitous bluffs 
which connected landward with undulating 
hills. Deep ravines, green with rich verdure, 
divided the slopes, and opened into small ex- 
panses of alluvial land, washed by the waters 
of the bay into the form of inlets, about the 
borders of which were grouped various Japanese 
villages. The uplands were beautifully varied 
with cultivated fields and tufted woods; while 
far behind rose the mountains, height upon 
height, in the inland distance."* The shores 
* Commodore Perry's Narrative of the Japan Expedition. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



461 




MOUTH OF BAY OF YEDO. 



of the bay, particularly on the western side, 
were populous with a succession of towns and 
villages, picturesquely grouped in groves of 
pine and other trees. The rising ground which 
came down from the mountainous interior 
abruptly terminated at the water's edge in pre- 
cipitous headlands, which were covered with 
white forts, more formidable in appearance than 
in reality. The bay was busy with trading- 
junks, sailing up and down with their broad 
sails, or putting in here and there at the various 
ports. 

A fleet of Japanese boats, supposed to be 
government vessels, pulled out into the stream, 
with the apparent purpose of arresting the pro- 
gress of the squadron. The steamers, however, 
passed them contemptuously by, and as they 
moved along rapidly on their course, at the rate 
of eight or nine knots an hour, with all their 
sails furled, the Japanese Avere left rapidly be- 
hind, and in a state evidently of much amaze- 
ment at the sight of the first vessels they had 
ever beheld impelled by steam. As the day ad- 
vanced the sun came out, dispelling the mist 
which had gathered over the land, and reveal- 
ing a wide prospect of the distant country. 
Mont Fuzi was now seen rising to an immense 
height, with its cone-like summit covered with 
snow, which glistened brightly in the sun. 




JAPANESE GOVEENMENT BOAT. 



The ships, as they approached their anchor- 
age, continued sounding at every turn of the 
steamers' wheels, and they moved on slowly 
and cautiously until they reached a part of the 
bay off the city of Uraga, on the western side. 
The anchors were now let go, and the squadron 
was securely moored in Japanese waters, within 
a nearer distance of the capital of Yedo than 
any foreign vessel had ever ventured. As the 
ships hove to, commanding with their guns the 
town of Uraga and the battery upon its promon- 
tory, two guns were fired from the neighboring 
forts, and rockets were discharged into the air, 
for the purpose probably of signalizing the au- 
thorities at the capital. An immense fleet of gov- 
ernment boats, each distinguished by a white flag 
at the stern with a black central stripe and a tas- 
sel at the bow, came, in accordance with the usual 
practice in Japanese waters, hovering about the 
squadron. The Commodore had issued orders 
that no one from the shore should be allowed to 
board either of his vessels except his own flag- 
ship. Some of the boats, however, attempted 
to get alongside the Saratoga, and the crews 
clung to the chains until they were repelled with 
considerable violence. 

One of the Japanese boats was allowed to 
come alongside of the Susquehanna, and every 
one on board of the steamer was struck with 
the resemblance of her build, as 
well as of the others, to that of the 
famous yacht America. Her bows 
were sharp, her beam broad, and 
her stern slightly tapering. She 
was trimly built, of pine-wood ap- 
parently, without a touch of paint, 
and was propelled over the water 
with great swiftness by a numer- 
ous crew of boatmen, who, stand- 
ing to their oars at the stern, 
sculled instead of rowing the boat. 
The men were naked, with the ex- 
ception of a cloth about their loin^, 
and were wonderfully stalwart and 
active fellows. Two persons, armed 



462 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



each with a couple of swords, a Japanese mark of 
official rank, stood toward the stern, and were 
evidently men of authority. As the boat reached 
the side of the steamer one of these dignitaries 
held up a scroll, which turned out to be a docu- 
ment in the French and Dutch languages, order- 
ing off the ships, and forbidding them to anchor 
at their peril. No notice was taken of this very 
peremptory summons, and the officer on the 
deck of the Commodore's ship refused positive- 
ly to touch the paper. 

The chief functionary on the boat made signs 
to have the gangway let down, that he might 
come on board the Susquehanna. This w r as re- 
ported to the Commodore, who kept secluded in 
his cabin, and he sent word that no one but a 
dignitary of the highest rank would be received. 
The Chinese interpreter attached to the squad- 
ron tried to make this understood to the Japa- 
nese, but as there seemed some difficulty, one 
of the two functionaries in the boat, who was 
the chief spokesman, cried out in very good En- 
glish, " I can speak Dutch !" The Dutch inter- 
preter was then summoned in the emergency, 
and a parley ensued, in the course of which it 
was learned that the two officials alongside were 
Nagasima Saboroske, the Vice-Governor of 
Uraga, and Hori Tatsnoske, an interpreter. As 
they insisted that they were the proper persons 
with whom to confer, they were admitted on 
board, and were received in the captain's cabin 
on deck. The Commodore had resolved, from 
motives of policy, to keep himself entirely se- 
cluded until a personage of the highest rank 
was appointed to meet him, and accordingly 
communicated with the visitors only through 
his subordinate officers. The Japanese were 
now told that the Commodore bore a letter to 
the Emperor from the President of the United 
States, which he was prepared to deliver so soon 
as a proper person was appointed to receive it. 
To this they replied that Nagasaki, in the isl- 
and of Kiusou, was the only place where any 
such communication could be received, and that 
the ships must proceed there immediately. This 
being reported to the Commodore, he sent back 
an answer declaring that he would not go to 
Nagasaki ; and, moreover, if the authorities did 
not remove their boats, which were thronging 
about the ships, he would disperse them by force. 
This last piece of intelligence produced a very 
prompt effect, for the Vice-Governor of Uraga 
rose hurriedly on learning it, and going to the 
gangway beckoned the guard-boats away. In 
reference to the reception of the President's let- 
ter, the Japanese dignitary said he had nothing 
more to say, but that another personage of high- 
er rank would come next morning and confer 
with the Commodore about it. The Japanese 
now took their departure. 

The presence of the Americans in the bay of 
Yedo was evidently exciting a very lively appre- 
hension among those on shore, for guns were 
frequently firing, signal rockets shooting up into 
the air, soldiers parading about the batteries on 
the various headlands, and at night beacon fires 



were blazing and illumining the long extent of 
shore. In accordance with the Vice-Governor's 
promise, his superior, the (governor of Uraga, 
visited the Susquehanna next day, notwithstand- 
ing the former gentleman had said, at first, that 
he himself was the proper person, and that it 
was against the laws of Japan for the latter to 
board a foreign ship. But this kind of decep- 
tion is a recognized element of Japanese diplo- 
macy, and lying is an established function of Jap- 
anese official duty, so it was considered as a mat- 
ter of course, and the Commodore regulated his 
conduct accordingly. The Governor, who sent 
in his name upon his gigantic red card as Kaya- 
mon Yezaimon, was a more imposing personage 
than his Vice, and was robed in character with 
his great pretensions. He wore the usual Jap- 
anese loose gown, something like a clerical robe, 
which in his case was of rich silk, embroidered 
with a pattern of peacock feathers. In the sash 
which girded his waist were thrust the two 
swords of dignity, and on his head was a lac- 
quered cap, like a reversed basin, reminding one 
of Don Quixote's helmet of Mambrino. When 
he uncovered, the usual manner of dressing the 
hair was disclosed, in which the head is shaved 
from the forehead far back, while the locks at 
the sides and above the neck being allowed to 
grow to a great length, are drawn up, and, being 
plastered and anointed with pomatum, are fast- 
ened in a knot which is stuck to the bald spot 
on the top. Yezaimon was admitted to an in- 
terview, not, however, with the Commodore, 
who still preserved his dignified reserve, but 
with one of his captains. A long conversation 
ensued, in the course of which he was told very 
much the same things as had been said to his 
predecessor. He, finding that the Commodore 
was resolute in his declaration that he would 
not go to Nagasaki, promised to refer the sub- 
ject to the imperial government. Nagasaki, it 
will be recollected, is the place where the Dutch 
factory is established, and where the Japanese 
desire to confine all their relations with for- 
eigners under the same degrading restrictions 
as those to which the Hollanders have, for the 
sake of a little trade, so long and so discredit- 
ably submitted. 

The Commodore had sent out a number of 
boats, well armed, to survey the bay, and as they 
proceeded in their work, closing in with the 
land, troops of Japanese soldiers thronged the 
shores and the batteries, while fleets of govern- 
ment boats, with armed men under the com- 
mand of military officers, pushed out into the 
stream, with the apparent purpose of intercept- 
ing the surveyors. The American lieutenant 
who led the survey party ordered his men to 
rest upon their oars a while, and to adjust the 
caps to their pistols, that they might be prepared 
for what appeared to be the imminent prospect 
of a collision. The Japanese, however, observ- 
ing the resolute attitude of the strangers, sculled 
their trim boats fast away, and the Americans 
were left undisturbed in their labors. 

Yezaimon having observed the survey boats 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



4G3 



busy in the bay, expressed great anxiety, and 
declared that it was against the Japanese laws, 
to which he was answered that the American laws 
command it, and that the Americans were as 
much bound to obey the latter as his country- 
men were the former. The Commodore had 
every thing in battle array in case of a rupture ; 
he had cleared the decks, placed his guns in 
position and shotted them, put the small-arms 
into order, overhauled the ammunition, arranged 
the sentinels, and had done all that was usual be- 
fore meeting an enemy. Not that the Commo- 
dore anticipated actual hostilities, but that he was 
resolved to be on the alert in case of an emer- 
gency, knowing that the best means of avoiding 
war was to be well prepared for it. The Japa- 
nese on their part were no less engaged in busy 
preparation, furbishing up their forts and ex- 
tending long stretches of black canvas to either 
side, with the view of giving them a more for- 
midable aspect, not conscious apparently that 
the telescopes from the ships' decks disclosed 
all their sham contrivances for effect. The Jap- 
anese soldiers showed themselves in great force 
about the batteries, glittering in their gay robes 
of bright blue and red, while their lacquered 
caps, and tall spears, shone brightly in the 
sun's light. Numbers of government boats also 
thronged the neighboring shores. 

After the most provoking and tedious nego- 
tiation with the Governor of Uraga, who almost 
daily visited the Susquehanna, and pertinaciously 
offered every obstacle in his power to the Com- 
modore's resolute determination to be received 
by a proper personage to whom he might deliver 
the President's letter, it was at last reluctantly 
decided by the Government of Japan that the 
Commodore's wish should be complied with. 
Accordingly, Thursday, the 14th of July, 1853, 
was the day appointed for an interview. It was 
only by the Commodore's urgent demand, and 
the threat that he would carry the President's 
letter to Yedo and deliver it in person, that the 
authorities were prevailed upon to intermit their 
tedious and prevaricating diplomacy, and, after 
a delay of four days, to fix the time for the re- 
ception on shore. 

"I will wait until Tuesday, the 12th of July, 
and no longer," were the emphatic words of the 
Commodore, and on that day the answer of the 
Emperor came, appointing, as we have seen, the 
subsequent Thursday for the reception. 

A small village, called Gori-hama, about a 
Japanese mile south of Uraga, had been selected 
for the interview, and accordingly, when the 
day arrived, the two steamers were moved down 
the boy opposite the place, and anchored in a 
position by which their guns could command 
the landing. The Japanese had erected a tem- 
porary building of pine-wood, the three-peaked 
roofs of which rose high above the houses of the 
neighboring village. White canvas, painted in 
Squares with black stripes, covered the building 
and stretched a long distance to either side. 
Nine tall standards of a rich crimson cloth, sur- 
rounded by a crowd of variegated colored flags, 



were distributed along the beach in front, while 
troops of Japanese soldiers, to the number of 
five thousand or more, were arrayed in line be- 
hind. The hills and country in the neighbor- 
hood were thronged with people. As the steam- 
ers came to anchor, two Japanese boats sculled 
alongside the Susquehanna, and Kayama Yezai- 
mon, the Governor of Uraga, accompanied by 
two interpreters, came on board, immediately 
followed by Nagasima Saboroske, the Vice-Gov- 
ernor, with an attendant. They were dressed 
in full official costume. Saboroske was the 
dandy of the occasion, and shone brilliantly in 
his loose robe of gayly-colored and richly em- 
broidered silk, with its back, sleeves, and breasts 
all covered with armorial quarterings, like a her- 
ald-at-arms. He had rather a comical look, as 
he a ent, with his usual curiosity, poking about 
every where, and with his cunning vivacity 
seemed, in his gay bedizenment, very like an 
uncommonly brilliant knave of trumps. He 
wore, in addition to his splendid robe, a pair of 
very short but wide trowsers, Avhile his legs be- 
low were partly naked and partly covered with 
black woolen socks. His feet were encased in 
white sandals, and his head was covered with 
the ordinary reversed hat, shining with lacquer 
and adorned with gilded ornaments. 

Every thing being now in readiness for the 
landing, some fifteen boats left the ships load- 
ed down with officers, marines, and sailors. 
One of the captains, who had the command of 
the day, led the van in his barge, flanked on 
either side by the two Japanese boats contain- 
ing the Governor and Vice-Governor of Uraga 
and their suites. The others followed in order, 
accompanied by the two bands of music, which 
struck up a series of enlivening tunes. A tem- 
porary wharf of straw and sand had been built 
out from the shore, where the boats now disem- 
barked in succession their various loads, and fell 
back in line to either side. The marines and 
sailors were ranged in rank and file along the 
beach, and awaited the coming of the Commo- 
dore, who was the last to set out. He now came 
in his state barge, amidst the salvo of thirteen 
guns from his flag-ship, and immediately after 
landing upon the wharf was escorted up the 
beach to the house of reception by his body- 
guard, the various officers, the marines, and 
sailors who formed the procession. 

The Americans, it must be allowed, made 
quite a formidable appearance with their force, 
which amounted, all told, to nearly four hun- 
dred. The marines were in full uniform of 
blue and white, and, with their thorough mili- 
tary discipline, their neat muskets, and glisten- 
ing bayonets, presented quite an effective ap- 
pearance as they marched in front. The Jack 
tars who followed, swinging in their nautical 
gait and dressed in their neat navy frocks and 
saucy-looking tarpaulins, were fine manly fel- 
lows, and contrasted greatly with the effeminate- 
looking Japanese about. The United States 
flag was borne by two tall, broad-shouldered 
sailors, who had been picked out of the whole 



464 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




FIRST LANDING AT GOKAHAMA, JAPAN. 



squadron for their stalwart proportions. These 
were immediately followed by two boys, dressed 
rather fancifully for the occasion, who bore, 
wrapped in a scarlet cloth envelope, the box 
which contained the Commodore's credentials 
and the President's letter. These documents 
were beautifully inscribed on vellum of folio 
size, and bound in blue silk velvet. The seals 
were attached by cords of silk and gold termin- 
ating in gold tassels, and encased in circular 
boxes, six inches in diameter and three in depth, 
beautifully wrought of solid gold. The box 
which contained the documents was of rose- 
wood, with gold mountings. The Commodore 
came immediately after, in full uniform, flanked 
on either side by a tall negro armed to the teeth 
— the two being the best-looking fellows that 
could be found. . The various officers of the 
squadron followed in succession according to 
their rank, and thus the procession readied the 
entrance of the Reception House, where the 
marines and sailors halting, formed two lines, 
between which the Commodore and his officers 
passed up and entered the building. The house 
showed in its bare timbers marks of hasty erec- 
tion, but it was handsomely adorned for the oc- 
casion. The first apartment was a large recep- 
tion hall, spread with thick, soft mats of rice 
straw, and its walls hung with cotton hangings 
adorned with representations of the crane — the 
sacred bird of Japan. Along the sides were 
divans covered with red cloth ; and through the 
centre of the floor was extended a strip of red 
carpet, whiclr led to an inner recess, raised, like 
a dais, several steps higher than the outer hall. 
This inner compartment was fitted up with 
hangings of silk and fine cotton, upon which the 
imperial arms, consisting of the three leaves of 



the common clover joined together in a circle, 
were embroidered in white. The Commodore 
and his suite advanced to the raised dais, and 
were conducted to the seats which had been 
prepared for them on the left, the place of hon- 
or with the Japanese. On the right were the 
two princes who had been appointed by the im- 
perial government to receive the President's 
letter. They were both venerable-looking men, 
with white beards and thoughtful expressions of 
face. As the Commodore entered, they rose 
and bowed, but did not utter a word ; and, in 
fact, during the whole interview they remain- 
ed as silent as statues. These dignitaries were 
richly robed in garments of heavy silk brocade, 
interwoven Avith gold and silver ornaments, and 
made quite an effective appearance. Near them 
stood a large lacquered box, of a bright red col- 
or, supported on feet made of brass ; and on 
either side of this box Yezaimon and the inter- 
preter, Tatsnoske, took their positions, crouched 
upon their knees. These prostrate gentlemen 
acted as masters of ceremonies on the occasion, 
and moved about with exceeding liveliness, not- 
withstanding that their humble attitude, whicli 
they preserved throughout, prevented the use 
of their legs. 

Tatsnoske having announced the names of 
the princes as Toda-idzu-no-Kami — Toda, Prince 
of Idzu, and Ido-iw ami-no- Kami — Ido, Prince oi 
Iwami, there was a momentary pause, as if to 
give the Commodore an opportunity to recover 
from the effects of so imposing an announce- 
ment. Business then commenced by the Jap- 
anese interpreter asking if the letters were 
ready for delivery, and pointing at the red box 
as the proper receptacle for them. The Com- 
modore accordingly called in his pages from the 



COMMODORE PEERY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



46£ 




A JAPANESE MACKINTOSH. 



lower hall who carried the documents, and they, 
obeying the summons, marched up, followed by 
the two tall negro guards. They were then di- 
rected to place the papers upon the red box pre- 
pared to receive them, which they did, and the 
business of the day was done. The Commodore, 
bowing formally, now arose and returned to the 
ship with the same ceremony as when he left. 

Yezaimon Saboroske and Tatsnoske accompa- 
nied the Americans on board, and were readily 
persuaded to take a sail on the Susquehanna up 
the bay. Yezaimon was always a great favorite 
with the Americans, as, in addition to the usual 
well-bred courtesy of his countrymen, he had a 
great deal of bonhomie, which induced him to 
share freely in the good-fellowship of the naval 
officers. With all his friendliness he showed a 
gentlemanly reserve, and in this respect differ- 
ed from the Vice-Governor, Saboroske, who was 
pert and rudely inquisitive. Every thing on 
board ship was now shown to the Japanese, and 
they exhibited an intelligent curiosity about all 
they saw. While the engine of the steamer was 
in motion they examined with great interest 
every part of the machinery, and by their ques- 
tions showed a certain familiarity with the 
power of steam. They asked, for example, 
whether it was a smaller machine of the same 
kind as the ship's engine which was used in 
America on those roads that are cut through 
the mQuntains, evidently alluding to our rail- 
roads. They wanted to know who first invent- 
ed steamers, and what was the greatest speed 
they reached. Upon a globe being presented 
to them, they pointed out New York and Wash- 
ington, and also the various principal states of 
Europe, proving a very accurate knowledge on 
their part of the geographical distribution of the 
earth. The revolvers on board pleased them 
particularly, and they asked to have them fired 
off. On the arrival of the steamers off Uraga 
the Japanese left in their boats, which had been 
towed at the stern of the Susquehanna, and ex- 
pressed great regret at taking what they sup- 
posed was their last farewell. 

The steamers being r ow joined by the Sara- 
Vor, XIL— No. 7 >.— G o 



toga and Plymouth, which vessels had weighed 
their anchors in readiness, the whole squadron 
moved up the bay in line. A good opportunity 
was thus obtained of seeing the country on both 
sides, and nothing could be more beautiful than 
the varied scene of cultivated fields, terraced 
gardens, groves of spreading trees, rich valleys, 
green hillsides, and populous villages which 
presented itself as the ships passed along the 
shore. They first crossed to the eastern side ; 
then returned to the western side, where they 
finally came to anchor in a beautiful spot, which 
had already been carefully surveyed, and was 
now called for the first time the "American 
Anchorage." Great consternation was created 
on land by this movement ; but although the 
soldiers thronged the numerous batteries, and 
the government boats pulled out into the bay, 
there was no attempt to interfere forcibly with 
the squadron. Yezaimon and Tatsnoske, how- 
ever, as soon as the anchors were dropped, 
sculled up alongside the Susquehanna in great 
haste, and hurried aboard, asking anxiously, 
" Why do your ships anchor here ?" They 
were, however, soon quieted when they discov- 
ered that all they had to say was not likely to 
produce much effect upon the Commodore, who 
merely told them that as he was to return in 
the spring, he wished to obtain a good anchor- 
age for his vessels. After a few words of pro- 
test on the one side and explanation on the 
other, the whole matter dropped, and was very 
agreeably relieved by the entrance of a supply 
of refreshments. Yezaimon was always pre- 
pared to take his part in any conviviality on 
hand, and seemed now to enjoy keenly the 
ship's biscuit, the ham and cold tongue, and 
especially the whisky. As the Japanese rose 
to go, they crammed into their spacious sleeves 
pieces of the bread and ham, and other rem- 
nants of the feast, and took leave in the most 
courtly and friendly manner. 

The Commodore on the next day transferred 
his flag to the Mississippi, and pushed his way 
to a distance within seven miles of Yedo, so 
near, in fact, that he could distinctly see the 
suburb although not the capital itself, for a pro- 
jecting promontory hid it from view. There 
was no interruption to the progress of the 
steamer, but evidently great interest excited on 
shore, as the inhabitants crowded down to the 
water's edge in multitudes, and the troops 
thronged about the batteries. On the Missis- 
sippi returning to her anchorage, Yezaimon 
came on board, bringing with him some pres- 
ents for the Commodore of no great value, but 
interesting as specimens of Japanese workman- 
ship. There were a few wooden cups beauti- 
fully polished with their famous lacquer, some, 
pieces of fine silks, and several grotesquely or- 
namented fans. These were only accepted on 
the condition that something of at least equal 
value should be received in return, which, after 
some demur on the part of Yezaimon, was finally 
complied with. As the squadron was to leave 
the bav of Yedo next dar Yezaimon and Tats- 



466 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



noske expressed their regret that the time for 
parting with their American friends had arrived, 
and did their best to drown their grief in the 
abundant supplies of wine and whisky which cir- 
culated on that occasion. The Japanese grew 
very affectionate, and particularly Yezaimon, 
who not only drank much Champagne, but was, 
oddly enough, the most pathetic of the party ; he 
avowed that when his American friends should 
leave he would be obliged to relieve himself in 
a gush of tears. Tatsnoske became rather con- 
fidential than tender, and hinted, with a know- 
ing look and with a very diplomatic whisper, 
that all would be well, as he could aver on the 
best authority, with the President's letter. When 
these jovial Japanese rose to leave, they shook 
hands with every man that happened to be 
within sight, and then descended reluctantly 
into their boat alongside, bowing at every step. 
No sooner were those worthies seated on their 
mats in their boat, than Yezaimon ordered one 
of the cases of wine which had been presented 
to him to be opened, and taking out a bottle, 
commenced drinking a parting health to his 
American friends. On the next morning (Sun- 
day, July 17th, 1853), the Commodore set sail 
for Napa, having spent just seventeen days in 
the bay of Yedo. This was the duration of his 
first visit; his second, with its important conse- 
quences and interesting developments, we may 
relate at some future time. 




THE STORY OF 
THE WHALE. 

TWO-THIRDS of the sur- 
face of the earth are cov- 
ered by the ever restless waves 
of the sea. The dark -green 
water, like a thick atmosphere, is settled upon 
valleys and mountains, including landscapes as 
diversified and grand as were ever witnessed 
from the peaks of the Andes or the Alps. Stand- 
ing upon the solid earth, we behold its broken 
and varied surface covered with forests and 
cities ; animated life is every where visible ; the 
air is filled with birds of gay plumage, the land 



is crowded with active beings, and the mind of 
man is overwhelmed with wonder and admira- 
tion at the visible works of creation. Could 
we behold the mysteries of the great deep as 
we can those of the more buoyant air, we should 
see shells that outrival in beauty the choicest 
flowers of the field — plants which rejoice in rai- 
ment of purple and gold, and myriad gems "of 
purest ray serene." We should witness strange 
glimpses of sunshine and storm amidst the bold 
cliffs, the undulating valleys, and the coral reefs ; 
we should behold in these vast depths thousands 
of living creatures, and, through the media of 
this lower world, would be seen sporting upon 
pinions apparently as light as air, not the eagle, 
the hawk, and the singing-bird, but the gay dol- 
phin, the voracious shark, and the mighty levi- 
athan. 

The ocean is indeed richer in treasure than 
the land — its great characteristic is abundance. 
Its inexhaustible wealth, without any apparent 
decrease and with but little labor, supplies food 
and luxuries for millions : it knows no stint ; 
famine never visits its domain ; yet, withal, its 
appetite is insatiable, and its dark, unfathomed 
caves are sepulchres, most dread and mysterious, 
where lie not only untold treasures, but, without 
head-stone or record, sleep" accumulated indi- 
viduals and nations. In this domain of water, 
which is not like the land divided into parts, 
but is one great whole, exists an animal of 
characteristic proportions, whose gigantic struc- 
ture demands the universal waste for a sporting 
ground ; for, in search of its food, it moves from 
zone to zone ; at one time basking beneath the 
torrid heats of the equator, and then suddenly 
appearing among the desert fields of ice in the 
farthest North — of all created living things the 
mightiest — of all game pursued b} r the destruc 
tive hand of man the most sublime. 

A love for the chase is the most deeply-im- 
planted sentiment of the human heart, and it 
gives rise to the most exciting employment of 
the human faculties. Its practice has been the 
best preserver of freedom ; for no nation has 
ever been enslaved so long as its strong men 
used the bow, the spear, or the rifle in con- 
flict with the wild beasts of prey. Heroes of 
all times have been hunters ; the ability to de- 
stroy has given birth to the power to defend. 
Upon the great trysting-ground of the illimita- 
ble sea, even more than upon land, we behold 
the majesty of the chase; for its bosom has al- 
ways been the nursery of the strong arm and 
the defiant spirit ; for even when universal peace 
prevails on shore, the battle for life upon the 
ocean still goes on. 

Crushed as may become the wild nature of 
man under the enervating influences of cities 
and traffic, still there are thousands who, not 
content with gain realized in the usual way from 
the avaricious hand of trade — who, although 
willing to labor, still feel restless because they 
have no formidable obstacles to overcome, no 
perils to encounter, except such as grow out of 
the befouled intricacies of licentious civilization. 



THE STORY OF THE WHALE. 



467 



It is such men who seek excitement in war — 
who become the champions of the oppressed, or, 
mingling a love of gain with adventurous dis- 
position, look out upon the imperiled seas, and, 
by a happy conception, unite together the pur- 
suits of the wild man with the necessities of the 
civilized race, gather wealth in the face of dan- 
ger, and snatch a subsistence from the impend- 
ing jaws of death — this spirit originated and 
still maintains the conquest of the whale, re- 
ducing his huge carcass to the purposes of com- 
merce and the wants of man. 




I. Hand Harpoon. 2. Pricker. 3. Blubber Spade. 
4. Gun Harpoon. 5. Lance. 

IMPLEMENTS USED IN WHALING. 

The Cetacea, or the Whale kind, closely re- 
"semble in shape the fishes, and, until quite re- 
cently, have been confounded among them by 
naturalists. We well remember the shower of 
ridicule that was dispensed upon an American 
savan, when he announced that the whale be- 
longed to the quadrupeds ! 

Fishy as the whale may appear, it is essen- 
tially different, and belongs, in the order of cre- 
ation, to the mammalia. It is dependent for 
life upon breathing the upper air, is filled with 
warm, red blood, possesses a double system for 
its circulation, and brings forth its young alive. 
It is impossible from any description, however 
perfect, to form any clear idea of the magnitude 
or shape of the whale ; nor can we be made to 
comprehend it by any familiar comparison. The 



hugest beast by its side makes little more im- 
pression than the tiny mouse ; for the largest- 
sized whales have within themselves the fat, the 
bone, and the muscle of near a thousand head 
of cattle. Sporting upon the surface of the 
ocean, it is as graceful as the trout of the mount- 
ain stream ; it skims along the water with ra- 
pidity ; it disports in the sun ; it stems the 
mountain wave; and, in its joyous exultation, 
leaps bodily into the air ; but, like the hull of 
the noble ship, if stranded upon the shore, it 
becomes a wreck in form, helpless, and totally 
unlike the thing it was in life. The industry 
of the showman has exposed to our gaze the 
giants of the land. The elephant is caged and 
trained ; but we may as soon expect the islands 
of the sea to be uprooted from their founda- 
tions, and borne triumphant through our cities, 
as to look for the full-grown living whale. 

The voyager, either for business or pleasure, 
when out upon the ocean, is often startled by 
the announcement, "There are whales!" Every 
eye is strained along the horizon, and, perchance, 
a dim puff of mist may be seen, blowing off to 
the windward, no more tangible than an infant's 
breath greeting the frosty morn. Still that phe- 
nomenon grows mighty when it is considered 
how many miles over the dreary waste of wa- 
ters intervene, between the lungs that respired 
it and the intelligent mind that marked the ef- 
fect; such, however, is the unsatisfactory view 
that most of us have of whales. 

The body of every species of whale is re- 
markable for its covering of fat. They are nat- 
urally disposed to take on this quality, so pe- 
culiar to lymphatic temperaments when well 
fed ; hence it is that the porpoises have been 
termed the Aldermen of fish. This fat, called 
by the sailors " blubber," lies between the skin 
and muscles, and in the right and sperm whale 
varies from four to twenty inches in thickness, 
and supplies the oil so well known to commerce. 
It is of a coarse texture, and much harder than 
the fat of pork. So very full of oil is it that a 
cask closely packed with clean, raw blubber, 
will not — as has been frequently shown by ex- 
periment — contain the oil and scraps extracted 
by heat. This coat, which wraps the fish as in 
a blanket, has several important uses. It ren- 
ders the specific gravity of the animal lighter, 
serves as a non-conductor against the effects of 
cold, and protects the internal organs when the 
fish comes in collision with hard bodies, or suf- 
fers in diving from the supposed tremendous 
pressure of the sea. 

The family of the cetacea are wonderful for 
their swiftness in the water, and yet their sole 
propelling power is in the tail. Unlike the fish, 
instead of being perpendicular, this important 
member lies horizontally upon the water, am! 
is used with an up and down motion instead of 
from side to side. In the whale the tail, which 
is fifteen feet wide, is called its "flukes," and 
it is wielded in all directions with astonishing 
power and velocity. It not only drives the an- 
imal through the water, but is its wenpon of 



468 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



defense. Where the flukes join the body the 
latter is very small, yet it is found that this di- 
ameter is occupied with unnumbered tendons 
connected with every part of the gigantic struc- 
ture. Hence its facile power, its seeming in- 
telligence. The trunk of the elephant contains 
forty thousand muscles, the tail of the whale is 
composed of a still greater number. We have 
already alluded to the speed of the dolphin and 
the activity of the porpoise ; of the whale, it has 
been asserted by Toussenel that he could cir- 
cumnavigate the globe in fifteen days. This is, 
no doubt, an imagination ; but they perform tre- 
mendous journeys in little time, passing from 
the tropics to the poles, and from sea to sea, 
without an effort and without fatigue. The 
whale, guided by the wisdom of the Creator, 
annually passes to the East Indies, by way of 
the North Pole, and accomplishes, in the very 
enjoyment of its existence, what has baffled the 
wisdom of man — has sent Parry, discouraged, 
to his shipping port, and numbered the lament- 
ed Franklin among the dead. 

In the creation of the whale, it would seem 
that such a giant, in order to sustain life, would 
soon depopulate even the teeming ocean, and 
that his voracity would necessarily cause him to 
be the tyrant of his domain. An animal which 
can with its closing jaws crush, as an egg-shell, 
the sides of a whale-boat — which can with a 
single headlong rush break in the oaken planks 
< >f our stoutest ships, who could oppose ? Yet 
the whale, with all this power, if left undis- 
turbed, is one of the most harmless creatures 
of the great deep. 




THE DOLPHIN. 

To the cetacea belong the dolphin, the por- 
poise, and the narwhal. The dolphins have 
had the fortune of being idolized by the poets, 
and at the same time they have been cruelly 
distorted by the painter and sculptor. Their 
length varies from six to ten feet, and they are 
among the most expert swimmers of the sea. 
Great numbers are said to inhabit the river St. 
Lawrence ; and amidst the severest storms 
they breast the waves against the wind with all 
the speed that characterizes their movements 
when the elements are at rest. The porpoise 
is quite familiar, as it frequents the bays and in- 
lets of our coast. It is active, fleet, and vora- 
cious. When the shoals of herring and other 
fish periodically visit our shores, they are har- 
assed by the porpoise, which at these times 
revels in a perpetual feast. Their momentary 
appearance above the surface of the water is for 
the purpose of breathing; this accomplished, 



they plunge down again in search of food. In 
former times the flesh of this animal was esteem- 
ed a most acceptable luxury on the tables of the 
great ; it is still something of a favorite with the 
sailors suffering from the privations of a long 
voyage, and rejoices in the name of "sea beef." 




THE TORPOISE. 

Away over on Long Island, where the At- 
lantic surf beats an eternal requiem for the lost 
mariner, lives an old fisherman who has met 
with strange adventures among the smaller in- 
habitants of the sea. He tells a tale of a por- 
poise which went " prospecting" up a little nar- 
row-mouthed cove, which at high tide formed 
a miniature bay. Determined to secure the ad- 
venturous animal, he moored his little sloop in 
such a way that, when the tide fell, it left its hull 
a strong barricade grounded in the mud across 
the entire entrance of the cove. It was not long 
before the porpoise saw the necessity of a speedy 
retreat, and it came rushing down the gradual- 
ly shallowing water, and drove its head plump 
against the side of the vessel. Numerous 
charges of buckshot were poured into its eyes 
and head, while it was making its oft-repeated 
efforts to escape underneath the obstruction in 
the way of its passage to deep water. Not to 
be thwarted, as a last resort, it deliberately re- 
treated a few score feet, and gathering headway, 
made a flying leap over the sloop, and landed 
safely in the dark and deep sea beyond. 

The narwhal, which grows to the length of 
thirty or forty feet, strangely differs from the 
other members of its family in having an im- 
mense spiral tusk projecting from the front of 
its head. In old times this weapon was unwit- 
tingly used to propagate a singular error; occa- 
sionally, through the channels of commerce, 
finding their way from the northern seas to the 
civilized portions of Europe, they passed for the 
veritable horn of the unicorn, and as an accred- 
ited part of that heraldic animal they command- 
ed high prices. The use of this tusk to the an- 
imal is not known ; no evidence exists that it is 
for destructive purposes, yet its strength is very 
great — sufficient to penetrate the oak timbers of 
a ship. Unless the narwhal should become 
an object of especial interest in the adventurous 
pursuits of commerce, it will ever remain but 
imperfectly known. 

The sperm whale, which is exclusively con- 
fined to the tropics, is the most interesting of 
the family, not only on account of his immense 
size and superior intelligence, but also for his 
great value in supplying the wants of mankind. 
In form the animal seems shapeless when com- 



THE STORY OF THE WHALE. 



469 



pared with any other species of fish, 
his head forming one-third of his 
whole length ; his skin, which is of a 
deep blue, is represented as having a 
lean and shriveled appearance, and 
wrinkled from the eye to the flukes, 
so as to resemble the surface of the 
ocean when the wind breaks it into 
riffs. It is a proverb among whalers, 
however, that the rougher and more 
out of condition the animal looks, the 
greater will be the amount of fat upon 
liis ribs. He has but one "spout hole" 
through which the breath is forced, 
giving out at the same time a misty 
cloud resembling a whiff of tobacco- 
smoke. These " spouts" have a pic- 
turesque effect when contrasted with 
the blue expanse against which they 
are relieved, and from the " mast- 
head" can be seen eight or ten miles. 
This whale is never taken on sound- 
ings, and though often seen near land, 
it is where there is a bold shore and great depth 
of sea. Their power of vision is exceedingly 
limited; they can not see directly ahead of them, 
and hence, when alarmed, they often run foul 
of each other, and sometimes against the boats 
engaged in their pursuit, becoming perfectly 
terrified at their inability to discover where the 
danger lies. Their hearing, however, is ex- 
traordinary; not unfrequently, in large shoals, 
covering a vast expanse, the instant one is at- 
tacked every whale for miles around springs up, 
shoots his head out of the water, and listens. 
If a female has been struck, unconscious of 
danger they rush to the rescue; if a male is 
the victim, the shoal generally runs off, and is 
soon out of sight. 

The ordinary speed of the whale is ten miles 
an hour, but when alarmed he will go fifteen. 
When a number are pursued — and they gener- 
ally go in shoals — they will move like a troop 
of horse, descend and come up to the surface 




w£-\ ■< < - v ,'Y— - -% 



u : n A ^ * 



THE NARWHAL. 






W^ 




SPEEM WHALE. 



together, and then in unison blow off their con- 
fined breath. A shoal generally contains thirty 
or forty, and occasionally three or four hundred 
will be together. If one is found alone it is a 
male, and generally of the largest size. The. 
"cows," which are all comparatively small, herd 
together, accompanied by a large " bull," which 
the whalers designate as their king. If not 
alarmed, the animal sinks quietly out of sight, 
but if otherwise he goes down perpendicularly, 
throwing the flukes high in the air, evidently to 
give the downward intent increased accelera- 
tion. Ordinarily the whale remains under wa- 
ter ten, or fifteen minutes, but when endeavor- 
ing to hide away from its pursuers it keeps 
under the surface, according to the experience 
of most whalemen, just one hour. The impres- 
sion that the eye of the whale is small, being 
but little larger than that of the ox, evidently 
arises from the contrast with the immense head, 
for the skeleton — seventy-two feet in length — 
which was for many years exhibited in 
London, presented sockets eighteen 
inches in diameter. The interior 
of the head of this enormous struc- 
ture would hold thirty persons, while 
fifty men could find convenient stand- 
ing-places within the ribs of the 
>^ chest. 

Mjbjj^ The fat or "blubber" of the sperm 

whale does not differ from the other 
1 species ; it is the head alone which 
furnishes the substance so familiar in 
the form of wax candles. This sperm 
is found in a large cistern, the base 
of which rests upon the roof of the 
whale's mouth, and extends upward 
from nine to twelve feet. This " case" 
having been well secured to the ship's 
side, a hole is cut in the top of the 
skull, and the substance — of a delicate 
rose color, and of the consistency of 
cream — is dipped out with buckets, 



470 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




PURSUIT OF THE SPERM WHALK 



sometimes amounting to sixteen or twenty bar- 
rels. 

The right, or Greenland whale, differs mate- 
rially from the one we have imperfectly de- 
scribed. The sperm is an inhabitant of warm 
latitudes. Lieutenant Maury discovered that 
the torrid zone is to the right whale as a sea 
of fire, through which it could not pass. The 
" feed" of this species is one of the miracles of 
nature : it is a soft, gelatinous substance, com- 




THE GREENLAND WHALE. 



posed of particles which are often too small to 
be discovered by the naked eye. In the Green- 
land and Arctic oceans, in its massive forms, it 
is visible for miles, and abundant enough to im- 
pede the progress of a ship. By the aid of a 
microscope it has been found to give the oln*e- 
green color peculiar to those seas ; and hence 
the amount of the medusan animalculoe which 
they contain not only exceeds calculation, but 
the number is beyond the range of human 
words and conceptions. The quan- 
tity of this mysterious substance ne- 
cessary to sustain the whale may be 
dimly imagined ; the machinery na- 
ture has devised for gathering it to 
gether, that the animal may appropri- 
ate it to its own use, can not suffi- 
ciently call forth our admiration. 
The size of the toothless mouth of 
the right whale may be faintly com- 
prehended, when it is known that the 
lower jaw makes a Gothic arch for a 
gateway sufficiently large for a man 
to drive through on horseback. Tc 
the roof of this mouth is attached 
the elastic substance known as whale- 
bone. This material is in broad 
pieces, from six to eight feet long, 
and so arranged that one strip lies 
against another, like the slabs of a Ve- 
netian blind, the whole together form* 
ing an immense sieve. The tongue 



THE STORY OF THE WHALE. 



471 






JAW OF THE GREENLAND WHALE. 



WHALEBONE. 

which contains about five barrels of oil, rests 
beneath, and resembles a large cushion of white 
satin. The animal, if disposed to break his fast, 
rushes open-mouthed along the water containing 
the "feed," which forces the medusae through 
the sieve we have described, leaving them en- 
tangled in its meshes. The amount thus en- 
trapped being deemed sufficient, the huge mouth 
is closed, the surplus water is spouted off 
through two orifices in the top of the animal's 
head, flying into the air sometimes thirty, and 

sometimes fif- 
ty feet ; the 
"feed" is then 
collected to- 
gether by the 
tongue, and 
carried down 
the throat, which the sailors say is so small 
that it would be choked by a penny loaf. 

The velocity of this whale when wounded is 
very great. Captain Scoresby harpooned one 
which descended four hundred fathoms, at the 
rate of eight miles an hour. Suffering from the 
pain of wounds they often, in spite of the pre- 
sumed pressure of water upon their sides, reach 
much greater depths, bruising themselves against 
the rocks they encounter, and in some instances 
fracturing their jaws against' the hard bed of the 
ocean. 

The right whales associate in pairs, and ex- 
hibit great attachment for each other; the "bull" 
is gallant and daring in defense of his consort. 
Captain Anderson saw two in company, and 
succeeded in striking one after it had made a 
long and severe resistance. Among the evi- 
dences of its determination was the destruction 
of a large boat with a single blow of its tail. 
The companion whale lent every assistance in 
its power, until finding its mate was sinking un- 
der its wounds, the faithful creature disdained 
to survive the loss, and stretched itself over the 
slain, and, without offering any resistance, shared 
its fate. 

The whale rarely brings forth more than one 
voung at a time, which the mother nurses with 



the greatest care, even after it has at- 
tained the length of thirty feet. At its 
birth the " calf" is twelve feet long, and 
weighs a ton. The intense affection 
displayed by the cow whale for its pro- 
geny has ever been the theme of admi- 
ration. Captain Scoresby relates that, 
having struck a calf in hopes of secur- 
ing the mother (a plan often most cru- 
elly pursued), she rose and wrapped 
her fins, or rather " flippers," around 
it, as a mother would fold her child in 
her arms, and instantly dived, dragging 
about a hundred fathoms of line rapidly 
from the boat. Suddenly she came to 
the surface, furiously darting to and 
fro, and charging in every direction, ex- 
hibiting all the while the signs of the 
most intense agony and solicitude. For 
some time she thus continued to act, 
and although closely pursued by the boats, her 
care for her young made her entirely regard- 
less of the danger that menaced on every side. 
After several fruitless trials, she was finally 
harpooned, but even then, in spite of her suffer- 
ings, she made no effort for her own protection, 
but clung to her young until the cruel harpoon 
put an end to her solicitude by death. 

There is another species of gigantic whale 
called the fin-back, specimens of which have 
been killed measuring nearly a hundred feet 
in length. From the fact that it is more rest- 
less, more apprehensive, and fiercer than other 
whales, and yields but little oil, it contributes but 
little to the wants of man. Such is its speed 
when harpooned, that it has been known to snap 
the line, and it is rarely under any circumstan- 
ces captured. In the year 1827 a fin-back, nine- 
ty-five feet in length, stranded in a storm upon 
the beach at Ostend. Its gross weight was cal- 
culated to be five hundred thousand pounds. Its 
skeleton alone, which was taken to Paris, weigh- 
ed seventy thousand pounds. Baron Cuvier, 
and other French savans who assisted in the 
dissection of this whale, from certain appear- 
ances in the small bones of its extremities, gave 
it as their opinion that the whale must have 
been a thousand years old. 




FLTFI'EU OF THE WHALE. 



A cosmopolitan, in a recently published work, 
relates the following incident as coming under 
his own observation : " No visitor in the harbor 
of Muscat is more warmly welcomed by the na- 



472 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



tives than ' Muscat Tom.' Thisname has been 
given by the sailors to a male fin-back whale, 
which has made a habitual practice, for over 
forty years, to enter the harbor, feed and frolic 
about the cove several hours each day, always 
leaving before night. Sometimes a smaller one 
of his tribe, supposed to be a female, accom- 
panies him. His length is about seventy-five 
feet, that of his companion fifty. Since his ar- 
x'ival signalizes the departure of the sharks which 
infest the waters of the harbor, to the preven- 
tion of sea-bathing by the natives, the most 
strenuous caution is observed not to interfere 
with his pursuits and diversions : thus left to 
himself, he displays no fear of the vessels that 
are constantly trespassing on his watery do- 
main. 

The whale is subject to many infirmities, such 
as blindness, deformities of the jaws, and dyspep- 
sia! The loss of sight, which is not uncom- 
mon, seems to have no evil effect on his gen- 
eral health, but indigestion reduces him to the 
most miserable extremity. An ancient marin- 
er writes " That he did once catch a whale that 
was very feeble, so that all his skin, but chiefly 
that near the tail and fins, hung like rags be- 
hind him, and he was so very lean that there 
could be very little train-oil made from his fat." 
In early times ambergris was considered a spe- 
cific for many ills that flesh is heir to, and is 
still esteemed by some nations both as a spice 
and a perfume. The mystery attending its pro- 
duction, no doubt, proved a source of attraction, 
and as it was only found floating upon the sea, 
a thousand fanciful theories were constructed 
regarding its origin. An attenuated whale was 
struck by a Nantucket seaman, and the monster 
in its dying throes ejected from its stomach a 
large piece of ambergris, and thus, to the aston- 
ishment of the curious, it proved the product 
of disease. Large masses, weighing from sixty 
to two hundred and twenty-five pounds, have 
sometimes been found floating in those regions 
frequented by the sperm whale. 

In the whale the blood is more abundant than 
in any other animal, and the machinery neces- 
sary for its circulation may be imagined when 
it is known that the great aorta of the largest 
animals is but little less in diameter than the 
distributing pipes of the Croton water-works. 
The contents of a river, as they go roaring through 
those artificial passages, must be inferior in im- 
petus and velocity to the stream of life rushing 
from the whale's heart when his passions are 
roused, and his pulse beats high in conflict with 
his enemies. How it was that the whale, with 
such a prodigious stream of blood, and so im- 
peratively needing the oxygenation of the air, 
•could remain under water an hour was difficult 
to explain, until dissection revealed the fact, 
that in the cetaceous animals, the arterial blood 
instead of passing the venous circulation the or- 
dinary way, was provided with a grand reser- 
voir, the contents of which could be emptied 
into the general circulation, and thus for a time 
make respiration unnecessary. It is possible 



that the penetration of these cells by the har- 
poon or lance may have something to do with 
the animals occasionally sinking after being 
killed — a phenomenon not yet clearly explained. 

The whale is known to have three natural 
enemies ; the " killer," itself one of the cetaceae, 
is perhaps the most destructive. Its appear- 
ance among a shoal of sperm whales will fill 
them with consternation, and scatter them in 
all directions. Lieutenant Wilkes witnessed a 
combat between these animals, in which he saw 
a killer about twenty feet long fastened to the 
lower jaw of the whale, precisely as a bull-dog 
seizes an ox. The persecuted monster, with 
mouth wide open in agony, threw himself en- 
tirely out of the water, the enemy still hanging 
on, the blood streaming about in all directions, 
and discoloring the sea. The killer, having 
worried its victim to death, eats only the tongue, 
and leaves the huge carcass a prey to the sharks, 
and the no less voracious birds. It has been 
known to capture a whale from a ship's com- 
pany, by seizing hold of the dead body and drag- 
ging it under the water. The sword-fish and 
the thrasher have different ways of attacking 
an enemy : one penetrates its sides with his ter- 
rible weapon, the other lashes it with its long 
slender, but nevertheless heavy body. As the 
thrasher has no destructive power in the water, 
it therefore joins with the sword-fish against the 
leviathan. The one, armed with swoi'd, attacks 
from below, and causing the whale to keep on 
the surface, the unrelenting thrasher fastens 
himself in a favorable position, and whirling his 
entire body through the air, deals such heavy 
blows as to stagger and confuse the monster, un- 
til the sword-fish completes the work of death. 

The ease with which a whale is killed is cer- 
tainly not one of the least strange things apper- 
taining to its history. A harpoon fortunately 
struck, or a well-directed thrust of a lance, will 
do the work. An instance is given of a whale 
being captured without being wounded at all. 
While a crew of a boat was busy hauling up a 
line, attached to which was a dead whale, they 
were surprised to find that it sometimes came 
up easily, and sometimes "pulled" with a great 
deal of force. At last a whale appeared with a 
coil of rope around its head, when, after being 
disentangled, it was found that the fish struck 
by the boat was still dangling below, the one in 
possession having been drowned by being caught 
in the line. On another occasion a line that 
had been purposely loosened from a harpoon, 
and was many hundred fathoms in the water, 
commenced running as if attached to a wound- 
ed fish. In a few moments, to the astonishment 
of all who witnessed it, a large "bull" rose to 
the surface, quite exhausted by fatigue, and hav- 
ing every appearance of a " fast fish." Without 
making any resistance it permitted itself to be 
struck, and was speedily killed. On examina- 
tion after death, it was discovered that it had 
caught the pendent line in its mouth, where it 
still remained firmly compressed between the 
lips ; the sensation caused by such " feed" be- 



THE STORY OF THE WHALE. 



473 



ing so unusual, had induced the creature to hold 
on, and thus precipitated its death. 

There are times, however, when the whale 
shows a tenacity of life that is very great. Men- 
tion is made of one that, after a chase of five 
hours, was fastened upon at four o'clock in the 
morning. This animal, in its endeavor to es- 
cape, dragged its assailants rapidly through the 
sea, although finally burdened with five boats 
and sixteen hundred fathoms of line. At eight 
o'clock in the evening a rope was taken to the 



ship with a view of retarding his flight by add- 
ing additional weight, and although the wind was 
blowing a brisk gale, the vessel was towed for 
an hour and a half, the whale, meanwhile, not 
only performing this extraordinary task, but at 
the same time beating the surrounding waters 
into a continual foam. Captain Scoresby writes 
of a Greenland whale which was not killed until 
it had drawn out six miles of line attached to 
fifteen different harpoons, and taken down a 
boat that was never afterward seen. 




STRENGTH OF THE WHALE. 



These jousts of the sea are not always suc- 
cessful conquests to the hardy seamen. The 
•>rize sometimes sinks after all the labor of a 
completed capture. Whales occasionally escape 
with lines attached to them miles in length and 
worth a thousand dollars. Entanglement is pro- 
ductive, however, of the greatest disaster. A 
steersman of the John of Greenock happened to 
step into the centre of a coil of running rope, and 
had a foot severed from his body as if with a 
knife. A harpooner belonging to the Henrietta 
of Whitby had incautiously entangled himself, 
when a sudden dart of the fish made it twist 
round his body. He had just time to exclaim, 
" Clear away the line !" when his body was near- 
ly cut asunder, dragged overboard, and never 
seen again. 

The appearance of a whale ship under short 
-ail is very different from those engaged in the 
usual purposes of trade. The latter, bound for 
some given port, like a sea-bird rushes gallantly 
along — the whaler, on the contrary, with masts 
almost bare, floats quietly upon the broad water, 
playing the part of a mighty sentinel over the 
leviathans of the deep. The look-out, suspend- 
ed in mid-air for days and weeks, contemplates, 
without the interruption of an intervening ob- 
ject, the mingling of the waters with the clouds 
— watches the splendors of the rising sun, and 
the still more impressive beauty of his sinking 



in the west. He sees the storm-cloud, at first 
no larger than a man's hand, enlarge until it 
sweeps like a mighty pall over the heavens ; but 
it is not until the wished-for object springs out 
of the waves that there is excitement in the 
ship. It is not until the cry goes forth, "There 
she blows I" that the heart is roused, as when 
the tiger scents his prey. 

With " There she blows !" the death-warrant 
of the monster has been uttered, and the pre- 
liminaries of the execution commence. The 
whaling-boat gains upon the sacrifice ; the lord- 
ly victim, that has heretofore roamed in free- 
dom, appreciates his danger — the destructive in- 
fluence of man is upon him. It is in vain that 
he buries himself from sight — his habits are 
known — his pulsations are counted. Rising to 
the surface, the sharp harpoon enters his vitals 
— the vast internal machinery is at once deranged 
— the huge fountains and conduits of blood pour 
out their contents upon the lungs, and are then 
spouted into the air. Imagination can not con- 
ceive any thing more awful than the butchery 
that now takes place. Terrified, the whale 
plunges from wave to wave — springs with agony 
out of the water, and covers the surrounding 
ocean with blood and foam. He dives down- 
ward, leaving a whirlpool in his path — he rushes 
upward, and the fatal lance enters some still un- 
touched spring of life — whichever way he turns, 



474 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the cold iron goads him to desperation, and in 
the vanity of his strength he makes the sea to 
" boil like a pot" — a tremor seizes upon his huge 
frame, and shakes it as the wakening volcano 
does the mountain's side — the last drop of the 
heart's blood is discharged — strangely he turns 
toward the sun, topples on one side — the once 
mighty breathing mass, now dead, is tossed con- 
temptuously in the troughs of the sea. But not 
man alone rejoices in the destruction — the swan- 
like albatross, the haglets, the gulls, and the 
petrels come pouring in from the distant cor- 
ners of the earth and hover in excitement over 
the slain. So, too, with the destroyers of the 
sea; they gather together, and gambol with 
wide-extended jaws, expectant of a feast. 

The rivalry which exists between different 
nations is sometimes thrillingly displayed by 
their representatives on the whaling-grounds. 
The first harpoon made fast secures ownership, 
and the law is sacredly respected. From a work 
published in London a hundred and fifty years 
ago, we take the following illustrative incident: 

" On the same morning a whale appeared 
near our own ship, and we put out four boats 
after him; but two Holland boats were a half 
league from us. "We used great diligence and 
care, but the fish came up just before the Dutch- 
man's boat, and was struck by him with a har- 
poon. Thus he took the bread out of our mouths !" 
A more modern example of the same species of 
robbery is recorded, where a large whale made 
its appearance equidistant from an American 
and an English ship. From both the boats were 
lowered, manned, and off in an instant. The 
race was exciting ; the Britons had the advant- 
age ; Greek had met Greek, and the contest was 
upon the sea. Side by side, the light barks 
sped along with the rapidity of racers, and the 



oars fairly bent under the force of human en- 
ergy. The hunters came up with the game, ran 
for a moment abreast — the Americans outside. 
No time was to be lost. Suddenly a Yankee 
sailor sprang to his feet, and, with extraordinary 
precision and force, hurled his ponderous har- 
poon over the heads of his rivals, and buried 
the socket in a vital part. The defeated whale- 
men seemed to shrink into the surrounding 
waves, while the spectators, including every 
tongue and kindred, made "Delego Bay" echo 
and re-echo with shouts of applause. 

The whale fishery has ever been emphatically 
the nursery of the best seamen — has always beer 
the theatre of the most daring exploits. We. 
read of a sailor who, to secure a whale supposed 
to be dead, leaped upon the body, and, while 
in the act of passing a rope through a hole he 
made in the flukes, he felt the animal sinking, 
and then move forward. In another instant it 
reared its body aloft, and lashed the sea so vio- 
lently that the reverberating echo was heard foi 
miles. The sailor so unceremoniously pitched 
into the sea, not at all disconcerted, swam to 
the nearest boat. Another, standing harpoon 
in hand, waiting for the appearance of the fish, 
was thrown into the air by an unexpected at- 
tack, and landed, amidst clouds of water and 
foam, upon the back of the whale. With a self- 
possession that nothing would startle, he took 
advantage of the incident to drive home the 
harpoon and secure the prize. Another here 
became entangled in the line, and found him- 
self, along with a wounded whale, descending 
into the depths of the sea. Drawing his knife, 
he cut the cord and rose to the surface, ex- 
hausted but yet alive. 

The first discoverers of the Northern seas de 
tailed strange stories of these singular regions ; 




8CENE IN "DELEGO BAY. 



THE STORY OF THE WHALE. 



475 



and "scientific works," published within the 
period of seventy years, give grave accounts of 
the merman, mermaid, great sea-serpent, and 
the kraken. This latter named fish, supposed 
to be of the polypus species, was described as 
the most surprising in the world. When the 
Norwegian fishermen suddenly discovered the 
waters underneath them growing shallow, they 
said the kraken was rising from the depths be- 
low, whereupon they would run away with great 
expedition. Presently, the fishermen asserted, 
the animal would come to the surface, display- 
ing a number of humps that resembled small 
islands, covered with sea-weeds, and abounding 
with a great variety of fish, which would leap 
about and then roll back into the sea. At length 
a great number of pellucid attennae would rise 
up, as large and high as the masts of moderate- 
ly-sized ships, and by the means of these instru- 
ments the creature moved and gathered his food. 
After he had remained a little time on the sur- 
face, he disappeared with a motion that would 
cause great swells and whirlpools in the water. 
" In all probability," suggests the historian, "the 
many ' floating islands' described by early navi- 
gators were no other than the back of this huge 
monster." 

The " merman" attracted immense attention 
because so frequently met with : it was evident- 
ly what is now known as the seal. Even at this 
day this curious animal, while sporting in groups 
upon the surface of the sea, is so suggestive of 
human beings that a superstitious feeling comes 
over the novice as to the propriety of wantonly 
taking their lives. How these harmless creat- 
ures looked to the fishermen one hundred and 
twenty-five years ago is faithfully given in the 
following affidavit, solemnly sworn before one 
Cornelius Van Gram. Said fishermen declared 
that, in the month of July, in calm weather, be- 
tween Haveen and Saedland, they approached, 
in their boat, something that floated on the sur- 
face like a dead body, which lay without motion 
until they were within seven or eight fathoms of 
it, when it sunk instantaneously, but rose again 
in the same place. There he remained near 
a quarter of an hour staring at them. Being 
terrified at the sight of this monster, they began 
to row away. He then blew up his cheeks, ut- 
tered a kind of muttering roar, and dived under 




winr~ 



SEALS AT PLAT. 



the water. He appeared like an old man, with 
broad shoulders, and a small head covered with 
short black hair. His eyes were hollow, his 
face meagre and weather-beaten. One of the 
party concluded by farther affirming that he 
had seen a mermaid twenty years before ; and 
the historian who records these things, and pub- 
lished them "by the King's authority," adds, 
" The marmicle or marmate belongs to the same 
class, and is perhaps the young of this species, 
It is often caught by the fishermen of Norway, 
some no larger than infants a year old, some 
larger than children of three years !" 

No chapter of human suffering is more pain- 
ful to read than that resulting from the cold 
peculiar to the regions inhabited by the Green- 
land whale. The icebergs which are constantly 
floating about often crush ships to pieces, or in- 
close them in a solid barrier of granite, leaving 
their human inmates to perish by the most ter- 
rible of deaths. Some of these disasters have 
been attended by peculiar circumstances. In 
1825, the Active was so completely beset with 
ice in Exeter Sound, that the crew felt obliged 
to abandon her, and take passage home in other 
ships. Next year a vessel was sent out to as- 
certain her fate; and, to the astonishment of 
the crew, the abandoned ship was found upon 
the beach near where she was last seen, perfect- 
ly uninjured, and, with her cargo, was brought 
home in safety. The ship Resolute, sent out 
by the British government to seek for Sir John 
Franklin, became imbedded in a field of ice in 
Wellington Sound, and was finally abandoned 
by Captain Belcher, her commander. Nearly 
two years afterward (October, 1855) the ship 
was found, fourteen hundred miles from where 
she was deserted, in almost perfect order, and 
was brought safely to New London by Captain 
Buddington, an enterprising whaleman hailing 
from that port. These incidents would seem to 
confirm the truth of the following strange nar- 
rative : In 1 775, Captain Warrens, master of 
a Greenland whale ship, found himself becalmed 
among an immense number of icebergs. At 
midnight the wind rose to a gale, and in the 
morning he discovered that he was completely 
suiTOunded, save in one place, where the accu- 
mulated ice presented a narrow opening as far 
as the eye could discern. Two miles beyond 
the entrance of this canal, about noon, a ship 
suddenly made its appearance. The sun par- 
tially dissipated the fogs and showed a single 
mast, remarkable for the manner in which its 
sails were disposed, and the dismantled aspect 
of the yards and rigging. The vessel continued 
to move before the wind until she grounded upon 
some low icebergs, and remained motionless. 
Captain Warrens's curiosity was so much ex- 
cited that he immediately leaped into his boat 
with several other seamen, and rowed toward 
her. 

On approaching, it was observed that the 
ship's hull was miserably weather-beaten, and 
not a soul appeared upon the snow-covered 
deck. Hailing the crew several times and re- 



476 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 







THE NOETH SEA, ACCOEDING TO EAELY DIBCOVEEEES. 



reiving no answer, Captain Warrens peered into 
an open port-hole, near the main chains, and 
perceived a man reclining back in a chair with 
writing materials before him, but the feebleness 
of the light made every thing indistinct. The 
•aptain and his party proceeded on deck, re- 
moved the hatchway, which was closed, and en- 
tered the cabin. The first apartment examined 
was the one seen through the port-hole, and it 
-sent a thrill of horror through all who witnessed 
it. Its inmate was found to be a corpse; a 
^•reen damp mould covered the cheeks and fore- 
head, and vailed the eye-balls. A pen still re- 
mained in its hand, and in the log-book, open 
upon the table, was this unfinished sentence : 
'November 11, 1762. We have now been in- 
closed in the ice seventeen days. The fire 
went out yesterday, and our master has been 
trying ever since to kindle it again, but without 
success. His wife died this morning ; there is 
no relief." 

Captain Warrens and his seamen hurried 
from the spot, and pressed forward without ut- 



tering a word. Upon entering the principal 
cabin, the first object that attracted their atten- 
tion was the dead bod}' of a female reclining on 
a bed in an attitude of deep interest and atten- 
tion. Her countenance retained the freshness 
of life, and a contraction of the limbs alone 
showed that her form was inanimate. Seated 
on the floor was the corpse of a young man 
holding a steel in one hand and a flint in the 
other. In the fore-part of the vessel several 
sailors were found lying dead in their berths, 
and the body of a boy was crouched at the bot- 
tom of the gangway stairs. Neither provisions 
nor fuel could be discovered any where; but 
Captain Warrens was prevented by the super- 
stitious prejudices of the seamen from examin- 
ing the vessel as minutely as he wished to have 
done. He, therefore, carried away the log-book 
already mentioned, and, returning to his own 
ship, immediately steered to the southwest, 
deeply inspired with the awful example, which 
he had just witnessed, of the danger of naviga- 
ting the Polar seas. 



THE STORY OF THE WHALE. 



477 



One of the greatest hardships of the whaler's 
life is experienced in the long season of ignoble 
repose, when weeks and months pass away with- 
out employment ; when poor Jack fairly melts 
under the heats of a tropical sun, which pours 
down with such fierce and unrelenting power 
that the very ocean itself becomes an opaque 
polished surface, without a sign to remind you 
of its translucent state. Still, despite all dis- 
appointments, the hardy fisherman has to con- 
tinue his cruise over the wide waste of waters, 
hoping that each succeeding day will bring him 
in contact with his monstrous game. It is not 
in human nature to withstand the oppressive 
feelings called forth by this seeming waste of 
time. On such occasions the first mate, if he 
is a genuine "salt," performs the duty of keep- 
ing up the spirits of the men, after his own 
rough fashion. Taking advantage of the very 
witching time of despondency, he suddenly hails 
the men aloft, and refreshes them with allusion 
to the necessity of keeping ".their eyes well 
skinned," and then, stepping forward where the 
loiterers are assembled, with well-feigned look 
of surprise upon his hard face, he asks why every 
one looks so "down at the mouth?" to which 
question sundry muttered answers are given — 
such as, "No good stopping out longer;" "Whales 
not to be got hereaway;" " Wish' the voyage was 
up." Whereupon the old mate will roysterous- 
ly bellow forth — "If I didn't know as you've 
got the right stuff among ye, I should think 
I'd found a lot of chicken-hearted greenhorns. 



Why, what the dickens ails the boys ? We do 
every thing that can be done ; always keep a 
good look-out ; but we must wait our turn ; 
every body Jtnows we can't make whales ; so, 
d — n it, where's the use of getting the blues or 
looking long-favored ? will that bring a drop of 
ile alongside ? No, Sir-ee ! You may just as well 
look for the grace of God in a Guinea-man's log- 
book as to try that game." Having thus given 
expression to his feelings, and apparently very 
much to his own satisfaction, Mr. Starboard will 
resume his pipe, declare himself a jolly dog, 
as one having plenty to eat and drink, with a 
snug barky as ever walked blue water to sail 
in, every thing ship-shape alow and aloft, and 
therefore past his comprehension what more 
sailors could possibly desire. Then unconscious- 
ly yielding to the depressing circumstances with 
which he is surrounded, he gets his shipmates 
around him, and relates the following story : 

"It must have been near four-and-twenty 
years ago that I shipped as third mate for a 
long voyage. We sailed out of Nantucket, and 
for the crew we had a fine lot of fellows fore 
and aft, all up to the mark, and most of them 
used to deep water. I was a smart young fel- 
low then, though I say it myself; I'm tolerable 
tough now, but then I was all whip-cord and 
whalebone. Well, as I was saying, we had a 
first-rate crew all round, and whales were more 
plenty then than now, for a voyage was seldom 
more than a year or two : ah ! whaling was 
whaling then, and no mistake. But hold on, 




Vol, XIL— No. 70.-~IIn 



PUU8UIT OF THE GEEKNLAND WHALL, 



478 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 







WUALE "BKEACUING. 



boys, I'm running out line too fast, so let's haul 
in and fetch up to the yarn. As I was saying, 
we left Nantucket in fine feather and ready for 
any thing; we cruised along pleasantly enough, 
taking it all smooth and easy until we weathered 
' the Cape,' and commenced cruising off the old 
ground on the coast of Chili and Peru. Well, 
month after month we searched, and crossed 
and recrossed the ground, but not a fish could 
we scare up — not a chance could we get — and 
we became sick of seeing our boats hanging dry 
upon the cranes. At last we thought we had 
a Jonah among us, and all kinds of unreason- 
able thoughts entered our heads. Meantime, 
you see, we got under ' the line;' and, my eyes, 
wasn't it hot ? when, one morning 'fore the sun 
was handspike high, we heard from the top, 
' There she blows !' Again and again was this 
music repeated ; but there was no time for gos- 
siping, for, two or three miles ahead, the whales 
were spouting in crowds, so we down boats and 
were soon among 'em, and, to cut short, as if 
to make up for bad luck, Ave had weeks of ' kill- 
ing,' 'cutting in,' and ' trying out.' 

" Seventeen months out, and half the time 
idle, with three thousand barrels stowed away, 
the skipper concluded to catch two or three more 
(ish if he could, and then head for home. Among 
my shipmates was one Tony, a good and true 
man as ever held an oar — he had been lively 
and given to sky-larking through all our bad 
luck, but he became unaccountably down-heart- 
ed from the time Ave talked of leaving the 
fishing-grounds. One evening Tony was more 
than usually depressed, and, Avith a strange ex- 
pression, he announced ' that on the morrow 
we would catch our last fish and lose a man.' 
His hearers condemned him in harsh terms for 



what they called his 'infernal croaking,' and 
Tony Avas left to eat his supper by himself. The 
' morroAv' came, and by the time Ave had break- 
fasted the look-outs announced 'There she bloAvs!' 
and, sure enough, there was a large shoal of 
Avhales just discernible about half a point to 
the leeAvard of our course, enjoying the fine 
Aveather by lazily rolling about in the troughs 
of the sea. 'Noav,' said the skipper, going over 
the side of the vessel with the boats, ' now for 
the last pull, and then for our SAveet-hearts and 
wives !' 

"A feAv moments only elapsed before we were 
in full pursuit, but the whales got the scent of 
us, and put away to the AvindAvard. Tony, who 
Avas the first man in his place, wore a serious 
look, but there was nothing about him that indi- 
cated fear. Cheering on the boys as we dashed 
over the Avater, AA r e soon came near tAvo sperm 
Avhales, and in the excitement I forgot Tony's 
face and his prophecy. It was, ' Spring, boys! 
spring, I tell you ! a few more strokes and the 
prize is our OAvn ! a good eighty barrels if they 
have a gallon. Think of the yellow shiners, 
lads, and bend your backs !' Such were my 
cries as Ave neared the monster, and the critical 
moment arrived. ' Stand up, Tony, my boy ! 
and let him have it.' My Avorcls Avere scarcely 
uttered before the first harpoon Avas hurled Avith 
unerring certainty, and quick as thought a sec- 
ond iron Avas sped upon its deadly mission. 
'Stern all!' was noAVthe order, and with a will 
the boys obeyed it. The stricken fish gave a 
convulsiA-e flounce, rolled himself half over, 
breached his enormous body high in the air, 
madly lashed his flukes upon the foaming sea, 
then doAvn he went, carrying the smoking tow- 
line out of the boat with startling velocity. 



THE STORY OF THE WHALE. 



479 



" No less rapid in his movements was the un- 
hurt whale ; for with that strange sympathy 
known to exist among the species, he appeared 
to share the agonizing pangs of his companion, 
by giving a wild, spasmodic start ; then, per- 
ceiving his unknown enemy, as if impelled by a 
desire for vengeance, he settled down a few fath- 
oms beneath the surface of the sea, and then 
came rushing up madly at the boat, evidently 
intending to drive it to atoms by his monstrous 
head. With great difficulty we managed to 
evade the blow, and the whale breached out of 
the water a few feet from our bows. Finding 
he had missed his object, the enraged animal 
turned upon us with redoubled fury; rolling 
upon his side, and striking his huge jaws ter- 
rifically together, he rushed at us with open 
mouth. ' Stern all ! stern all, men, for your 
lives !' I shouted, as the monster came down 
upon us. The boat, as if appreciating its own 
danger, glided rapidly astern, and thus once 
more just escaped the impending peril ; but our 
danger was by no means over, for, maddened 
and furious beyond measure at finding his at- 
tempts to seize us unavailing, the monster re- 
solved on a different and more dangerous mode 
of attack. Rolling himself over toward the 
boat's head, he raised his body many feet above 
the water. I at once comprehended the threat- 
ened visitation, and shrieked to the men, ' Into 
the water, boys, for God's sake ! into the wa- 
ter!' Ere the command could be obeyed, the 
whale's enormous flukes were thrown up from 
the boiling sea, flashing above the whole for- 
ward part of the boat. With lightning rapidity 
they passed away, when, lo ! as if by a miracle, 
they descended with a deafening sound upon 
the water, leaving the boat, apparently unharm- 
ed, dancing and heaving upon the whitened 
waves. 

" These scenes, so imperfectly conveyed to 
the mind by any description, occupied but a 
moment of time. We had cut the line attached 
to the wounded whale before the last terrific 



charge of its companion ; it would have been 
worse than madness to have held on longer, 
and all breathed freely that the danger of de- 
struction was'passed. Casting about our eyes, 
an universal exclamation arose — 'My God! 
where's Tony ?' He was at his place in the last 
charge of the whale — no one knew more. The 
horrid mystery soon was solved. Just at the 
boat's head was a wide, gaping opening, almost 
as round and clearly cut as if made by a saw, 
the bloody edges of which too painfully revealed 
the dreadful fate of the unhappy harpooner. He 
had been stricken down and torn through the side 
of the boat at the moment those fearful flukes 
were flourishing over us ; and such was the in- 
calculable force of the blow that the surround- 
ing timbers were unsprung. His presentiment 
had proved too true — ' We had killed, for that 
voyage, our last whale, and lost a man.' " 

The encouraging notes of Mr. Starboard, in 
which he attempts to rouse the spirits of a de- 
sponding crew, are by no means characteristic. 
On most ships there is a professed "growler," 
who delivers himself after this style : " I'll be 
everlastingly shivered from clew to ear-ring if this 
ship isn't the cussedest old tub that was ever 
sailed in. Shiver my top-lights if I wouldn't 
like to see her sink. I've seen vessels before— ^ 
yes, all sorts of vessels — and I have taken it 
rough-and-tumble in all sorts of weather; but 
this bloody old blubber-hunter beats all, partic- 
ularly as we get nothing to eat, live on hard 
work, and sleep in a forecastle not fit for a hog 
to waller in ! That's the way to tell it. Yes ! 
and I'll let the council at the first port Ave touch 
at know how things was done ; and, if I don't see 
a council, when I get home I'll let the Presi- 
dent of the United States know it, pervided I 
ever get home in this dirty, lubberly, crazy, rot- 
ten old craft !" Jack having thus delivered 
himself, puts an enormous piece of "pig-tail 1 ' 
inside his left cheek, and is ready to quarrel 
with the first man who says a word against the 
" snug craft" that no one must abuse but himself. 




▲ CASE OF NIGIIT-MAEI5. 



480 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




WHALE SHIP HOMEWARD BOUND. 



There is a variety of culinary luxuries en- 
joyed on a whale ship not to be found upon the 
bill of fare of our best hotels. The idea of 
cooking food in lamp-oil is certainly offensive, 
but it must be remembered that this "sea lard" 
when first manufactured is quite sweet and 
wholesome, and in no way resembles the rancid 
article known in our household economy. We 
knew an old sailor who defended his " sea dish- 
es" with great vehemence, and triumphantly 
asked what would be the difference between 
Goshen butter kept two years in the hold of a 
vessel and that just taken from the churn ? If 
the master of the " galley fire" is a proficient in 
his business, and disposed to be very kind, he 
serves up to the sailors a favorite " doughnut," 
cooked in the large copper kettles trying out the 
blubber. If Jack has a dainty tooth, he soaks 
his hard biscuit in sea-water and fries it in the 
same boiling caldron. The whale's under-lip 
is quite suggestive of fresh beef, and by some 
much esteemed ; but the barnacles, a species of 
shell-fish which adhere to the skin of the whale, 
are altogether the most prized, and form an era 
of delight among sturdy appetites and mouths 
cloyed by the constant round of salt meat. 

An over-indulgence in these rare viands has 
often produced alarming symptoms of night- 
mare. A forecastle victim has given utterance 
to the sensations as follows : " You see, I tuck 
too much grub for supper, and as a consequence 
didn't get any sound sleep. Among the things 
that happened, I dreamt I was a whale — a 
sperm whale — and that I was a-cruisin' round in 
search of fodder, not thinkin' of no kinder harm, 
when what should I see but a ' blubber-hunter' 
right ahead. ' Well,' said I to myself, ' old fel- 
low, you'd better be making tracks ;' and with 
that I blowed out all the salt water I had in me, 



and turned flukes. I hadn't been down very 
long before I began to smother ; so I come up 
and blowed again. Just as I riz to the top of 
the water, what should I hear but old Taber 
singing out with all his might, ' Thar she blows !' 
and sure enough I felt myself blowin' away, for 
not a flipper could I use until I got all the water 
out of my insides. While I was thus a workiu 
off like an old steam-engine, a whale-boat pitch- 
ed up agin me, and before I knowed what I was 
about, Taber stuck an iron chuck into my giz- 
zard. ' Stum all !' said somebody, and the boat 
flew away from me in the winkin of an eye, while 
I began to pitch and blow like mad, and finally 
giv in ; but it was no use, for the boat come up 
again, and the second mate began to stick a 
lance right through my head. I soon spouted 
blood, turned on my back, and kicked the buck- 
et, and was towed alongside of the ship. Arter 
awhile they heaved me up, and by the flukes 
lashed me to the night-heads, and for my life 
I couldn't move, but I didn't feel badly scared 
until they commenced cutting me in ; then, by 
gosh ! how they did rip the hide and taller off, 
and how the sharks did pitch in, and how they 
minced me up ! But I knowed it was no use to 
holler, so jist kept as quiet as I could, till 
they got me in the tub a-trying me out. I 
couldn't stand the frying and fizzing in the hot 
coppers, and so woke up ! It's no use to talk to 
me — whales has feelings ; and I don't want to 
be one agin as long as ile is in demand, and the 
supply is got by frying blubber." 

Circumstances favor the probability that the 
time will eventually come when the great le- 
viathan of the deep will be exterminated. In 
the course of two centuries it has been driven 
from sea to sea; and now, with the scientific 
discoveries of Wilkes and Maury added to the 



THE STORY OF THE WHALE. 



481 



perseverance of the whaleman, it has no resting- 
place. It is estimated that ten thousand are 
annually slain, and the increase can not equal 
the destruction. The number of ships engaged 
in the pursuit is constantly increasing. It is 
said that the whaling ships of the United States 
alone, placed in a line or in sight of each 
other, would reach half way round the globe. 
Upon the commencement of the fishery, the 
animal was taken near the shore, and offered 
ivo resistance to the approach of man. But the 
continual warfare of two hundred years has im- 
proved the intellectual faculties of the whale, 
and he is now more difficult to capture, and more 
wary of his feeding-grounds. This increasing 
intelligence may possibly preserve the species, 
and continue them as inhabitants of the great 
deep. 

Early in the present century, a large white 
sperm whale, known as "Mocha Dick," became 
celebrated for his ferocity and his cunning. 
Upon being pursued, he invariably escaped by 
running off or breaking the lines attached to 
the harpoons. When he finally succumbed, his 
sides were found bristling with the instruments 
of death, his body was covered with scars, and 
his head was expressive of old age, cunning, and 
rapaciousness. 

The fearful sufferings of the crew of the ship 
Esspx at the time attracted universal attention. 
Of three sperm whales, one was wounded by 
a harpoon. The boat, commanded by the mate, 



being seriously damaged in the foray, returned 
to the ship for repairs. While the sailors were 
engaged at this work, a whale, eighty-five feet 
long, came in sight, about twenty rods from the 
ship, and eyed it intently for an instant and then 
disappeared. In a few moments he came again 
to the surface, and, rushing with full speed, 
struck the ship with his head, bringing her up 
as if foundered upon a rock, and knocking near- 
ly all the men over on their faces. Passing un- 
der the ship and grazing the keel, the whale 
was seen a short way off, striking his jaws to- 
gether as if distracted with rage. Gathering 
his energies, with ten-fold fury and vengeance 
in his aspect, he again rushed upon the vessel, 
stove in the bows, and then passing under the 
ship, went off to the leeward and was seen no 
more. 

This was the first example known where the 
whale displayed design in its attack ; in all 
other cases the damage created was the result 
of being in close proximity of his powerful jaws 
and tail. It was, therefore, that the fate of the 
Essex seemed something horrible, and made 
"old salts" turn from the record with dread. 
The animal, it would seem, had suddenly be- 
come possessed of a knowledge of its power, 
and could reason upon passing events. He 
came direct from the school where his compan- 
ions had been surrounded by the boats of the 
Essex ; he acted from the moment of his ap- 
pearance as if fired with revenge by their suf- 



■ '■^t 






mk 




tin: \wnr.K or «:attain MBBLOIB. 



482 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ferings, and both of his assaults were directed 
against the weakest part of the ship. 

A more recent example of the increasing in- 
telligence of the whale is afforded in the history 
and fate of the New Bedford ship Ann Alexan- 
der, where the fight was fairly conducted, and 
where the pertinacity of human passions found a 
consistent antagonist in the monster fish. Cap- 
tain Deblois commanding one boat and his mate 
another, went in pursuit of a whale, the mate 
succeeded in driving home his harpoon, when 
the whale, finding he could not escape, turned 
upon the boat, seized it in his mouth, and act- 
ually "chawed it up." Captain Deblois in- 
stantly rescued all the men, and a " waist" boat 
arriving, they were again divided, and it was de- 
termined to pursue the same whale. The mo- 
ment the boats came up and the animal discov- 
ered their object, he again turned upon the one 
commanded by the mate, and crushed it to 
atoms. Captain Deblois now with some diffi- 
culty rescued the crew from a watery grave and 
turned toward the ship — the whale hovering 
near by with jaws extended, and evidently bent 
on destruction. The Captain soon reached his 
vessel, and recovering the floating oars and 
pieces of wreck, determined to pursue the whale 
with the ship, and setting all sail soon reached 
him, and from its side threw a lance into his 
head. After considerable fruitless manoeuvring, 
and it being near sundown, it was decided to 
give up the chase. Captain Deblois, when he 
came to this conclusion, was standing on the 
bow with a lance in his hand, ready to strike if 
the monster should accidentally come within 
reach. Suddenly attracted to the water, he be- 
held the whale, with unparalleled rapidity, rush- 
ing on the ship, which he struck with such force 
as to break in her timbers, causing a great hole 
through which the water impetuously rushed 
and roared, and in a few moments the gallant 
vessel lay a wreck upon the sea. About four 
months after this catastrophe, the crew of the 
Rebecca Sims, of New Bedford, came up with, 
and captured a large whale, that permitted it- 
self to be taken without any of the usual dem- 
onstrations of resistance. Two harpoons were 
found in its body, marked " Ann Alexander" 
its head was seriously injured, and from the 
huge wound projected pieces of a ship's tim- 
bers. 

The most extraordinary case, all things con- 
sidered, is the very recent destruction of the 
Waterloo, a British vessel loaded with grain, 
which, while in the North Sea quietly pursuing 
its course, wasunprovokedly attacked and de- 
stroyed. The vessel was moving slowly along 
when a large whale was perceived to the wind- 
ward, partly out of the water and swimming at 
a rapid rate, when, within ten yards of the ship's 
side, it dipped, and struck the hull so violently 
that the ship was perceived "to heel and crack." 
The animal then rose to the surface and plunged 
downward head-foremost, its tail nearly touch- 
ing the foreyard while it was flourishing in the 
air. In two hours the ill-fated vessel began to 



settle down ; the crew and captain, almost des- 
titute of clothing, and entirely without food or 
water, barely had time to, escape to their boats, 
when the ship capsized and disappeared head- 
foremost under the waves of the sea. 

The number of ships destroyed by the attack 
of the whale increases with time — the once soli- 
tary instance of the Essex has become but one 
of many similar disasters. Without alluding to 
the Union, we will close with a naval contest 
between the Parker Cook and a near relative of 
" Mocha Dick." In this fight the harpoon only 
served to invite attack from the whale, for after 
being wounded, and destroying the boat that 
contained his enemies, he lay off from the ship, 
and deliberately made his assaults. The first 
shock threw every one on board prostrate upon 
the deck, and started the very foundation of 
the ship. Retreating half a mile, the monster 
gathered up his energies, but fortunately the 
second blow did little injury. As the whale 
came down the third time, Captain Cook, 
opened upon him with powder and his bomb- 
lance. The third of these weapons thus dis- 
charged entered the animal's body, reached 
the heart's blood, and destroyed a life with 
murderous saltpetre, which was evidently safe 
from the heretofore invincible attacks of the 
death-dealing harpoon. 

PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 

BY AN AMERICAN. 

¥E have been to Heliopolis. We went on 
donkeys. This is our regular custom now 
everywhere, and the ladies do seven miles and 
back with ease. It is no small journey, how- 
ever, in this season of high Nile, when we have 
to follow the banks of the canals hither and 
thither, frequently crossing fields of flooded land, 
with the water up to the donkeys' knees, and, 
of course, up to our feet, except when we put 
them on the saddle — a proceeding not always 
conducive to security of position when the don- 
keys are constantly slipping. 

At Heliopolis there is nothing to be seen ex- 
cept the obelisk. This stands, as it has stood 
from the days of Osirtasen and of Abraham. 

I shall not pause to speak of chronological 
differences among Egyptian scholars. For our 
present purposes it is enough to take Wilkinson 
as our guide, and believe that this magnificent 
column stood here when Jacob blessed his chil- 
dren and departed, and when Joseph charged 
them to carry his bones into the Land of Prom- 
ise. Around it then gathered the most splendid 
palaces of Egypt ; and here, perhaps, was held 
the court to which the old wanderer of Canaan 
came. But of that old glory nothing remains. 
The obelisk stands ten feet below the surface 
of the surrounding earth, in an excavation made 
to exhibit its base, and under the mounds that 
lie here and there about it are the buried ruins 
of the City of the Sun. We sat in the shadow 
of the obelisk and spread before us our lunch. 
It was of bread, figs, dates, pomegranates, and 
oranges, and each of these fruits was growing 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



483 




THE SHADOOF. 



in profusion within twenty yards of us, as well 
aa olives, custard apples, okre, and melons of 
every kind. The obelisk stands in the centre 
of a garden of perhaps twenty acres of good 
land, and around this the desert rolls barren 
and hot. It would seem that the peculiar in- 
terest attached to this spot as the City of Jo- 
seph, as well as the great seat of learning in 
later years, where Plato and the other great 
philosophers studied and taught, has been spe- 
cially provided for in the luxuriance of the fruits 
and products of its soil ; so that, instead of the 
shining sand that covers Memphis and lies 
around the pyramids, we have the grove of the 
Academy to rest in while we listen to the voice 
of its great teacher. 

The cultivation of the land of Egypt puzzles 
an American agriculturalist. Without plow, 
other than the wooden one that his forefathers 
used in the days of Sesostris, ignorant of hoe, 
or rake, or spade, the fellah cultivates his ground 
and raises his luxuriant crop beyond all that 
our best prize farmers think of doing. The 
great labor is the watering, and this is carried 
on by a thorough system, though lacking mod- 
ern improvements. 

Canals, large and small, intersect the country 
every where. Let it be remembered that the 
arable land of Egypt is almost a perfect level, 
so that when the Nile rises to a certain height 
it flows over all the land in every direction, and 
canals continue the supply as the river falls. 
Some lands, rescued from the desert, are on a 
level a few feet higher, and others are not so 
low as to be covered by the Nile in a year like 
this, when it does not reach its full height. Ev- 
ery field, high or low, is intersected by little ca- 
nals, made by heaping the dirt up and hollow- 
ing a trench in it, so that the field is divided, 
like a chess-board, into a number of small squares. 
These trenches are supplied with water by two 
processes. The larger trenches, which run sev- 
eral miles, are supplied by wheels at the Nile 
or in the canals, which are turned by cattle, and 



which raise an endless chain of earthen pots of 
water. A pump is unknown in Egypt. The 
smaller canals are supplied by a shadoof, which 
is arranged precisely like an old-fashioned well- 
pole in America, except that the swing is so 
short that the man holds the bucket almost con- 
stantly in his hand, and dips and empties, dips 
and empties, all day long. It is not unusual to 
see the shadoof used on the side of the Nile in- 
stead of the water-wheel ; but it is more com- 
monly found inland, for the purpose of lifting 
water from one trench to another that will wa- 
ter a few acres of land that is higher in grade. 

A very simple contrivance for the same pur- 
pose is often found in the fields. It is a basket, 
made of palm-leaves or some other stout sub- 
stance, swung on four ropes, two in the hands 
of one man and two of another. The men sife 
on opposite sides of the* stream or pool of watey 
supplied from a canal or trench, and drop the 
basket into the water. Then they raise it rap- 
idly, swinging it at the same time over the top 
of the higher trench into which they wish to lift 
the water, and at the same instant slackening 
two of the ropes so as to allow the water to fall 
out. The rapidity and ease with which they 
continue this labor from morning till night is 
no less a source of surprise than the quantity 
of water they raise, keeping a steady stream 
running from their place of work. 

Oftentimes a piece of land is rescued from 
the desert and made into a beautiful garden. 
Almost as often the desert covers over a garden 
and reclaims it for part of its empire of desola- 
tion. Thus at Ileliopolis it would appear thai 
the basin which may be formed by the ruined 
Avails of an ancient temple, over which the sane) 
has heaped itself up, suggested to some one the 
idea of bringing the Nile into it and watering 
the sand. With the Nile conies alluvial depos- 
it, and with the deposit fruitfulness — such fruit- 
fulness as we seldom see even on our Western 
prairies. In this small farm around the obi 
stone grows every variety of Eastern fruit. Or- 



484 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



anges swing in clusters against its very sides, 
and pomegranates, and figs, and olives, are all 
found in the grounds, while vines and vegetables 
abound. A mud village stands on the edge of 
the desert, two or three hundred yards from the 
obelisk, and is the modern successor of the great 
On. Alas for the difference ! A crowd of wo- 
men and children followed us through the nar- 
row winding street, shouting for money, until 
we were fairly out of their district, and they re- 
garded us as within the "right of begging" of 
the next village. 

On the way home, I found good shooting 
along the edge of the desert. I had my gun 
with me, and having missed a shot at a flock 
of ibis, I loaded my barrels more carefully, 
and had afterward better success. It is a cu- 
rious fact that the air of Egypt is so very light 
and clear that the same quantity of gunpowder 
carries shot and ball much farther than else- 
where, and the load of a gun is to be reduced 
one-third for correct shooting. This I found 
instantly by the peculiar ring of the barrels on 
firing, and on inquiry I learned afterward from 
Dr. Abbott that such is the case in Egypt. 

Desert partridges, so called, abound in this 
neighborhood. They have but one character- 
istic which should entitle them to be called par- 
tridges. That is the feathered legs. In other 
respects they are more like a large pigeon in 
shape, and their color is a nondescript, desert- 
sand sort of color not marked regularly in any 
specimens that I have seen. I had two or three 
shots at them, and had some half dozen to bring 
home for dinner. Add to these a large hawk, 
and an eagle, as the boys called it, but in fact a 
vulture, measuring about four feet from tip to 
tip, and you have the contents of my game-bag, 
which, by-the-by, was the loose bosoms of the 
shirts of the boys, which are our constant re- 
ceptacles for articles to*be carried. 

It would be useless to say that we are fa- 
tigued after a day's work like this ; but it is a 
fine healthful fatigue, and the evenings are so 
deliciously cool and refreshing that we seldom 
sleep before midnight. Indeed, Americans 
might well think it a strangely comfortable 
scene in Egypt to see us in our large room, 
three sides of which look out at the stars, two 
through open wells or courts, and one through 
the mulkeef (the open place which is built in 
every house for ventilation, and arranged with 
a high wooden wind-sail to catch the north 
wind), the lamps burning brightly, and our 
long pipes, to which we have taken like Turks, 
filling the air with a fragrant cloud ; while, to 
make the scene a little more Oriental than our 
American garments would, we have the wel- 
come presence of Dr. Abbott, who wears the 
native dress, and would never be mistaken for 
a Frank, and who enlivens the evening with his 
fund of information, anecdote, and antiquarian 
knowledge. 

We had been two weeks in Cairo before we 
began to talk of our arrangements for ascend- 
ing the Nile. It is so early in the season that 



there is no reason for haste, and we have time 
to look around among the dragomans and make 
our arrangements leisurely. 

Within six hours after our arrival in Cairo 
we had something less than sixty dragomans 
anxious to show us their papers of recommend- 
ation. Curious papers they were indeed, and 
the dragomans little understood their contents. 
There was one which was sufficiently amusing. 
It was a strong commendation, closing with 
an interrogation point (?) that took off the 
edge of the praises completely. Others were 
worded so as to strike the ear and eye of an in- 
telligent man as meaning precisely the opposite 
to their apparent contents. We amused our- 
selves by looking them over, and dismissed the 
crowd forever. Two weeks afterward we sent 
for one who had not appeared with the crowd, 
and whose name was mentioned to us as that 
of the best of the Egyptian dragomans. Our 
informant was to be relied on, and we sent for 
Mohammed Abd-el-Atti, whose name we had 
already seen in a number of the books from 
Wilkinson to Mrs. Romer. He came to see us, 
and we liked his appearance. He is a young 
man of about thirty-five, though he has seen 
much service. He is now in the employ of the 
British Government here, and appears to be 
much respected and confided in. Withal he 
has resided four years in England and Erance, 
speaking well the languages of both those coun- 
tries, and writes his own language, the Arabic 
— an accomplishment which few of his coun- 
trymen have, and which is a material assistance 
to us in our studies. He is well acquainted 
with places and people from Darfur to Damas- 
cus, and already we have had a number of cap- 
ital stories from him which promise well for the 
evenings on the Nile. His position among the 
other men of his class may be gathered from 
the fact that he is one of the examining com- 
mittee who are appointed by government to 
grant licenses to the others of his class. He 
impressed us carefully with the idea that he 
had retired from the business of a dragoman, 
and was sufficiently comfortable in property and 
present salary to remain in Cairo. This we 
have learned is the truth. His health not be- 
ing very good, he inclines to have a change of 
air, and had some thoughts of a trip to Upper 
Egypt for his health. This was the first sug- 
gestion made toward the business which actual- 
ly brought us together, and then we went at it 
in a straightforward, American fashion, and con- 
cluded a contract with him for the voyage. 

I was off one morning for a ride among the 
mosques of Cairo, and we directed our way first 
to the Mosque of Tooloon, which is the oldest 
in the modern city. 

This is said to be the precise copy in minia- 
ture of the great Mosque at Mecca, and it is 
certainly the most imposing of the Mohammed- 
an structures of Cairo. Its very age makes it 
the more stately, though it is now desecrated 
into a poor-house. The view here given shows 
but three of the five rows of columns and arches 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



485 



/ A I i 

■1 i, i 




MOSQUE OF TOOLOON. 



which form the eastern cloisters of the immense 
building. It surrounds a square, each side of 
which is perhaps four or six hundred, feet long, 
and is built with pointed arches, being the ear- 
liest known specimen of the style. Its date is 
about a.d. 880, and its huge columns stand as 
firmly as they stood a thousand years ago. The 
minaret, visible on the opposite side of the court, 
is constructed somewhat singularly, having a 
winding stairway outside the tower. Whereof 
the tradition is that the founder, being reproach- 
ed by his Grand Vizier for wasting his time in 
twisting a piece of paper, replied that he was 
planning a minaret to his new mosque up which 
he might ride on horseback, and so it was made. 
But it is not very similar, for the staircase makes 
but one turn around the tower. Nevertheless 
it is profoundly interesting to stand in a spot 
where, daily, for a thousand years, the prayers 
of men have been offered up ; where the stones 
are worn with the knees of sincere if mistaken 
believers ; where there has never been a day, 
since the ninth century, when the voice of the 
muezzin was not heard across the court and 
through the shadowy arches, uttering that sim- 
ple and sublime passage that has been so often 
uttered above this city, and all the East, that 
one might think the air would sound it with its 
own morning winds forever after: " God is great. 
There is no deity but God. Mohammed is 
God's apostle. Come to prayer, come to prayer : 
prayer is better than sleep; come to prayer. 
God is most great. There is no god but God." 
At noonday and at sunsetting the same chant 
has filled these arches with solemn melody. One 
can not stand and hear it now without feeling 
that the voice is the same voice that uttered 
it ten centuries ago, though the men through 
whose thin lips it escaped on the air are the 
dead dust of those centuries. Age is sublime. 
A creed, though false, is nevertheless magnifi- 
cent if it be old ; and I can not look on these 
tottering walls, these upheaving pavements, 
these crumbling towers, without a melancholy 



regret, stealing in along with other feelings, that 
this worship, this creed, is approaching its end, 
and that the day is fast coming when Islam and 
the creed of the Prophet will be to men like 
the memories of Isis and Apis — shadows flit- 
ting around the ruins of old Egypt. In broad 
daylight, when eyes and intellects are wide 
awake, the shadows are as clouds dark with 
memories of crime and wrong ; shapes of hid- 
eous deeds, blackening the very name of hu- 
manity. But in night time and the moon- 
light, when we do not see these, there will be 
shapes like halos around the fallen minarets of 
Tooloon and Amer as around the obelisk of 
Heliopolis and the unchanging pyramids; mem- 
ories of simple but grand faith in the hearts of 
old men that worshiped God, and died in every 
year and month of all the thousands that have 
shone upon these stones ; shadows that will for- 
ever haunt the places that are sanctified by 
man's holiest emotions — sincere and prayerful 
trust in God, though it were in a false god ; 
shadows that are changeful, but always there; 
long shapes and forms cast on the walls by the 
altar flames, that remain and appear, and flit 
here and there on pavement and wall, though 
altar fires be long extinguished, and the wall 
lie in the dust of the broken pavements of the 
temple. 

This is a terrible silence that lies over the 
City of Victory to-night. I am seated at my 
open window, the moon shining gloriously — a 
dazzling moon — my table drawn to the Avindow, 
and the flame of my candle rising steadily and 
without a flicker in the profoundly silent air. 
Two hundred thousand people are lying here 
around me, and I ask who and what they are, 
and what part they form in the grand sum of 
human valuation? Literally nothing. They 
are not worth the counting among the races of 
men. They are the curse of one of the fairest 
lands on this earth's surface. But this is not 
for long. The end is coming. The mosque 
of Amer is crumbling into ruin, and the cres- 



486 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



cent increases no longer. From the distant 
citadel sounds the morning call to prayer, and 
another and another takes it up, and three hun- 
dred voices are filling the air with a rich, soft 
chant, that reaches the ear of the Mussulman 
in his profoundest slumber, and calls him up to 
pray. Does he obey ? There was a time when, 
at that call, the City of Saladin had no closed 
eye, no unbent knee in all its walls. But the 
Mussulman is changed now. He heard the call 
in his half drunken sleep, stupefied with hashish, 
and he damned the muezzin, and turned over to 
deeper slumber. He heard it in his profound 
repose, after counting over the gains he had 
made by cheating his neighbors, and he did not 
feel like praying. He heard it on the perfumed 
couch of his slave, and he forgot the Prophet's 
in the present heaven. He heard it — yes, there 
were a few old men, who remember the glory of 
the Mamelukes ; who heard their fierce shouts 
when the Christian invaders met them at the 
pyramids ; and who, wearied with long life, look 
now for youth and rest in heaven, and they, when 
they heard the call, obeyed it, and theirs were 
the only prayers wasted on the dawning light in 
all of Cairo, and when they cease there will be 
none to pray. 

This is no fancy picture. Mark the prophe- 
cy. Our days may be few, but there are men 
living now who will see the crescent disappear 
from the valley of the Nile, and who will build 
their houses from the sacred stones of the 
mightiest mosques in Grand Cairo. The be- 
ginning of this end is visible already, but who 
can foresee what is to follow ? 

As we were riding up the Mouski, May and 
myself, on our way to the bazaars, one after- 
noon, we were startled and arrested by an ap- 
parition that was not to be allowed to pass un- 
seen. 

Seated on a splendid sorrel mare, whose 
quick roving eye was ill at ease in the street of 
the city, was an old man, whose face was the 
face of a king. His dress was rich and elegant, 
but such as we had not yet seen in Cairo. He 
wore no shoes, stockings, nor trowsers. The 
dust of the desert was on his bare feet and an- 
kles. Over a shirt of the richest brocade was 
worn a cloak of crimson cloth worked with gold, 
and over this a cloak of black, concealing all 
that was under it, except when it was exposed 
by accident. A cashmere sash was wound 
around his waist, binding the shirt only, in the 
folds of which gleamed pistols and knives more 
than I could count. His head was covered with 
a shawl of brown silk, the heaviest work of the 
looms of Damascus, and it was held in its place 
by a cord of the same material, heavy enough 
to hang a man, wound three times around the 
crown of his head above the forehead and ears. 
But the dress, strange and elegant as it was, 
was a matter of subsequent observation to us. 
it was the face of the man that struck us, and 
riveted our attention. He was an old man. I 
did not then know how old. But his eye was 
brighter than the eye of a young eagle. The 



suns of the desert for a hundred years had not 
served to dim one ray of its brilliance. I never 
saw such an eye. It pierced me through and 
through. His features were chiseled with the 
sharpest regularity, and his eye lit them up so 
that he seemed every inch a prince. And yet 
he was of diminutive form, small, slender, and 
his naked foot, that rested in the shovel stirrup, 
was thin and bony to the extreme. 

As he passed us we turned to look at him, 
and the very next instant Mohammed Abd-el- 
Atti rushed up to him, and they exchanged 
tho:;e graceful salutations which characterize 
the meetings of friends in Eastern countries. 
Immediately after their meeting, Abd-el-Atti 
brought us together, and made us acquainted 
with the Sheik Houssein Ibnegid, the most 
powerful of the Bedouin chiefs from Cairo to 
Mecca. The old man touched my hand, and 
as we each lifted our fingers to our lips after 
the grasp, we exchanged a look which is not 
soon to be forgotten.' I think if he meets me in 
Wady Mousa he will know me ; and I am very 
certain that if I meet him any where between 
Abou Simbel and Constantinople I shall remem- 
ber that eye. 

Sheik Houssein is an old man. Here men 
say that he is over a hundred years of age, and 
that his descendants of the fourth generation 
are full-grown men riding the desert horses. 
Be this as it may, he is a man well known in 
the world, and his fame has gone from Europe 
to America in the letters of travelers who have 
met him on the desert among his ten thousand 
followers. There he is a chieftain to be dread- 
ed. He has but to lift a handful of dust and 
blow it into the air with his thin old lips, and 
three thousand Bedouins are in the saddle at 
his call. He is the guardian of Petra, witli 
whom all who desire to see the Rock City must 
make peace and friendship. 

But how came the Sheik Houssein within the 
walls of a city, and how came his mare to be 
treading the filthy streets of Cairo, through the 
narrow passages shut out from the sky — foi 
where we met them there was no sky visible, 
the street itself being roofed over with reeds to 
keep out the sun ? The story is somewha 
long, but I will make it as brief as possible. 

Some time ago the caravan from Suez to 
Cairo was robbed of a camel loaded with indi- 
go. The Sheik Ibn-sh-deed, who rules the des- 
ert from Cairo to the Red Sea, is responsible tt 
the government of Egypt for the safety of the 
caravan. He has hostages in the city to secure 
that responsibility. It was immediately evident 
that none of his tribe had committed the theft, 
and it was soon as evident that it was the act 
of two men belonging to a tribe nearer to Aka- 
ba, and bordering on the tribes that owe alle- 
giance to the Sheik Houssein. Indeed, some 
evidence was given that they were actually men 
under that old Sheik's power. 

Among the Arabs still prevails that patri- 
archal form of government which makes the 
Sheik the father of his entire tribe. If one of 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 



487 



them is in trouble — it matters nothing whether 
it be his son or the poorest wretch of his re- 
tainers — he will sacrifice his life for him, and 
every man of the entire tribe is bound to do the 
same. The veneration for the Sheik, and his 
care over them, is in every respect like that of a 
father for his sons, and children for their parent. 
Accordingly, when one is known to have com- 
mitted a crime, no trouble is taken to catch 
him. Any one of the same tribe is quite the 
same thing. Arrest him if you can, bring him 
to Cairo, and send word to his Sheik that he 
will remain in prison till the thief is produced 
at the prison-door, and all the tribe are at work 
instantly to secure the right man, taking care at 
first to exhaust all means of effecting the escape 
of the one who has been taken. 

Ramadan Effendi, one of the officers of gov- 
ernment in high standing, the third officer in 
the Transit Department — who, by the way, is 
the cousin and the brother-in-law of Abd-el- 
Atti, our dragoman — went on an expedition to 
catch one of the tribe at whose door lay the 
charge of this robbery. How adroitly he man- 
aged his business ; how he inveigled two of 
them into an ambuscade, and then sprang on 
them and bound them ; how the whole tribe 
dogged his returning way with his captives ; 
how he took them in one of the passenger vans 
to cross from Suez among the English passen- 
gers, and thus escaped the vigilance of the Bed- 
ouins ; and how he deposited them in chains, 
under bolt and bar, in Cairo, has been the sub- 
ject of town talk for a month past among those 
who have known the circumstances. Still there 
remained a doubt as to whether the robbers 
were of this tribe, and it was desirable to catch 
a man from the tribes that acknowledge the su- 
premacy of the Sheik Houssein, and thus make 
the matter certain. 

A few days ago I went to the prison to see 
these caged eagles — call them rather vultures — 
but they were splendid fellows. One of them 
was the son of the Sheik of his tribe, and is 
celebrated as the man who dared to brave Me- 
hemet Ali. Not many years ago, when that 
bold man had imprisoned the Shereef of Mecca 
in the citadel of Cairo, this Bedouin came un- 
der the wall of the citadel on the desert side — 
where it is fifty feet high — and, with ropes and 
his own sharp wit to aid him, entered the cita- 
del, liberated the Shereef, lowered him to the 
desert sand, placed him on his own dromedary, 
and, with a shout of triumph, dashed away into 
the desert. Eighty horses, of the swiftest that 
the Viceroy possessed, in vain followed the es- 
caped captive. 

He sat and smoked his pipe calmly as I stood 
and looked at him. It is strongly suspected 
that he was one of the robbers himself. It is 
very certain that he will hang at the Bab Zou- 
ailch if some one else is not speedily taken. 

But the caravan of the pilgrims from Mecca 
was coming over the desert. This is the an- 
nual event of Cairo. The departure and the 
return of the Hadg are the two great festivals 



of the year, and the caravan had just arrived on 
the desert outside the city to-day — on the day 
of which I speak — and was waiting the order 
of the Pasha to enter the gates and march in 
procession to the citadel. Three thousand cam- 
els were scattered here and there over the sand- 
hills, and the scene is one of the finest and most 
picturesque pageants that we have ever wit- 
nessed. 

A glance at the map will show any reader 
that the pilgrims, in crossing from Mecca to 
Cairo, pass immense deserts, and, of course, 
through the dominions of various Bedouin tribes. 
To each of these tribes the Hadg pays a certain 
sum for protection and safe passage. By in- 
structions sent to them this year, the officers in 
charge of the caravan made a dispute with Sheik 
Houssein, on passing through his country, as to 
the kind of dollar to be paid to him — the rate 
having been fixed in dollars, and the dollar be- 
ing a variable sum, meaning a five-franc piece, 
or twenty-three piastres, and also a Spanish dol- 
lar, which is twenty-six. The Hadg offered the 
Sheik French dollars, and he demanded, as no 
doubt he was entitled to receive, the more valu- 
able. The result was that they refused to pay 
him any thing until they should arrive at Cairo 
and settle the dispute there. To this he agreed, 
and accompanied the caravan to Cairo ; and he 
Avas just entering the city when we met him in 
the Mouski. 

A fate that he little anticipated was before 
him. He asked us to accompany him to the 
government office, which was near at hand ; and 
we, having an intimation of what was before 
him, and willing to see the process of catching 
an Eagle of the Desert, rode on by his side to 
the door, where we dismounted and entered. 

We were shown into an upper room, where 
sat Mustapha Capitan, the chief officer of the 
Transit Department at Cairo, and Ramadan 
Effendi, who is the next in rank. Mustapha 
occupied the corner of the divan, and room was 
immediately made for May and myself on his 
right, where we sat while coffee was served. 
Ramadan sat on our left, Abd-el Atti being at 
hand to interpret in case of necessity. The 
room was crowded to suffocation with men in 
every variety of Eastern costume, not less than 
fifty of them being Bedouins of every tribe be- 
tween Jerusalem, Mecca, Akaba, and Cairo. 
The Sheik Ibrahim, whose tribe are between 
Gaza and Heliopolis, with a dozen of his fol- 
lowers — dark, swarthy felloAvs, in blankets and 
shawls; Ibn-sh-deed, whom I have before men- 
tioned, with as many of his retainers; Sulev- 
man, from Akaba, a noble-looking man, with 
a fine, intelligent face, clothed in a brown robe, 
over a brown silk shirt, with a shawl of the same 
color on his head, the ends of which hung to his 
feet, and with him three darker and more devil- 
ish-looking Bedouins than I have elsewhere 
seen. If one met them on the desert, one 
would commence turning pockets wrong side 
out before they had opened their lips; and at 
the same time such fiends in appearance, that 



488 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



no man would have the slightest compunctions 
of conscience in putting a bullet through each 
of them successively. These whom I have 
named, and a half dozen others, surrounded the 
semicircle of which we formed the centre group. 
Do not imagine that they were silent. All were 
speaking vociferously as the old Sheik, Hous- 
sein, was introduced, and for the first time it 
became manifest to him that he was a prisoner. 

It Avas not necessary to explain to him why 
he was detained. We heard them speaking of 
the lost camel, and he knew the story well, for 
every Bedouin in Arabia knew it a month ago. 
But he strode forward into the semicircle, and 
while he gathered his cloak around him with 
his left hand, he raised his thin right hand over 
his head, and stood in an attitude of grace that 
I have never but once seen equaled. The re- 
semblance to the North American Indian was 
startling. Every gesture was similar, and the 
eloquence was the same natural flow of fierce, 
biting, furious words, yet full of imagery and 
beauty. I understand but little Arabic — only 
so much as I have picked up since my arrival 
here, to help me in the bazaars and on the boat. 
But I could follow him through nearly all that 
he said — asking Abd-el-Atti occasionally for a 
word or an idea — so perfect was his gesture, and 
in such perfect keeping with his subject. 

Occasionally Mustapha interrupted him with 
a question, and he replied. The substance of 
what he said was that he knew of the robbery, 
knew who did it, knew where the man, camel, 
and indigo all were, but that they were all out 
of his jurisdiction ; they were in an adjoining 
tribe, and he would not undertake to catch the 
thief, simply because it was none of his busi- 
ness. If he should do it, his own life would 
not be worth an hour's purchase, and there was 
no reason why he should throw it away for Said 
Pasha, a man to whom he owed nothing, and 
whom he did not love, respect, or fear. If the 
government of Egypt wanted the man enough 
to send an officer for him who would take the 
responsibility of catching him, then he would 
aid him, but he would not risk his life to do 
that in which he had no interest. 

Some severe expressions were used by Mus- 
tapha Capitan, which roused the old Sheik's 
anger, and he shook his forefinger, while the 
room rang with his deep, guttural voice. " I 
am an old man ; I knew Said Pasha's father ; 
and long before Mehemet Ali sat on the divan 
in Cairo I w r as Sheik in Wady Mousa. Said 
Pasha may think himself somewhat of a man 
because he is in the seat of his father. My 
son, you are a boy. You have caught me in 
Cairo ; but if I meet you outside the gates of 
your city — if I meet you on the desert sand — I 
will show you who is Sheik Houssein ! Kill 
me here now, if you dare, and I have five sons, 
old men all, who will seek my blood on the stones 
of Cairo. No no, Mustapha Capitan ; no no, 
Hassan Pasha; Sheik Houssein is not to be 
treated like a boy ! What will become of your 
caravan next year, and the year after, and after 



that? Send ten thousand men with it to guard 
it by the mountains of Sheik Houssein, and from 
every rock and hiding-place will he rain death 
on them, and the ten thousand men will lie on 
the sands. You dare not harm this old head ! 
I am not afraid of you, though I stand here in 
your strong house, in the heart of your great 
city. The man does not live who dares to harm 
me. Woe be to you, Mustapha Capitan — woe 
be to Said Pasha — if I go not out free from 
Cairo and unharmed !" 

The room was silent for a moment, as the 
old man took breath after this burst of defiance, 
and then every voice rang at once in a storm 
of dissension, dispute, demand, refusal, defi- 
ance, anger, and fury. This subsided as the 
Sheik Houssein again raised his voice, and hurl- 
ed his anathemas on Said Pasha and the Egyp- 
tian government. Meantime Mustapha Capitan 
sat calmly in the corner of the divan, and May 
and myself sat as calmly by his side. I confess 
that I thought once or twice that if this storm 
of words should result as it would have been 
likely to result in any other part of the world, 
our chance would have been poor to reach the 
door through a hundred Arabs, every one of 
them fully armed. 

But the audience was over. Mustapha had 
had enough of the Sheik, and he broke up the 
sitting by a nod. We went out with the crowd, 
and as the room opened out on the large roof 
of the lower building, the Bedouins sat down on 
the stones of the roof, and we sat down in a 
circle composed of the four sheiks that I have 
mentioned and ourselves, attended by Abd-el- 
Atti. Here w r e remained an hour longer, list- 
ening to the wily attempts of the others to per- 
suade the old man into a promise to produce 
the thief. It was in vain. He was not to be 
caught. Accordingly I proposed to Abd-el- 
Atti to take the old man with us and visit the 
other prisoners. I was anxious to see their 
meeting. He went with us. 

As he entered the prison-door they advanced 
to meet him, and the first one, the son of a 
sheik, met him with outstretched arms, kissing 
him on each cheek and receiving his kisses in 
return, then pressing his forehead against the 
old man's forehead and standing silent and mo- 
tionless for thirty seconds in that graceful and 
strange position, their eyes fixed on the ground. 
The other prisoner received a similar salute, 
but not so impressive. The first prisoner was 
dressed in the plainest and most common gray 
blanket of the Bedouins. It was wound around 
his body, and the corner was thrown over his 
head. And yet his slave, who had come to him 
from his far-off home across the desert, was as 
richly dressed as any man in the assembly, in 
silk and cashmere, and, I might also have re- 
marked, was one of the loudest talkers in the 
audience-room. For here slaves talk freely be- 
fore their masters, and dispute with them fear- 
lessly. 

Mustapha Capitan ordered the Sheik Hous- 
sein to be detained in the prison all night. 



PASSAGES OF EASTERN TEAVEL. 



Woe to Mustapha if he set his foot on the des- 
ert sand east of Suez after this. 

Abd-el-Atti succeeded in obtaining a good 
room for him and a comfortable place, and since 
then he has done more. He has given his word 
for his appearance in Cairo whenever the Gov- 
ernment wish him in this matter, and on his faith 
Sheik Houssein was the next evening set at lib- 
erty, and Abd-el-Atti brought him immediately 
to us. "We were just finishing dinner when he 
was announced, and we brought him into the din- 
ing-room to take coffee and fruit with us ; and 
he sat an hour, much to our edification and that 
of some travelers who had arrived at the hotel. 
Among these we are fortunate in having with 
us Sir Gardiner "Wilkinson, the most accom- 
plished Egyptian scholar and antiquarian of 
the present day, and he was able to converse 
freely with the Sheik, who was unsparing in his 
threats of vengeance for the insult he has re- 
ceived, as well as his promises of good treat- 
ment to Abd-el-Atti and his friends, whom, he 
said impressively, "I pray God I may see in 
Wady Mousa before I die." It is, at least, a 
happy circumstance for us to have met him un- 
der such auspices. It removes one of the great 
obstacles in the way of our crossing the desert. 
For, to say truth, Sheik Houssein has been a 
terror before us, his reputation being none of the 
best with travelers, many tales being current of 
his skill in robbing them of superfluous or neces- 
sary dollars. But he has eaten bread with us, so 
he said at parting, and he hopes to eat with us 
again in Wady Mousa. 

" What will you do to Abd-el-Atti, when he 
comes to your tent ?" I asked him. 

He turned his eye up to Abd-el-Atti with a 
good-natured laugh, and drew his finger across 
his throat. 

W r e laughed at his jesting threat, and I asked 
him what he would do to Mustapha Capitan if 
he ever came to Wady Mousa. His face so- 
bered in an instant, and he looked with his 
flashing eye at me, and was silent for a mo- 
ment. Then he growled, rather than spoke, 

" You know very well what I will do to Mus- 
tapha Capitan or to Said Pasha, if either of 
them comes within my reach." 

While he remains he will eat and sleep at 
the house of Abd-el-Atti, and when he returns 
to his desert Said Pasha has another horde of 
enemies to disturb his already uncertain reign. 

The administration of justice in Egypt is a 
curious affair. As I was riding homeward from 
the prison in which I had left the old man of 
the desert, I met a camel carrying a large box 
which contained a huge tiger. The animal was 
growling furiously, as every swing of the camel 
sent him now to one end of the cage and now 
to the other. I was comparing him to the old 
chief. Never were two more alike. While I 
was looking at him, two tall stout men, Euro- 
peans, dismounted from donkeys which they 
had hired, and refused to pay the owner for 
them. On his insisting, one of them struck 
him. Whereat ho became more earnest in his 



demands for his money, but was still perfectly 
respectful, though he held the Frank firmly by 
the folds of his dress. The latter, enraged at 
the pertinacity of the Arab, struck him with his 
cane, and then gave him a terrible beating. I 
never saw a man so thoroughly thrashed. He 
struck him over his head and back, his legs and 
his bare arms, bringing blood at every blow. 
He beat him across the street and actually into 
the open court of the police office, where sat 
fifteen or twenty police officers, smoking sedate- 
ly and calmly. No one of them moved from 
his seat, or spoke. Twenty other donkey men 
rushed in to the rescue, and the Frank broke 
his cane over the head of his victim, and then 
took to European swearing. The next instant 
he rushed out into the street, around the cor- 
ner of the building, to the old man who sells 
bamboo and rattans, bought a stout bamboo for 
a piastre and returned to the charge. Again 
the poor Arab took it, and when he was thor- 
oughly tired the Frank left the crowd and walked 
along the street as coolly as if he had but been 
whipping a dog. 

This is an everyday occurrence in the streets 
of the city, and I mention it in connection with 
the arrest of the Sheik Houssein as showing 
what experience I had in one afternoon of the 
manner of administering justice in Cairo the 
Blessed. 

The procession of the maJchmil took place the 
third day after our meeting with Sheik Hous- 
sein, and we were up and off early in the morn- 
ing to see it. 

This procession is ordinarily one of the grand- 
est events of the Cairene year. The departure 
of the pilgrims is the time for more display, but 
the scene is not more interesting, perhaps not 
as interesting. 

The caravan had been waiting on the desert, 
outside the city walls, for the Pasha's order that 
it should enter, and this at length was issued 
at a late hour on the evening of the 10th. No 
one knew of it, and we should not have heard 
of it but for the faithfulness of our servant, who 
was up at his prayers before daylight, as every 
good Mussulman should be, and saw the soldiers 
passing on their way out of the city to meet the 
caravan, so he came and roused me, and called 
a carriage instanter. It had been decided be- 
fore hand that we should have a carriage in- 
stead of going on donkeys, because, in the first 
place, we should be better able to see in a crowd, 
and in the second place, should be less liable to 
insult from the crowd. For on the day of this 
procession, from time immemorial, Mussulmans 
have been permitted to insult Christians with 
impunity, and the boys are accustomed to do 
so. 

The makhmil is a somewhat curious affair. 
Few Mohammedans can tell you what it is, 
though they venerate it, and look forward and 
back to its arrival as the great event of the re- 
ligious year. 

Long years ago — let us not be particular abou t 
dates — a certain royal lady, a queen, made tho 



490 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




BAB ZOOAYLEH. 

pilgrimage to Mecca, and for her use had a gor- 
geous car or camel litter made, in which she 
rode all the way. The next year she did not 
go on the pilgrimage, but she sent her camel and 
her litter, and it was carried by the pilgrims 
each successive year, until they forgot the ori- 
gin of the custom and made it a religious rite. 
Each year a most gorgeous canopy is made — a 
new one every year — at the expense of the gov- 
ernment, and this goes and returns empty. On 
its return it is held most sacred. The people 
rush to touch it with their fingers. They press 
their foreheads and lips to the fringe, and re- 
joice at the blessing their eyes have in looking 
at it. 

We were pretty effectually insured against 
insult by the presence of Abd-el-Atti with us, 
but still more when we met Sheik Houssein and 
took him into the carriage. The old man did 
not exactly like to sit in such an affair. He 
said he preferred to be on his horse, and he 
looked anxiously around him as we went along 
through the crowd that was pouring to the 
part of the city where the procession was te 
pass. We drove on rapidly, a runner preced- 
ing us and clearing the way. I wished to reach 
the Bab-el-Nusr, the Gate of Victory, before the 
entrance of the procession, but I was too late 
for it. We met them in the narrowest part of 
the way, and the officers who preceded the pro- 
cession turned our horses' heads, so that we 
were obliged to head the procession and drive 
back till we came to a convenient turn out, 
where we could stop and let them pass. This 
place we found and there saw them. 

The procession was headed by the caravan 
which had accompanied the Hadg to Mecca and 



back. Then followed the escort of cavalry 
and foot sent out to meet them. Behind these 
came the Sacred Camel, bearing the makhmil. 
It was indeed a gorgeous affair, blazing with 
the purest gold. No tinsel work about this. 
Its value was incalculable. The camel was al- 
most hidden by the fringe of precious metal, 
and the balls and crescents shone like suns 
and moons. The whole crowd shouted and 
did reverence to it as it passed. 

The Mohammedan sign of reverence is 
made by placing the palm of the open hand 
on the forehead, and drawing it down to the 
chin ; every man, woman, and child did this, 
and then shouted. The air rang with the pe- 
culiar cry of joy which the women utter on all 
festive occasions, a long gurgling sound that 
no one can imitate who is not born in the 
East. Behind the makhmil, on a camel, sat 
a dervish, naked to the waist, who is a some- 
what celebrate* d character, and an important 
part of the procession. His head rolls as if it 
were not attached to his shoulders, but only 
lay there, and every motion of the camel sent 
it around. This motion he is never known to 
stop from the time the makhmil leaves the 
citadel of Cairo on its way to Mecca until its re- 
turn. Possibly in the night time, when no one 
is near, he may rest and sleep, but this is de- 
nied, and it is asserted and believed that he nev- 
er rests an instant or ceases this strange motion. 
Following him are the camels of the pilgrims, 
with their canopies and their families in them. 
The camel litter is composed of two boxes, 
swung on opposite sides of the camel, covered 
with one tent-like canopy. In each box are 
some of the riders, or possibly they balance the 
person on one side by the baggage on the other, 
if the family is not large enough to fill both. 

These are the desert ships of old fame. Five 
thousand of them were in the caravan when 
they left Suez, but more than two thousand 
hastened on, and had been scattered to their 
various homes a week or more before the arriv- 
al of the main body. Hence the procession was 
not as full as usual. 

After the camels came the guard of the car- 
avan, a regiment of wild-looking rascals of every 
nation under the Eastern sun, dressed in more 
costumes than there are countries in Asia and 
Africa, and these closed the procession, which 
was altogether the strangest that we have ever 
been witnesses of. They passed us and went 
on through the Bab Zooayleh, which is one of 
the most stately edifices in the city, and so on 
up to the citadel. The Bab Zooayleh is, as its 
name imports, a gate. Before the days of Sal- 
adin it was the most southern gate of Cairo, but 
when that prince extended the city, and built 
the citadel, this gate was left in the midst of the 
houses, and stands to this day a monument of 
the greatness of that celebrated warrior. 

It is withal one of the most sacred places in 
Cairo, and while superstition even among Mus- 
sulmans shrinks from public gaze, here it is dis- 
played to the utmost. 



MY NEIGHBOR'S STORY. 



491 



MY NEIGHBOR'S STORY. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF " LILY." 

I HAVE a neighbor. We occupy adjoining 
rooms in a shabby-genteel boarding-house, 
where the cheap lodging partly consoles us for 
its discomforts. My neighbor is a grave, faded, 
silent woman of forty or thereabouts, always 
dressed in sombre colors, with a plain muslin 
cap concealing her gray hair, and a reserve of 
manner which baffles curiosity and questioners. 

She has no visitors ; she rarely leaves the 
house; the postman's arrival never causes a 
stir of joy or sorrow upon her countenance ; 
and after each meal she slowly retires from 
the dining-room with her usual heavy, listless 
tread, and is not seen again until the bell sum- 
mons us to the table once more. 

If addressed, she answers quietly and firmly, 
glancing a moment at her interlocutor, and then 
looking down upon her plate, as if she wished 
to let you understand that politeness alone in- 
duced her reply. 

Always punctual in her weekly payments, so 
mysteriously regular in her conduct, so averse 
to gossip, at first my neighbor was a great 
"card"' in the house, and we shuffled and dealt 
her every day so soon as her back was turned. 

" 'Who was she ?" 

No one could tell. She gave her name as 
Mrs. Brown ; and weeks lengthened into months, 
and months into years, and still, grave, faded, 
silent, with her dark gowns and her measured 
footfall, the stranger lived in our midst as un- 
known as if she wore an iron mask, and did 
not speak our language. 

Gradually the interest in her died away. 
The inmates of the boarding-house left off won- 
dering about her, for no fresh food was served 
up for their eager swallow — she just staid at the 
same point, neither lessening nor increasing her 
.self-concentrated style of life — so, sadly and 
wearily my neighbor's days dragged along in 
their unbroken calm and unwavering reserve. 

She was still to me a subject of thought. 
Whether it were because I was more pertina- 
cious than my fellow-boarders, or whether being 
in the next room, I seemed nearer to her, and 
could hear her frequently pacing her narrow 
chamber for hours, not restlessly, but with a 
solemn, marked, continuous march which often 
lasted till the gray dawn peeped through my 
shutters — whether this made a bond between 
us, unfclt by the others, I do not know; but 
certain it is, that long after the rest had ceased 
to notice her, I still watched, and strove to pierce 
the envelope which shut us out from her ideas, 
feeling, and sorrows. 

After a night passed as I have described, she 
would appear at the breakfast - table with no 
traces of tears or sleeplessness — just the same 
haggard look around her large eyes, the same 
patient suffering wrinkling her faded mouth, 
the same entire hopelessness of carriage and 
air. 

She asked no sympathy — she needed none. 
I saw very soon that she was unaccustomed to 



the coarse fare which our landlady provided ; 
others had remarked that, soon after her arrival, 
and once, some one had said to her, " You don't 
relish your victuals, ma'am ? You have been 
used to better, perhaps ?" 

She had fixed her sternest look upon the 
speaker. 

"You are mistaken," she said, dropping her 
eyelids instantly ; " every thing is better than 
I am in the habit of seeing." 

And from that day the meanest dish on the 
humble board was always her choice, although 
she could not sometimes dispose of the contents, 
but would play with her knife and three-pronged 
fork, and rise from among us without having 
eaten enough to nourish a sparrow. 

There was another singular incident which, 
early in her stay, caused much comment. 

One morning she chanced to sit next our 
landlady, who, awkwardly enough, upset the 
ewer of boiled milk over the sleeve and hand 
of Mrs. Brown. It was not very hot, the milk 
— it never was — but Mrs. Plunkett started up 
with apologies, and, in spite of my neighbor's 
resistance, would wipe and rub the wet hand, 
herself. In a few seconds all the boarders saw 
with amazement that the well-polished hand 
contrasted singularly with its fellow, which was 
brown and harsh ; while the one clasped by 
Mrs. Plunkett was delicate, fair, blue-veined, 
and admirably beautiful. 

The boarders were almost content at losing 
their coffee, since the spilt milk had secured 
the knowledge of this mystery ; but my neigh- 
bor drew her sleeve over the hand and retired. 
At dinner they appeared to have resumed their 
likeness ; and worthy Mrs. Plunkett will to her 
last hour believe that the constant use of boiled 
milk (tepid) will produce the happiest results 
upon the most unsatisfactory skins. 

Last week I remarked that my neighbor was 
more than usually depressed. Through the 
partition-wall I frequently heard her sigh, and 
for three nights the steady footsteps kept up 
their regular beat without intermission. 

Each day she looked more worn, and my old 
eyes fdled with tears as I watched her. Lat- 
terly she had not turned with a vexed frown 
from my observation, as I had often had the 
pain of seeing her do, but once or twice she 
gave me an earnest glance from beneath her 
fatigued brow, while her arms drooped moodily 
and weakly beside her. 

She seemed thinner, more fragile than ever. 
ITer gown-waist was pinned over more closely 
each day : a willow-wand is scarcely slighter 
than her waist. 

But, as I was saying, last -week — it was about 
eight o'clock in the evening, and 1 Mas sitting 
in my own room, intending to write a letter to 
my absent child, who is toiling in California, 
when a sob — so loud, so deep, so heart-break- 
ing — came to me from my neighbor. 

It was irresistible. I started up and went 
into the passage. A light shone below the 
closed door of my neighbor's room. I listen- 



492 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ed. All was still, except from the parlor down 
stairs, where one of the ladies was torturing the 
piano. 

Again that heavy sigh. It was as if a long 
pent-up agony, like a mighty river bursting its 
bounds rushed sweepingly, distractingly, over- 
whelmingly into sound and action. Sob upon 
sob ; tears falling in mad sorrow ; and then a 
fall, as if a figure gathered up to its full height 
had suddenly dropped prone upon the floor. 

I felt the impropriety — the intrusion — but I 
softly opened the door, carried away by a sym- 
pathy stronger than conventional rules. 

There lay my neighbor. Her long hair 
untwisted, disheveled ; her head buried in 
her arms, gathered in a reckless heap, writh- 
ing in uncontrollable misery. Bitter sighs, 
half-uttered words, ceaseless moans. The room 
was bare ; no curtains to the hard, comfortless 
bed : none at the solitary window. A stiff, un- 
cushioned chair, a small trunk ; not a book, not 
a sign of woman's presence ; the most cheerless 
spot conceivable. But opposite to me there 
rested an object so strange to find in such an 
apartment, that it riveted my attention and 
kept me spell-bound. 

A large packing-case held a picture in a 
splendid frame ; the upper side had been re- 
moved only recently, for it yet leaned partly 
against the picture. 

It was a portrait — a full-length portrait — of a 
beautiful woman ; so brilliantly beautiful that I 
wondered if lips so red and eyes so dazzling 
could ever have existed. The dress was of a 
fashion of fifteen years back or more ; the sur- 
roundings represented a drawing-room, hand- 
somely furnished, and, reclining upon a sofa, 
with one arm half buried in its downy depths, 
lay this beauty — a sparkling petulance, a haughty 
grace enveloping her, and shining jewels deck- 
ing her lovely person with a glorious fitness, 
like dew-drops upon morning blossoms. 

By the light of a sixpenny glass-lamp, in 
which burned camphene, on the table near, I 
saw this luxurious picture, and the weeping, 
groveling woman, in. her coarse garments and 
her fierce sorrow, on the floor at its feet. They 
seemed the antipodes of life ; and yet it ap- 
peared to me that in the lofty dignity of the 
one I could trace a dreamy likeness to the low- 
ly poverty of the other. 

Was it so ? Had these wearied, melancholy 
eyes, which now were vailed by her silvered 
hair, ever been faithfully represented by those 
insolently beautiful ones ? Was there truly a 
connection between the portrait and the owner 
of it? 

Was it Madgalen weeping before her early 
self? 

The more I looked, the more I believed it. 
Withered, worn, shabby, old as she now was — 
this portrait had once, like a mirror, reflected 
the features of my neighbor. 

What business had I there ? What could I 
do for grief like this ? The proud spirit which 
danced in every sparkle of the portrait's eye, 



the pretty scorn which shone in its air, might 
yet linger in my neighbor's breast. She was 
aroused. She was no longer patient, uncom- 
plaining ; some sorrow was stirring within her, 
which had overleaped her stoical calm. 

I closed the door gently, and held my breath 
lest I should disturb her. 

" Poor thing !" 

I could not write. In spite of my sixty years, 
boyish tears wet my cheek, and I listened — 
listened — and heard the low sobs die out : then 
came the heavy, grief-laden footsteps. 

"Who and what was my neighbor?" 

Her door opened : not as I had opened it, 
but quickly, violently ; and she ran — she Avho 
always walked as if shod with lead — down the 
stair. I caught a glimpse of her. Her bonnet 
was dashed upon her head, and a shawl thrown 
around her. 

In a moment I was after her, watched the 
course she took, and followed. 

Up one quiet street, down another, to the 
finest quarter of the city, flew my neighbor. At 
last we were almost driven over by carriages 
making their way in the same direction ; and, 
to my surprise, she stopped where they did. 

A grand old house ! Lights streaming from 
the hall and through each window-chink. Files 
of servants in livery marshaling the guests, 
crowds of by-stan ders gazing into the entrance- 
door and gaping at the company, as coach after 
coach set down its richly-dressed occupants 
upon the carpet which was spread for dainty 
feet. 

I was quite bewildered. 

"What does my neighbor here?" 

She stood three paces from me as I hid in 
the shade. The ragged boys jostled her, and a 
big Irishwoman thrust her aside. Her bonnet 
was pulled over her face, but I could see the 
large eyes flashing now ; and when a police- 
officer shoved the crowd into order, and bade 
her " stand back," I saw her turn upon him with 
a gesture worthy of the portrait ; and then, 
clasping her hands in agony, she shrunk back, 
and leaned panting against the iron railing. 

Presently she raised her bowed head and look- 
ed eagerly around : then she slipped through 
the mass, and I followed after. She gained 
the back entrance, a deserted lane dimly light- 
ed, and almost feeling in this darkness, opened 
a small gate and passed in. 

I waited to hear her step forward, then pushed 
the gate gently, and found myself in a large 
garden. She was a few yards in advance, cau- 
tiously making her way. 

Nothing daunted, I did likewise. She thread- 
ed the alleys with perfect ease, avoiding the 
broader paths, and walking steadily on. At 
length she paused so abruptly, at a sudden turn, 
that I was almost upon her heels. Immediately 
in front of us, with no impediment to our sight 
but the trunk of the tree behind which she par- 
tially screened herself, was spread out the whole 
company, whose simultaneous arrival was now 
accounted for. 



MY NEIGHBOR'S STORY. 



403 



The night was warm (though in mid-winter), 
the shutters were folded back, and in this sump- 
tuous drawing-room stood a bridal-party. 

The bride was of a soft and gentle beauty, 
very young, fair and tender, blushing timidly 
beneath her vail and orange-blossoms, and look- 
ing up with mingled bashfulness and love at her 
bridegroom. We had arrived, singularly enough, 
just as they took their places for the ceremony. 

A stout, severe, elderly man, with bushy brows 
and an obstinate, harsh expression breaking 
through the present suavity of his look, support- 
ed this young creature on her left. He was evi- 
dently her father or guardian, while as evidently 
I decided that the youth on the bridegroom's 
other side was her brother. He glanced sus- 
piciously, stealthily from time to time at his sis- 
ter; then nervously watched the motions of the 
older man, and seemed helplessly anxious and 
uneasy. 

All this I took in at one look ; for it has been 
my pleasure and habit for many a long year to 
study my fellow-beings, and I have acquired a 
quickness of perception which growg with what 
it feeds upon. 

My neighbor grasped a drooping branch of 
the old oak, pressing her weak frame against its 
strength, and gazing ahead with such painful in- 
tensity, such starting eyeballs, that she neither 
noticed me, nor, I believe, would have turned 
her look aside even had she perceived me. 

The low rustling of rich skirts as the elderly 
ladies stood up — a soft fluttering of fans and 
laces as the younger ones settled themselves — 
a faint cough or two — then a breathless silence. 

" Dearly beloved 

"If any man can show just cause why these 
may not be lawfully joined together, let him 
now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his 
peace." 

"I do!" rang out my neighbor's voice, clear 
and shrill. It resounded throughout that great 
empty garden — it echoed from the ancient walls 
— it stunned me for a second. 

A wild cry — a confused swaying of the crowd 
— the bride sinking in her bridegroom's arms — 
a momentary hush, and then some sprang to the 
open window.-, and all was hurry and pursuit. 

I seized my neighbor's arm ; she struggled, 
but I dragged her on ; and, while eyes were 
peering into the darkness, and rapid feet were 
close upon us, we gained the little gate, and 
were safe. She was quieter now ; only her 
hand was marble cold, and she muttered: 

"My darlings — my poor forsaken darlings!" 

I led her into the silent park which borders 
that portion of the city, and seated her on a 
bench. 

The stars twinkled above our heads — restless- 
ly, it appeared to me, and with a feverish, un- 
certain gleam. There was no calm anywhere. 
Did the tumultuous beatings of that sorrowful 
heart fill the atmosphere, and make even heav- 
en's lights burn fit fully- ? 

It was not noisy — it was not rough ; it was a 
wild, silent, desperate throb. 
Yor. XII.— No. 70.— I r 



" How came you here ?" she said, at last, turn- 
ing upon me. " You were with me in the gar- 
den ?" 

" I was. I followed you. You have made 
me eager to serve and comfort you." 

"Comfort me! Listen. That house which 
we have just left was once mine. There I 
lived, its proud and idolized mistress. That 
young bride is my daughter — my own fair-hair- 
ed Emma. My petted boy — my darling Horace 
— you saw him, did you not? They clung to 
me, they were so young. Yes — I left them !" 

She paused. 

"I scarcely know your name — but latterly I 
have seen that you feel for me — that you pity 
me. You are an old man. My heart is break- 
ing to-night. God help me ! I thought it had 
broken long ago. It is years since 1 have per- 
mitted myself the luxury of a friendly word. I 
never speak. When I was a woman, beautiful 
and admired, men used to worship my wit, and 
bow down before my sarcastic eloquence. It is 
one of my penances now to be silent — to permit 
myself no relaxation from this strict vow. But 
to-night I must speak. 

"Is she not lovely, my gentle Emma? Did 
you see the bridegroom ? I know him. He is 
cruel, heartless, cold, selfish, un warmed by a 
single virtne or even vice. He feels too little 
to be even wicked. All is calculation. Hard 
as adamant, unbending as the steadfast rock, 
he will crush my darling's timid spirit. He will 
not ill-use her, but she will die from sheer want 
of sympathy. He will sneer at her girlish feel- 
ings, and put down her rising thoughts. 

"He is twelve years her senior, and marries 
her for her father's gold. 

" How long is it since I deserted them ? My 
brain wanders to-night" — she put back her tan- 
gled hair, and beat upon her knee with her thin 
hand. 

" I was very beautiful — very haughty — I could 
not brook control ; and, in my wrath, meeting 
each day a will striving to be stronger than my 
own, I grew restive. Life to me was such a 
weary business. He came — did I love him ? 
I do not know. Was it vanity or passion ? a 
yearning after some powerful interest or a mere 
outburst of fretted pride? I can not tell now. 
Then I thought it a love stronger than reason. 

"Five years I reigned the tainted queen of 
dishonoring homage. Who so bright, so grand- 
ly towering in the midst of her hollow court ? 

"One day a new light broke upon me. In 
full career — with not a charm impaired- — with 
not a wrinkle to warn my cheek that time was 
fleeting past — with no tarnish on my lips or brow 
— in the plenitude of my meridian glory. I turn- 
ed with disgust from revelry and empty, vicious 
joys. 

" It was satiety. It palled upon mc. I pined 
for my children's pure kisses. I hated the train 
of bold, bad men who worshiped and despised 
me. I loathed the painted, meretricious women 
who formed my society. With fearless scorn, 
I bade them farewell. I tore the jewels from 



494 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



my arms and brow, and gave the wages of sin to 
feed the poor and clothe the naked. 

" It was a night like this, when, assembling 
the wicked, careless crowd for one last festival, 
more superb than ever — in robes so costly that 
the women about me 'paled their ineffectual 
fires' before the dazzle of my beauty and mag- 
nificence — I took (mentally and forever) my 
leave of them. 

"Never was my supremacy more loudly ac- 
knowledged. Eyes hung upon mine. Men 
quailed before my bitter tongue, and then crept 
to my feet to sun themselves in the dangerous 
softness of my smile. 

"How I hated them all! 

"At early dawn I was miles away. Straight 
as the lapwing to her nest, I sought my children. 

" I came to this city disguised. 

"There were no marks of age then- — mid- 
night orgies had respected their fit associate — 
the devil had cared for his own. I stained my 
face — my royally beautiful hands. The feet 
which had been planted in their slender divin- 
ity upon the necks of my subjects, were hidden 
in coarse shoes. The figure, whose voluptuous 
proportions sculptors and artists had delighted 
to perpetuate, was now swathed in rusty gar- 
ments, which enabled me, unchecked, unrecog- 
nized, to dog the footsteps of my children and 
their attendants. 

" One day Emma stumbled, and I caught her 
in my arms. The graceful, modest girl of 
twelve turned her blue eyes gratefully upon me. 
I trembled like those leaves which the wind 
now beats aside ; her governess drew her away 
with murmured thanks, and looked askance at 
me as I slowly moved along. 

" Years have passed since then. I do not 
give myself the enjoyment, the passive delight 
of even a hut, where in perfect solitude I might 
brood over my life — my griefs. 

"There is a refinement of penance to my 
mind in searching out such spots as the one in 
which I now live. 

" To surround myself with commonplace, ig- 
norant, prying people, whose very contact once 
would have disgusted me. They irritate me 
now; they are the hair-shirt and the lash which 
devout Catholics administer to themselves. 

"Do you realize my life? Do you under- 
stand it ? This is my jar of ointment. I pour 
it out daily. 

"The only relic I possess of what I was, is 
the cruelest stab which yet remains to be told. 

"When I left my home, my children, my all, 
the stern, inflexible father of those children sent 
me my portrait, taken in the pride and bloom 
of my youthful maturity. He would not retain 
a vestige which spoke of me. I have it still. 
When the storm of 'vexed passions,' of undying 
regrets rages highest within me, I open the box 
in which it stands. 

" It is not the sight of my past beauty (for I 
need no disguises now) which wrings my very 
aoul, but the memory of my innocence." 

She stopped. 



"Away!" she cried, lifting up her arms; 
" the hurricane is at hand now. Who can teach 
me to wipe out the past? Repentance will not 
do it, tears will not do it, penance will not do 
it!" 

"But prayer will," I whispered softly, folding 
both fiercely-nervous hands in my aged ones. 

" Prayer !" she repeated, scornfully. " Prayer 
will not give me my children, my lost name, my 
proud position. Prayer can not heal th£ bleed- 
ing wounds that make up my heart. Prayer can 
not prevent what has happened this night — the 
sacrifice of my Emma. Prayer can not restore 
to them the blessing of a virtuous and loving 
mother, nor to me dutiful and happy children. 
Prayer might save my soul, but can not help 
them." 

Alas ! alas ! 

I almost hoped that I read aright — my neigh- 
bor's mind had gone astray as well as her poor, 
faltering footsteps. 

" Farewell !" she said, rising abruptly ; " fare- 
well. I thank you. Do not follow me. Ask 
no questions about me. They tell me you write 
tales for bread. If you can, make a warning of 
me. Fare/well!" 

She walked straight down the path, far into 
the darkness. I saw the flow of her black gown 
and her steady march until the trees shut her 
out. 

I began by saying "I have a neighbor;" I 
should have said " I had." 

I looked for her in her usual seat the next 
morning : she was not at the breakfast-table, 

"Where is Mrs. Brown?" I asked. 

" Ah !" answered Mrs. Plunkett, " she left at 
daylight, bag and baggage ; not much of it, 
though, she has to move — only a big flat box 
and a trunk. The Lord, he knows where she 
has gone. A queer soul that Mrs. Brown ! I 
am not sorry to lose her. Shall I fill your cup, 
Sir ?" 

THE SENSES. 

III. — SMELL. 

" rpHE Lord God breathed into man's nostrils 
J- the breath of life, and man became a liv- 
ing soul," says the revealed account of the first 
creation of man, and surely the fact is not with- 
out its deep meaning, that life entered his earth- 
born body by that channel and by no other. 
Yet of all the handmaidens that serve as so- 
called senses, the 

"Pure brain, 
Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house," 

none is less known and more neglected than 
that of smell. The very manner in which it 
performs its marvelous duties is a mystery ; the 
thousand sources of pure, exquisite enjoyment 
that it affords us daily, are carelessly overlooked, 
and the loss of the sense is scarcely regarded. 
Even its outward representative, however, the 
nose, may be safely claimed as one of the high 
prerogatives that make man to differ from the 
brute. Few animals, indeed, can be said to 
possess a true nose. What is so called by com- 



THE SENSES. 



4fi: 



mon consent — their organ of smell — lies mostly- 
flat and close upon the jaws ; hence the two 
senses of taste and smell are rarely very dis- 
tinct and sharply separated in animals. Both 
of them are probably intended to guide them in 
the choice of their food, not each for itself, but 
jointly. Socrates and Cicero thought that smell 
and taste were given to animals to tell them 
what food was to be taken and what to be re- 
jected. Even in those apes that most nearly 
approach to human shape, we miss the separate 
existence of the sense, and only one, the kaho, 
has, as it were, a caricature of the human nose 
in his irresistibly ludicrous face. Where the 
organ is not thus closely joined and confined to 
the mouth, it grows out from it in extravagant 
length, as in the pig, the mouse, and the seal, 
reaching its extreme in the elephant's trunk, but 
presenting in all a form equally far removed 
from that of the human nose. 

Far different is it in man, "made after the 
image of God." Here the most general of senses, 
touch, is spread over the whole wide surface in 
the simplest organ, the skin, that covers his 
body. Taste is half hid behind the discrete 
curtains of the lips, and within the dark recess 
of the palate, as if nature were anxious to con- 
ceal the more or less sensual organ, and to keep 
the eye of the curious from those secret cham- 
bers where food is received and changed into 
flesh and blood. 

Smell is the first of the senses that has an out- 
ward organ, bold, open, and striking ; though it 
need not always be " as the tower of Lebanon 
which looketh toward Damascus." It is, how- 
ever, the first of those three great senses that 
represent outwardly, in the human counte- 
nance, the inner life of the nerves and their 
mysterious sensations. Hence it is generally 
admitted that of all organs of the senses the 
nose is the most characteristic feature in the 
face of man, and gives it, far beyond eye or 
mouth, its own distinctive expression. Alto- 
gether independent of the strongest will and 
the subtlest cunning, it can not, as our eyes can, 
laugh with the merry and weep with the mourn- 
ing. The well-trained courtier, the crafty co- 
median, and the consummate hypocrite, can 
fashion the soft, silken lips into all they desire ; 
but the nose grows up with the child, and ever 
speaks its mind freely, pointing to the hour on 
the dial of the face with a quickness and an ac- 
curacy nowise inferior to the sun's own shadow 
from on high. Nothing, therefore, disfigures 
the face more than a permanent injury, or the 
loss of that organ. We soon learn to forget 
the harelip, and even the viler sneer of the scof- 
fer's mouth ; sweet twilight still lingers on the 
blind man's eloquent countenance, and awakes 
with our sorrow deep pity and tender affection. 
But from the face without nose we turn with 
instinctive horror: the seal of the Maker is no 
more seen, and the breath of life itself seems 
to have been taken from the wretched sufferer. 
For we must not forget that the nose is but an 
extension of that skull which is in man alone 



so beautiful and perfect, and in him finds, as it 
were, its crown and its highest expression. Curv- 
atures of the spine, therefore, and similar de- 
fects in the sjkull, are not unfrequently repro- 
duced in the nose, with a fidelity as amazing to 
the layman as it is suggestive to the careful ob- 
server of the harmony that ever prevails be- 
tween soul and body. And as its outward form, 
its body and substance, is thus connected with 
the head, so its inner soul-like nerves are but 
direct continuations of the two hemispheres of 
the brain, and make in this character their house 
a true and faithful symbol of the more or less re- 
fined spiritual life of their owner. 

Hence both the almost unlimited variety of 
forms which this organ assumes among men, 
and the apparently undeserved importance which 
we attach to its shape. Not only the form, how- 
ever, but also the direction, the outline, and even 
the coloring of the nose is striking in each case, 
and ever full of meaning. The infantine nose 
is always small and unmeaning; the brain be- 
hind has not yet begun its wondrous work, and 
as yet has fashioned no features. Each year, 
however, adds to its precision of shape; it 
changes more than either eye or mouth, and 
reaches not its full form and permanent out- 
line until the character also is completely form- 
ed. Hence a child-like nose does not please 
us in grown persons, however fashion may pro- 
tect it as a nez retrousse, or the Roxelane nose 
may charm us in spite, and not on account of 
its imperfections. For as a round, highly vault- 
ed brow gives to mature age the likeness of 
childhood, so, in the fully-developed head, a lit- 
tle turned-up nose also suggests at once a child- 
ish and imperfect character. This is most strik- 
ingly felt in the lower races of men, especially 
the negroes, who are all more or less marked 
by the same peculiar feature. Whether this be 
so ordained from the beginning, or merely the 
result of their hard fate abroad and dark bar- 
barism at home, is perfectly immaterial to the 
symbolic meaning. Among the higher races it 
occurs, necessarily, oftener among women than 
among men, though here, with an otherwise 
well-developed head, it generally proves most 
attractive, and gives always the expression of 
pleasing, perhaps rather pert naivete. Without 
such advantages it is a sure sign of insignifican- 
cy, and often of coarseness. Little, stumpy 
noses among men are rare in the higher races, 
and, when they occur, seldom fail to indicate 
weakness of mind, or imperfect moral develop- 
ment. If they are short and thick, we may 
safely presume a strong sensual disposition. A 
turned-up nose, with wide-open nostrils, is a 
rarely deceiving sign of empty, pompous van- 
ity, and mostly belongs to men most truly call- 
ed "puffed up," lacking that "charity which 
vaunteth not itself." Not that large nostrils in 
themselves are considered objectionable ; so far 
from it, they generally pass as an indication of 
strength, pride, and courage, as small ones show 
fear and weakness. Porta said that " men with 
open nostrils were rather given to wrath, but 



496 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



strongest." Nor is this a mere arbitrary no- 
tion ; for we know that the beautifully winding 
channels within reproduce there in miniature 
the great organ of the chest, by which we 
breathe, as the parts of the mouth are in like 
manner the reduced image of the digestive or- 
gans below. The strong man breathes fully 
and freely, and opens his nostrils, as his lungs, 
widely and largely. Even in the noble horse 
we read good blood and fiery spirit in open nos- 
trils, with large breathing, and delicate trans- 
parent structure. 

Another type is the full, well-developed nose. 
The familiar fact that in man, whose respiration 
is stronger and more voluminous than that of 
woman, the nose should be almost invariably 
larger, is full of meaning. A large, strongly 
marked nose is rare in the fairer sex, and when 
found, is a sure sign of masculine temper, or 
undue development of the less refined sensa- 
tions. That in mature age much may be gath- 
ered from this organ, was not unknown to the 
ancients. They collected with care numerous 
drawings, and Porta and others compared them 
with various forms in the animal kingdom. 
That the outward form has its latent meaning, 
can not be doubted ; but we must not forget 
that while the whole is given by nature, and 
some may be accident, a part of both form and 
expression is commonly the result of the own- 
er's mode of life and daily habits. Over-abund- 
ant food and intemperance in drinking develop 
the nose beyond all limits of beauty. Nor is it 
without its special meaning, no doubt, that wine, 
whose main effect is upon the brain, should 
thus change the form of the skull, which, to be 
sure, we can only see in the most prominent 
part, the nose, where it accumulates cellular 
tissues and fills the countless blood-vessels. It 
is but rarely that a nose thus developed, when 
coupled with a refined mind and high intelli- 
gence, gives to the face a sense of comfortable 
sensuality and cheerful humor, such as we fan- 
cy in Falstaff. and see in some of the noblest 
princes of the church, as painted by Titian or 
Rubens. On the other hand, we find that great 
general leanness, the excessive use of snuff, 
and the frequent touch of the finger in deep 
meditation, may reduce a nose to a pitiful 
shadow, and give it most marvelous sharpness. 
When coupled with pale, prim lips, such a nose 
is a certain warning against the narrow mind 
that dwells within, or speaks of melancholy 
temper. In woman, where all sharp bony em- 
inences are commonly covered and softly round- 
ed off with an abundance of flesh and fat, a sharp, 
pointed nose reminds us readily of the Witch 
of Endor. Too great regularity is, strangely 
enough, even less desirable than an inferior out- 
line. Faces of far-famed beauty, in art or in 
life, show mostly a nose approaching the Greek 
ideal, which, perfect as it is in theory, still does 
not convey to us the feeling we most prize — of 
a highly-developed mind and vigorous charac- 
ter. It may please the senses, but it can not 
content the heart. v 



Among the higher races a large, fully-de- 
veloped nose is generally well received, and 
Napoleon is even said to have invariably been 
prepossessed in favor of men so endowed. But 
there is, we all know, no accounting for tastes ; 
and large, powerful nations differ from us alto- 
gether. The Chinese have a national fancy for 
diminutive noses, and the Mongols and Tatars 
think that nose the fairest that is least seen. 
They whittle it down to negative beauty, as De 
Quincey quaintly says, until Djengis Khan's 
Empress became the cynosure of all eyes, hav- 
ing no nose but only two holes. Indian tribes 
flatten them on purpose ; but less authentic is 
the account that the Tatars, who are now the 
next door neighbors of our English cousins in 
the Crimea, break the noses of their infants, 
thinking it, as we are told, " a great piece of 
folly to let their noses stand right before their 
eyes." 

The Jews of the Old Covenant evidently dif- 
fered from these views of beauty, for there we 
are told that " Whatsoever man he be that hath 
a blemish, he shall not approach to offer the 
bread of his God : a blind man or a lame, or 
he that hath a flat nose." On the other hand, 
they were given to strange ways of adorning it 
with costly ornaments, for they are threatened 
that "In that day the Lord will take away their 
rings and nose-jewels ;" and the preacher says, 
" As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a 
fair woman without discretion." Women wear 
these barbarous rings even now : in the nostrils 
among some tribes of India, or in the partition- 
wall, as among the Fellahs of Egypt, where the 
large, heavy hoop has to be specially raised 
whenever they wish to engage in kissing or less 
romantic occupations. Equally barbarous was 
another nose ornament, known to the Bible : 
the ring, or rather the hook, put into the nose 
of captives. The Lord threatens, through his 
prophet, that he " will put his hook in his nose, 
and his bridle in his lips ;" for this was by no 
means, as some have imagined, done only with 
refractory animals, but constantly also with men. 
Assyrian sculptures, especially, show us again 
and again prisoners of distinction who are brought 
before gorgeously-robed monarchs, led by a rope 
fastened to rings in their lips or noses ! 

Five-fold is the duty performed by this organ 
of sense. In man, as in " all in whose nostrils 
is the breath of life," it serves to test the air we 
breathe, and aids in the great process of respi- 
ration. But with man alone it models the voice ; 
it gathers the superfluous moisture with which 
sorrow or sympathy fill our eyes ; and lastly, as 
we have seen, it adds beauty and character to 
the human face. 

But we must not forget, in speaking of these 
nobler functions, that our senses are the ever- 
open gates through which the outer world finds 
admission to the secret temple, on whose vailed 
and mysterious altars the higher powers of man 
are enthroned. At these portals stand faithful 
guardians, who open them wide when welcome 
guests are without, but who can, with equal 



THE SENSES. 



497 






quickness and irresistible force, close the doors 
and exclude the bearer of a treacherous gift or 
a hostile challenge. The eye and the mouth 
are thus well defended. Wide open the beautiful 
gates of the former when the soul is filled with 
amazement, or with admiration for the great- 
ness or the novelty of an object ; or when an 
intangible thought, an overwhelming idea, sud- 
denly opens, as it were, a vista into the far dis- 
tance, or reveals a precipice at our feet. But 
how quickly they close, as if lightning had 
struck the apple of our eye, when a horrible 
sight, a crushing message surprises the sight ! 
Nor is the nose without its trusty watchman. 
But as we can not close the gates here, as in eye 
and mouth, by a mere contraction of muscles, 
we raise our hand with instinctive rapidit} r , or 
we arrest our breath, that the nauseous current 
may not find entrance into the sensitive cham- 
bers. Thus all muscles and nerves that serve 
us in breathing change their position and show 
our reluctance ; or we raise the upper lip and 
draw down the corners of the nostrils, thus half 
closing the entrance — a gesture equally express- 
ive, whether employed to shut out a loathsome 
odor, or to reject the thought and the man that 
" stand in bad odor." 

While by touch we commune with all that is 
solid, and by taste with substances fit for food, 
this sense measures with marvelous delicacy all 
that takes the form of air or vapor. That all 
the world is but one great whole, is shown in 
this also, that all elements constantly and for- 
ever try to change their form — the solid into 
fluid or vapor, vapor and fluid again into solid — 
and thus to enter into ever-new bonds of love 
and friendship. For all these forms our senses 
are each in its way arranged and prepared, and 
smell, in particular, tests all those elements 
which, on their great journey from solid earth, 
are ever striving to rise heavenward, and flee- 
ing and flying, spread and scatter in the wide, 
pure ether. Most bodies exposed to the air 
are constantly sending out atoms so diminutive 
as to be far beyond the reach of human eyes ; 
yet these may give us a pleasure we could not 
otherwise derive from such impalpable sources. 
The fragrance of a rose is not only pleasant in 
itself, but gives a refreshing stimulus to the 
whole system. Or they might be injurious to 
our health, noxious in the highest degree, and 
yet remain utterly imperceptible but for the aid 
of that faithful monitor. Thus foul air is first 
perceived by its smell long ere it enters the 
lungs, and many poisonous plants warn us from 
using them by their loathsome odor. 

Delicate as these atoms are, the instruments 
of this sense arc still more marvelously delicate. 
Not that they are equally so in all created 
beings ; for some have more and some fewer 
nerves for that purpose. The dolphin certain- 
ly, the whale possibly, have none at all ; and 
some of the most perfect classes of animals have 
neither olfactory nerves nor special organs for 
the sense of smell. With the majority, how- 
ever, all theory of botany consists in smell, for 



plants mainly invite those for whom kind moth- 
er Nature matures them by odor o*r perfume. 
Here the exquisite sense of smell is the fore- 
runner of taste. Hence its organ is placed close 
above the mouth. The eyes perceive substance 
and form ; smell tests the inner nature and 
chemical composition ; and food, thus tried and 
examined, is at last admitted to the taste. 

Birds have but feeble smell but keen sight, 
because they are lifted on high by their wings, 
and can thus choose from far and near. On 
the other hand, Providence gives to animals 
that are bound to the soil a feebler sight and 
more delicate smell. Birds feeding on grain, 
therefore, judge almost alone by form and by 
color; a hen does not smell the grain that is 
offered, but, if it be strange, pushes it aside 
with bill and foot, and looks at it carefully from 
all sides. Nor do they ever eat at night. The 
horse, on the contrary, feeds in the dark as 
well as in the bright day ; but when the oats 
are poured into the crib he smells with loud 
breathing, and if the odor displease him, refuses 
the fairest and plumpest corn. Cats, like all 
carnivorous animals, possess an exquisite smell 
because they hunt mostly at night, and are so 
excessively cautious that even the most tempt- 
ing morsel is rarely taken from the master's 
hand, but first placed on the ground, and then 
carefully examined with the nose. 

St. Pierre remarks that too little attention is 
given to the odor of vegetables ; still it is strik- 
ing, and yet rarely noticed, that most plants 
differ only in the shade of their one common 
color, green, but are easily distinguished by de- 
cided differences of odor. This the cattle know 
full well ; and to this Isaac referred when he 
said, "The smell of my son is as the smell of 
a field the Lord has blessed." Useful to the 
beasts of the earth, plants become grateful to 
men. It is their noble vocation, in the great 
household of nature, to change, by their ever- 
active life — full of silent devotion and unre- 
warded industry — the mephitic vapors of all 
that decays into sweet perfume. Their only re- 
ward is to be allowed to exhale them, and thus 
to earn the gratitude of man, entering by such 
sweet service into the gentle bonds of loving 
fellowship that bind all parts of nature one to 
another. Fruits also, when hard, are odorless, 
because they can remain long without being 
gathered ; but when soft, and liable to spoil, 
they warn us by strong perfumes to gather 
them in time. 

The sense of smell does not belong to the 
whole organ, as many fancy, but only to the 
upper parts and the adjoining cells. The low- 
er passages, through which we breathe the com- 
mon air, are as insensible to smell as the many 
little cavities that lie behind and above the eye- 
brows and farther inward. The whole extent 
of the cavity of the nostrils is tapestried with 
wonderful hangings — a skin covered all over 
with tiny hairs, which by incessant motion pro- 
duce a never-resting current of air. These 
moving cilia are planted upon cells so exqui- 



498 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



sitely delicate and sensitive, that even in pure 
water they instantly swell and change their 
form. They are as easily detached, and in a 
cold the phlegm shows under a microscope an 
abundance of these tiny cells, still in most ac- 
tive motion. Cells and cilia both are indis- 
pensable for smell. It is well known that a 
cold deprives us of the latter, because then the 
cells are swollen, and the cilia move in different 
directions ; the same occurs in excessive dry- 
ness. The last most delicate fibres of the ol- 
factory nerves are not exposed to the air, nor to 
the immediate action of an odorous substance. 
No nerve comes in this manner in immediate 
contact with the outer world. As' the senses 
are only handmaidens of the mind enthroned 
within, so their servants, the nerves, also have 
nothing to do with the world, but only report to 
the secret power that certain changes have taken 
place in that portion of the body over which 
they are appointed to watch. The fine parti- 
cles that have odor affect the delicate cilia and 
the skin underneath, in a manner as yet as mys- 
terious as the influence of light on the Daguerre- 
ian silver-plate. The change, probably electric- 
al, is reported, and becomes known to us in our 
mind as odor. The process is one of incredible 
delicacy. A grain of musk, kept for long years, 
and losing no visible part of its volume, fills 
constantly a vast space around it with innu- 
merable impalpable particles. Yet each of 
these inconceivably minute atoms produces, at 
the moment of contact, such a change in the 
peculiar form and nature of this skin, that im- 
mediately all nerves are put in action ; most 
accurate reports are made at head-quarters, and 
our mind is filled with pleasant or unpleasant 
sensations. Thus astonishment and admiration 
are excited here, as every where, when a glance 
is permitted at the secrets of nature. 

To smell as to taste motion is requisite, and 
odorous substances must touch the delicate hairs 
while the current of air is carrying them on its 
active waves. Another beautiful evidence of 
the wisdom of our Maker ! Eor as the larynx 
needed only to be placed where it is, at the 
head of the respiratory organs, to be ever pro- 
vided with air without effort, and even without 
consciousness, so the sense of smell is placed at 
the very entrance-gate where the air we breathe 
is constantly passing, and thus ever carries on 
its imperceptible waves odorous atoms. If the 
air be perfectly stagnant the sense also rests in 
repose, and smell is impossible. Hence we stop 
breathing, and thus arrest the current of air to 
exclude disagreeable odors ; and when we wish 
to smell we do it, not by one long-drawn respi- 
ration, but by repeated rapid breathings. 

Another characteristic feature of this sense 
lies in its mixed powers. In the secret cham- 
bers of eye and ear, the most important parts 
of the hidden household of the intellect, no 
other sensations are produced but those of sight 
and hearing. Not so with taste and smell, whose 
special nerves are every where interwoven with 
the general nerves of the face. Both senses, 



therefore, pass easily into touch, especially as 
their organs approach the outer world. Hence 
the frequent confusion between them, as in the 
effect of salmiac, or horse-radish, which has 
nothing to do with odor, but is merely mechan- 
ical, and produces the same irritation on the 
skin of the eyes. Perhaps this uncertainty may 
explain in part the inability of languages to 
designate the infinite variety of odors. For we 
still speak of sharp and pungent smells, or we 
give them the name of flowers and animals by 
which they are produced. 

Taste and smell, however, are most nearly 
related, and almost one in the lower classes of 
the animal kingdom, especially among the chil- 
dren of water, where, to human perceptions at 
least, all smell would be impossible. The two 
senses are apt to suffer together, and a defect 
or disease in one commonly affects the other. 
The great similarity of sensations caused by 
either, enables us often to tell the taste of a 
thing from its smell, and has led us, no doubt, 
to give so frequently the same names to both. 
It does not follow, however, that what pleases 
the one must needs please the other; for highly- 
seasoned venison, so pleasant to the palate of the 
gourmand, is rarely a " pleasant savor," and the 
aphrodisiacal apple, the delight of men in India, 
has the odor of a putrid onion. But it must be 
confessed that, after all, the mechanism of this 
sense is as yet but imperfectly known ; science 
can not even tell us whether our nerves perceive 
odor by chemical or by mechanical action. So 
true is it that "we are fearfully and wonderfully 
made." 

The exquisite delicacy of this sense, and its 
powerful influence on the mind, arises mainly 
from the fact that the olfactory nerves stand in 
the very nearest and most constant connection 
with the brain. Even in animals they are the 
immediate and powerful continuation of the 
substance of the brain. In man this is still 
more distinctly marked. This close and intimate 
relation between the organ of smell and the great 
temple of intellect, and the very large surface 
on which these nerves operate, explain both the 
marvelous variety of impressions we receive by 
smell and the permanent influence of odors on 
our inner life. Nor can it be entirely insignifi- 
cant that the two nostrils are independent of 
each other. Two distinct fragrant substances 
presented at once do not produce a mixed odor, 
but both are distinctly perceptible, and we can 
at will let one prevail over the other. Our at- 
tention alone decides between the two compet- 
itors, who are equally anxious to gratify the 
eager nerves. 

The power of perception itself varies won- 
drously in different individuals. There exist 
even cases, though very few, where both pairs 
of olfactory nerves and the sense of smell it- 
self were entirely wanting. Diseases are apt to 
produce very remarkable changes in our percep- 
tions. Women who, in good health, were pas- 
sionately fond of the sweet odor of flowers, de- 
test them in hysteric attacks, and prefer the 



THE SENSES. 



400 



odor of asafoetida or burnt feathers to all oth- 
ers. Strychnine, on the other hand, snuffed up 
or taken inwardly, sharpens the sense to almost 
painful acuteness. Pleasant but gentle odors 
are most frequently imperceptible to men but 
feebly endowed with the sense of smell. Fre- 
quent change, also, and constant use, make the 
latter at last dull, and finally inactive ; the most 
pleasant perfumes, if used without intermission, 
become at first indifferent and then disagree- 
able. Thanks to the fact that habit diminishes 
tiie power of the sense, step by step, workmen 
who deal with putrid substances, druggists, and 
surgeons, soon overcome their first often pain- 
ful impressions. Equally fortunate is it that 
a stronger smell extinguishes the weaker. A 
drop of oil of cloves and one of oil of pepper- 
mint put into the same bottle produce no mix- 
ture, but the former only is smelled, while the 
latter has for a time disappeared. Hence the 
large consumption of snuff by the young student 
of anatomy, made more efficient yet by the ex- 
perience that the odor remains in the nostrils 
long after the fragrant substance is removed, 
thanks to the tiny atoms caught and kept cap- 
tives between the downy hairs. 

The effect of smell on the general state of 
our health and on our temper is not less varied 
and interesting. Men with a dull nose keep no 
account at all of their perceptions by this sense. 
Others are influenced by it more than by any 
other, and odors excite in them pleasure and 
comfort, or disgust and even fainting illness. 
The Italians love the perfumes of flowers with 
passion, but can not endure artificial odors. 
While Schiller kept rotting apples in his 
drawers, sharing the royal poet's wish, " The 
smell of thy nose shall be like apples," Quercet, 
the secretary of Francis I., could never smell 
them without giving his nose a violent bleed- 
ing. While some men scarcely notice the most 
penetrating and disagreeable odors, others per- 
ceive instantly the most delicate exhalations. 
The blind very often become acute observers by 
this sense, and can with marvelous accuracy 
recognise persons by the faint, feeble odor of 
their perspiration, which we do not notice. It 
is well known that our Indians perceive in the 
mere touch of a bare foot on the soil a sufficient 
odor to distinguish the track of a white man 
from that of a red man. In the Antilles there 
are negroes who will even, by smell alone, dis- 
tinguish the footstep of a Frenchman from that 
of a native. 

For such purposes animals are often endow- 
ed with a peculiarly keen sense of smell. By 
it the spaniel finds the game in field and forest 
for his master; by it the camel bears the pilgrim 
to the fountain of fresh water across the burn- 
ing sands of Arabia; and by it the shark pur- 
sues through the ocean his helpless victim. 
Safer than sight or hearing, smell alone leads 
the faithful dog to trace his master's course 
through the crowded street and the lonely 
heath, where man could not find the dog by 
such or other means. In some dogs it seems 



even to have been given for this special purpose 
alone, and not for the obtaining of food, for they 
will not eat the game they have thus tracked, 
although the scent seems to animate them far 
beyond the zeal that a mere desire of food could 
produce. Birds of prey, that feed upon carrion, 
are often guided by smell, though most of them 
rely on their sight with greater accuracy, and at 
farther distances. In other animals, again, it 
serves to enable the male to discover the female, 
which at certain seasons is gifted with special 
odors. Nor are the influences of odors on the 
passions of animals less striking. Elephants, 
who have never seen tigers, show the most vio- 
lent symptoms of fear and horror at their mere 
smell. In one of the gorgeous spectacles which 
Lord Clive was so fond of giving to strangers, 
nothing could force or allure an elephant to 
pass a place over which a tiger in his cage had 
been dragged. A gallon of arrac, however, at 
once changed his fear into fury ; he broke down 
the barriers between himself and his adversary, 
and killed him almost in an instant. Horses, 
also, can not easily be made to step over the 
spot where another horse has died, though they 
have not seen it, and though no trace of it may 
remain. All farmers are, moreover, familiar 
with the fact that oxen, upon seeing blood, 
especially if it come from their own race, will 
assemble around it, and roar and bellow with 
most expressive signs of horror and deep dis- 
tress. They have no sensation of fear, nor can 
they apprehend death to themselves : it is one 
of those mysterious symptoms of a higher life 
in the brute creation, all of which we cover con- 
veniently and lazily with the broad name of in- 
stinct. 

If we finally sum up the powers of this re- 
markable sense, we find that besides its humbler 
and more or less mechanical purposes, it serves 
to make us aware of the long series of odors, 
pleasant or unpleasant in their impression upon 
our mind. The variety thus presented to our 
higher perceptions is all the more remarkable 
because it is so vast that it can not be fully or 
satisfactorily designated by words. Smell is 
the poorest of all senses in point of language. 
It borrows a few names from the other senses, 
mostly from the taste ; but a thousand delicate 
shades, of the highest importance to each one 
of us, can not be expressed at all, or at least 
but imperfectly, and by a number of vague ex- 
pressions. Still, this very variety aids us in 
distinguishing countless objects, by which pow- 
er the sense becomes a valuable and efficient 
guardian of our health. It warns us constantly 
against much that would be injurious, by an in- 
stinct, as yet unexplained, but acknowledged to 
be surer than all rule or science. This power it- 
self is no sign of superiority in man, for here the 
Indian is vastly superior to the European, and 
still even he can not always compete witli the 
beast of the forest. No animal, however, can 
be said to enjoy sweet odors, though elephants 
are said to love flowers, and to delight in the 
mere flavor of arrac. More remarkable still is 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



it, that unpleasant odors affect us with so much 
greater violence than sweet perfumes. How- 
ever we may be pleased with the fragrance of a 
rose or a lily, still this never seizes us with the 
same force as the loathsome odor of putrid mat- 
ter, which shakes our brain into spasms, and 
causes our very nature to revolt, and our body 
to sicken. On the other hand, we find that 
with eye and ear the perfectly beautiful almost 
always produces the greatest effect, while dis- 
sonances, or tasteless combination of colors, are 
but passingly painful. Hence smell and taste 
alone produce that strange, complicated sensa- 
tion which, as nausea, affects the body only, but 
is rarely felt without a corresponding lowness 
of spirit and sinking of the heart, utterly unlike 
any sensation produced by the other senses. 

Smell has, secondly, its own peculiar sym- 
pathetic force, produced by the above mention- 
ed close relation between its nerves and the 
innermost recesses of those halls where the 
mind of man is most active. With striking, 
almost stunning suddenness and force, certain 
ideas, especially of form and locality, which 
were impressed upon our mind in connection 
with certain odors, revive in us the very mo- 
ment that similar odors affect our nerves. The 
sweet fragrance of cypress-wood is full of rich- 
est recollections of the fragrant Orient, and the 
faint perfume of the rose of Damascus paints 
with the lightning's flashing light the brilliant 
bazaar and the distant Houran on our mind's 
eye. Children of icy Sweden and Norway love 
to wander among spruces and pines, running 
over in sweet spring-time with resinous fra- 
grance, until their homes among lofty snow- 
capped mountains, rise before them in stately 
grandeur, and tears gush from the overburden- 
ed heart. An open door wafts a favorite per- 
fume to us, and she whom we loved stands in 
passing beauty at our side ; stale musk or nau- 
seous camphor breathe upon us, and palls and 
shrouds hide once more the faded forms of those 
that are gone to a better home. 

The little fragrant atoms now affect precisely 
the same minute, delicate nerves that they once 
before, perhaps years ago, had touched ; there 
a thousand forgotten but not effaced impres- 
sions have been slumbering ever since, and at 
the magic touch revive once more and cause in 
us kindred sensations. Hence also the effect 
that at least certain odors have on the other 
senses or on our passions. The pleasant smell 
of savory dishes causes " our mouths to water," 
and raises the appetite, as other odors appeal 
to even more delicate feelings. For all pleas- 
ant odors increase the general sensibility, and 
not in idle dreaming said Mohammed that "per- 
fumes raise the soul to heaven." There is hard- 
ly a nation of earth that does not feel this at 
least instinctively; and almost every form of 
religious worship on earth knows the use of 
•odors and perfumes in the shape of incense. 
Burnt-offerings are a "sweet savor to the Lord," 
and myrrh and aloes are counted equal to gold. 
Hence also the vast importance attached to 



the calumet of the Indian and the pipe in the 
Orient. The custom of kindling a fire and of 
throwing herbs or fragrant roses on it that the 
sweet smell might please the Deity, was known 
to the very earliest races of men in Egypt, 
Mexico, and China. Even for mere human 
purposes, antiquity already knew the enjoyment 
derived from changing herbs and fruits into 
smoke. Herodotus tells us that the Massa- 
getes threw the fruit of a tree growing on the 
Araxes isles into the fire, and the fumes arising 
from it had an intoxicating effect like wine, 
and inspired those who inhaled them so that 
they sang and danced. The ancient Scythians, 
also, on the Borysthenes, took a variety of hemp- 
seed, and throwing it on red-hot stones in their 
tents, inhaled it until "they roared with de- 
light." Hence the almost universal custom of 
smoking hemp and opium in the East; tobacco 
and humbler substitutes in the West. Snuff, 
also, is far more generally used than is com- 
monly supposed : the humblest races of Africa, 
and the poorest of all nations on earth, the Es- 
quimaux, knew it already when first discovered 
by Europeans. The Indians of South America 
bake the husk of a Mimosa, and mixing it with 
corn-meal and lime, draw the powdered mass 
through hollow bones of birds into the nose ; 
while the natives of Greenland snuff dried moss- 
es and mushrooms from early childhood. 

These impressions, produced by smell, may 
finally cease to be merely sympathetic and then 
become narcotic. The effect of fragrant flow- 
ers or of treacherous opium on the mind is 
well known from oldest times. More recently, 
however, the facility with which the smelling 
of ether or chloroform deadens all other im- 
pressions and almost causes life itself to pause 
for a time, has still more clearly shown the 
short road from the organ of smell to the brain, 
and the intimate, almost fearful, connection be- 
tween this sense and the life of man. The ef- 
fect is never instantaneous ; all these substances 
are first exciting, and then only the mind be- 
comes darkened. Hence, in some cases, the 
impressions remain in the first stage, and never 
reach the second, as those produced by the so- 
called Nicotiana. While the traveler Lery tells 
us that the Brazilians smoke tobacco until they 
become fully intoxicated, the wiser races of 
European blood ascribe to it better results, and 
believe that it heightens, through the sense of 
smell, the general activity of the mind, and 
sharpens the perceptions of our other senses. 
Certain it is that snuff becomes very often an 
indispensable stimulant ; and it was surely nei- 
ther accident, nor without good reasons, that 
men like Frederick the Great and Napoleon 
consumed such enormous quantities of snuff 
from their waistcoat pockets. 

We must not omit to allude, in conclusion, 
to the symbolic powers of this much neglected 
sense. Proverbs and common sayings refer to 
it in unusual frequency, and show us here, also, 
how the mass of the people ever anticipate in 
dim indistinct perceptions the great truths of 



CINDERELLA. 



501 



science, which are only slowly unraveled. How 
frequently do we not hear, in slang-phrases 
of men " who have a fine nose," or a " keen 
scent," because they show sagacity or judgment ! 
As we "trace and track" things by sharp smell, 
so we trace and track them in the paths of 
knowledge by sharp thought. To " pull the 
nose" is the highest insult known among the 
most civilized nations; while in New Zealand 
all greeting is done among friends by the rub- 
bing or rather pressing of noses. Travelers tell 
us that the natives sit down, holding up their 
faces, while the strangers stand over them, and, 
one after another, press the bridge of their nose 
against theirs. During the ceremony both par- 
ties utter most comfortable little grunts, and 
each greeting shows as much variety in tender- 
ness and earnestness as, with us, the countless 
ways of shaking hands. 

The ancients ascribed to the form and the 
sensations of the nose most varied ominous 
meanings, and even the Bible does not disdain 
to use the figures of haughty men " turning up 
their noses," or of the angry, whose nostrils 
open wide, and rise and quiver with wrath. 
Hence " He was wroth, and there went up a 
smoke out of his nostrils;" and Job swears with 
great emphasis, "All the while my breath is in 
me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils, my 
lips shall not speak wickedness." 

CINDERELLA. 

NOT A FAIRY TALE. 

IT was an artist's studio ; not a very extensive 
or elegant one, for our artist, like the mass 
of his brethren, had no superabundance of this 
world's goods. His studio was very much like 
a hundred others — a long, narrow room, with a 
broad window at one end, and a sky-light above ; 
a crimson carpet, something faded, on the floor, 
a few chairs and couches of the same soft color; 
and the usual quantum of "sketches," "studies," 
and unframed pictures on the walls, and half- 
finished paintings on the easels. It differed from 
most artists' studies in this tiling, though — that 
every where throughout the length and breadth 
of the room you saw the evidences of a woman's 
neatness and taste. There was no dust upon 
the loose piles of drawings, no cobwebs cling- 
ing to the few busts and statuettes that orna- 
mented the room ; and though books and pa- 
pers and sketches seemed to lie around in pic- 
turesque carelessness, there was, nevertheless, 
a method in their very disarrangement. 

It was very evident that no clumsy "janitor," 
or " porter," had the care of that room ; but a 
woman's hand — and not an Irish Biddy's either 
— gave to it its aspect of bright, cheerful neat- 
ness and comfort. For an undeniable proof, 
not very far from the easel sat a pretty little 
sewing-chair, and a footstool covered with fan- 
ciful embroidery beside it; moreover, a small 
foot, dressed in the neatest of slippers, was at 
that very time crushing down the worsted roses 
and heart's-ease of the little ottoman ; and in the 
chair sat just the tidiest, bonniest little lady- 



housekeeper that ever flourished a duster or 
jingled a bunch of keys. Such bright, cheerful 
brown eyes she had, such neatly-arranged, shin- 
ing brown hair, such a clear, healthful complex- 
ion and rosy 'smiling lips ! That bright face 
and trim little figure made a picture in them- 
selves not out of place in the artist's studio ; 
and so he seemed to think himself as he turned 
round from his easel and watched her silently 
for a moment. 

Her hands were busy with some sort of white 
work, not whiter, though, than the swift little 
fingers flying over it, and her head bent slight- 
ly, caught the sunshine on her smooth hair. 
She was a pretty little picture, pleasant to look 
at, and yet not what the artist wanted, after 
all. 

" Maggie," he exclaimed, suddenly, as he ar- 
rived at this conclusion, " I want a model !" 

" Do you ?" Maggie looked up saucily ; " well, 
if you want a model of a good housekeeper, a 
neat seamstress, and the best sister in the world, 
you haven't far to look, brother Willie ! I'm 
at your service." 

" Hold your tongue, Vanity !" the young man 
answered. "I've looked for such a model till 
I despair of finding it, and now I'm looking for 
just her opposite — a Cinderella." 

" That stupid Cinderella ! you haven't got at 
that again ?" Maggie exclaimed. " Talk about 
a woman's fickleness — I wonder how many 
times you've said first you would, and then you 
wouldn't finish that picture ! Oh, you immacu- 
late lords of creation !" 

" Don't be saucy, Maggie ; it's constant asso- 
ciation with you, I suppose, that makes me 'un- 
stable in all my ways.' But now I'm quite de- 
termined to finish this Cinderella — that is, if I 
can find a model for my heroine. That's the 
only reason why I haven't finished it long ago 
— I can't find or invent a face that pleases me 
for her." 

" Why, won't I do ?" Maggie asked demurely. 

" You — nonsense ! You're altogether too 
happy and contented-looking, and entirely too 
well dressed." 

"But I have a dress equal to any thing Cin- 
derella ever wore, and I could put you on the 
most miserable face in the world !" Maggie 
said, laughing. 

"I think I see you!" her brother answered. 
"No, Miss Maggie, I"ll paint you for a little 
Mabel in the woods — 

' Look only, said another, 

At her little gown of blue, 
At the kerchief pinned about her head, 
And her tidy little shoe !' 

But I must look farther for my Cinderella. She 
must have a cloud of golden curls — no such 
smooth, brown braids as yours — and tender vio- 
let eyes, sorrowful and wistful, yet with a child* 
ish eagerness in them. Figure, half a woman 
half a child ; face, a dream of tender, saddened, 
sorrowful loveliness." 

" Hear the President of the National Acad- 
emy !" Maggie cried gayly. " Was ever such a 



502 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Cinderella pictured? My most eloquent and 
poetical President, success to your search for 
her!" 

" Pm going to look for her now," said the 
artist. " Good-by, Miss Maggie, and have my 
pallet all ready for me when I come back with 
her." 

Mr. Wilson Barstow, " Prospective President 
of the National Academy," as Maggie saucily 
styled him, donned his hat and warm over-coat 
as he spoke, and feeling comfortably protected 
against the sharp north wind that was careering 
about the streets — peeping under thin shawls, 
and searching shabby, out-at-elbow great-coats, 
for a good place to bite — started out for a walk. 
He had no particular object in view, unless 
exercise, maybe ; but he felt too idle to paint 
that morning, and had, besides, a sort of ro- 
mantic idea of hunting up a Cinderella for his 
favorite picture. It was one begun a long time 
ago — a simple thing, Cinderella, and her god- 
mother fitting her up for the ball. But the 
artist had made it a sort of pet for his leisure 
hours, painting on it at intervals only, and lay- 
ing it aside as often as duty or fancy led to 
something else. It was finished now, all but 
the figure of the heroine, and this had been 
painted in and painted out a number of times, 
for he never could satisfy himself with his la- 
bor. He could not give expression to his idea, 
and nowhere could he see such a face as he 
wanted. 

Maggie made great fun of the Cinderella, 
and " his high-flown ideas," as she called them, 
about it. She called him foolish to care so 
much for " such a baby-picture," and in her 
heart thought it a shame that he should waste 
his genius — which Maggie, proud little woman ! 
considered unrivaled — upon any thing so silly 
as a fairy tale. But Wilson Barstow, true and 
earnest artist though he was, was not at all 
ashamed of using his pencil in illustration of 
the sweet old story ; and he knew that could he 
finish his own picture according to his original 
conception, it would be, if one of the simplest, 
nevertheless one of the most graceful and charm- 
ing that he had ever created. 

He drew his coat closely up about his ears 
as he trod briskly over the snowy pavement ; 
for that keen north wind was most impertinent- 
ly curious, and if fingers or ears chanced to be 
uncovered, or a bit of neck or throat unprotect- 
ed by the wrappings, he was sure to be prying 
around them with his frosty stinging breath. 
Our artist had no mind to make further ac- 
quaintance with the inquisitive blusterer, so he 
strode along with hands buried in the deep 
pockets of his coat, and its spacious collar muf- 
fling throat and ears, pitying heartily, as he en- 
joyed the comfort of his own warm garments, 
every one else less fortunate than himself. And 
of these he saw enough ; one need not go far in 
the streets of New York of a winter's day to 
look for unfortunates. They stand at every 
corner, cold, hungry, and miserable ; and we 
pass them by crying, "God pity them!" when 



if we would but pity tbem more ourselves there 
would be little need for such a prayer. But 
Wilson Barstow was not one of that stamp, and 
though he had no more dollars than artists usu- 
ally have, his hands came out of his pockets 
more than once that morning in answer to some 
sorrowful plea for charity. 

He had almost forgotten his picture in other 
thoughts wakened by the sight of the want and 
suffering round him, and was wandering on in 
altogether too abstracted a manner for a busy 
city-street, pondering vaguely some grand plan 
for making all these poor wretches comfortable 
and happy. In the midst of his reveries he was 
suddenly interrupted by finding himself coming 
in collision with somebody else apparently as 
self-absorbed as himself. It was a young girl, 
and a very fair one too — the artist saw that in 
his hasty glimpse of her face as she hurried on, 
blushing at his apologies for the accident. He 
turned round involuntarily to look after her, for 
that one glance made him want to see more. 
She was hurrying on at a quick pace, and sud- 
denly obeying an impulse, which he did not stop 
to define, Wilson forsook his own course, and 
followed after the girl. She was very plainly, 
even scantily dressed for the severity of the 
weather; her clean-looking but too thin shawl 
seemed more suitable for an April day than for 
mid-winter, and her dress, of some cotton fabric, 
did not at all answer Wilson's ideas of warmth 
and comfort. 

So young and girlish-looking she was too, her 
figure so slender and delicate ; and the wind, as 
it met her, rudely blew backward from her face 
a cluster of soft bright curls of the very golden 
hue that the artist wished for his picture. " My 
Cinderella!" was the thought that flashed into 
his mind, as his quick eye caught the glitter of 
the golden curls before they were hastily drawn 
back again and prisoned under the coarse straw 
bonnet. And with a new interest he continued 
to follow her, wondering who and what she was,, 
and what was the object of her cold walk ; and 
wishing he could get a closer view of the face, 
that one glimpse of which had so fascinated him. 

So he followed her for many a square down 
the long busy thoroughfare ; she keeping the 
same swift pace, never turning or stopping, and 
Wilson laughing at himself for his eager pur- 
suit of a stranger. "I wonder what Maggie 
would say," he thought ; " how she would laugh 
at me for following a poor shop-girl in the 
street ! No matter though, the girl really has 
beautiful hair, and I am curious to see where 
she goes. I hope she will come to a terminus 
pretty soon, though, for being a lazy man, this 
sort of walking is rather too exciting !" 

Perhaps she divined Mr. Wilson Barstow's 
wishes, for just at this point of his soliloquy 
the young girl paused before the door of a large 
clothing establishment, and went in. Wilson 
waited a minute or two outside, and then fol- 
lowed her in, apologizing to himself for his im- 
pertinence by suddenly feeling the need of a 
new vest, or cravat, or something else, he didn't 



CINDERELLA. 



;os 



exactly know what. And so while he stood 
turning over indiscriminate articles and pre- 
tending to be very hard to please, his eyes were 
in reality covertly searching the room for the 
young girl. She had vanished into private re- 
gions, but the young man determined to wait 
for her reappearance, even at the risk of being 
considered a very troublesome customer. It 
was not long, however, before she came forward 
again to the front of the store, and the artist 
had a full view of a fair young face, as delicate 
and lovely as any his own imagination had ever 
pictured to him. A pure, wild-rose complexion, 
wavy tresses of soft golden-brown hair, large 
liquid eyes so heavily fringed that you scarce 
could guess their color, made up a face of such 
rare beauty that our artist almost forgot his 
gentlemanly politeness in his long and eager 
gaze. 

She never saw him, however — she was paying 
more heed to her employer's words than any 
stranger's looks ; and Wilson Barstow stood 
near enough to them both to hear those words, 
and mark the effect they produced : " I am 
very sorry," the merchant was saying, "very 
sorry indeed, Miss Haven, but we are obliged 
to do it. The times are so hard, and we have 
so large a quantity of stock on hand, that we 
must part with some of our work-people. We 
must make a reduction in our expenses, or give 
up the business. But I hope you will not be 
long out of employment, and if I hear of any 
thing promising I will certainly let you know. 
Good morning, Miss." 

The merchant's words and manner were not 
only respectful, but really kind and sympathiz- 
ing : Wilson Barstow felt as if he should have 
knocked him down on the spot had tbey been 
otherwise, for the look of mute despair that set- 
tled upon the listener's features stirred a host 
of passionate emotions in his bosom. Very pale 
the young face grew, and the drooping lashes 
fell still lower, as if to hide fast-gathering tears, 
while she heard the words that shut her out 
from her only means of subsistence ; and the 
merchant himself, accustomed as he was to 
such things, hurried away from her, unable to 
bear the sight of that girlish face in its sad de- 
spair. 

So she left the store without a word ; and the 
artist, hastily paying for something which he 
did not want, followed speedily after her, now 
determined never to leave the pursuit till he 
knew more about the young girl whose sorrow, 
as well as her beauty and delicacy, so excited 
his interest and compassion. It was a long 
walk, through side streets and narrow alleys, 
where the snow lay in huge dirty piles, and the 
wind swept sharply by, as if mocking the pov- 
erty and desolation in its way. But the artist 
followed on, with an earnest purpose, wherever 
the young girl went. He kept a little distance 
back, that she might not know herself followed, 
and feel alarmed ; but she never looked behind 
her, and unnoticed he was able to watch her till 
ho saw her enter the house which seemed to be 



her home. It was an humble little two-story 
house, with a poverty-stricken look — and yet a 
sort of respectability too. Wilson fancied it a 
cheap boarding-house, for there was a bit of 
paper with " Rooms to Let" stuck upon the 
door. Eor the moment he felt tempted to go 
in, on a plea of looking at the rooms, and so 
perhaps have another view of the girl ; but a 
better plan occurred to him suddenly, and he 
hurried off again in a homeward line, to put it 
in speedy operation. 

"Well, brother Willie, where's the Cinderel- 
la?" Maggie asked gayly, flourishing pallet and 
paint-brushes before her brother as he entered 
the studio. "I've prepared an extra quantity 
of cerulean blue for you ; for if you paint her 
from life this cold day, she will infallibly have 
a blue nose as well as blue eyes !" 

" Quit your nonsense, Maggie !" was her 
brother's complimentary answer, " and go put 
on your bonnet and cloak. I want you to take 
a walk with me." 

"Now? this cold day, Willie? What ever 
do you want of me ?" 

" To take a walk with me, I told you." 

"But where? To find a Cinderella?" 

" No, only to call on her. I've already found 
her for myself." 

" W T hat nonsense, brother Willie ! you're not 
in earnest," Maggie exclaimed, puzzled, yet 
half convinced by her brother's gravity. But 
he answered, quite seriously, 

"I never was more so, Maggie; run and get 
ready, and I'll tell you all about it." So Mag- 
gie knew he " meant to be minded," and hur- 
ried up stairs to make swift work of her dress- 
ing. She appeared again in a few minutes, all 
ready, and found herself in the street with Wil- 
son presently, without having any sort of idea 
of where she was to go or what to do. 

" You're so ridiculous, Willie !" she said, half 
pettishly. " Why couldn't you tell me about 
it without starting me off in this harum-scarum 
fashion ? I declare I'm not half dressed, and 
if I'm to call on a lady I wonder what she'll 
think of me !" 

"I don't think she'll criticise your dress, 
Maggie, any way," W T ilson answered, smiling, 
as he looked down at his sister's handsome 
cloak and furs and fine merino dress. " She's 
no grand lady; only a poor shop-girl out of 
employment, and I want you to give her some 
work to do." 

" Then we might as well go home again, if 
that's all," said Maggie, half crossly. " That's 
just such a foolish errand as one might expect 
from you, Willie ! Where in the world am I 
to find work for a shop-girl out of employment, 
when I haven't enough to keep myself busy?" 

" Can't she make me some shirts, or some- 
thing ?" 

" Yes, of course, if you expect to live as long 
as the Patriarchs! for you are the possessor of 
more now than you can wear out in an ordinary 
life — thanks to my industry !" 

"Then I wish you were not so ridiculously 



504 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



industrious," Wilson said, laughing; " for we 
must find some work for this girl. Just listen 
to me, Maggie." 

And so he went on to tell her the whole story 
of his walk that morning, of his meeting the 
young girl, the little scene at the clothing-store, 
and his following her to her home. Maggie 
listened with interest, and though she laughed 
at Wilson's enthusiastic description of her beau- 
ty, and called him " disinterested champion of 
unprotected females," her woman's sympathy 
was excited, and she was as eager as her brother 
to carry help and comfort to the young stranger. 
"I'll see what I can do, Willie," she said, 
thoughtfully. " You've a great way of tearing 
up your shirts for paint-rags, you know, and 
perhaps she might as well make you some for 
that special purpose." 

"You may thank your bonnet for saving 
your ears, sauce-box!" Wilson answered, gayly ; 
" they would surely get pulled if they were not 
so well covered. But here we are now — this is 
the very house. You go in, Maggie, and I'll walk 
about outside till you finish your business." 

"Well, but what am I to do ? I don't at all 
know," Maggie asked. " This is a foolish er- 
rand, after all, Willie." 

"Don't make it so by talking nonsense, Mag- 
gie. What you are to do is to ring the bell in 
the first place, and ask for Miss Haven — I heard 
her name, fortunately. Then, Miss Haven hav- 
ing appeared, ask her if she will please to con- 
sider herself engaged for an indefinite time at 
No. 20 Blank Street, to make paint-rags and 
pillow-cases for Miss Barstow — " 

"And Cinderellas for Mr. Barstow!" Mag- 
gie retorted. 

" Exactly ; that's the whole performance ! 
Go ahead, Maggie!" And Wilson Barstow 
pulled the rickety old bell for his sister, then 
ran down the steps again, and commenced his 
promenade up and down the narrow pavement. 
He saw the door opened, and his sister admit- 
ted ; but he took many a turn backward and 
forward before the little boarding-house, and 
grew as impatient as so good-natured a person 
could, before that door was opened again to let 
her out. 

" What in the world can she be thinking of, 
to keep me here in the cold such an outrageous 
time ?" he exclaimed testily, as for the seventh 
time he passed the door without seeing Maggie. 
"Upon my word, she must have found Miss 
Haven an interesting companion ; but I don't 
know that she need forget my existence en- 
tirely." 

He had half a mind to ring the bell and in- 
quire for her, when the door opened at last, and 
little Maggie appeared. Miss Haven came out 
with her, and Wilson at a little distance saw the 
two girls shaking hands as warmly as if they had 
known each other always. "Be sure to come 
to-morrow," he heard Maggie say ; and " I will, 
indeed," was answered in a sweet, womanly 
voice. Then the door was shut, and his sister 
ran down to meet him. 



"Don't scold, Willie, I know I kept you an 
abominable time," she exclaimed, eagerly; "but 
I couldn't help it indeed. She is perfectly 
charming, Willie; I never saw any body so 
lovely; and oh, I cried so when she told me all 
the trouble she has had !" 

Maggie's face was all in a glow, and her 
brown eye-lashes were wet still with her tears. 
Wilson forgot his impatience in his eagerness 
to hear her story, and Maggie went on : 

"Well, she's a lady, Willie, every bit of her ! 
Any body might know that who only looked at 
her. I never saw such an exquisite face ; and only 
to think of her having to sew in a shop to sup- 
port herself! She never shall again, I declare, 
and I almost told her so. If nothing better 
than that can be found for Elsie Haven to do, 
she shall stay at our house and do nothing !" 

"Is that her name — Elsie Haven?" Wilson 
asked. 

"Yes; isn't it sweet? It just suits her 
though. She told me all about herself. I got 
so interested from the first that I made her tell 
me every thing, and so the time slipped by be- 
fore I knew it." 

" It didn't get along so fast for me !" said 
Wilson; "but go on and tell me. What did 
she have to say for herself?" 

" Well, it isn't such a very long story after all, 
but pitiful enough. She was an orphan, and her 
brother took care of her just as you take care 
of me, Willie, and supported them both by 
writing for the magazines. He published a 
volume of poems too, but they did not sell ; 
and then he had to work so hard, and sit up 
so late at night, to pay for the printing of them, 
till at last he grew blind ! Then they had a 
terrible time ; he was ill for so long, and not 
able to do any thing at all, and all their money 
melted away, and they got in debt for board 
and medicine and every thing — and in the midst 
of it all her brother died. Since then she has 
been quite alone in the world she says ; for she 
has neither friends nor relatives to care for her; 
and it almost broke my heart to hear her tell 
all the bitter struggles she has had for one long 
year to earn an honest livelihood. With no 
money and no protectors — her very beauty and 
refinement making her more liable to insult 
and hardship — just imagine, Willie, all she 
must have suffered !" 

He could imagine it, better perhaps than Mag- 
gie even ; and she knew by his quick grasp of 
her hand, and sudden close drawing of her to 
his side, as if to shield her from the bare idea of 
such a fate, how keen were the interest and sym- 
pathy excited in his mind. But he only said, 
"Poor child !" and Maggie went on : 

"I've engaged her to come to us to-morrow 
for — just as you said, Willie — an indefinite time. 
I told her to give up her room at her boarding- 
house, and not trouble herself to look out for 
another just yet. Some people would say it 
was an imprudent thing to do, to take a stran- 
ger into the family so ; I would have said so 
myself yesterday ; but I can not look into that 



CINDERELLA. 



505 



girl's face and doubt her, to save my life. So 
I know I am right." 

" Of course you are!" was her brother's hearty 
comment, " as you always are when you follow 
the lead of your own little heart. Poor child ! 
she will not be desolate any longer if she wins 
you for a sister, Maggie. 

" For a sister ! Pretty good, Willie !" Mag- 
gie cried, saucily. "But I didn't promise so 
far as that. That's a relationship that can only 
be established by your agency !" 

" Pshaw ! don't be a goose, child," Wilson 
answered hastily ; but the color mounted up to 
his brown cheek nevertheless, for he was boy 
enough for blushes still. "Did you say any 
thing about the Cinderella?" 

" Cinderella ! Nonsense ! Of course I didn't. 
Do you suppose I had nothing else to talk about 
but you and your baby pictures?" 

They had reached the door of their own 
house, and Maggie ran in hastily and sprang 
up stairs to escape from her brother as she 
flung out this saucy speech. He shook his 
hand at her with a promise to "pay her for 
that ;" but Maggie laughed as she thought of 
the fib she had told him. For she had told the 
young stranger the whole history of the Cinder- 
ella, and how through the thought of it her 
brother had first been led to notice herself in 
the street — enlarging, in a sisterly way, as she 
told her story, upon that brother's manifold per- 
fections. She had smiled inly as she watched 
the wild rose on Elsie's cheek flush into a proper 
carnation when she told her how the artist had 
followed her so eagerly, and how vivid an im- 
pression her delicate beauty had made upon 
him. And in her own heart she thought as 
she gazed upon the fair young face — so sweet 
an index of the pure soul within — that she 
would be glad if that impression were deepened 
into an emotion which should last forever. So 
fully had Maggie's impulsive little heart been 
won ! Certainly they were not worldly-wise 
people, this hero and heroine of mine; and 
doubtless more than one of my readers have 
set them down as of the " Simpleton" family. 
However, for my part I am glad this same fam- 
ily is not altogether extinct yet! 

A strenm of sunshine, brighter than old Win- 
ter shows every day, poured in at the broad 
window of Wilson's studio next morning, light- 
ing up with a special glow the picture on the 
easel. The shrewd, Puckish face of the little 
godmother with her pretty fantastic dress ; the 
hu^e pumpkin-coach, with its steeds and out- 
riders of rats and mice ; the interior of the rude 
kitchen — a picture by itself in its graphic de- 
tail of domestic life — all stood out vividly in 
the strong light. There was but one thing 
wanting to its perfection ; and the Cinderella 
that should have been in the picture seemed 
unaccountably to have stepped out of it, and to 
be standing before it now. Maggie herself 
could not but confess, as she looked at Elsie 
standing in the sunlight, her golden hair drop- 
ping in soft clusters over her cheeks, and her I 



face lighted now with a look of eagerness and 
interest as she gazed at the charming picture, 
that she was the very ideal that her brother 
wanted. 

And Elsie herself was persuaded to think so, 
through Maggie's strong representations ; for 
the young girl's shyness needed a deal of such 
urging before she gave consent to sit as a model 
before the artist. It was hard to get her to 
look up when she should, and assume the prop- 
er expression of eagerness, half-childish, half- 
womanly, which Cinderella may be supposed to 
have worn, watching the preparations for that 
dearly anticipated ball. The long sunny frin- 
ges would droop over those shy eyes of hers, 
and the bashful color burn in her cheeks, when- 
ever she encountered Wilson's gaze; and as, of 
course, he was obliged to look at her often 
enough — else how could he paint her? — you 
may imagine that the picture made slow pro- 
gress to completion. Maggie laughed to her- 
self as, day after day, she saw how few touches 
had been added to the Cinderella, while never- 
theless the sittings were by no means short- 
ened; she laughed to herself when — beingcall- 
ed out of the studio sometimes for household 
duties — she would come back and find Wilson's 
pallet laid aside entirely, and he turned round 
from his painting, neglecting it altogether, while 
he talked animatedly with Miss Elsie. True. 
her work was not put by ; her fingers flew up 
and down the seams as rapidly as ever, and she 
did not make much answer to any thing the 
artist said. But Maggie noted the signs of the 
times in the glow of pleasure that would so 
often steal over her fair face, and the light that 
flashed and softened so gloriously in her eyes 
sometimes — a light born of emotions which the 
girl herself had not yet begun to recognize. 

Maggie laughed, but she kept all her merri- 
ment to herself. She would not interfere to mar 
what her woman's eyes told her well enough 
needed no help from her. She did not even 
say one saucy thing to Wilson, and for this self- 
control we must give her infinite credit. The 
mischievous words burned upon her tongue 
many a time, but she let them cool off, and he, 
far-seeing man ! thought only how very guard- 
ed and circumspect he had been, that even Mag- 
gie's quick eyes could not see the influence that 
was daily gaining stronger upon his heart. 

There was self-abnegation too, as well as self- 
control in the little sister's heart. She had been 
first in all things hitherto with this dearly be- 
loved brother of her's ; no love before, not even 
a young man's proud ambition had come be- 
tween her and the tenderness which he had al- 
ways lavished upon her. It required no small 
magnanimity to see another, and that other a 
stranger till so recently, set before her ; to feel 
herself gradually declining from the throne 
which she had occupied so long, and an inter- 
loper crowned queen of hearts in her place. 
Maggie was a brave, unselfish little woman, 
though, and she choked down resolutely the 
few bitter feelings that sprung up at first — giv- 



506 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ing up her whole heart to a desire for the ac- 
complishment of that on which she now saw her 
brother's happiness was depending. 

She had grown to love Elsie very dearly too : 
"The child" — as she always called her, though 
Elsie's sunny curls overtopped Maggie's brown 
head by several inches — had won her own place 
in the sister's heart as well as the brother's. 
Who could help loving her, so childlike in her 
simplicity and purity, yet so earnest and wo- 
manly through the hard discipline which had 
so early been her experience of life. Maggie 
listened to her almost reverentially sometimes, 
when in her gentle way she gave expression to 
the faith that had sustained her when the drear- 
iest night was closing round her; and Wilson, 
who listened by stealth to these twilight con- 
versations of the girls — for Elsie herself rarely 
spoke in his presence — used to watch the gold- 
en head as the light faded away from it, and 
the beautiful face that was such a fitting soul- 
mirror for her, and think he should paint her 
for a St. Cecilia or a Madonna rather than the 
too earthly Cinderella, the summit of whose 
happiness was a ball-dress and a night of gay- 
ety! 

However, the Cinderella came to a terminus 
by-and-by: the last touch had been bestowed, 
the last gleam upon the soft, bright hair, the 
last sweet rose-tinge to the young face. The 
picture stood completed, and very charming in 
its unique simplicity. 

"It is very lovely," said Maggie, "and the 
likeness is perfect." They were all three stand- 
ins before it one afternoon, and the sunset ravs 
were lingering round it, shedding a special halo 
upon the Cinderella's golden hair and beautiful 
face. The likeness was perfect indeed, even 
to the half-wistful, half-eager expression on the 
faces of both. But the eagerness faded present- 
ly away from Elsie's eyes, and only the wistful, 
sorrowful look remained, quivering upon her 
lips and drooping her long eyelashes. She 
turned away from the picture silently, and sat 
down busily to her work. Wilson was strange- 
ly silent too, for him, and Maggie watched him 
holding a book in his hand which he did not 
read, with a half-wondering, half-fearful ex- 
pectation in her heart. She got up quietly by- 
and-by, and stole out of the room, for the still- 
ness was growing oppressive to her, and some 
presentiment told her that they two were suffi- 
cient for themselves now, and heart to heart 
would speak soon, needing no mediation from 
her. 

The studio was breathlessly still for minutes 
after she had left. Elsie's head dropped very 
low, and her needle flew with a blind speed 
through her work; she thought those heart- 
beats throbbing so wildly, thronging so tumult- 
uously that they almost exhausted her breath, 
must be resounding through the room as audi- 
bly as they echoed in her own ears. She did 
not know that another heart near her was beat- 
ing as strongly, fluttering as timidly as her own. 
For Wilson Rarstow was young still, unsophis- 



ticated in worldly wisdom, and this first strong 
love of his life, stirred and bewildered him as 
if he had been a timid maiden. 

He laid his book down presently, and went 
over to the couch where the young girl sat. 
She did not shrink from him as he took a seat 
by her, though it was the first time he had ever 
done so ; but her face grew white, and her 
hand trembled so that she could not guide the 
needle. It was all in vain that she called her- 
self weak and foolish, and struggled to regain 
calmness and self-possession ; the fluttering 
pulses would not be still, and she could only sit 
powerless and trembling, awaiting her destiny. 

" Elsie" — he never had called her so before, 
and now the low-spoken word thrilled to her 
heart, and sent the blood in a vivid rush to her 
cheeks again — " Don't you know what I want to 
say to you ?" 

How could she answer the eager, passionate 
question ? She could not speak, she could not 
look up, for heavier and heavier drooped the 
lids over those sweet eyes, and great tears filled 
them, and sobs swelled up to her throat — the 
only utterance she could find for this blissful 
dream of love, and joy, and happiness which 
seemed too sudden, too strange, too wonderful 
for any reality. 

"Don't you know that I love you, Elsie?" 
and his hand prisoned in a close grasp the lit- 
tle one lying powerless before him. Then 
growing bolder, for it was not withdrawn : 
" Does not your own heart answer to the love 
I offer you fully, freely ? tell me, Elsie !" he 
pleaded. And there is little need to tell how 
the pleading was answered so to his own satis- 
faction, that not words and looks merely, but 
tenderest caresses set soon the seal to this com- 
pact of hearts. 

I won't pretend to say where Maggie was 
during this little episode ! I only know she 
came in by-and-by with a most sedate step and 
demure look, and held up her hands with a 
well-feigned start of astonishment and "virtu- 
ous indignation" as she beheld the " position of 
affairs." What that position was I leave the 
curious to guess, and the initiated to imagine. 
Elsie started up, blushing like a thousand roses, 
but Wilson drew her back firmly to her place 
by his side, and met Maggie's saucy looks with 
a very determined glance, in which all the in- 
dependence and manhood of Wilson Barstow, 
Esq., was made fully significant. 

" So ! it was the model of a wife you wanted, 
Willie? I congratulate you upon the success 
of your Cinderella !" 

" Thank you, Maggie, your approbation is all 
we want to make it entirely satisfactory." 

"Oh, Maggie!" it was Elsie, all tearful and 
crimson, who spoke now ; but Mnggie cut short 
the humble, deprecating words with a shower 
of kisses, as she threw her arms round the young 
girl. 

" My dear child, Tin perfectly willing ! You 
needn't be afraid of me! If you are so silly as 
to love that man, and fancy you can manage 



THE 'GEES. 



507 



him, why I haven't the least objection in life. | 
Only I give you warning, you will have your 
small hands full to keep him in subjection !" 

"I'm not afraid!" Elsie cried, laughing 
through her tears, " but oh, Maggie !" and then I 
the foolish little head went down again with a | 
sob upon Maggie's shoulder. 

" Well, what is it? What in the world are 
you crying for?" 

11 Because I'm so happy, I suppose," Elsie 
half sobbed 5 "it is terribly like a dream though, 
Maggie, and I don't at all deserve such happi- 
ness !" 

" Of course not ; you're not half good enough 
for him, you foolish child. He seems to be 
satisfied though, so /wouldn't distress myself !" 
" But to marry vie, Maggie — poor, and friend- 
less, and homeless." 

" Nonsense ! I never thought you could be 
so ungrateful, Elsie, to call yourself 'poor' when 
you have his love, ' friendless' while / am near 
you, ' homeless' in this house !" 

" Good, Maggie 1" Wilson cried, gayly. "You 
shall have a kiss for that, little woman." And 
his arms circled the two girls as they stood to- 
gether, in a glad loving caress, which Maggie 
returned heartily, and Elsie submitted to with 
shy, blushing grace. 

Well ! they were a very happy trio in the 
studio that evening ; but my paper is quite too 
precious to be wasted with accounts of all the 
" fond and foolish" things that were said among 
them, and there's little need to prolong the 
limits of this story. Every body knows how 
the " Cinderella, by Wilson Barstow, N.A." 
was one of tlie charms of that year's exhibi- 
tion. Every body lavished epithets of "dainty," 
"graceful," "piquant," "unique," upon it, and 
every one Lingered in delight over the spiritwlle 
loveliness of the fair maiden. But every body 
didn't know, as I happened to, the private his- 
tory of that same Cinderella, nor that the ren- 
table original of it was to be seen in that grace- 
ful girlish ligure who promenaded the rooms 
leaning upon Mr. Wilson Barstow's arm, but 
who so persistently kept her vail down, to the 
chagrin of sundry curious ladies who felt more 
interest than they acknowledged in Mr. Wilson 
Barstow's female companions. 

Bat Wilson used to say that the Cinderella 
was his happiest inspiration — not the less so 
because his cash receipts for it paid all the ex- 
penses of a most charming little bridal tour that 
summer! A bridal tour by-the-way, in which 
Maggie, invincible little woman! found her 
double, and discovered, greatly to her own as- 
tonishment, that there was another man in the 
world besides "Brother Willie." 

THE 'GEES. 

IN relating to my friends various passages of 
my sea-goings, I have at times had occa- 
sion to allude to that singular people the '(ices, 
sometimes as casual acquaintances, sometimes 
as shipmates. Such allusions have been quite 
natural and easy. For instance, I have said 



The two 'Gees, just as another would say TJie 
two Dutchmen, or The two Indians. In fact, be- 
ing myself so familiar with 'Gees, it seemed as 
if all the rest of the world must be. But not 
so. My auditors have opened their eyes as 
much as to say, "What under the sun is a 
'Gee?" To enlighten them I have repeatedly 
had to interrupt myself, and not without detri- 
ment to my stories. To remedy which incon- 
venience, a friend hinted the advisability of 
writing out some account of the 'Gees, and hav- 
ing it published. Such as they are, the follow- 
ing memoranda spring from that happy sug- 
gestion : 

The word 'Gee (g hard) is an abbreviation, 
by seamen, of Portuguee, the corrupt form of 
Portuguese. As the name is a curtailment, so 
the race is a residuum. Some three centuries 
ago certain Portuguese convicts were sent as a 
colony to Fogo, one of the Cape de Verds, off 
the northwest coast of Africa, an island pre- 
viously stocked with an aboriginal race of ne- 
groes, ranking pretty high in incivility, but 
rather low in stature and morals. In course 
of time, from the amalgamated generation all 
the likelier sort were drafted off as food for 
powder, and the ancestors of the since called 
'Gees were left as the caput mortuum, or melan- 
choly remainder. 

Of all men seamen have strong prejudices, 
particularly in the matter of race. They are 
bigots here. But when a creature of inferior 
race lives among them, an inferior tar, there 
seems no bound to their disdain. Now, as 
ere long will be hinted, the 'Gee, though of an 
aquatic nature, does not, as regards higher qual- 
ifications, make the best of sailors. In short, 
by seamen the abbreviation 'Gee was hit upon 
in pure contumely; the degree of which may be 
partially inferred from this, that with them the 
primitive word Portuguee itself is a reproach ; 
so that 'Gee, being a subtle distillation from 
that word, stands, in point of relative intensity 
to it, as attar of roses does to rose-water. At 
times, when some crusty old sea-dog has his 
spleen more than usually excited against some 
luckless blunderer of Fogo his shipmate, it is 
marvelous the prolongation of taunt into which 
he will spin out the one little exclamatory 
monosyllable Gc-e-e-e-e ! 

The Isle of Fogo, that is, "Fire Isle," was so 
called from its volcano, which, after throwing 
up an infinite deal of stones and ashes, finally 
threw up business altogether, from its broad- 
cast bounteousness having become bankrupt. 
But thanks to the volcano's prodigality in its 
time, the soil of Fogo is such as may be found 
of a dusty day on a road newly Macadamized. 
Cut off from farms and gardens, the staple food 
of the inhabitants is fish, at catching which they 
are expert. But none the less do they relish 
ship-biscuit, which, indeed, by most islanders, 
barbarous or semi-barbarous, is held a sort of 
lozenge. 

In his best estate the 'Gee is rather small (he 
admits it), but, with some exceptions, hardy ; 



508 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



capable of enduring extreme hard work, hard 
fare, or hard usage, as the case may be. In 
fact, upon a scientific view, there would seem a 
natural adaptability in the 'Gee to hard times 
generally. A theory not uncorroborated by his 
experiences; and furthermore, that kindly care 
of Nature in fitting him for them, something as 
for his hard rubs with a hardened world Fox 
the Quaker fitted himself, namely, in a tough 
leather suit from top to toe. In other words, 
the 'Gee is by no means of that exquisitely del- 
icate sensibility expressed by the figurative ad- 
jective thin-skinned. His physicals and spirit- 
uals are in singular contrast. The 'Gee has a 
great appetite, but little imagination ; a large 
eyeball, but small insight. Biscuit he crunch- 
es, but sentiment he eschews. 

His complexion is hybrid; his hair ditto; his 
mouth disproportionally large, as compared with 
his stomach ; his neck short; but his head round, 
compact, and betokening a solid understanding. 

Like the negro, the 'Gee has a peculiar savor, 
but a different one — a sort of wild, marine, 
gamy savor, as in the sea-bird called haglet. 
Like venison, his flesh is firm but Jean. 

His teeth are what are called butter-teeth, 
strong, durable, square, and yellow. Among 
captains at a loss for better discourse during 
dull, rainy weather in the horse-latitudes, much 
debate has been had whether his teeth are in- 
tended for carnivorous or herbivorous purposes, 
or both conjoined. But as on his isle the 'Gee 
eats neither flesh nor grass, this inquiry would 
seem superfluous. 

The native dress of the 'Gee is, like his name, 
compendious. His head being by nature well 
thatched, he wears no hat. Wont to wade much 
in the surf, he wears no shoes. He has a serv- 
iceably hard heel, a kick from which is by the 
judicious held almost as dangerous as one from 
a wild zebra. 

Though for a long time back no stranger to 
the seafaring people of Portugal, the 'Gee, un- 
til a comparatively recent period, remained al- 
most undreamed of by seafaring Americans. It 
is now some forty years since he first became 
known to certain masters of our Nantucket 
ships, who commenced the practice of touching 
at Eogo, on the outward passage, there to fill 
up vacancies among their crews arising from 
the short supply of men at home. By degrees 
the custom became pretty general, till now the 
'Gee is found aboard of almost one whaler out 
of three. One reason why they are in request 
is this : An unsophisticated 'Gee coming on 
board a foreign ship never asks for wages. He 
comes for biscuit. He does not know what 
other wages mean, unless cuffs and buffets be 
wages, of which sort he receives a liberal allow- 
ance, paid with great punctuality, besides per- 
quisites of punches thrown in now and then. 
But for all this, some persons there are, and not 
unduly biassed by partiality to him either, who 
still insist that the 'Gee never gets his due. 

His docile services being thus cheaply to be 
had, some captains will go the length of main- 



taining that 'Gee sailors are preferable, indeed 
every way, physically and intellectually, supe- 
rior to American sailors — such captains com- 
plaining, and justly, that American sailors, if 
not decently treated, are apt to give serious 
trouble. 

But even by their most ardent admirers it is 
not deemed prudent to sail a ship with none but 
'Gees, at least if they chance to be all green 
hands, a green 'Gee being of all green things 
the greenest. Besides, owing to the clumsiness 
of their feet ere improved by practice in the 
rigging, green 'Gees are wont, in no inconsider- 
able numbers, to fall overboard the first dark, 
squally night ; insomuch that when unreason- 
able owners insist with a captain against his 
will upon a green 'Gee crew fore and aft, he 
will ship twice as many 'Gees as he would have 
shipped of Americans, so as to provide for all 
contingencies. 

The 'Gees are always ready to be shipped. 
Any day one may go to their isle, and on the 
showing of a coin of biscuit over the rail, may 
load down to the water's edge with them. 

But though any number of 'Gees are ever 
ready to be shipped, still it is by no means well 
to take them as they come. There is a choice 
even in 'Gees. 

Of course the 'Gee has his private nature as 
well as his public coat. To know 'Gees — to be 
a sound judge of Gees — one must study them, 
just as to know and be a judge of horses one 
must study horses. Simple as for the most part 
are both horse and 'Gee, in neither case can 
knowledge of the creature come by intuition. 
How unwise, then, in those ignorant } r oung cap- 
tains who, on their first voyage, will go and 
ship their 'Gees at Fogo without any prepara- 
tory information, or even so much as taking 
convenient advice from a 'Gee jockey. By a 
'Gee jockey is meant a man well versed in 'Gees. 
Many a young captain has been thrown and 
badly hurt by a 'Gee of his own choosing. For 
notwithstanding the general docility of the 'Gee 
when green, it may be otherwise with him when 
ripe. Discreet captains won't have such a 'Gee. 
" Away with that ripe 'Gee !" they cry ; " that 
smart 'Gee ; that knowing 'Gee ! Green 'Gees 
for me !" 

For the benefit of inexperienced captains 
about to visit Fogo, the following may be given 
as the best way to test a 'Gee : Get square be- 
fore him, at, say three paces, so that the eye, 
like a shot, may rake the 'Gee fore and aft, at 
one glance taking in his whole make and build — 
how he looks about the head, whether he carry 
it well ; his ears, are they over-lengthy ? How 
fares it in the withers? His legs, does the 
'Gee stand strongly on them ? His knees, any 
Belshazzar symptoms there ? How stands it in 
the region of the brisket ? etc., etc. 

Thus far for bone and bottom. For the rest. 
draw close to, and put the centre of the pupil 
of your eye — put it, as it were, right into the 
'Gee's eye ; even as an eye-stone, gently, but 
firmly slip it in there, and then note what speck 



A PISTOL-SHOT AT THE DUELISTS. 



509 



or beam of viciousness, if any, will be floated 
out. 

All this and much more must be done ; and 
yet after all, the best judge may be deceived. 
But on no account should the shipper negotiate 
for his 'Gee with any middle-man, himself a 
'Gee. Because such an one must be a knowing 
'Gee, who will be sure to advise the green 'Gee 
what things to hide and what to display, to hit 
the skipper's fancy ; which, of course, the know- 
ing 'Gee supposes to lean toward as much phys- 
ical and moral excellence as possible. The 
rashness of trusting to one of these middle-men 
was forcibly shown in the case of the 'Gee who 
by his countrymen was recommended to a New 
Bedford captain as one of the most agile 'Gees 
in Fogo. There he stood straight and stout, in 
a flowing pair of man-of-war's-man's trowsers, 
uncommonly well filled out. True, he did not 
step around much at the time. But that was dif- 
fidence. Good. They shipped him. But at the 
first taking in of sail the 'Gee hung fire. Come 
to look, both trowser-legs were full of elephanti- 
asis. It was a long sperm-whaling voyage. Use- 
less as so much lumber, at every port prohibit- 
ed from being dumped ashore, that elephantine 
'Gee, ever crunching biscuit, for three weary 
years was trundled round the globe. 

Grown wise by several similar experiences, 
old Captain Hosea Kean, of Nantucket, in ship- 
ping a 'Gee, at present manages matters thus : 
He lands at Fogo in the night ; by secret means 
gains information where the likeliest 'Gee want- 
ing to ship lodges ; whereupon with a strong 
party he surprises all the friends and acquaint- 
ances of that 'Gee ; putting them under guard 
with pistols at their heads ; then creeps cau- 
tiously toward the 'Gee, now lying Avholly at 
unawares in his hut, quite relaxed from all pos- 
sibility of displaying aught deceptive in his ap- 
pearance. Thus silently, thus suddenly, thus 
unannounced, Captain Kean bursts upon his 
'Gee, so to speak, in the very bosom of his fam- 
ily. By this means, more than once, unex- 
pected revelations have been made. A 'Gee, 
noised abroad for a Hercules in strength and 
an Apollo Belvidere for beauty, of a sudden is 
discovered all in a wretched heap ; forlornly 
adroop as upon crutches, his legs looking as if 
broken at the cart-wheel. Solitude is the house 
of candor, according to Captain Kean. In the 
stall, not the street, he says, resides the real nag. 

The innate disdain of regularly bred seamen 
toward 'Gees receives an added edge from this. 
The 'Gees undersell them, working for biscuit 
where the sailors demand dollars. Hence, any 
thing said by sailors to the prejudice of 'Gees 
should be received with caution. Especially 
that jeer of theirs, that monkey-jacket was 
originally so called from the circumstance that 
that rude sort of shaggy garment was first 
known in Fogo. They often call a monkey- 
jacket a 'Gee-jacket. However this may be, 
there is no call to which the 'Gee will with 
more alacrity respond than the word "Man !" 

Is there any hard work to be done, and the 
Vol. XII.— No. 70.— K k 



'Gees stand round in sulks ? " Here, my men !" 
cries the mate. How they jump. But ten to 
one when the Avork is done, it is plain 'Gee 
again. " Here, 'Gee ! you 'Ge-e-e-e !" In fact, 
it is not unsurmised, that only when extraor- 
dinary stimulus is needed, only when an extra 
strain is to be got out of them, are these hapless 
'Gees ennobled with the human name. 

As yet, the intellect of the 'Gee has been 
little cultivated. No well-attested educational 
experiment has been tried upon him. It is 
said, however, that in the last century a young 
'Gee was by a visionary Portuguese naval offi- 
cer sent to Salamanca University. Also, among 
the Quakers of Nantucket, there has been talk 
of sending five comely 'Gees, aged sixteen, to 
Dartmouth College ; that venerable institution, 
as is well known, having been originally found- 
ed partly with the object of finishing oft' wild 
Indians in the classics and higher mathematics. 
Two qualities of the 'Gee which, with his do- 
cility, may be justly regarded as furnishing a 
hopeful basis for his intellectual training, is 
his excellent memory, and still more excellent 
credulity. 

The above account may, perhaps, among the 
ethnologists, raise some curiosity to see a 'Gee. 
But to see a 'Gee there is no need to go all the 
way to Fogo, no more than to see a Chinaman 
to go all the way to China. 'Gees are occasion- 
ally to be encountered in our sea-ports, but more 
particularly in Nantucket and New Bedford. 
But these 'Gees are not the 'Gees of Fogo. 
That is, they are no longer green 'Gees. They 
are sophisticated 'Gees, and hence liable to be 
taken for naturalized citizens badly sunburnt. 
Many a Chinaman, in new coat and pantaloons, 
his long queue coiled out of sight in one of Gen- 
in's hats, has promenaded Broadway, and been 
taken merely for an eccentric Georgia planter. 
The same with 'Gees ; a stranger need have a 
sharp eye to know a 'Gee, even if he see him. 

Thus much for a general sketchy view of the 
'Gee. For further and fuller information apply 
to any sharp-witted American whaling captain, 
but more especially to the before-mentioned old 
Captain Hosea Kean, of Nantucket, whose ad- 
dress at present is "Pacific Ocean." 

A PISTOL-SHOT AT THE DUELISTS. 

EVERY one has heard of the English artist 
who, being asked to draw an illustration to 
a paper on dueling, sketched an injured hus- 
band falling before the pistol of his wife's para- 
mour, and gasping with his last breath, "I am 
satisfied!" 

Such a picture contained the whole theory 
of dueling. "You have wronged me, therefore 
kill me," is the proper translation of every chal- 
lenge. It is not, " You have wronged me, there- 
fore I must kill you ;" for it is abundantly es- 
tablished by the reports of law cases arising out 
of duels, that wherever the challenger takes pe- 
culiar pains to kill his adversary — such as prac- 
ticing with his weapon beforehand, taking aim 
with unusual deliberatcness. obtaining some de- 



no 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



cided advantage in position, or otherwise — he 
forfeits whatever attenuation a jury might be 
disposed to allow to the average duelist, in con- 
sideration of the supposed state of public opinion 
on the subject. Let him go to the ground with 
the evident purpose of killing his man, and he 
becomes — in the eye of the law — a mere mur- 
derer, to be nowise distinguished from the burg- 
lar who cuts his victim's throat at dead of night. 
The public call for his punishment ; duelists dis- 
own him. The Code of Honor is positive against 
his conduct. Again, in challenging, he must 
concede to his adversary the choice of weapons, 
time, and distance. There appears to be some 
reason for believing that the option secured to 
the challenged party is not wholly unlimited; 
for instance, that he would hardly be sustained 
by the sense of duelists if he proposed to smoke 
astride of a barrel of gunpowder side by side 
with his antagonist ; but within rules of toler- 
ably extensive latitude, he is the master of the 
combat. He may choose a weapon with the 
use of which he is practiced, and impose it on 
his adversary who has never handled it before. 
Quite recently, in a somewhat notorious case, 
the challenged insisted on the use of rifles; the 
challenger had perhaps never fired one in his 
life. In former times, spadassins familiar with 
the small sword gained quite a reputation by 
insulting people less dexterous with that weap- 
on ; the latter retorted by a challenge, -which 
conferred upon the party offering the insult 
the choice of weapons, and the superior skill of 
the practiced swordsman easily won the victory. 

During the period of the occupation of France 
by the allies of Louis XVIIL, in 1815, this sys- 
tem was pursued extensively by the French offi- 
cers. Patriotism and a deep sense of injury 
perhaps palliated its atrocity. Day after day, 
Prussian and English officers would be grossly 
insulted by Frenchmen — would send a cartel — 
fight — and be carried off regularly to Pere la 
Qhaise. Some of Napoleon's maitres oVarmes 
made a business of killing their man each day. 
A story is told of one of them — an old Capi- 
taine Ducroc — who had slain his scores, and 
was never known to have met his match with 
the sword. He never sent a challenge, was al- 
ways the aggressor, and pitilessly insisted on the 
right of choosing his favorite weapon. When 
he had not found an adversary in the course of 
the day, he would enter the Cafe Eoy, at Paris, 
toward six o'clock, for dinner ; and the waiters 
could tell by his face and the way he twirled 
his grizzly mustache that he was on the look-out 
for a quarrel. Woe to him who gave him the 
least chance ! One evening, there chanced to 
drop into the same cafe an English officer named 
Gwynne. He belonged to the army of occupa- 
tion, but had only just returned to his regiment 
from his home, where he had been kept a close 
prisoner by a Avound received at Waterloo. Dur- 
ing his absence, his brother had had the mis- 
fortune — so he had heard — to quarrel with Cajii- 
taine Ducroc, and to be killed by him in a duel. 

Gwynne entered the Cafe Foy a few minutes 



before six, and sat down at a small vacant table. 
A waiter started at the sight, and running to 
the Englishman, observed, with some agitation, 
that that was "the Captain's table." "What 
Captain, my friend?" asked the Englishman. 
"Oh! le Capitaine Ducroc !" answered the wait- 
er, pronouncing the terrible name almost with 
a feeling of awe. Gwynne's cheek flushed at 
the name, but he merely observed that " this 
table was like all the others, seemingly ; still," 
he said, " if the Capitaine insisted upon it, he 
would doubtless satisfy him." On which, he 
took up the newspaper and began to read. 

Almost at the same instant the door opened, 
aud a heavy tread of spurred boots was heard 
approaching the table. When at a few feet 
distance, " le Capitaine" stopped, and surveyed 
the usurper with an insulting smile. Gwynne 
looked calmly at him, but did not speak. The 
Capitaine sat down at a table close by, and be- 
gan to twirl his mustache. People who knew 
him understood the meaning of the gesture, and 
gathered closer to the redoubtable champion of 
France. They had not long to wait before he 
commenced operations. 

Stretching across suddenly, he seized the 
lamp on the Englishman's table, and snatched 
it away, while with the other hand he plucked 
the newspaper out of Gwynne's grasp, There 
was a buzz in the cafe at this gross insult, and 
one or two Englishmen present sprang to their 
feet, and moved toward their countryman. But 
he did not speak or move ; his face did not 
even show any apparent notice of the affront. 

Le Capitaine read for a moment or two, then 
turning his chair so as to bring it close to the 
Englishman's table, he suddenly stretched out 
his leg, and brought down the heel of his heavy 
boot on Gwynne's foot. There was another 
buzz and murmur among the consommateurs ; 
but Gwynne contented himself with drawing his 
foot up, and folding his arms. His countrymen 
gathered round him, evidently galled at his 
seeming indifference to the insult ; but he took 
no notice. At last le Capitaine, after a long 
look at his antagonist, called to the waiter for 
a glass of brandy. When it was brought, he 
raised the glass, and drank it, saying to Gwynne, 
" A voire courage, Anglais !" 

Then slowly and leisurely the latter rose. 
He was a man of immense size and strength. 
With one stride he stood beside the French- 
man ; then, grasping his mustache with one 
hand and his chin with the other, he wrenched 
his mouth open and spat down his throat. 

" Should Monsieur deem fit," he said, in a 
calm, quiet voice, "to honor me with a call, 
there is my card." So saying he left the cafe. 
Needless to add, that his invitation was not ac- 
cepted. Ducroc never challenged ; the choice 
of weapons was essential to his safety. 

Similar stories are common and well authen- 
ticated. If they prove any thing, it is that the 
English of a challenge is : "You have wronged 
me — therefore kill me." 

It has not always been so, of course. In 



A PISTOL-SHOT AT THE DUELISTS. 



511 



France, in the sixteenth century — where the 
modern duel may be said to have originated — 
the privilege of righting was confined to gentle- 
men ; that is to say, to men whose dress was in- 
complete without a sword. Francis the First's 
courtiers were all supposed to be expert swords- 
men ; fencing was so large a part of their edu- 
cation that the grossest insult you could offer 
to one of them was to suppose them incapable 
of defending themselves with the usual weapon. 
All duels being fought with the sword, and all 
being trained alike, there were but few cases in 
which the duel involved any probable inequal- 
ity. A Bussy or a DArtagnan might be for- 
midable antagonists ; but the French gentleman 
of that day, either in challenging or accepting 
a challenge, ran little risk, as a general rule, 
of finding himself at a disadvantage. Fairness 
was the soul of the combat. Of a Sunday morn- 
ing the combatants would ride to the Pre aux 
Clercs, or some other rendezvous, four, six, and 
ten on a side ; they would chat pleasantly on 
the way, and fight with perfect good-humor and 
gallantry until most of them were disabled. By 
far the greater portion of these duelists, it must 
be remembered, moreover, were fighting men 
by profession. Lawyers, doctors, merchants, 
were not generally deemed gentlemen ; they 
were not expected, or we should say privileged, 
to fight; the sword parties were confined to the 
officers of the army, which body included all, 
or nearly all, the noblemen and gentlemen of 
Paris. There was certainly, therefore, in their 
duels less of absurdity and illogicality than in 
modern dueling. Even the grand objection to 
the practice — that it proves nothing — could 
hardly apply in their case, for the subject of 
their quarrels was generally the relative beauty 
of their mistresses, the meaning of a look, or 
>ome such question which was not susceptible 
-)f logical argument. 

Nor was there wanting, to the mind of people 
of that day, a sort of method in their mania. The 
old wager of battle had not long been disused in 
the courts. For centuries, the question of guilt 
or innocence had been arbitrated by the sword. 
Accu-cr and accused were armed alike, and 
magistrates sat by to receive the bloody verdict. 
Providence, it was piously supposed, could not 
suffer the wicked to triumph or the innocent to 
succumb ; and no doubt, in a vast number of 
cases, a consciousness of guilt would unnerve, as 
a righteous indignation would steel the arm. 
Hence the French gentleman who conceived 
himself aggrieved would be fortified by popular 
prejudice in the notion that, however inferior 
his skill, the justice of his cause would counter- 
balance the defect. He might easily believe 
himself an instrument in the hands of God, se- 
cretly intrusted with the execution of Divine 
vengeance. In many . the com- 

batants were inspired by no such lofty consid- 
erations as these : the duels of the time of Hen- 
ry III. and Louis XIII. were often mere pas- 
times, a lively sort of fencing; but still, in judg- 
ing the duelists of this period, the theory of 



"Appeals to God" must be remembered as an 
extenuating circumstance. 

Again, it must be borne in mind that many 
of the French .duels of this period were fought 
on public, not on private grounds. They were, 
in fact, miniature battles, quite as defensible as 
the battles of Niagara, Cerro Gordo, or Inker- 
mann. "Whether three Leaguers crossed swords 
with three Huguenots, or three thousand, the 
principle was obviously the same. If " infalli- 
ble artillery" is to be blessed by bishops, we can 
not consistently anathematize the rapier or the 
pistol that is drawn in the like cause. 

Evidently the public duel demands some 
respectful consideration. Manlius Torquatus 
challenging and slaying the Gaul — David fight- 
ing his duel with Goliah — the Earl of Essex 
challenging the Governor of Lisbon — are per- 
sonages not by any means to be held up to 
odium, or to be confounded with the spadassin. 
Indeed, as, after all, the final appeal among men 
is yet to brute force, it would seem that he who 
contrives to lodge such appeal with least pros- 
pect of bloodshed merits high honor. If the 
European monarchs had accepted the proposal 
of Russian Paul, and fought out their quarrels 
at St. Petersburg with the small sword, Talley- 
rand, Pitt, Metternich, and Bernstorf officiating 
as seconds, Europe would manifestly have been 
a large gainer by the arrangement. Even now, 
what an excellent bargain for humanity if Alex- 
ander and Napoleon could settle their strife 
with pistols at twelve paces ! 

There is another sort of public duel, less 
clearly praiseworthy, as less plainly economical 
of blood, yet not deserving of indiscriminate 
blame. Such was Hamilton's duel with Burr. 
"I am not the party challenged," said the great 
statesman in substance — " the blow is aimed at 
the Federal party." It was in this conviction 
that he fought against the dictates of his prin- 
ciples. Of course he could do no good to the 
party by fighting; but whether he would not 
have done it harm by declining the duel in those 
fighting days, is not so clear. Similar was young 
Las Casas's challenge to Sir Hudson Lowe. The 
latter had barbarously carried out the orders of 
a barbarous government ; had helped disease to 
make short work of Napoleon. When he re- 
turned to England, the son of Napoleon's friend 
and biographer challenged him. True, there 
was a nearer occasion for the cartel in a letter 
of Sir Hudson's ; but its real basis was the quar- 
rel between the late Emperor of France and the 
British Government. Sir Hudson would not 
fight — preferred a horse-whipping from young 
Bertrand ; and really it seems difficult to con- 
demn this sensible course. But who shall throw 
the stone at his challenger? 

Another case of a like nature was the chal- 
lenge sent by Lafayette to the Earl of Carlisle. 
The Earl, as every body knows, in an appeal to 
the people of the United States, repeated the 
old English sneers at the French, which, the 
Marquis took in hand to avenge on behalf of 
his countrymen. Washington disapproved the 



512 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



challenge, so did the Count D'Estaing; and the 
Englishman very sensibly refused to allow him- 
self to be called personally to account for acts 
performed in the discharge of a public and dele- 
gated duty. But no one has ever thought the 
worse of Lafayette for the exhibition of his 
" sensibility and generosity." 

In former days religious disputes were a pro- 
lific source of duels. In the eleventh century, 
two knights, clad in complete armor, fought on 
horseback to determine the proper form of pub- 
lic worship. The great founder of the Company 
of Jesus, Ignatius Loyola, fought a duel with a 
Moor whom he had vainly attempted to convert 
by argument. And in England and Scotland, 
during the Reformation, points of doctrine were 
not unfrequently arbitrated by rival ministers 
with sword and arquebuse. "We must be cau- 
tious about condemning these doughty priests 
before we have dismantled our forts, and sold 
off the national armory. 

But for the private duel — growing out of some 
fancied affront to personal honor, based on no 
more solid ground than the mere ostentatious 
proffer of life for life, and naturally tending to 
homicide — it appears impossible to frame any 
decent excuse. Ireland is the country, and 
some sixty or seventy years ago the period, at 
which this class of duels have flourished the 
most luxuriantly. It was then that Lord Nor- 
bury began life with " fifty pounds and a pair 
of hair triggers ; that no lawyer could pretend 
to eminence at the bar, or aspire to the bench, 
till he had killed or winged his man ; that Judge 
Fletcher charged a jury on the trial of a duelist 
who had killed his man, " Gentlemen, it is my 
business to lay down the law to you. Where 
two persons fight a duel, and one of them falls, 
the law says it is murder, and I tell you by law 
it is murder ; but, at the same time, a fairer duel 
I never heard of in the whole course of my life." 

Curran was a noted duelist. His first fight 
was with an officer against whom he had been 
professionally employed, and of whom he had 
spoken freely. The officer fired, and missed ; 
Curran threw down his pistol. "It was not 
necessary for me to fire at him," said he, con- 
temptuously, "he died soon after, of the report 
of his own pistol." 

Another antagonist of his was a barrister 
named Egan, a man of immense size and bulk. 
Curran was small and thin. When the parties 
were placed on the ground, Egan complained 
of the advantage the disparity in their sizes 
gave to Curran. " I might as well fire at a ra- 
zor's edge as at him," said Egan, " and he may 
hit me as easily as a turf-stack." Curran was 
ready with a retort : " I tell you what, Mr. Egan, 
I want to take no advantage of you ; let my 
size be chalked out upon your body, and I will 
agree that all shots outside of the mark shall 
go for nothing." 

Sir Jonah Barrington, the historian of these 
Irish duels, figured in one or two of the most 
ludicrous. His first meeting was with a known 
fire-eater named Daly, who challenged him by 



mistake. Young Barrington placed the matter 
in the hands of a friend — a fire-eater likewise 
— and avowed that he was wholly unconscious of 
having offended Mr. Daly. His friend, Mr. Cros- 
by, would not hear of any explanation ; it was 
his first challenge, and he must fight. So they 
went to the field. When they arrived there, Daly's 
friend stepped forward and begged to apologize 
for having given them so much trouble; his 
principal, he said, had mistaken the man. But 
Crosby, appealing to the printed code of dueling, 
produced the rule which states that " no apology 
can be received after the parties meet, without 
a fire," and insisted on the duel proceeding. 

The men were placed, greatly against Mr. 
Daly's will, and a shot was fired. Barrington 
wounded Daly. 

Another duel of Barrington's was fought with 
a man named M'Nally. Barrington's ball struck 
the buckle of one of M'Nally's braces (called 
gallows in- Dublin) and knocked him over, 
though without hurting him. " Mac, my boy, 
cried his second, "you're the first man I ever 
knew that was saved by the gallows." This 
M'Nally is pleasantly sketched by the author of 
" Curran and his Contemporaries." " His dis- 
tress at one time was truly pitiable at being un- 
able to induce any body to fight him. Henry 
Grady, who wounded every body with whom he 
fought, refused that honor to M'Nally, and every 
one followed the inhuman example. The poor 
man could get no one to shoot him, and was the 
picture of misery. In vain he fumed, fretted, 
and affronted. All seemed determined on being 
guiltless of his blood. Never was an Irish gen- 
tleman so unfortunate. At length Sir Jonah 
Barrington, out of Christian charity, accepted 
his cartel, and shot him into fashion." 

There is no reason to suppose there is any 
exaggeration in the picture. Dueling was a thor- 
oughly recognized institution. When Flood shot 
Agar through the heart in a duel, for asking him 
what had become of a lost case of pistols, the 
jury found the sagacious verdict that the de- 
ceased " had come to his death by a pistol-bul- 
let." In 1777 the gentlemen of Ireland appoint- 
ed delegates to a Convention which was to meet 
at Clonmel, to frame a Code of Dueling. The 
result of their labors was the " Thirty-six com- 
mandments," which Sir Jonah Barrington has 
handed down to posterity. They are bloody 
enough, as most Irishmen were good shots in 
those days. One runs : 

" When the lie direct is the first offense, the 
aggressor must either beg pardon in express 
terms, exchange two shots previous to an apol- 
ogy, or three shots followed up by an explana- 
tion, or fire on till a severe hit be received by 
one party or the other." 

As to blows, the commandments say that " as 
a blow is strictly prohibited under any circum- 
stances among gentlemen, no verbal apology 
can be received for any such insult: The al- 
ternatives are, therefore — the offender handing 
a cane to the injured party, to be used on his 
own back, at the same time begging pardon ; 



A PISTOL-SHOT AT THE DUELISTS. 



513 



firing on till one or both is disabled ; or ex- 
changing three shots, and then asking pardon 
without the proffer of the cane." 

Another rule declares that " no dumb-shoot- 
ing or firing in the air is admissible in any case. 
The challenger ought not to have challenged 
without receiving offense, and the challenged 
ought, if he gave offense, to have made apology 
before he came on the ground ; therefore chil- 
dren's play must be dishonorable on one side or 
the other, and is accordingly prohibited." 

Some of the " commandments" are delicious- 
ly cool. 

" Seconds to be of equal rank with the prin- 
cipals they attend, inasmuch as a second may 
choose, or chance, to become a principal, and 
equality is indispensable." 

"Challenges are never to be delivered at 
night, unless the party to be challenged is to 
leave the place before morning, for it is desira- 
ble to avoid all hot-headed proceedings." 

" Any wound sufficient to agitate the nerves, 
and necessarily make the hand shake, must end 
the business for that day" 

Lever the novelist, who has made good use 
of the Irish propensity for hair-triggers, lays 
down the rule that a man must fight his tailor 
if he calls him out ; which is apparently at va- 
riance with the Clonmel commandments. His 
dictum has not been invariably acknowledged 
by Irish duelists. When Benjamin Disraeli 
challenged Morgan O'Connell, in consequence 
of that famous speech of his father's, in which 
he declared that Disraeli must be the lineal de- 
scendant and heir-at-law of the impenitent thief 
on the cross, the Irishman declined the combat, 
and coolly sent the challenge to the newspapers. 
Nor was he the less considered on that account. 

A recent industrious chronicler of duels, Mr. 
Sabine, has divided this country into dueling 
States and non-dueling States. The distinction 
is only relative, as duels are by no means un- 
known in any Northern State. There are in- 
deed few cities in the Union where a young 
man, unmarried, and moving in society, could 
refuse a challenge from a respectable antago- 
nist without some courage. Still it is unques- 
tionable that Northerners are not so fond of the 
duel as their Southern brethren. Mr. Sabine 
accounts for the scant records of duels in New 
England by the punishment inflicted on the two 
first duelists of that section of country. 

These were Edward Doty and Edward Leis- 
ter, "serving-men" at Plymouth. They quar- 
reled within a few months after their arrival in 
America, and settled the dispute, in a gentle- 
manly way, with sword and dagger. Both were 
wounded. When the old Pilgrim Fathers heard 
of their proceedings, they took long and anxious 
counsel, and finally decided to tie thecombatants 
neck and heels together, and leave them twenty- 
four hours witbout food or drink. The punish- 
ment threw so much ridicule on the practice of 
dueling that it was extremely rare in New England 
throughout its colonial history, and is so still. 

In the Southern States, it is believed, duels 



I are by no means so frequent as they used to be. 
The lamentable cases of Mason and M'Carty, 
Graves and Cilley, and others fresh in every 
one's memory, undoubtedly operated to check 
the practice in the neighborhood of the Federal 
capital ; and even in Louisiana and Mississippi 
we hear of fewer duels than formerly. The old 
murderous style of rencontre, with rifle and re- 
volvers, or with pistols and knife in a dark 
room ; the free-fight in a pit, with pleasant 
accompaniments of gouging and throttling; the 
bowie-knife duels, where the belligerents liter- 
ally chopped each other into shreds, are quite 
out of date. It is very doubtful whether they 
ever were as common as has been supposed in 
foreign countries, and even here at the North. 
If the truth were known, many of these terrible 
encounters would probably be traced to their 
real source — the fertile brain of Mr. Items, of 
some wide-awake newspaper. 

Not that our dueling records lack well au- 
thenticated cases of savage blood-thirstiness. In 
one well-known case a United States Senator 
resigned his commission for the special and sole 
purpose of fighting his cousin, and offered to 
agree to any terms, any weapons, any distance. 
The cousin proposed a barrel of powder apiece. 
To this the seconds would not agree. He then 
suggested muskets, at twelve paces. The duel 
was fought on these terms. The United States 
Senator was shot through the heart : his cousin 
lost his arm. 

There is another case, also well established, 
though perhaps it never appeared in print, 
which exhibits still greater recklessness of life. 
Two students at a Southern university quarreled, 
and agreed to fight. Not having the thirty-six 
commandments before them, they resolved to 
fight at once, where they were, and with the 
weapons they had. One was armed Avith a pis- 
tol, the other with a bowie-knife. The latter 
calmly told his adversary to fire, and stood 
facing him at a few feet distance. The owner 
of the pistol remonstrated, begged his opponent 
to wait till fire-arms could be procured for both ; 
but he would not listen to any proposal of the 
kind. Sternly and menacingly he bade his ad- 
versary fire. The latter, seeing the keen blade 
of the bowie-knife, raised his pistol, fired ; the 
ball struck his opponent on the head, but by 
a miraculous accident glanced, merely tearing 
the scalp. Then the bowie-knife flashed — with 
one spring its owner was beside his enemy, and 
drove the fearful weapon deep into his skull, 
lie was carried to the room of a medical pro- 
fessor; but he was quite dead. The bowie- 
knife had sunk so deeply into the bones of the 
head that the professor was forced to place his 
knee upon the body, and tug with his whole 
strength to draw it out. 

Editors are naturally the persons most ex- 
posed to receive challenges. It falls to their 
lot to animadvert on the mischievous acts of 
public men ; and as there are few matters re- 
specting which there may not be two opposite 
opinions, well-intentioned persons may often 



.14 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



deny to the journalist disinterested motives, 
and desire to hold him personally responsible 
for what they consider personal malice. In 
certain States of the Union, a non-lighting edi- 
tor would be an impossibility. It was so for- 
merly in France and England. Armand Carrel's 
death checked the practice in the former coun- 
try ; in England the strict vail of secrecy which 
shrouds the editorial staff of a leading paper 
has almost put an end to editorial duels. But 
when John Wilkes was the leading editor of 
London, he was never without an affair on 
hand ; he was trying, he said, how far the 
liberty of the press went in England. His first 
duel arose out of a comical occurrence. When 
Lord Talbot was appointed High Steward of 
England, he took immense pains to train a 
horse he had to walk backward, in order that 
he might retire from the presence of the sover- 
eign without turning his back. His lessons 
completed, when the day arrived for the coro- 
nation of George the Third, the High Steward 
made his appearance on his horse, caparisoned 
at all points. But alas ! the moment Lord Tal- 
bot touched the animal with spur in order to 
enter the hall, the too docile beast turned his 
tail to the monarch, and backed down upon him, 
to the horror of his rider and the inextinguish- 
able merriment of the courtiers. John Wilkes 
made much fun of the incident, for which Lord 
Talbot challenged him. They fought, and ex- 
changed a couple of shots without injury. 

Another famous editorial duel was that be- 
tween Moore and Jeffrey. The former con- 
ceived himself aggrieved by an article in the 
Edinburgh Review, of which Jeffrey was the 
editor, and, having failed to obtain the name 
of the author, challenged him. While the 
seconds were loading the pistols, and arranging 
matters, the two principals fell into conversa- 
tion, and Moore chose that moment to tell 
Jeffrey a pleasant story about an Irish acquaint- 
ance who, being in a predicament similar to 
theirs, exclaimed that it was bad enough to 
take the medicine, without being forced to 
stand by and see it mixed. The seconds mixed 
the dose, in fact, so well, that there were no 
balls in the pistols, and Moore never spoke to 
his second afterward. 

Mr. M 'Michael, of Philadelphia, has lately 
had the manliness to make a stand on the ques- 
tion of personal editorial responsibility for news- 
paper strictures on public men. Called to ac- 
count by a party whose conduct in a public mat- 
ter he had had occasion to censure, he refused 
point blank either to fight or to apologize, al- 
leging that a liability on editors to answer with 
the pistol for their course as journalists, would 
necessarily curtail the liberty of the press. A 
similar course was pursued, under circumstan- 
ces familiar to all our readers, by Mr. Prentice 
of the Louisville Journal, one of the ablest and 
boldest journalists in America. The public have 
sustained these gentlemen. The law of libel 
is broad enough, and juries are commonly hard 
enough on newspapers to satisfy the vindictive- 



ness of any victim of the editorial quill. And 
to a logical mind, the abstraction of so many 
hundred or thousand dollars from an editor's 
purse must be far more satisfactory satisfaction 
than the precarious recourse to a duel, in which, 
as we see dow r n South, the editor can generally 
take care of himself. 

It is instructive to note how utterly powerless 
legislation has been to repress dueling. When, 
in the youth of the chivalric institution, four 
thousand gentlemen in Paris were killed in less 
than ten years, the king resolved to put a stop 
to it. Old laws were revived — new ones made 
— but without effect. Under Louis XIII. the 
father of the famous Marshal Luxembourg, the 
Marquis de Bouteville, a Montmorenci by birth, 
and already distinguished as a duelist, presumed 
to fight, three against three, in the very Palais 
Royal, in spite of an express command from the 
king. He escaped unwounded, but the famous 
Bussy was killed. Louis had Bouteville arrest- 
ed and executed, in the teeth of angry remon- 
strances from the whole body of the nobility. 
But the example was unheeded. Louis the 
Fourteenth established Courts of Honor to set- 
tle disputes between gentlemen, and issued or- 
dinances yet more careful and more severe than 
those of his predecessors. But the fighting went 
on. The monarch called to his aid the men of 
letters of the day. Bossuet preached against 
the practice ; Moliere assailed it more effectual- 
ly by making Monsieur Jourdain exclaim to his 
fencing-master: "Then, by learning from you, 
a man may, without any courage at all, be sure 
of killing his man and of not being killed him- 
self." But the duelists laughed at the sally, and 
killed each other as before. 

By the common law of England, to kill a man 
in a duel is murder, and the attempt a capital 
offense. Yet there never was a period, from 
the accession of the Stuarts till very modern 
tim v % when duels were uncommon in the Brit- 
ish Isles. Not to allude to Ireland again, al- 
most all the great statesmen of England have 
set the example of fighting — Wellington, Cas- 
tlereagh, Canning, Hastings, Shelburne, Town- 
shend, Wyndham, York — indeed almost every 
prominent man has exchanged his shot or two in 
the course of his life. In Austria, Russia, and 
most of the German States, the laws against 
dueling have always been severe ; but there is 
hardly a student who passes through college who 
does not wear a scar or two — memorials of a 
sword-fight in a crowded room. 

. The contrast between the law and the prac- 
tice is tolerably striking here. Eighteen States 
have prohibited dueling by provisions embodied 
in their State Constitutions — among these are 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, California, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, and Missouri. In 
all the others dueling is prohibited by statute ; 
and in the District of Columbia by Act of Con- 
gress. Yet the record of American duels is tol- 
erably full, and swelling still. 

The reason was given by Mr. Preston, of 
South Carolina, in his speech in the Senate on 



THE TERRIBLE TREE, 



515 



the last bill for the suppression of this class of 
homicide. " The state of public opinion," said 
he, "is averse to the execution of the law ap- 
plicable to dueling. The practice is, in fact, 
sustained by public opinion, and so long as it is 
so sustained it will prevail in spite of law." 
This is precisely what the English, French, and 
Germans say when questioned on the point. 
Of course, when it is attempted to analyze this 
public opinion, it vanishes. It is an aggregate, 
of which no single component part can be de- 
tected by the nicest scrutiny. When the last 
bill against dueling was put to the vote in the 
Senate, every member voted in favor of it but 
one, and he began his speech by stating his un- 
qualified disapproval of the practice. All the 
prominent men who have fought in this country 
— Hamilton, Clay, Decatur, and others — have 
left their testimony against it. They bowed to 
prejudice — some, perhaps, to passion. Decatur 
goes to his death after stating the objections to du- 
eling most forcibly ; Voltaire trains for a duel, and 
makes his defeated duelist in the comedy cry : 

" Oui, vous avez raison — 
Je suis un sot, !a chose est par trop claire, 
Et votre epee a prouve cette affaire." 

So potent is the bump of combativeness in 
mankind. It has been said that the modern 
duel dates from the sixteenth century. But 
this only applies to its rules and conditions. 
The institution is antediluvian. The chances 
are, that the moment there were two men in the 
world they fought a duel. Cain was a duelist. 
Directly after the flood, the divine command that 
man's blood shall not be shed by man, implies 
multitudes of duels. Some have fancied the 
ancients fought no duels. This is a misconcep- 
tion. A Roman did not fight, certainly, about 
his lady's ribbon or a wry look ; but the whole 
history of the ancient world, is it not bristling 
with man-fights and duels of the most savage 
description ? Nay, is not all history the same — 
all private experience analogous? Boys fight 
duels in pinafores : girls fight single combats 
with their nails : Pat and Mickey settle their 
disputes in so many rounds with the fist. How 
are educated men to dispose of their share of 
the universal propensity ? Can Senator Doug- 
las and Senator Sumner fight with their fists? 
Would Mr. Marcy be justified in scratching the 
face of Mr. Seward ? And let us not, when so 
many of us are celebrating the battles of Buena 
Vista or New Orleans — when Pelissier and 
GortschakofF are slaying their tens of thousands 
— when Congress is voting money for forts and 
cannon — let us not be too hasty in concluding 
that intellect has succeeded in subjugating our 
animal instincts. Combativeness is not, by any 
means, on the decline in the human skull ; nor, 
perhaps, is it quite desirable it should. Its 
child — the duel— no doubt does mischief. But 
to the mother bump we owe more than half our 
energy, our moral vigor, our manliness — a val- 
uable protuberance it is, in truth, with all its 
inconveniences, and one which it were a sorry 
business for America we should chance to lose. 



THE TERRIBLE TREE. 

I WAS studying, smoking, and generally ru- 
ining my constitution in the little college 

town of N , one fierce winter, when a settled 

apathy took possession of me. I lost my inter- 
est in every thing. Frequently, to rouse my 
dormant energies, I walked down to the beach, 
and plunged in the icy surge. But it availed 
nothing. Books, cigars, all were ineffectual. 
Life looked a dreary waste. The cold, object- 
less fields, covered with snow, seemed to me to 
image forth the future. Like most very young 
men, I had exhausted sensation. As I sat by 
my little table one evening in January, I ran 
over in my mind the possible stimulants I could 
use to lash my dormant sensibilities into life. 
I could not take to drinking, because, like Dick 
Swiveller, I had taken to that before. I could 
not take opium ; that made me deadly sick, and, 
subsequently, sleepy. Was there any mental 
stimulant, such as love, hate, remorse, that I 
had not tried? No. I hated every body. I 
had been in love with all the " college widows," 
and several beside. "Man pleasured me not; 
no, nor woman either." Remorse ! I had dis- 
obeyed my father, and grieved my mother. I 
felt, I suppose, suitable remorse for these things, 
but they were peccadillos, and did not answer. 

Remorse ! — the word pleased me. Should I 
stick a knife into the fat sides of my landlady? 
Would her innocent blood crying to Pleaven, 
and her last gasp, calling me "murderer!" 
make my pulse beat quicker ? No ; she was old, 
cheating, asthmatic. She would have had no in- 
nocent blood to cry with. She could not have 
cried " murderer I" audibly, on account of the 
asthma, and I think she would have welcomed 
death as an agreeable exchange from a life spent 
in taking boarders. Where was the victim 
whom I could offer up to my dying sensations? 
What Iphigenia knelt before the dull gleam of 
my languid knife ? Where — Tap, tap, tap ! 
as if a ghostly finger touched my window-pane. 

I started ! yes, I actually started. The ocean 
in January had greeted my numbed frame as if 
it had been a warm vapor-bath. Thoughts of 
murder, of poison, of love, of fame, had crept 
through my veins as languidly as a thought of 
paying an old debt. What these things had not 
done, a tap did. 

I looked out — nothing there. The cold moon 
looked down on the cold earth ; the cold snow 
surrounded the cold white houses ; the leafless 
trees outlined themselves on the cold sky ; the 
cold charity student, shivering in his thin coat, 
went by, making coldness visible. 

Tap, tap, tap ! 

For the first time I saw — would that I had 
never seen it again — I saw the tree! An old, 
lightning -struck, dead sycamore, with two 
branches left, and a charred top with one hole 
burned in it by the lightning. There it stood, 
a horrible cyclop, tossing its two skeleton arms 
in the air, and looked at me with its one eye. 
One arm leaned over toward my window, and a 
skeleton forefinger tapped on the glass. 



•1G 



HARPEK'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



I knew what it was. A demon lived in that 
tree, and wanted to make my acquaintance. I 
nodded to the tree. I should be happy to make 
the gentleman's acquaintance. A gust of wind 
surged through and through the tree, and a hor- 
rible " Ha ! ha !" died away in the air. 

I had seen the tree before, of course. There 
it had stood a year before my chamber window, 
but I had never seen it as I saw it to-night. 
Formerly to me it was a burned, dead tree. 
Now it was a familiar, companionable demon. 
I determined to get something out of that tree. 

Just as I had admitted the tree to my confi- 
dence, the door-bell rang. Loud, importunate 
to be let in, the ringer spake through the quiv- 
ering wire, and I was convinced it was a new- 
comer. No one who had been quenched in the 
atmosphere of that house could ring in that way. 
Presently I heard trunks brought in, then strange 
voices, then goings up stairs. I looked out at 
the tree. He waved a gaunt finger at me, as 
much as to say, " Go down, and find out." 

Charming! I felt curiosity — always a sign 
of vitality. I encouraged it by waiting. I 
said to myself, "We will find out to-morrow, 
my good fellow; keep quiet" — all the while 
slyly meaning to ask Susan, the chambermaid, 
whom I heard, with no fairy footfalls, ascend- 
ing and descending the stairs. 

Susan had a great contempt for me. Wheth- 
er several years of residence in a boarding-house 
had given Susan a disgust for her species, or 
whether she was actually a misanthrope ; or 
whether, again, I, of the whole human race, 
had failed to impress the mind of Susan with 
my superior claims to respect, certain it was that 
Susan had not that amenity of manner or ac- 
tivity of service where I was concerned, which 
would have been expected from our relative 
positions. If my pitchers were ever full of wa- 
ter, my boots ever at the door when they should 
have been, I have only to say it was the excep- 
tion, and not the rule. Susan's manner, too, 
of answering a question was abrupt, and not par- 
ticularly respectful. So I was not surprised, on 
opening my door and addressing a timid inter- 
rogatory to Susan, to the effect that I should 
like to know who had arrived, that she should 
answer somewhat in this wise : 

" Go away, Mr. Sidney, don't be a-botherin' 
me, who is tired and distracted to death now." 

However, Susan was a woman, and could not 
resist the pleasure of telling a piece of news. 

"There is a gentleman, and a lady, and a 
sick one, and lots of trunks ; and the sick one 
has fainted away, and they is a-bringin' her to." 

I shut my door and looked out at the tree. 
He nodded and winked his one eye at me, and 
tossed his branches in wild delight. We under- 
stood each other perfectly. 

Iphigenia had arrived ; I saw it at a glance. 
This fainting person was evidently a sick girl, 
who had been brought to this house by her pa- 
rents. She would recover slowly. I would fas- 
cinate her, break her heart, and, if she did not 
then die, I would kill her.' Yes ! in the dead 



of night, I would ascend to the third floor front, 
wake her from her childlike sleep, and then 
calmly, coolly, like Mr. Forrest on the stage, I 
would plunge my knife into her pure bosom, and 
walk away, " wrapping my mantle round me," 
and "keep my dreadful secret to eat out my 
heart." 

I made my preparations with fiendish cool- 
ness. I looked long and steadily in the depths 
of the looking-glass, making my countenance as 
interesting as the case would permit. I pulled 
out of a drawer a blue cravat, which in a mo- 
ment of previous despair I had rejected, but 
which became me much. I spent an hour or so 
over my hair, and curled my lip until it was quite 
lame. These preparations over, I had nothing 
before me but the mundane necessity of going 
to bed. As common life, with its perpetual 
grind of buttons, and boots, and shaving, came 
back to me, I relapsed again into apathy, and 
began to tire even of the idea of killing the girl. 
The tree kept me up, however, and tapped, and 
nodded, and winked in a most uncommon man- 
ner. 

She was not at breakfast, no, nor at dinner. 
I heard, too, to my disgust, that she was mar- 
ried — a Mrs. Brown ! How the tree gibbered 
and pointed its skinny fingers at me ! Evening 
came, and alone in my room I tried not to see 
the tree; but let me look where I would, so 
firmly was it daguerreotyped on my mind that 
I could but see it, and ever and anon came the 
tap — tap, as if to remind me I was not alone. 

Mrs. Brown was traveling with her nurse and 
physician. Who or where was Mr. Brown did 
not appear. One day I stopped the nurse in 
the hall and inquired for her mistress. She 
told me she was better, and would come down 
in a day or two. As for the physician, he was 
a very silent, disagreeable fellow, with gray hair 
and a young face, a contradictory sort of expres- 
sion, and a pair of eyes which never met yours. 

As a proof that I got better of my apathy 
about this time, I Avill mention that, in passing 
through the halls, I heard the nurse ask Susan 
who that young man was who spoke to her. 
Susan replied : 

" Oh, a miserable kind of a dyspepsia feller — 
he don't know nothing." 

As a psychological fact, and proof that I had 
come to have some feeling, I was very glad to 
observe that this remark aroused in me a con- 
siderable degree of wrath. 

That evening I saw Mrs. Brown ! As I came 
home at twilight I went up to my room, but be- 
fore entering it I sprang back as if from an elec- 
tric shock ; for coming out of it was a woman 
— the strangest woman ! A small, pale, gaunt 
woman, with black eyes and great hollows round 
them, dressed in black, with a white halo round 
her throat, she seemed all black and white — a 
stormy sky with a moon shining in it. 

" Excuse me, Sir ; I have mistaken your door 
for mine," said a voice which froze the marrow 
in my bones. 

A low, dreadful voice, as if coming from the 



THE TERRIBLE TREE. 



517 



tombs. I scarcely remember what followed. I 
knew she fascinated me. I knew I loved her. 
She was like the tree ; I could not escape her. 
She had but to ask me a question, and I turned 
to listen to her. She held me spell-bound. How 
strange, how wonderful was her talk ! She spoke 
of dreams, of omens, of that wonderful power 
of the Indian jugglers who could compel dreams. 
She believed in trances. Common life did not 
appear to touch her. Some sirocco seemed to 
have blown over her, and withered all her blooms. 
So strikingly did she make this impression on 
me, that I once involuntarily asked her, " Were 
you ever struck by lightning ?" 

She did not show any surprise at the question, 
but immediately answered. 

"Yes, and completely scathed." 

She was dreadfully ill. Sometimes she was 
brought down and put in a carriage by her nurse, 
almost like a child. Sometimes moans of agony 
reached me from her room. Once I accident- 
ally touched her hand — it burned me. Yet now 
and then she talked with almost superhuman 
energy, grappling with great social problems, 
and thinking and working like a strong man. 

I loved her! No one knew it but the tree, 
and he only pointed a skinny arm at me in 
derision. "Dying!" he seemed to moan — 
"Dying!" echoed the wind, that went sobbing 
through his branches. 

One night, when'the wave of life seemed to 
surge more strongly in her breast, and she had 
a flash of strength, I told her I loved her. I 
took one of those burning, attenuated hands, 
and said, "Live for me — I love you!" 

She looked at me w r ith unutterable pity. 
"Poor bov, you had better never have been 
born !" 

I did not attempt to answer her. As soon 
would I have answered the ocean, had it thrown 
me like a weed on the rocks. 

Still I sat by her side — still I strove to move 
her easy chair to the most sheltered corner — 
still I marked with growing anguish the fading 
light of her face. One evening as I was so oc- 
cupied, my landlady burst into the room, and 
uttered, " Murder! murder!" and sank into her 
chair, crying and sobbing. 

" Who is it?" we both said. 

" Mr. Montague Lewis has been found mur- 
dered in his bed. No one went to his room till 
an hour ago, when his servant got alarmed, 
opened his door, and found him dead — stabbed ! 
Oh dear ! oh dear!" 

"Wag he quite dead?" said Mrs. Brown, in 
her calm, sepulchral voice. 

"Quite. Oh, what a family! and Mr. Clif- 
ford not here; and whatever became of his 
wife, I should like to know? There is some- 
thing wrong somewhere," and with this pro- 
found reflection our fat and asthmatic inform- 
ant left us. 

These gentlemen — the murdered man and 
his brother — belonged to an old family in 

N . They were the Redganntlets of the 

neighborhood. Handsome, aristocratic-looking 



men, they were reserved to an uncommon de- 
gree ; and shunning every one, were shunned 
in their turn. Dreadful stories of the bad pas- 
sions of the race lingered about in the neighbor- 
hood. Hard, cold men, with compressed lips, 
they walked occasionally through the streets, 
or were seen in the library, bowing distantly 
to an acquaintance, and frequently disappearing 
from the town for a year or so, going no one 
knew whither. 

Clifford Lewis, the younger brother, Avas not 
at home when the murder took place. A poor 
old housekeeper was alone in the house. She 
said she had heard a noise in the night, had 
risen, and looked over the stairs. 

"I saw a man," she said, "going out of my 
master's room; I called to him, and he answered 
me in my master's voice, saying, 'It is I, Rebec- 
ca, do not fear; go to your room again.' I 
thought then it was a smaller person than my 
master, but then I knew his voice so well, and 
so I went to bed. In the morning he did not 
come down ; but that often happened, and he 
always told me not to wake him, he was such a 
poor sleeper. I waited till night, and then — 
Oh that Mr. Clifford would come !" 

In a few days Mr. Clifford came. The com- 
munity was shaken with fear. All that money 
and the law could do to ferret out the murderer 
was tried ineffectually. 

Mr. Clifford Lewis, contrary to his wont, 
went much to public places, stimulating officials 
to do their duty, and shoAving capacity and zeal. 
He AA r as a strikingly handsome man, and had one 
of the most beautiful voices I had ever heard. 
He impressed me so much that I came home de- 
termined to describe him to Mrs. BroAvn. 

I began describing him. She listened in si- 
lence, Avith her long dark lashes resting on her 
Avan, pale cheeks. 

I AA r as dAvelling on the concentrated energy 
of his manner, and the contrast in the soft, mel- 
Ioav tones of his voice. 

"I should think such men Avould be irre- 
sistible to Avomen," I said ; " strength in re- 
pose." 

"And so they are," said Mrs. BroAvn. "But 
have you CA-er thought what that manner indi- 
cates ? Do you know what becomes of the 
poor victim avIio is grasped by that iron hand 
in a velvet glove ? I will tell you. She shrinks, 
she trembles, she crouches in submission ; but 
she escapes — and turning, she stings her tyrant, 
as a playful, tortured, vexed serpent turns and 
stings !" 

Hoav this Avoman's voice thrilled me through! 
What terrible quality had it that made my blood 
freeze in my brain ! 

"They sting! they sting!" she reiterated. 

Night came again. The tree told me a hor- 
rible secret that night. It Avhispercd a Avord 
that kept sleep from my eyes. In the dead of 
night I heard a foot on the stairs — I heard a 
door shut above my head. These sounds con- 
firmed my worst imaginings. The tree beckon- 
ed me out into the stormy night — it threw one 



518 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



arm wildly up in the air, and pointed to her 
window. 

The demon beckoned me up. I climbed up 
the jagged trunk of the old tree, reached one 
of the long arm-like branches, and crept along 
its frail and swaying support. A dull light shin- 
ing in the room showed me that woman — her 
pale hands bloody, her person disguised in men's 
clothes, and her eyes gleaming with superhuman 
lustre and fiendish triumph. 

Morning came, and with it crowds of agi- 
tated, pale men, and women shrieking with ter- 
ror, and news of another murder. 

Yes, Clifford Lewis, with his handsome, cruel 
face, lay murdered in his bed. 

In another hour from the discovery I was ar- 
rested as his murderer. 

The proof was this : a man's track was dis- 
covered leading past the old tree, from the house 
in which he lived to mine, and near one of the 
tracks, and clinging to the torn bark of the tree, 
was my handkerchief. 

I only asked one favor of the crowd of angry 
men who seized upon me as if I were a wild 
beast, and that was that I might write a note. 

They assented ; but w r hen they saw it was ad- 
dressed to the poor dying woman up stairs, they 
all said " No." 

"The man is mad," said one; "we will not 
allow the poor invalid to be alarmed by his rav- 
ings." 

But the gray -haired young physician offered 
to take it for me. 

I wrote to her these words: "Be firm — the 
dead sycamore and I alone know : we are both 
incapable of speaking." 

I sat on the stone floor of the prison, await- 
ing the morning. I knew that I loved a mon- 
ster, but I loved still. No thought of betraying 
her came to my mind. All other thoughts — 
home, friends, good name — were drowned in 
this all-conquering sea. I recalled my morbid 
sensations before I saw her; I compared that 
night's reflections with my present state of feel- 
ing. Was I not a murderer at heart ? Was it 
not just that I should be punished for the sin I 
had conceived but not committed ? 

Morning came, and with it my release. Mrs. 
Brown had confessed the crime, and was dying. 
She wished to see me. She was lying on a 
sofa, and by her side a grave old man held her 
pulse in one hand, and his watch in the other. 
She opened her eyes, and held out a feeble hand 
to me. 

"Poor, generous fool, did you think I would 
let you die?" she said. "No ; I have killed all 
I wished to kill. I kept silence till my poor 
tools, my so-called nurse and physician, could 
escape. I needed them, and used them ; but 
they are innocent, except of knowing me, and 
they are gone. How long have I ?" she asked 
of the physician. 

" Not an hour," he answered, solemnly. 

"More than enough. I am the wife of Clif- 
ford Lewis. He won me by that soft voice 



which you admired; he crushed me with that 
iron hand which you saw. I was high-strung, 
impetuous, passionate^ I loved him — God 
knows how much ! — but I defied him. I did 
not want to be ruled. In this evil hour his 
brother Montague came to live with us. He 
treated me kindly, and I trusted him. I told 
him I was unhappy — fatal, weak confession ! 
He w r as a mean creature. He loved me — he 
asked me to fly with him. I refused. I told 
him I hated him. He went away, but left a 
poisoned arrow. He told his brother that I had 
confessed that I loved him, and he fled to save 
our happiness. 

" How artistically he planned his revenge ! 
When my husband found that my pride outstood 
his cruelty, he struck deeper. We had a child" 
— here the dying woman struggled fearfully with 
death, and with that agony which is fiercer — 
" a beautiful blue-eyed boy, with all that is good 
imaged in his face, and not yet blighted by his 
inheritance of evil. He came at night, when 
he slept in my arms. I hope he is dead— I 
have never seen him since. 

" I could not die ; but there was one thing 
left for me to do — I could kill ! I would cleanse 
the race of these two plague-spots. No other 
woman should suffer as I had done." 

I had a dim consciousness that the room w r as 
full of people, that this woman lay dying on a 
sofa. I could not collect my senses. I dropped 
on my knees by her side, and strove to say a 
prayer for her soul — her guilty soul. I heard 
a cry of agony, a convulsed breathing, and I 
remember no more. 

A dark room, the same grave old gentleman, 
the too familiar face of Susan w r ith a bowl of 
gruel in her hand. This picture succeeded the 
last. 

I tried in vain to reconcile the two. 

" There, seems to me he looks sensibler," 
said Susan. 

The doctor (so I imagined) started up : "Yes, 
here is a change for the better. My dear young 
friend, how do you feel ?" 

I answ r ered with the ghost of a voice, that I 
did not know. 

" A very bad typhus — a very complicated, im- 
portant case. You are alive, my young friend, 
through the blessing of God and successful 
medical treatment." 

"And the tree, is that typhus? and Mrs. 
Brown, is she typhus? and murder, and all 
that, merely typhus ?" 

" Malignant typhoid, my dear young friend. 
Great irritation of the brain, preceded almost 
always by low spirits, strange fancies, delirium, 
and too often death ! But you are alive, and, 
my friend — " 

" Mrs. Brown wishes' to know how the gentle- 
man is," said a voice at the door. 

" Decidedly better," said the doctor. " Poor 
woman, I wish she had better advice !" 

It turned out that I had met Mrs. Brown at 
my chamber door, with the fever circulating in 



THE DRAGON-FANG POSSESSED BY THE CONJUROR PIOU-LU. 519 



my veins, and had fallen down unconscious. 
The subsequent events had existed but in my 
fevered brain. I had transmuted two very re- 
spectable, snuffy old bachelors into my mur- 
dered men, and Mrs. Brown proved to be a very 
nice, though rather elderly and plain invalid 
lady, for whom I have the highest respect. 

The tree— it was the merest old wreck you 
ever saw. No respectable demon accustomed 
to a warm climate would have thought for a 
moment of taking up his abode in it, particular- 
ly his winter-quarters. 

" But doctor," said I, after I got well enough 
to go down stairs, " I don't like the looks of 
Mrs. Brown's physician, after all." 

" I know the reason, my dear young friend ; 
our instincts are very apt to be right," said the 
doctor, who was a two-and-twenty-grains-of- 
calomel man. "You do well to distrust his 
countenance; avoid him — he is a Homeopath- 
ist r 

The shadow of the calomel and of the doctor's 
awful authority was over me still, so I did not 
argue the matter, but took his explanation 
meekly, and with a show of credulity. 



THE DRAGON-FANG POSSESSED BY 
THE CONJUROR PIOU-LU. 



CHAPTER OF THE MIRACULOUS DRAGON-FANG. 

" Z^IOME, men and women, and little people of 
\J Tching-tou, come and listen. The small 
and ignoble person who annoys you by his pres- 
ence is the miserable conjuror known as Piou- 
Lu. Every thing that can possibly be desired 
he can give you. Charms to heal dissensions in 
your noble and illustrious families. Spells by 
which beautiful little people without style may 
become learned Bachelors, and reign high in 
the palaces of literary composition. Supernat- 
ural red pills, with which you can cure your 
elegant and renowned diseases. Wonderful 
incantations, by which the assassins of any 
members of your shining and virtuous families 
can be discovered and made to yield compensa- 
tion, or be brought under the just eye of the 
Brother of the Sun. What is it that you 
want? This mean little conjuror, who now 
addresses you, can supply all your charming 
and refreshing desires ; for he is known 
every where as Piou-Lu, the possessor of 
the ever-renowned and miraculous Dragon- 
Fang :" 

There was a little dry laugh, and a murmur 
among the crowd of idlers that surrounded the 
stage erected by Piou-Lu in front of the Hotel of 
the Thirty-tWO Virtues. Fifth-class Mandarins 
looked at fourth-class Mandarins and smiled, as 
much as to say, "we who are educated men know 
what to think of this fellow." But the fourth-class 
Mandarins looked haughtily at the fifth class, as 
if they had no business to smile at their supe- 
riors. The crowd, however, composed as it was 
principally of small traders, barbers, porcelain- 
tinkers, and country people, gazed with open 
mouths upon the conjuror, who, clad in a radi- 



ant garment of many colors, strutted proudly 
up and down upon his temporary stage. 

"What is a Dragon-Fang, ingenious and 
well-educated conjuror ?" at last inquired Wei- 
chang-tze, a sohmin-looking Mandarin of the 
third class, who was adorned with a sapphire but- 
ton, and a one-eyed peacock's feather. " What 
is a Dragon-Fang?" 

"Is it possible," asked Piou-Lu, "that the 
wise and illustrious son of virtue, the Mandarin 
Wei-chang-tze, does not know what a Dragon- 
Fang is ?" and the conjuror pricked up his ears 
at the Mandarin, as a hare at a barking dog. 

" Of course, of course," said the Mandarin 
Wei-chang-tze, looking rather ashamed of his 
having betrayed such ignorance, " one does not 
pass his examinations for nothing. I merely 
wished that you should explain to those ignor- 
ant people here what a Dragon-Fang was ; that 
was why I asked." 

"I thought that the Soul of Wisdom must 
have known," said Piou-Lu, triumphantly, look- 
ing as if he believed firmly in the knowledge of 
Wei-chang-tze. " The noble commands of Wei- 
chang-tze shall be obeyed. You all know," 
said he, looking round upon the people, " that 
there are three great and powerful Dragons in- 
habiting the universe. Lung, or the Dragon 
of the Sky ; Li, or the Dragon of the Sea ; and 
Kiau, or the Dragon of the Marshes. All these 
Dragons are wise, strong, and terrible. They 
are wondrously formed, and can take any shape 
that pleases them. Well, good people, a great 
many moons ago, in the season of spiked grain, 
I was following the profession of a barber in the 
mean and unmentionable town of Siho, when 
one morning as I was sitting in my shop wait- 
ing for customers, I heard a great noise of tam- 
tams, and a princely palanquin stopped before 
my door. I hastened, of course, to observe 
the honorable Rites toward this new-comer, but 
before I could reach the street, a Mandarin, 
splendidly attired, descended from the pal- 
anquin. The ball on his cap was of a stone 
and color that I had never seen before, and 
three feathers of some unknown bird hung down 
behind his head-dress. He held his hand to 
his jaw, and walked into my house with a lord- 
ly step. I was greatly confused, for I knew 
not what rank he was of, and felt puzzled how 
to address him. He put an end to my embar- 
rassment. 

" ' I am in the house of Piou-Lu, the barber,' 
he said, in a haughty voice that sounded like 
the roll of a copper drum amidst the hills. 

"'That disgraceful and ill-conditioned per- 
son stands before you,' I replied, bowing as low 
as I could. 

"'It is well,' said he, seating himself in my 
operating-chair, while two of his attendants 
fanned him. ' Piou-Lu, I have the toothache !' 

"'Does your lordship,' said I, 'wish that I 
should remove your noble and illustrious pais V 

" 'You must draw my tooth,' said he. ' Woo 
to you if you draw the wrong one!' 

'"It is too much honor,' I replied, 'but I 



520 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



will make my abominable and ill-conducted 
instruments entice your lordship's beautiful 
tooth out of your high-born jaw with much ra- 
pidity.' 

" So I got my big pincers, and my opium-bot- 
tle, and opened the strange Mandarin's mouth. 
Ah ! it was then that my low-born and despica- 
ble heart descended into my bowels. I should 
have dropped my pincers from sheer fright if 
they had not caught by their hooked ends in 
my wide sleeve. The Mandarin's mouth was 
all on fire inside. As he breathed, the flames 
rolled up and down his throat, like the flames 
that gather on the Yellow Grass Plains in the 
season of Much Heat. His palate glowed like 
red-hot copper, and his tongue was like a brass 
stew-pan that had been on the salt-fire for thirty 
days. But it was his teeth that affrighted me 
most. They were a serpent's teeth. They were 
long and curved inward, and seemed to be made 
of transparent crystal, in the centre of which 
small tongues of orange-colored fire leaped up 
and down out of some cavity in the gums. 

" ' Well, dilatory barber,' said the Mandarin, 
in a horrible tone, while I stood pale and trem- 
bling before him, ' why don't you draw my 
tooth ? Hasten, or I will have you sliced length- 
wise and fried in the sun.' 

'"Oh ! my lord,' said I, terrified at this threat, 
' I fear that my vicious and unendurable pincers 
are not sufficiently strong.' 

" ' Slave !' answered he, in a voice of thunder, 
' if you do not fulfill my desires, you will not 
see another moonrise.' 

"I saw that I would be killed any way, so I 
might as well make the attempt. I made a 
dart with my pincers at the first tooth that came, 
closed them firmly on the crystal fang, and be- 
gan to pull with all my strength. The Manda- 
rin bellowed like an ox of Thibet. The flames 
rolled from his throat in such volumes that I 
thought they would singe my eyebrows. His 
two attendants, and his four palanquin-bearers 
came in and put their arms round my waist to 
help me to pull, and there we tugged for three 
or four minutes, until at last I heard a report 
as loud as nine thousand nine hundred and nine- 
ty-nine fire-crackers. The attendants, the pal- 
anquin-bearers, and myself all fell flat on the 
floor, and the crystal fang glittered between the 
jaws of the pincers. 

" The Mandarin was smiling pleasantly as I 
got up from the floor. ' Piou-Lu,' said he, 
1 you had a narrow escape. You have removed 
my toothache, but had you failed, you would have 
perished miserably ; for I am the Dragon Lung, 
who rules the sky and the heavenly bodies, and 
I am as powerful as I am wise. Take as a re- 
ward the Dragon-Fang which you drew from 
niy jaw. You will find it a magical charm with 
which you can work miracles. Honor your pa- 
rents, observe the Rites, and live in peace.' 

" So saying, he breathed a whole cloud of fire 
and smoke from his throat that filled my poor 
and despicable mansion. The light dazzled and 
the smoke suffocated me, and when I recovered 



my sight and breath the Dragon Lung, the at- 
tendants, the palanquin, and the four bearers 
had all departed, how< and whither I knew 
not. Thus was it, elegant and refined people 
of Tching-tou, that this small and evil-minded 
person who stands before you became possessed 
of the wonderful Dragon-Fang with which he 
can work miracles." 

This story, delivered as it was with much 
graceful and dramatic gesticulation, and a vol- 
ubility that seemed almost supernatural, had its 
effect upon the crowd, and a poor little tailor, 
named Hang-pou, who was known to be always 
in debt, was heard to say that he wished he had 
the Dragon-Fang, wherewith to work miracles 
with his creditors. But the Mandarins, blue, 
crystal, and gilt, smiled contemptuously, and 
said to themselves, " We who are learned men 
know how to esteem these things." 

The Mandarin Wei-chang-tze, however, seem- 
ed to be of an inquiring disposition, and evinced 
a desire to continue his investigations. 

" Supremely visited conjuror," said he to Piou- 
Lu, " your story is, indeed, wonderful. To have 
been visited by the Dragon Lung must have 
been truly refreshing and enchanting. Though 
not in the least doubting your marvelous rela- 
tion, I am sure this virtuous assemblage would 
like to see some proof of the miraculous power 
of your Dragon-Fang." 

The crowd gave an immediate assent to this 
sentiment by pressing closer to the platform on 
which Piou-Lu strutted, and exclaiming with 
one voice, "The lofty Mandarin says wisely. 
We would like to behold." 

Piou-Lu did not seem in the slightest degree 
disconcerted. His narrow black eyes glistened 
like the dark edges of the seeds of the water- 
melon, and he looked haughtily around him. 

" Is there any one of you who would like to 
have a miracle performed, and of what nature?" 
he asked, with a triumphant wave of his arms. 

"I would like to see my debts paid," mur- 
mured the little tailor, Hang-pou. 

" Oh, Hang-pou !" replied the conjuror, " this 
unworthy personage is not going to pay your 
debts. Go home and sit in your shop, and 
drink no more rice-wine, and your debts will be 
paid ; for Labor is the Dragon-Fang that works 
miracles for idle tailors !" 

There was a laugh through the crowd at this 
sally, because Hang-pou was well known to be 
fond of intoxicating drinks, and spent more of 
his time in the street than on his shop-board. 

" Would any of you like to be changed into 
a camel ?" continued Piou-Lu — "say the word, 
and there shall not be a finer beast in all Thi- 
bet. !" 

No one, however, seemed to be particularly 
anxious to experience this transformation. Per- 
haps it was because it was warm weather, and 
camels bear heavy burdens. 

"I will change the whole honorable assem- 
blage into turkey-buzzards if it only agrees," 
continued the conjuror ; " or I will make the 
Lake Tung come up into the town in the shape 



THE DRAGON-FANG POSSESSED BY THE CONJUROR PIOU-LU. 



521 



of a water-melon, and then burst and overflow 
every thing." 

"But we would all be drowned!" exclaimed 
Hang-pou, who was cowardly as well as intem- 
perate. 

"That's true," said Piou-Lu, "but then you 
need not fear your creditors," and he gave such 
a dart of his long arm at the poor little tailor, 
that the wretched man thought he was going to 
claw him up and change him into some fright- 
ful animal. 

" Well, since this illustrious assembly will not 
have turkey-buzzards or camels, this Aveak-mind- 
ed, ill-shapen personage must work a miracle 
on himself," said Piou-Lu, descending off of his 
platform into the street, and bringing with him 
a little three-legged stool made of bamboo-rods. 

The crowd retreated as he approached, and 
even the solemn Wei-chang-tze seemed rather 
afraid of this miraculous conjuror. Piou-Lu 
placed the bamboo-stool firmly on the ground, 
and then mounted upon it. 

" Elegant and symmetrical bamboo-stool," he 
said, lifting his arms, and exhibiting something 
in his hand that seemed like a piece of polished 
jade-stone — "elegant and symmetrical bamboo- 
stool, the justly-despised conjuror, named Piou- 
Lu, entreats that you will immediately grow 
tall, in the name of the Dragon Lung!" 

Truly the stool began to grow in the presence 
of the astonished crowd. The three legs of 
bamboo lengthened and lengthened with great 
rapidity, bearing Piou-Lu high up into the air. 
As he ascended he bowed gracefully to the 
open-mouthed assembly. 

"It is delightful!" he cried; "the air up 
here is so fresh ! I smell the tea-winds from 
Fuh-kien. I can see the spot where the heav- 
ens and the earth cease to run parallel. I hear 
the gongs of Pekin, and listen to the lowing of 
the herds in Thibet. Who would not have an 
elegant bamboo-stool that knew how to grow ?" 

By tliis time Piou-Lu had risen to an enor- 
mous height. The legs of the slender tripod 
on which he was mounted seemed like silk- 
worms' threads, so thin were they compared 
with their length. The crowd began to trem- 
ble for Piou-Lu. 

" Will he never stop ?" said a Mandarin with 
a gilt ball, named Lin. 

" Oh, yes !" shouted Piou-Lu from the dizzy 
height of his bamboo-stool. " Oh, yes! this ugly 
little person will immediately stop. Elegant 
stool, the poor conjuror entreats you to stop 
growing; but he also begs that you will afford 
some satisfaction to this beautifying assemblage 
down below who have honored you with their 
inspection." 

The bamboo-stool, with the utmost complai- 
sance, ceased to lengthen out its attenuated 
limbs, but on the moment experienced another 
change as terrifying to the crowd. The three 
legs began to approach each other rapidly, and 
before the eye could very Avell follow their mo- 
tions, had blended mysteriously and inexplica- 
bly into one, the stool still retaining a miracu- 



lous equilibrium. Immediately this single stem 
began to thicken most marvelously, and instead 
of the dark shining skin of a bamboo-stick, it 
seemed gradually to be incased in overlapping 
rings of a rough bark. Meanwhile a faint rustling 
noise continued overhead, and when the crowd, 
attracted by the sound, looked up, instead of 
the flat disk of cane-work on which Piou-Lu 
had so wondrously ascended, they beheld a cab- 
bage-shaped mass of green, which shot forth 
every moment long pointed satiny leaves of the 
tenderest green, and the most graceful shape im- 
aginable. But where was Piou-Lu ? Some fan- 
cied that in the yellow crown that topped the 
cabbage-shaped bud of this strange tree they 
could see the tip of his cap, and distinguish his 
black roguish eyes, but that may have been all 
fancy; and they were quickly diverted from 
their search for the conjuror by a shower of red, 
pulpy fruits, that commenced to fall with great 
rapidity from the miraculous tree. Of course 
there was a scramble, in Avhich the Mandarins 
themselves did not disdain to join ; and the 
crimson fruits — the like of which no one in 
Tching-tou had ever seen before — proved de- 
lightfully sweet and palatable to the taste. 

" That's right ! that's right ! perfectly bred 
and very polite people," cried a shrill voice- 
while they were all scrambling for the crimson 
fruits ; " pick fruit while it is fresh, and tea while 
it is tender. For the sun wilts, and the chills 
toughen, and the bluest plum blooms only for a 
day." 

Every body looked up, and lo ! there was 
Piou-Lu as large as life strutting upon the stage, 
waving a large green fan in his hand. While 
the crowd was yet considering this wonderful 
reappearance of the conjuror, there was heard a 
very great outcry at the end of the street, and a 
tall thin man in a coarse blue gown came run- 
ning up at full speed. 

"Where are my plums, sons of thieves?" he 
cried, almost breathless with haste. " Alas ! 
alas ! I am completely ruined. My wife will 
perish miserably for want of food, and my sons 
will inherit nothing but empty baskets at my 
death ! Where are my plums ?" 

" Who is it that dares to address the virtuous 
and well-disposed people of Tching-tou after 
this fashion ?" demanded the Mandarin Lin, in 
a haughty voice, as he confronted the new-comer. 
The poor man seeing the gilt ball, became im- 
mediately very humble, and bowed several times 
to the Mandarin. 

"Oh, my lord !" said he, "I am an incapable 
and undeserving plum-seller, named Lino. I 
was just now sitting at my stall in a neighbor- 
ing street selling five cash worth of plums to a 
customer, when suddenly all the plums rose out 
of my baskets as if they had the wings of hawks, 
and flew through the air over the tops of the 
houses in this direction. Thinking myself the 
sport of demons, I ran after them, hoping to 
catch them, and — Ah ! there arc my plums," 
he cried, suddenly interrupting himself, and 
making a dart at some of the crimson fruits 






HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



that the tailor Hang held in his hand intending 
to carry them home to his wife. 

" These your plums !" screamed Hang, de- 
fending his treasure vigorously. "Mole that 
you are, did you ever see scarlet plums ?" 

" This man is stricken by Heaven," said Piou- 
Lu, gravely. " He is a fool who hides his plums 
and then thinks that they fly away. Let some 
one shake his gown." 

A porcelain-cobbler who stood near the fruit- 
erer, immediately seized the long blue robe and 
gave it a lusty pull, when, to the wonder of every 
body, thousands of the most beautiful plums fell 
out, as from a tree shaken by the winds of au- 
tumn. At this moment a great gust of wind 
arose in the street, and a pillar of dust mounted 
up to the very top of the strange tree, that still 
stood waving its long satiny leaves languidly 
above the house-tops. For an instant every 
one was blinded, and when the dust had sub- 
sided so as to permit the people to use their 
eyes again, the wonderful tree had completely 
vanished, and all that could be seen was a little 
bamboo-stool flying along the road, where it was 
blown by the storm. The poor fruiterer, Liho, 
stood aghast looking at the plums, in which he 
stood knee deep. 

The Mandarin, addressing him, said sternly, 

" Let us hear no more such folly from Liho, 
otherwise he will get twenty strokes of the stick." 

" Gather your plums, Liho," said Piou-Lu 
kindly, "and think this one of your fortunate 
days ; for he who runs after his loses with 
open mouth does not always overtake them." 

And as the conjuror descended from his plat- 
form it did not escape the sharp eyes of the little 
tailor Hang, that Piou-Lu exchanged a mysteri- 
ous signal with the Mandarin Wei-chang-tze. 



THE CHAPTER OF THE SHADOW OF THE DUCK. 

It was close on. nightfall when Piou-Lu 
stopped before "Wei-chang-tze's house. The 
lanterns were already lit, and the porter dozed 
in a bamboo-chair so soundly, that Piou-Lu en- 
tered the porch and passed the screen without 
awaking him. The inner room was dimly light- 
ed by some horn lanterns elegantly painted with 
hunting-scenes ; but despite the obscurity, the 
conjuror could discover Wei-chang-tze seated at 
the farther end of the apartment on an inclined 
couch covered with blue and yellow satin. Along 
the corridor that led to the women's apartments 
the shadows lay thick ; but Piou-Lu fancied he 
could hear the pattering of little feet upon the 
matted floor, and the twinkling of curious eyes 
illuminating the solemn darkness. Yet, after 
all, he may have been mistaken, for the corridor 
opened on a garden wealthy in the rarest flow- 
ers, and he may have conceived the silver drip- 
ping of the fountain to be the pattering of dainty 
feet, and have mistaken the moonlight shining 
on the moist leaves of the lotus for the sparkles 
of women's eyes. 

"Has Piou-Lu arrived in my dwelling?" 
asked Wei-chang-tze from the dim corner in 
which he lay. 



" That ignoble and wrath-deserving personage 
bows his head before you," answered Piou-Lu, 
advancing and saluting the Mandarin in accord- 
ance with the laws of the Book of Rites. 

"I hope that you performed your journey 
hither in great safety and peace of mind," said 
Wei-chang-tze, gracefully motioning to the con- 
juror to seat himself on a small blue sofa that 
stood at a little distance. 

" When so mean an individual as Piou-Lu is 
honored by the request of the noble Wei-chang- 
tze, good fortune must attend him. How could 
it be otherwise ?" replied Piou-Lu, seating him- 
self, not on the small blue sofa, but on the satin 
one which was partly occupied by the Mandarin 
himself. 

"Piou-Lu did not send in his card, as the 
Rites direct," said Wei-chang-tze, looking rath- 
er disgusted by this impertinent freedom on the 
part of the conjuror. 

"The elegant porter that adorns the noble 
porch of Wei-chang-tze was fast asleep," an- 
swered Piou-Lu, " and Piou-Lu knew that the 
great Mandarin expected him with impatience." 

"Yes," said Wei-chang-tze ; " I am oppressed 
by a thousand demons. Devils sleep in my hair, . 
and my ears are overflowing with evil spirit. I 
can not rest at night, and feel no pleasure in 
the day ; therefore was it that I wished to see 
you, in hopes that you would, by amusing the 
demon that inhabits my stomach, induce him 
to depart." 

"I will endeavor to delight the respectable 
demon who lodges in your stomach with my 
unworthy conjurations," replied Piou-Lu. But 
first I must go into the garden to gather flowers." 

"Go," said Wei-chang-tze. "The moon 
shines, and you will see there very many rare 
and beautiful plants that are beloved by my 
daughter Wu." 

" The moonlight itself can not shine brighter 
on the lilies than the glances of your lordship's 
daughter," said the conjuror, bowing and pro- 
ceeding to the garden. 

Ah ! what a garden it was that Piou-Lu now 
entered ! The walls that surrounded it were 
lofty, and built of a rosy stone brought from the 
mountains of Mantchouria. This wall, on whose 
inner face flowery designs and triumphal pro- 
cessions were sculptured at regular intervals, 
sustained the long and richly laden shoots of 
the white magnolia, which spread its large snowy 
chalices in myriads over the surface. Tama- 
risks and palms sprang up in various parts of 
the grounds like dark columns supporting the 
silvery sky ; while the tender and mournful wil- 
low drooped its delicate limbs over numberless 
fish-ponds, whose waters seemed to repose peace- 
fully in the bosom of the emerald turf. The 
air was distracted with innumerable perfumes, 
each more beautiful than the other. The blue 
convolvulus; the crimson ipomea ; the prodigal 
azaleas; the spotted tiger-lilies; the timid and 
half-hidden jasmine, all poured forth, during 
the day and night, streams of perfume from the 
inexhaustible fountains of their chalices. The 



THE DRAGON-FANG POSSESSED BY THE CONJUROR PIOU-LU. 



523 



heavy odors of the tube-rose floated languidly 
through the leaves, as a richly-plumaged bird 
would float through summer-air, borne down by 
his own splendor. The blue lotus slept on the 
smooth waves of the fish-ponds in sublime re- 
pose. There seemed an odor of enchantment 
through the entire place. The flowers whis- 
pered their secrets in the perfumed silence ; the 
inmost heart of every blossom was unclosed at 
that mystic hour ; all the magic and mystery of 
plants floated abroad, and the garden seemed 
filled with the breath of a thousand spells. But 
amidst the lilies and lotuses, amidst the scented 
roses and the drooping convolvuli, there moved 
a flower fairer than all. 

" I am here," whispered a low voice, and a 
dusky figure came gliding toward Piou-Lu, as 
he stood by the fountain. 

" Ah !" said the conjuror, in a tender voice, 
far different from the shrill tones in which he 
addressed the crowd opposite the Hotel of the 
Thirty-two Virtues. " The garden is now com- 
plete. Wu, the Rose of Completed Beauty, has 
blossomed on the night." 

" Let Piou-Lu shelter her under his mantle 
from the cold winds of evening, and bear her 
company for a little while, for she has grown up 
under a lonely wall," said Wu, laying her little 
hand gently on the conjuror's arm, and nestling 
up to his side as a bird nestles into the fallen 
leaves warmed by the sun. 

" She can lie there but a little while," an- 
swered Piou-Lu, folding the Mandarin's daugh- 
ter in a passionate embrace, " for Wei-chang- 
tze awaits the coming of Piou-Lu impatiently, 
in order to have a conjuration with a devil that 
inhabits his stomach." 

"Alas!" said Wu, sadly, "Avhy do you not 
seek some other and more distinguished em- 
ployment than that of a conjuror? Why do 
you not seek distinction in the Palace of Liter- 
ary Composition and obtain a style. Then we 
need not meet in secret, and you might without 
fear demand my hand from my father." 

Piou-Lu smiled almost scornfully. He seem- 
ed to gain an inch in stature, and looked around 
him with an air of command. 

"The marble from which the statue is to be 
carved must lie in the quarry until the work- 
man finds it," he answered, "and the hour of 
my destiny has not yet arrived." 

"Well, we must wait, I suppose," said Wu, 
with a sigh ; " meantime, Piou-Lu, I love you." 

"The hour will come sooner than you think," 
said Piou-Lu, returning her caress ; "and now 
go, for the Mandarin waits." 

Wu glided away through the gloom to her 
own apartment, while the conjuror passed rap- 
idly through the garden and gathered the blos- 
soms of certain flowers us he went, lie seemed 
to linger with a strange delight over the buds 
bathed in the moonlight and the dew; their 
perfume ascended into his nostril* like incense, 
and lie breathed it with a voluptuous pleasure. 
Now let the demon tremble in the noble 
etfeomach of Wei-chang-tze," said Piou-Lu, as 



he re-entered the hall of reception laden with 
flowers. " This ill-favored personage will make 
such conjurations as shall delight the soul of the 
elegant and well-born Mandarin, and cause his 
illustrious persecutor to fly terrified." 

Piou-Lu then stripped off the petals from 
many of the flowers, and gathered them in a 
heap on the floor. The mass of leaves was 
indeed variegated. The red of the quamoclit, 
the blue of the convolvulus, the tender pink 
of the camelia, the waxen white of the mag- 
nolia, were all mingled together like the thou- 
sand hues in the Scarfs of Felicity. Having 
built this confused mass of petals in the shape 
of a pyramid, Piou-Lu unwound a scarf from 
his waist and flung it over the heap. He then 
drew the piece of jade-stone from his pocket, 
and said : 

" This personage of outrageous presence de- 
sires that what will be, may be shown to the 
lofty Mandarin, Wei-chang-tze." 

As he pronounced these words, he twitched 
the scarf away with a rapid jerk, and lo ! the 
flower-leaves were gone, and in their place stood 
a beautiful mandarin duck, in whose gorgeous 
plumage one might trace the brilliant hues of 
the flowers. Piou-Lu now approached the duck, 
caught it up with one hand, while with the other 
he drew a sharp knife from his girdle and sev- 
ered the bird's head from its body at a single 
stroke. To the great astonishment of Wei- 
chang-tze the body and dismembered head of 
the bird vanished the moment the knife had 
passed through the neck; but at the same in- 
stant a duck, resembling it in every respect, 
escaped from the conjuror's hands and flew 
across the room. When I say that this duck 
resembled the other in every respect, I mean 
only in shape, size, and colors. For the rest, it 
was no bodily duck. It was impalpable and 
transparent, and even when it flew, it made no 
noise with its wings. 

" This is indeed wonderful !" said Wei-chang- 
tze — "let the marvelous conjuror explain." 

" The duck formed out of flowers was a duck 
pure in body and in spirit, most lofty Manda- 
rin," said Piou-Lu, " and when it died under the 
knife, I ordered its soul to pass into its shadow, 
which can never be killed. Hence the shadow 
of the duck has all the colors, as well as the in- 
telligence of the real duck that gave it birth." 

"And to what end has the very wise Piou- 
Lu created this beautiful duck-shadow?" asked 
the Mandarin. 

"The cultivated Wei-chang-tze shall imme- 
diately behold," answered the conjuror, drawing 
from his wide sleeve a piece of rock-salt, and 
flinging it to the farther end of the room. He 
had hardly done this when a terrific sound, be- 
tween a bark and a howl, issued from the dim 
corner into which he had cast the rock-salt, and 
immediately a large gray wolf issued wonder- 
fully from out of the twilight, and rushed with 
savage fangs upon the shadow of the heautiful 
duck. 

"Why, it is a wolf from the forests of Mant- 



524 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



chouria !"• exclaimed Wei-chang-tze, rather 
alarmed at this frightful apparition. "This 
is no shadow, but a living and blood-thirsty 
beast." 

"Let my lord observe and have no fear," 
said Piou-Lu, tranquilly. 

The wolf seemed rather confounded when, on 
making a snap at the beautiful duck, his sharp 
fangs met no resistance, while the bird flew 
with wonderful venom straight at his fiery eyes. 
He growled, and snapped, and tore with his 
claws at the agile shadow that fluttered around 
and over him, but all to no purpose. As well 
might the hound leap at the reflection of the 
deer in the pool where he drinks. The shadow 
of the beautiful duck seemed all the while to 
possess some strange, deadly influence over the 
savage wolf. His growls grew fainter and faint- 
er, and his red and flaming eyes seemed to drop 
blood. His limbs quivered all over, and the 
rough hairs of his coat stood on end with terror 
and pain — the shadow of the beautiful duck 
never ceasing all the time to fly straight at his 
eyes. 

" The wolf is dying !" exclaimed Wei-chang- 
tze. 

" He will die — die like a dog," said Piou-Lu, 
in a tone of savage triumph. 

And presently, as he predicted, the wolf gave 
two or three faint howls, turned himself round 
in a circle as if making a bed to sleep on, and 
then lay down and died. The shadow of the 
beautiful duck seemed now to be radiant with 
glory. It shook its bright wings, that were love- 
ly and transparent as a rainbow, and mounting 
on the dead body of the wolf, sat in majesty 
upon this grim and shaggy throne. 

"And what means this strange exhibition, 
learned and wise conjuror," asked Wei-chang- 
tze with a sorely troubled air. 

"I will tell you," said Piou-Lu, suddenly 
dropping his respectful and ceremonious lan- 
guage, and lifting his hand with an air of su- 
preme power. "The mandarin duck, elegant, 
faithful, and courageous, is an emblem of the 
dynasty of Ming, that true Chinese race that 
ruled so splendidly in this land before the in- 
vaders usurped the throne. The cowardly and 
savage wolf is a symbol of the Mantchou Tartar 
robbers who slew our liberties, shaved our heads, 
and enchained our people. The time has now 
arrived when the duck has recovered its splen- 
dor and its courage, and is going to kill the wolf; 
for the wolf can not bite it, as it works like a 
shadow in the twilight and mystery of secret as- 
sociation. This you know, Wei-chang-tze, as 
well as I." 

"I have indeed heard of a rebel Chinese 
named Tien-te, who has raised a flame in our 
peaceful land, and who, proclaiming himself a 
lineal descendant of the dynasty of Ming, seeks 
to dethrone our wise and Heavenly Sovereign 
Hien-foung." 

" Lie not to me, Wei-chang-tze, for I know 
your inmost thoughts. Chinese as you are, I 
know that you hate the Tartar in your heart, 



but you are afraid to say so for fear of losing 
your head." 

The Mandarin was so,stupified at this auda- 
cious address that he could not reply, while the 
conjuror continued : 

"I come to make you an offer. Join the 
forces of the Heaven-descended Emperor Tien- 
te' Join with him in expelling this tyrannical 
Tartar race from the Central Kingdom, and 
driving them back again to their cold hills and 
barren deserts. Ply with me to the Imperial 
Camp, and bring with you your daughter Wu, 
the Golden Heart of the Lily, and I promise 
you the command of one-third of the Imperial 
Forces, and the Presidency of the College of 
Ceremonies." 

"And Avho are you, who dare to ask of Wei- 
chang-tze to bestow on you his nobly-born 
daughter?" said Wei-chang-tze, starting in a 
rage from his couch. 

"I!" replied Piou-Lu, shaking his conjuror's 
gown from his shoulders and displaying a splen- 
did garment of yellow satin, on the breast of 
which was emblazoned the Imperial Dragon, 
" I am your Emperor, Tie'n-te !" 

" Ha !" screamed a shrill voice behind him at 
this moment, "here he is. The elegant and 
noble rebel, for whose head our worthy Emper- 
or has offered a reward of ten thousand silver 
tales. Here he is. Catch ! beautiful and noble 
Mandarins, catch him ! and I will pay my cred- 
itors with the head-money." 

"Piou-Lu turned, and beheld the little tailor 
Hang-pou, at whose back were a whole file of 
soldiers, and a number of Mandarins. Wei- 
chang-tze shuddered, for in this compromise of 
his character he knew that his death was writ- 
ten if he fell into the Imperial hands. 



THE CHAPTER OF "ALL IS OVER. 

" Stately and temperate tailor," said Piou- 
Lu, calmly, " why do you wish to arrest me ?" 

"Ho! because I will get a reward, and I 
want to pay my debts," said Hang-pou, grinning 
spitefully. 

"A reward for me! the miserable and mar- 
rowlcss conjuror, Piou-Lu. Oh ! elegant cutter 
of summer-gowns, your well-educated brains 
are not at home !" 

" Oh ! we know you well enough, mighty 
conjuror. You are none other than the con- 
tumacious rebel Tien-te, who dares to claim the 
throne held by the wise and merciful Hien- 
Foung, and we will bear you to the court of 
Pekin in chains, so that you may wither in the 
light of his terrible eyes." 

" You think you will get a reward often thou- 
sand silver tales for my head," said Piou-Lu. 

" Certainly," replied the little tailor, rubbing 
his hands with glee — " certainly. His Unmatch- 
ed and Isolated Majesty has promised it, and 
the Brother of the Sun never lies." 

"Listen, inventive closer of symmetrical 
seams ! listen, and I will tell you what will be- 
come of your ten thousand silver tales. There 
is a long avenue leading to the Imperial treas- 



THE DRAGON-FANG POSSESSED BY THE CONJUROR PIOU-LU, 



ury, and at every second step is an open hand. 
When the ten thousand tales are poured out, 
the first hand grasps a half, the second hand an 
eighth of the remaining half, the third hand 
grasps a fourth of the rest, and when the money- 
bags get down a little lower, all the hands grasp 
together ; so that when the bags reach the little 
tailor Hang-pou, who stands stamping his feet 
very far down indeed, they are entirely empty; 
for Tartar robbers surround the throne, and a 
Tartar usurper sits upon it, and the great Chi- 
nese nation toils in its rice-fields to gild their 
palaces, and fill their seraglios, and for all they 
give get neither justice nor mercy. But I, 
Tie'n-te', the Heavenly Emperor of this Central 
Land will ordain it otherwise, and hurl the false 
Dragon from his throne ; for it is written in the 
Book of Prognostics, a copy of which was brought 
to me on the wings of a yellow serpent, that the 
dynasty of Han shall rule once more, and the 
Tartar wolves perish miserably out of the Land 
of Flowers." 

"This is treason against the Light of the 
Universe, our most gracious Emperor," said the 
Mandarin Lin. "You shall have seventy times 
seven pounds of cold iron put upon your neck 
for these blasphemies, and I will promise you 
that many bamboo splinters shall be driven up 
under your rebellious nails." 

"Let our ears be no longer filled with these 
atrocious utterances !" cried Hang-pou. " Oh, 
brave and splendid Mandarins! order your ter- 
rifying tigers to arrest this depraved rebel, in 
order that we may hasten with him to Pekin." 

"Before you throw the chains of sorrow 
around my neck, O tailor of celestial inspira- 
tions !" said Piou-Lu, with calm mockery — " be- 
fore the terrible weight of your just hand falls 
upon me, I pray you, if you would oblige me, 
to look at that duck." So saying, Piou-Lu 
pointed to where the shadow of the duck was 
sitting on the body of the wolf. 

"Oh, what a beautiful duck!" cried Hang- 
pou, with glistening eyes, and clapping his 
hands ; " let us try and catch him !" 

"It is indeed a majestic duck," said Manda- 
rin Lin, gravely stroking his mustache. "I am 
favorable to his capture." 

"You will wait until we catch the duck, il- 
lustrious rebel !" said Hang-pou to Piou-Lu, 
very innocently, never taking his eyes off of the 
duck, to which they seemed to be glued by some 
singular spell of attraction. 

" 1 will talk with the Mandarin Wei-chang- 
tze while you put your noble manoeuvres into 
motion," answered Piou-Lu. 

" Now let us steal upon the duck," said 
Hang-pou. " Handsomely-formed duck, we en- 
treat of you to remain as quiet as possible, in 
order that we may grasp you in our hands." 

Then, as if actuated by a single impulse, the 
entire crowd, with the exception of Wei-chang- 
tze and Piou-Lu, moved toward the duck. The 
Mandarins stepped on tip-toe, with bent bodies, 
and little black eyes glistening with eagerness; 
Hang-pou crawled on his belly like a serpent; 
Vol. NIL— No. 70.— L l 



and the soldiers, casting aside their, bows and 
shields, crept, with their hands upon their sides, 
toward the beautiful bird. The duck remained 
perfectly quiet, its variegated wings shining like 
painted talc, and its neck lustrous as the court 
robe of a first-class Mandarin. The crowd 
scarcely breathed, so intense was their eager- 
ness to capture the duck ; and they moved 
slowly forward, gradually surrounding it. 

Hang-pou was the first to make a clutch at 
the bird, but he was very much astonished to 
find his hand closing on empty air, while the 
duck remained seated on the wolf, as still as a 
picture. 

"Miserable tailor!" cried Mandarin Lin. 
" your hand is a sieve, with meshes wide enough 
to strain elephants. How can you catch the 
beautiful duck? Behold me!" and Mandarin 
Lin made a rapid and well-calculated dive at 
the duck. To the wonderment of every one ex- 
cept Piou-Lu andWei-chang-tze, the duck seem- 
ed to ooze through his fingers, and escaping, flew 
away to the other end of the room. 

"If my hand is a sieve," said Hang-pou, "it 
is evident that the noble Mandarin's hand is not 
a wall of beaten copper, for it lets ducks fly 
through with wonderful ease." 

" It is a depraved and abominable duck, of 
criminal parentage," said Mandarin Lin, in a 
terrible rage ; "and I vow, by the whiskers of 
the Dragon, that I will catch it and burn it on 
a spit." 

"Oh, yes!" cried the entire crowd — Manda- 
rins, soldiers, and the little tailor — all now at- 
tracted to the chase of the duck by a power that 
they could no longer resist. "Oh, yes! we will 
most assuredly capture this little duck, and, de- 
priving him of his feathers, punish him on a spit 
that is exceedingly hot." 

So the chase commenced. Here and there, 
from one corner to the other, up the walls, on 
the altar of the household gods — in short, in 
every possible portion of the large room, did the 
Mandarins, the little tailor, and the soldiers pur- 
sue the shadow of the beautiful duck. Never 
was seen such a duck. It seemed to be in twen- 
ty places at a time. One moment Mandarin Lin 
would throw himself bodily on the bird, in hopes 
of crushing it, and would call out triumphantly 
that now indeed he had the duck; but the 
words would be hardly out of his mouth when a 
loud shout from the rest of the party would dis- 
abuse his mind, and turning, he would behold 
the duck marching proudly down the centre of 
the floor. Another time a soldier would de- 
clare that he had the duck in his breeches pock- 
et, but while his neighbors were carefully prob- 
ing that recess, the duck would be seen calmly 
emerging from his right-hand sleeve. One time 
Hang-pou sat down suddenly on the mouth of 
a large china jar, and resolutely refused to stir, 
declaring that he had seen the duck enter the 
jar, and that he was determined to sit upon the 
mouth until the demon of a duck was starved to 
death. But even while uttering his heroic de- 
termination, his mouth was seen to open very 



526 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



wide, and, to the astonishment of all, the duck 
Hew out. In an instant the whole crowd was 
after him again ; Mandarin Hy-le tumbled over 
Mandarin Ching-tze, and Mandarin Lin nearly 
drove his head through Hang-pou's stomach. 
The unhappy wretches began now to perspire 
and grow faint with fatigue, but the longer the 
chase went on the hotter it grew. There was 
no rest for any of them. Erom corner to cor- 
ner, from side to side — now in one direction, 
now in another — no matter whither the duck 
Hew, they were compelled to follow. Their 
faces streamed, and their legs seemed ready to 
sink under them. Their eyeballs were ready to 
(start out of their heads, and they had the air of 
government couriers who had traveled five hun- 
dred li in eleven days. They were nearly dead. 

"Those men will surely perish, illustrious 
claimant of the throne," said Wei-chang-tze, 
gazing with astonishment at this mad chase. 

"Let them perish!" said the conjuror; "so 
will perish all the enemies of the Celestial sov- 
ereign Tien-te'. Wei-chang-tze, once more, do 
you accept my offer ? If you remain here, you 
will be sent to Pekin in chains; if you come 
with me, I will gird your waist with the scarf 
of Perpetual Delight. We want wise men like 
you to guide our armies, and — " 

"And the illustrious Tien-te loves the Man- 
darin's daughter," said Wei-chang-tze, roguish- 
ly finishing the sentence. "Light of the Uni- 
verse and Son of Heaven, Wei-chang-tze is your 
slave !" 

Piou-Lu — for I still call him by his conjuror's 
name — gave a low whistle, and, obedient to the 
summons, Wu's delicate shape came gliding 
from the corridor toward her lover, with the 
dainty step of a young fawn going to the fount- 
ain. 

" Wu," said Piou-Lu, " the marble is carved, 
and the hour is come." 

"My father, then, has consented?" said Wu, 
looking timidly at her father. 

"When the Empercr of the Central Land 
condescends to woo, what father dare refuse ?" 
said Wei-chang-tze. 

" Emperor !" said Wu, opening her black eyes 
with wonder. " My Piou-Lu an Emperor!" 

"I am indeed the Son of the Dragon," said 
Piou-Lu, folding her to his breast, "and you 
shall sit upon a throne of ivory and gold." 

"And I thought you were only a conjuror!" 
murmured Wu, hiding her head in his yellow 
gown. 

" But how are we to leave this place ?" asked 
Wei-chang-tze, looking alarmed. " The guard 
will seize us if they get knowledge of your pres- 
ence." 

"We shall be at my castle in the mountains 
of Tsc-Hing, near the Koue'i-Lin, in less than 
a minute," answered Piou-Lu ; " for to the pos- 
sessor of the Dragon-Eang all tilings are pos- 
sible." 

Even as he spoke the ground began to slide 
from under their feet with wonderful rapidity, 
leaving them motionless and upright. Houses, 



walls, gardens, fields, all passed by them with 
the swiftness of a dream, until, in a few seconds, 
they found themselves in the mountain-castle 
of Tien-te, where they were welcomed with a 
splendid hospitality. Wu became the favorite 
wife of the adventurous Emperor, and Wei- 
chang-tze one of his most famous generals. 

The day after these events some Tartar sol- 
diers entered Wei-chang-tze's house to search 
for the Mandarin, when, in the reception-hall, 
they were confounded at finding a number of 
men lying dead upon the floor, while in the 
midst sat a beautiful duck, that immediately on 
their entrance flew out through a window, and 
was seen no more. The dead men were soon 
recognized, and it was the opinion of the people 
of Tching-tou that Wei-chang-tze had poisoned 
all the soldiers and Mandarins, and then fled. 
The tailor, Hang-pou, being among the corpses, 
was found to have given his creditors the slip 
forever. 

Victory still sits on the banner of Tien-te, 
and he will, without doubt, by the time that the 
tea is again fit to gather, sit upon the ancient 
throne of his ancestors. 

Every thing is now gracefully concluded. 




BY CHARLES DICKENS. 



CHAPTER IX.— LITTLE MOTHER. 

THE morning light was in no hurry to climb 
the prison wall and look in at the snuggery 
windows ; and when it did come, it would have 
been more welcome if it had come alone, instead 
of bringing a rush of rain with it. But the equi- 
noctial gales were blowing out at sea, and the 
impartial southwest wind, in its flight, would 
not neglect even the narrow Marsh alsea. While 
it roared through the steeple of Saint George's 
Church, and twirled all the cowls in the neigh- 
borhood, it made a swoop to beat the Southwark 
smoke into the jail; and, plunging down the 
chimneys of the few early collegians who were 
yet lighting their fires, half suffocated them. 

Arthur Clennam would have been little dis- 
posed to linger in bed, though his bed had been 
in a more private situation, and less affected by 
the raking out of yesterday's fire, the kindling 
of to-day's under the collegiate boiler, the fill- 



LITTLE DOBRIT. 



527 



ing of that Spartan vessel at the pump, the sweep- 
ing and sawdusting of the common room, and 
other such preparations. Heartily glad to see 
the morning, though little rested by the night, 
he turned out as soon as he could distinguish 
objects about him, and paced the yard for two 
heavy hours before the gate was opened. 

The walls were so near to one another, and 
the wild clouds hurried over them so fast, that 
it gave him a sensation like the beginning of 
sea-sickness to look up at the gusty sky. The 
rain, carried aslant by flaws of wind, blackened 
that side of the central building which he had 
visited last night, but left a narrow dry trough 
under the lee of the wall, where he walked up 
and down among waifs of straw and dust and 
paper, the waste droppings of the pump, and 
the stray leaves of yesterday's greens. It was 
as has&ard a view of life as a man need look 

CO 

upon. 

Nor was it relieved by any glimpse of the lit- 
tle creature who had brought him there. Per- 
haps she glided out of her doorway and in at 
that where her father lived, while his face was 
turned from both ; but he saw nothing of her. 
it was too early for her brother; to have seen 
him once, was to have seen enough of him to 
know that he would be sluggish to leave what- 
ever frouzy bed he occupied at night; so, as 
Arthur Clcnnam walked up and clown, waiting 
for the gate to open, he cast about in his mind 
for future rather than for present means of pur- 
suing his discoveries. 

At last the lodge-gate turned, and the turn- 
key, standing on the step, taking an early comb 
at his hair, was ready to let him out. "With a 
joyful sense of release he passed through the 
lodge, and found himself again in the little out- 
er court-yard where he had spoken to the brother 
last night. 

There was a string of people already strag- 
gling in, whom it was not difficult to identify as 
the nondescript messengers, go-betweens, and 
errand-bearers of the place. Some of them had 
been lounging in the rain until the gate should 
open ; others, who had timed their arrival with 
greater nicety, were coming up now, and passing 
in with damp whity-brown paper bags from the 
grocers, loaves of bread, lumps of butter, eggs, 
milk, and the like. Tbe shabbincss of these at- 
tendants upon shabbincss, the poverty of these 
insolvent waiters upon insolvency, was a sight to 
see. Such threadbare coats and trowsers, Buch 
fusty gowns and shawls, such squashed hats and 
bonnets, such boots and shoes, such umbrellas 
and walking-sticks, never were seen in Rag Fair. 
All of them wore the cast-off clothes of Other 
men and women ; were made up of patches and 
pieces of other people's individuality, and had 
nosartori.il existence of tlu-ir own proper. Their 

walk was tin; walk of a race apart They had 
a peculiar way of doggedly slinking round the 
corner, as if they were eternally going to the 
pawnbrokers. When they coughed, they coughed 

like people accustomed to be forgotten on door- 



steps and in draughty passages, waiting for an- 
swers to letters in faded ink, which gave the 
recipients of those manuscripts great mental dis- 
turbance and no satisfaction. As they eyed the 
stranger in passing, they eyed him with borrow- 
ing eyes — hungry, sharp, speculative as to his 
softness if they were accredited to him, and the 
likelihood of his standing something handsome. 
Mendicity on commission stooped in their high 
shoulders, shambled in their unsteady legs, but- 
toned and pinned and darned and dragged their 
clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of 
their figures in dirty little ends of tape, and is- 
sued from their mouths in alcoholic breathings. 

As these people passed him standing still in 
the court-yard, and one of them turned back to 
inquire if he could assist him with his services, 
it came into Arthur Clennam's mind that he 
would speak to Dorrit again before he went, 
away. She would have recovered her first sur- 
prise, and might feel easier with him. He asked 
this member of the fraternity (who had two red 
herrings in his hand, and a loaf and a blacking- 
brush under his arm) where was the nearest 
place to get a cup of coffee at. The nondescript 
replied in encouraging terms, and brought him 
to a coffee-shop in the street within a stone's 
throw. 

"Do you know Miss Dorrit?" asked the new 
client. 

The nondescript knew two Miss Dorrits ; one 
who was born inside — That was the one ! That 
was the one? The nondescript had known her 
many years. In regard of the other Miss Dor- 
rit, the nondescript lodged in the same house 
with herself and uncle. 

This changed the client's half-formed design 
of remaining at the coffee-shop until the nonde- 
script should bring him word that Dorrit had 
issued forth into the street, lie intrusted the 
nondescript with a confidential message to her, 
importing that the visitor who had waited on 
her father last night, begged the favor of a few 
words with her at her uncle's lodging; he ob- 
tained from the same source full directions to 
the house, which was very near; dismissed the 
nondescript gratified with half-a-crown ; and 
having hastily refreshed himself at the coffee- 
shop, repaired with all speed to the clarionet- 
player's dwelling. 

There were so many lodgers in this house, 
that the door-post seemed to be as full of bell- 
handles as a cathedral organ is of stops. Doubt- 
fid which might be the clarionet-stop, he was 
considering the point, when a shuttlecock flew 
out of the parlor-window, and alighted on his 
hat. He then observed that in the parlor-win- 
dow was a blind with the inscription, Mb. CfilF- 
PLES'fi ACADEMY ; also in another line, EVENING 
TuiTIOHr; and behind the blind was a little 
white-faced boy, with a slice of bread and but- 
ter anil a battledore. The window being ac- 
cessible from the footway, he looked in over the 
blind, returned the shank-rock, and put his 
question. 



528 



HAKPEkS new monthly magazine. 



"Dorrit?" said the little white-faced boy 
(Master Cripples in fact). " Mr. Dorrit ? Third 
bell and one knock." 

The pupils of Mr. Cripples appeared to have 
been making a copy-book of the street door, it 
was so extensively scribbled over in pencil. The 
frequency of the inscriptions, " Old Dorrit," and 
"Dirty Dick," in combination, suggested inten- 
tions of personality on the part of Mr. Cripples's 
pupils. There was ample time to make these 
observations before the door was opened by the 
poor old man himself. 

" Ha !" said he, very slowly remembering 
Arthur, "you were shut in last night?" 

" Yes, Mr. Dorrit. I hope to meet your niece 
here presently." 

"Oh!" said he, pondering. "Out of my 
brother's way? True. Would you come up 
stairs and wait for her?" 

" Thank you." 

Turning himself, as slowly as he turned in 
his mind whatever he heard or said, he led the 
ivay up the narrow stairs. The house was very 
close, and had an unwholesome smell. The lit- 
tle staircase windows looked in at the back win- 
lows of other houses as unwholesome as itself, 
with poles and lines thrust out of them, on which 
unsightly linen hung : as if the inhabitants were 
angling for clothes, and had had some wretched 
bites not worth attending to. In the back gar- 
ret — a sickly room, with a turn-up bedstead in 
it, so hastily and recently turned up that the 
blankets were boiling over, as it were, and keep- 
ing the lid open — a half-finished breakfast of 
coffee and toast, for two persons, was jumbled 
down any how on a rickety table. 

There was no one there. The old man, mum- 
bling to himself, after some consideration, that 
Fanny had run away, went to the next room to 
fetch her back. The visitor, observing that she 
held the door on the inside, and that when the 
uncle tried to open it, there was a sharp adjura- 
tion of "Don't, stupid!" and an appearance of 
loose stocking and flannel, concluded that the 
young lady was in an undress. The uncle, with- 
out appearing to come to any conclusion, shuf- 
fled in again, sat down in his chair, and began 
warming his hands at the fire. Not that it was 
cold, or that he had any waking idea whether it 
was or not. 

"What did you think of my brother, Sir?" he 
asked, when he, by-and-by, discovered what he 
was doing, left off, reached over to the chimney- 
piece, and took his clarionet-case down. 

"I was glad," said Arthur, very much at a 
loss, for his thoughts were on the brother before 
him, "to find him so well and cheerful." 

" Ha !" muttered the old man, " Yes, yes, yes, 
yes, yes !" 

Arthur wondered what he could possibly want 
with the clarionet-case. He did not want it at 
all. He discovered, in due time, that it was not 
the little paper of snuff (which was also on the 
chimney-piece), put it back again, took down the 
snuff instead, and solaced himself with a pinch. 



He was as feeble, spare, and slow in his pinches 
as in every thing else, but a certain little trick- 
ling of enjoyment of them played in the poor worn 
nerves about the corners of his eyes and mouth. 

" Amy, Mr. Clennam. What do you think of 
her ?" 

"I am much impressed, Mr. Dorrit, by all 
that I have seen of her and thought of her." 

"My brother would have been quite lost with- 
out Amy," he returned. "We should all have 
been lost without Amy. She is a very good girl, 
Amy. She does her duty." 

Arthur fancied that he heard in these praises 
a certain tone of custom which he had heard 
from the father last night, with an inward pre- 
test and feeling of antagonism. It was not that 
they stinted her praises, or were insensible to 
what she did for them ; but that they were lazi- 
ly habituated to her, as they were to all the rest 
of their condition. He fancied that although 
they had before them, every day, the means of 
comparison between her and one another and 
themselves, they regarded her as being in her 
necessary place ; as holding a position toward 
them all which belonged to her, like her name 
or her age. He fancied that they viewed her, 
not as having arisen away from the prison at- 
mosphere, but as appertaining to it; as being 
vaguely what they had a right to expect, and 
nothing more. 

Her uncle resumed his breakfast, and was 
munching toast sopped in coffee, oblivious of 
his guest, when the third bell rang. That was 
Amy, he said, and went down to let her in ; 
leaving the visitor with as vivid a picture on his 
mind of his begrimed hands, dirt-worn face, and 
decayed figure, as if he were still drooping in his 
chair. 

She came up after him, in the usual plain 
dress, and with the usual timid manner. Her 
lips were a little parted, as if her heart beat fast- 
er than usual. 

"Mr. Clennam, Amy," said her uncle, "has 
been expecting you some time." 

"I took the liberty of sending you a message." 

"I received the message, Sir." 

"Are you going to my mother's this morning? 
I think not, for it is past your usual hour." 

"Not to-day, Sir. I am not wanted to-day." 

"Will you allow me to walk a little way in 
whatever direction you may be going? I can 
then speak to you as we walk, both without de- 
taining you here, and without intruding longer 
here myself." 

She looked embarrassed, but said, if he 
pleased. He made a pretense of having mis- 
laid his walking-stick, to give her time to set the 
bedstead right, to answer her sister's impatient 
knock at the wall, and to say a word softly to 
her uncle. Then he found it, and they went 
down stairs ; she first, he following, the uncle 
standing at the stair-head, and probably forget- 
ting them before they had reached the ground- 
floor. 

Mr. Cripples's pupils, who were by this time 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



529 



coming to school, desisted from their morning 
recreation of cuffing one another with bags and 
books, to stare with all the eyes they had at 
a stranger who had been to see Dirty Dick. 
They bore the trying spectacle in silence, until 
the mysterious visitor was at a safe distance ; 
when they burst into pebbles and yells, and like- 
wise into reviling dances, and in all respects bur- 
ied the pipe of peace with so many savage cere- 
monies, that if Mr. Cripples had been the chief 
of the Cripplewayboo tribe, with his war-paint 
on, they could scarcely have done greater justice 
to their education. 

In the midst of this homage, Mr. Arthur Clen- 
nam offered his arm to Little Dorrit, and Little 
Dorrit took it. " Will you go by the Iron Bridge," 
said he, "where there is an escape from the 
noise of the street?" Little Dorrit answered, if 
he pleased, and presently ventured to hope that 
he would " not mind" Mr. Cripples's boys, for 
she had herself received her education, such as 
it was, in Mr. Cripples's evening academy. He 
returned, with the best will in the world, that 
Mr. Cripples's boys were forgiven out of the bot- 
tom of his soul. Thus did Cripples unconscious- 
ly become a master of the ceremonies between 
them, and bring them more naturally together 
than Beau Nash might have done if they had 
lived in his golden days, and he had alighted 
from his coach and six for the purpose. 

The morning remained squally, and the streets 
were miserably muddy, but no rain fell as they 
walked toward the Iron Bridge. The little creat- 
ure seemed so young in his eyes, that there were 
moments when he found himself thinking of her, 
if not speaking to her, as if she were a child. 
Perhaps he seemed as old in her eyes as she 
seemed young in his. 

"I am sorry to hear you were so inconven- 
ienced last night, Sir, as to be locked in. It was 
very unfortunate." 

It was nothing, he returned. He had had a 
very good bed. 

"Oh yes!" she said, quickly; "she believed 
there were excellent beds at the coffee-house." 
lie noticed that the coffee-house was quite a 
majestic hotel to her, and that she treasured its 
reputation. 

"I believe it is very expensive," said Little 
Dorrit, '• but my father has told me that quite 
beautiful dinners maybe got there. And wine," 
-he added, timidly. 

"Were you ever there?" 

•o'i do] Only into the kitchen, to fetch hot- 
water." 

To think of growing up with a kind of awe 
upon one as to the luxuries of that superb es- 
tablishment, the Ifarshalaea hotel! 

" I asked you last night," said Clcnnam, " how 
you had become acquainted with my mother. 
Did vou ever hear her name before she sent for 

vou r 

"No, Sir." 

" Do you think your father ever d 

"No/sir." 



He met her eyes raised to his with so much 
wonder in them (she was scared when that en- 
counter took place, and shrunk away again), 
that he felt it necessary to say : 

"I have-a reason for asking, which I can not 
very well explain ; but you must, on no account, 
suppose it to be of a nature to cause you the 
least alarm or anxiety. Quite the reverse. And 
you think that at no time of your father's life 
was my name of Clennam ever familiar to him ?" 

"No, Sir." 

He felt, from the tone in which she spoke, 
that she was glancing up at him with those part- 
ed lips ; therefore he looked before him, rather 
than make her heart beat quicker still by em- 
barrassing her afresh. 

Thus they emerged upon the Iron Bridge, 
which was as quiet after the roaring streets as 
though it had been open country. The wind 
blew roughly, the wet squalls came rattling past 
them, skimming the pools on the road and pave- 
ment, and raining them down into the river. 
The clouds raced on furiously in the lead-col- 
ored sky, the smoke and mist raced after them, 
the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same 
direction. Little Dorrit seemed the least, the 
quietest, and weakest of Heaven's creatures. 

"Let me put you in a coach," said Arthur 
Clennam, very nearly adding, "my poor child!" 

She hurriedly declined, saying that wet or 
dry made little difference to her'; she was used 
to so about in all weathers. He knew it to be 
so, and was touched with more pity ; thinking 
of the slight figure at his side, making its nightly 
way through the damp, dark, boisterous streets, 
to such a place of rest. 

" You spoke so feelingly to me last night, Sir, 
and I found afterward that you had been so gen- 
erous to my father, that I could not resist your 
message, if it was only to thank you ; especially 
as I wished very much to say to you — " She 
hesitated and trembled, and tears rose in her 
eyes, but did not fall. 

"To say to me — ?" 

" That I hope you will not misunderstand my 
father. Don't judge him, Sir, as you would 
judge others outside the gates. He has been 
there so long! I never saw him outside, but L 
can understand that he must have grown differ- 
ent in some things since." 

"My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh 
toward him, believe me." 

"Not," she said, witli a prouder air, as the mis- 
giving evidently crept upon her that she might 
seem to be abandoning him, "not that he has 
any thing to be, ashamed of for himself, or that 
I have any thing to be ashamed of for him. He 
only requires to be understood. I only ask for 
him that his life may be fairly remembered. All 
that he said was quite true. It all happened just 
as he related it. He is very much respected. 
Every body who comes in, is glad to know him. 
He is more courted than any one else. He i 

far more thoughl of than the Marshal is." 

Tf ever pride were innocent ; t was inno 161 ' U 



530 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Little Dorrit when slie grew boastful of her fa- 
ther. 

"It is often said that his manners are a true 
gentleman's, and quite a study. I see none like 
them in that place, but he is admitted to be su- 
perior to all the rest. This is quite as much 
why they make him presents, as because they 
know him to be needy. He is not to be blamed 
for being in need, poor love! Who could be in 
prison a quarter of a century, and be prosper- 
ous !" 

What affection in her words, what compas- 
sion in her repressed tears, what a great soul of 
fidelity within her, how true the light that shed 
false brightness round him ! 

" If I have found it best to conceal where my 
home is, it is not because I am ashamed of him. 
God forbid ! Nor am I so much ashamed of the 
place itself as might be supposed. People are 
not bad because they come there. I have known 
numbers of good, persevering, honest people, 
come there through misfortune. They are al- 
most all kind-hearted to one another. And it 
would be ungrateful indeed in me, to forget that 
I have had many quiet, comfortable hours there ; 
that I had an excellent friend there when I was 
quite a baby, who was very fond of me ; that I 
have been taught there, and have worked there, 
and have slept soundly there. I think it would 
be almost cowardly and cruel not to have some 
little attachment for it, after all this." 

She had relieved the faithful fullness of her 
heart, and modestly said, raising her eyes ap^ 
pealingly to her new friend's, "I did not mean 
to say so much, nor have I ever but once spoken 
about this before. But it seems to set it more 
right than it was last night. I said I wished you 
had not followed me, Sir. I don't wish it so 
much now, unless you should think — indeed I 
don't wish it at all, unless I should have spoken 
so confusedly, that — that you can scarcely un- 
stand me, which I am afraid may be the case." 

He told her with perfect truth that it was not 
the case; and putting himself between her and 
the sharp wind and rain, sheltered her as well 
as he could. 

"I feel permitted now," he said, "to ask you 
a little more concerning your father. Has he 
many creditors ?" 

" Oh ! a great number. 

"I mean detaining creditors, who keep him 
where he is ?" 

"Oh yes! a great number." 

" Can you tell me — I can get the information, 
no doubt, elsewhere, if you can not — who is the 
most influential of them ?" 

Dorrit said, after considering a little, that she 
used to hear long ago of Mr. Tite Barnacle as 
a man of great power. He was a commissioner, 
or a board, or a trustee, "or something." He 
lived in Grosvenor Square, she thought, or very 
near it. He was under Government — high in 
the Circumlocution Office. She appeared to 
have acquired, in her infancy, some awful im- 
pression of the might of this formidable Mr. 



Tite Barnacle of Grosvenor Square, or very nenr 
it, and the Circumlocution Office, which quite 
cruflteed her when she mentioned him. 

" It can do no harm," thought Arthur, if I 
see this Mr. Tite Barnacle." 

The thought did not present itself so quietly 
but that her quickness intercepted it. " Ah !" 
said Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild de- 
spair of a lifetime. "Many people used to 
think once of getting my poor father out, but 
you don't know how hopeless it is." 

She forgot to be shy at the moment, in hon- 
estly warning him away from the sunken wreck 
he had a dream of raising ; and looked at him 
with eyes which assuredly, in association with 
her patient face, her fragile figure, her spare 
dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him 
from his purpose of helping her. 

"Even if it could be done," said she — "and 
it never can be done now — where could father 
live, or how could he live ? I have often thought 
that if such a change could come, it might be 
any thing but a service to him now. People 
might not think so Avell of him outside as they 
do there. He might not be so gently dealt with 
outside, as he is there. He might not be so fit 
himself for the life outside, as he is for that." 

Here for the first time she could not restrain 
her tears from falling; and the little thin hands 
he had watched when they were so busy, trem- 
bled as they clasped each other. 

"It would be a new distress to him even to 
know that I earn a little money, and that Fanny 
earns a little money. He is so anxious about 
us, you see, feeling helplessly shut up there. 
Such a good, good father !" 

He let the little burst of feeling go by before 
he spoke. It was soon gone. She was not ac- 
customed to think of herself, or to trouble any- 
one with her emotions. He had but glanced 
away at the piles of city roofs and chimneys 
among which the smoke w r as rolling heavily, and 
at the wilderness of masts on the river, and the 
wilderness of steeples on the shore, indistinctly 
mixed together in the stormy haze, when she 
was again as quiet as if she had been plying her 
needle in his mother's room. 

" You would be glad to have your brother set 
at liberty ?" 

" Oh very, very glad, Sir !" 

"Well, we will hope for him at least. You 
told me last night of a friend you had ?" 

His name was Plornish, Dorrit said. 

And where did Plornish live? Plornish lived 
in Bleeding Heart Yard. He was " only a plas- 
terer," Dorrit said, as a caution to him not to 
form high social expectations of Plornish. lie 
lived at the last House in Bleeding Heart Yard, 
and his name was over a little gateway. 

Arthur took down the address and gave her 
his. He had now done all he sought to do for 
the present, except that he wished to leave her 
with a reliance upon him, and to have some- 
thing like a promise from her that she would 
cherish it. 



LITTLE DOKRIT. 



531 







m. 




.. r^MC^ 




LITTLE MOTH EH 



" There is one friend !" he said, putting up his 
pocket-book. "As I take you back — you are 
going back?*' 

"Oh yes! going straight home." 

"As I take you back" — the word home jarred 
upon him — "let me ask you to persuade your- 
self tli at you have another friend. I make no 
professions, and say no more." 

"You arc truly kind to me, Sir. I am sure 
I need no more." 

They walked back through the miserable mud- 
dy streets, and among the poor, mean shops, and 
were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters 
usual to a poor neighborhood. There was no- 
thing, by the short way, that was pleasant to any 
of the live senses. Yet it was not a common 
age through common rain, and mire, and 
noise, to Clennam, having this little, slender, 
careful creature on his arm. I low young she 
seemed to him, or how old he to her; or what 
a secret either to the other, in that beginning 
of the destined interweaving of their stories, 
matters not here. Tie thought of her having 



been born and bred among these scenes, and 
shrinking through them now, familiar yet mis 
placed; he thought of her long acquaintance 
with the squalid needs of life, and of her inno- 
cence ; of her old solicitude for others, and her 
few years and her childish aspect. 

They were come into the High Street, where 
the prison stood, when a voice cried, "Little 
Mother, Little Mother!" Dorrit stopping and 
looking back, an excited figure of a strange kind 
bounced against them (still crying "Little Moth- 
er"), fell down, and scattered the contents of a 
large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud. 

"Oh, Maggy," said Dorrit, "what a clums\ 
child you arc !" 

Maggy was not hurt, but picked herself up 
immediately, and then began to pick up the 
potatoes, in which both Dorrit and Arthur Clen- 
nam helped. Maggy picked up very few pota- 
toes, and a great quantity of mud; but they 
were all recovered, and deposited in the basket- 
Maggy then smeared her muddy face with her 
shawl, and presenting it to Mr. Clennam as 8 






HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 



tvpe of purity, enabled him to see what she was 
like. 

She was about eight-and-twenty, with large 
bones, large features, large feet and hands, large 
eyes, and no hair. Her large eyes were lim- 
pid and almost colorless ; they seemed to be 
very little affected by light, and to stand unnat- 
urally still. There was also that attentive list- 
ening expression in her face, which is seen in 
the faces of the blind; but she was not blind, 
having one tolerably serviceable eye. Her face 
was not exceedingly ugly, though it was only re- 
deemed from being so by a smile ; a good-hu- 
mored smile, and pleasant in itself, but rendered 
pitiable by being constantly there. A great 
white cap, with a quantity of opaque frilling 
that was always flapping about, apologized for 
Maggy's baldness ; and made it so very difficult 
for her old black bonnet to retain its place upon 
her head, that it held on round her neck like 
a gipsy's baby. A commission of haberdashers 
could alone have reported what the rest of her 
poor dress was made of; but it had a strong 
general resemblance to sea-weed, with here and 
there a gigantic tea-leaf. Her shawl looked 
particularly like a tea-leaf, after long infusion. 

Arther Clennam looked at Dorrit, with the ex- 
pression of one saying, " May I ask who this is ?" 
Dorrit, whose hand this Maggy, still calling her 
Little Mother, had begun to fondle, answered in 
words. (They were under a gateway into which 
the majority of the potatoes had rolled.) 

"This is Maggy, Sir." 

"Maggy, Sir," echoed the personage present- 
ed. " Little Mother !" 

" She is the grand-daughter — " said Dorrit. 

"Grand-daughter," echoed Maggy. 

" Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long 
time. Maggy, how old are you ?" 

"Ten, Mother," said Maggy. 

"You can't think how good she is, Sir," said 
Dorrit, with infinite tenderness. 

"GoodsAe is," echoed Maggy, transferring the 
pronoun in a most expressive way from herself, 
to her Little Mother. 

" Or how clever," said Dorrit. " She goes on 
errands as well as any one." Maggy laughed. 
"And is as trustworthy as the Bank of En- 
gland." Maggy laughed. " She earns her own 
living entirely. Entirely, Sir," said Dorrit, in a 
lower and triumphant tone. " Really does !" 

" What is her history," asked Clennam. 

"Think of that, Maggy," said Dorrit, taking 
her two large hands and clapping them togeth- 
er. " A gentleman from thousands of miles 
away, wanting to know your history !" 

"My history ?" cried Maggy. " Little Mother." 

" She means me," said Dorrit, rather con- 
fused ; " she is very much attached to me. Her 
old grandmother was not so kind to her as she 
should have been ; was she, Maggy ?" 

Maggy shook her head, made a drinking ves- 
sel of her clenched left hand, drank out of it, 
and said " Gin." Then beat an imaginary child, 
and said "Broom -handles and pokers." 



"When Maggy was ten years old," said Dor- 
rit, watching her face while she spoke, " she 
had a bad fever, Sir, arid she has never grown 
any older ever since." 

" Ten years old," said Maggy, nodding her 
head. "But what a nice hospital! So com- 
fortable, wasn't it? Oh so nice it was. Such 
a Ev'nly place !" 

" She had never been at peace before, Sir," 
said Dorrit, turning toward Arthur for an in- 
stant, and speaking low, "and she always runs 
off upon that." 

" Such beds there is there !" cried Maggy. 
" Such lemonades ! Such oranges ! Such d'li- 
cious broth and wine ! Such chicking ! Oh, 
aint it a delightful place to go and stop at !" 

" So Maggy stopped there as long as she 
could," said Dorrit, in her former tone of tell- 
ing a child's story ; the tone designed for Mag- 
gy's ear, "and at last, when she could stop there 
no longer, she came out. Then, because she was 
never to be more than ten years old, however 
long she lived — " 

" However long she lived," echoed Maggy. 

"And because she was very weak; indeed 
was so weak that when she began to laugh she 
couldn't stop herself — which was a great pity — " 

(Maggy mighty grave of a sudden.) 

" Her grandmother did not know what to do 
with her, and for some years was very unkind 
to her indeed. At length, in course of time, 
Maggy began to take pains to improve herself, 
and to be very attentive and very industrious ; 
and by degrees was allowed to come in and out 
as often as she liked, and got enough to do to 
support herself, and does support herself. And 
that," said Dorrit, clapping the two great hands 
together again, "is Maggy's history, as Maggy 
knows !" 

Ah ! But Arthur would have known what was 
wanting to its completeness, though he had nev- 
er heard the words Little Mother; though he 
had never seen the fondling of the small spare 
hand ; though he had had no sight for the tears 
now standing in the colorless eyes ; though he 
had had no hearing for the sob that checked 
the clumsy laugh. The dirty gateway with the 
wind and rain whistling through it, and the bask- 
et of muddy potatoes waiting to be spilt again 
or taken up, never seemed the common hole it 
really was, when he looked back to it by these 
lights. Never, never! 

They were very near the end of their walk, 
and they now came out of the gateway to finish 
it. Nothing would serve Maggy but that they 
must stop at a grocer's window, short of their 
destination, for her to show her learning. She 
could read after a sort ; and picked out the fat 
figures in the tickets of prices, for the most part 
correctly. She also stumbled, with a large bal- 
ance of success against her failures, through va- 
rious philanthropic recommendations to Try our 
Mixture, Try our Family Black, Try our Orange- 
flavored Pekoe, challenging competition at the 
head of Flowery Teas ; and various cautions to 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



533 



the public against spurious establishments and 
adulterated articles. When he saw how pleas- 
ure brought a rosy tint into Dorrit's face when 
Maggy made a hit, he felt that he could have 
stood there making a library of the grocer's win- 
dow until the rain and wind were tired. 

The court-yard received them at last, and 
there he said good-by to Little Dorrit. Little 
as she had always looked, she looked less than 
ever when he saw her going into the Marshal- 
sea lodge passage, the little mother attended by 
her big child. 

The cage door opened, and when the small 
bird, reared in captivity, had tamely fluttered in, 
he saw it shut again ; and then he came away. 



CHAPTER X.— CONTAINING THE WHOLE SCI- 
ENCE OF GOVERNMENT. 

The Circumlocution Office was (as every body 
knows without being told) the most important 
Department under government. No public busi- 
ness of any kind could possibly be done at any 
time, without the acquiescence of the Circum- 
locution Office. Its finger was in the largest 
public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It 
was equally impossible to do the plainest right 
and to undo the plainest wrong, without the ex- 
press authority of the Circumlocution Office. If 
another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered 
half an hour before the lighting of the match, 
nobody would have been justified in saving the 
parliament until there had been half a score of 
boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks 
of official memoranda, and a family-vault-full 
of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part 
of the Circumlocution Office. 

This glorious establishment had been early in 
the field, when the one sublime principle involv- 
ing the difficult art of governing a country was 
first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had 
been foremost to. study that bright revelation, 
and to carry its shining influence through the 
v. hole of the official proceedings. Whatever 
was required to be done, the Circumlocution 
Office was beforehand with all the public de- 
partments in the art of perceiving — now not 

TO DO IT. 

Through this delicate perception, through 
the tact with which it invariably seized it, and 
through the genius with which it always acted 
on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to 
overtop all the public departments; and the pub- 
lic condition bad risen to be — what it was. 

It is true that How not to do it was the great 
study and object of all public departments and 
professional politicians all round the Circumlo- 
cution Office. It is true, thai every new premier 
and every new government, coming in because 
they had upheld a certain thing :i> necessary to 
be done, were no sooner come in than they ap- 
plied their ntmost faculties to discovering, How 
not to do it. It is true that from tlie moment 
when a general election was over, every returned 
man who had been ra\ing on hustings because 
it hadn't been done, and who had been asking 



the friends of the honorable gentleman in the 
opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell 
him why it hadn't been done, and who had been 
asserting that it 'must be done, and who had been 
pledging himself that it should be done, began 
to devise, How it was not to be done. It is true 
that the debates of both Houses of Parliament 
the whole session through, uniformly tended to 
the protracted deliberation, How not to do it. 
It is true that the royal speech at the opening 
of such session virtually said, My lords and gen- 
tlemen, you have a considerable stroke of work 
to do, and you will please to retire to your re- 
spective chambers, and discuss, How not to do 
it. It is true that the royal speech, at the close 
of such session, virtually said, My lords and 
gentlemen, you have through several laborious 
months been considering with great loyalty and 
patriotism, How not to do it, and you have 
found out; and with the blessing of Providence 
upon the harvest (natural, not political), I now 
dismiss you. All this is true, but the Circumlo- 
cution Office went beyond it. 

Because the Circumlocution Office went on 
mechanically, every day, keeping this wonder- 
ful, all-sufficient Avheel of statesmanship, How 
not to do it, in motion. Because the Circumlo- 
cution Office was down upon any ill-advised pub- 
lic servant who was going to do it, or who ap- 
peared to be by any surprising accident in re- 
mote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a 
memorandum, and a letter of instructions, that 
extinguished him. It was this spirit of nation- 
al efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that 
had gradually led to its having something to do 
with every thing. Mechanicians, natural philos- 
ophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorial- 
ists, people with grievances, people who wanted 
to prevent grievances, people who wanted to re- 
dress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, 
people who couldn't get rewarded for merit, and 
people who couldn't get punished for demerit, 
were all indiscriminately tucked up under the 
foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office. 

Numbers of people were lost in the Circum- 
locution Office. Unfortunates with wrongs, or 
with projects for the general welfare (and they 
had better have had wrongs at first, than have 
taken that bitter English recipe for certainly 
getting them), who in slow lapse of time and 
agony had passed safely through other public 
departments; who, according to rule, had been 
bullied in this, overreached by that, and evad- 
ed by the other, got referred at last to the Cir- 
cumlocution Office, and never reappeared in the 
light of day. Boards sat upon them, secreta- 
ries minuted upon them, commissioners gabbled 
about them, clerks registered, entered, checked, 
and ticked them oil", and they melted away. 
In short, all the business of the country went 
through the Circumlocution Office, except the 
business that never came out of it ; and its 
name was Legion. 

Sometimes, angry spirits attacked the Cir- 
cumlocution Office. Sometimes, parliamci 



>34 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



questions were asked about it, and even parlia- 
mentary motions made or threatened about it, by 
demagogues so low and ignorant as to hold that 
the real recipe of government was, How to do it. 
Then would the noble lord, or right honorable 
gentleman, in whose department it was to de- 
fend the Circumlocution Office, put an orange 
in his pocket, and make a regular field-day of 
the occasion. Then would he come down to 
that House with a slap upon the table, and meet 
the honorable gentleman foot to foot. Then 
would he be there to tell that honorable gentle- 
man that the Circumlocution Office not only was 
blameless in this matter, but was commendable 
in this matter, was extollable to the skies in this 
matter. Then would he be there to tell that 
honorable gentleman, that although the Circum- 
1 >cution Office was invariably right and wholly 
right, it never was so right as in this matter. 
Then would he be there to tell that honorable 
gentleman that it would have been more to his 
honor, more to his credit, more to his good 
taste, more to his good sense, more to half the 
dictionary of commonplaces, if he had left the 
Circumlocution Office alone, and never ap- 
proached this matter. Then Avould he keep one 
eye upon a coach or crammer from the Circum- 
locution Office sitting below the bar, and smash 
the honorable gentleman with the Circumlocu- 
tion Office account of this matter. And although 
one of two things always happened; namely, 
either that the Circumlocution Office had no- 
thing to say and said it, or that it had something 
to say of which the noble lord, or right honorable 
gentleman, blundered one half and forgot the 
other; the Circumlocution Office was always vot- 
ed immaculate by an accommodating majority. 

Such a nursery of statesmen had the depart- 
ment become in virtue of a long career of this 
nature, that several solemn lords had attained 
the reputation of being quite unearthly prodigies 
of business, solely from having practiced, How 
not to do it, at the head of the Circumlocution 
Office. As to the minor priests and acolytes of 
that temple, the result of all this was that they 
stood divided into two classes, and, down to the 
junior messenger, either believed in the Circum- 
locution Office as a heaven-born institution, that 
had an absolute right to do whatever it liked, or 
took refuge in total infidelity, and considered it 
a flagrant nuisance. 

The Barnacle family had for some time help- 
ed to administer the Circumlocution Office. The 
Tite Barnacle Branch, indeed, considered them- 
selves in a general Avay as having vested rights 
in that direction, and took it ill if any other fam- 
ily had much to say to it. The Barnacles were 
a very high family, and a very large family. 
They were dispersed all over the public offices, 
and held all sorts of public places. Either the 
nation was under a load of obligation to the Bar- 
nacles, or the Barnacles were under a load of 
obligation to the nation. It was not quite unan- 
imously settled which; the Barnacles having 
their opinion, the nation theirs. 



The Mr. Tite Barnacle who, at the period now 
in question, usually coached or crammed the 
statesman at the head of the Circumlocution 
Office, when that noble or right honorable indi- 
vidual sat a little uneasily in his saddle by rea- 
son of some vagabond making a tilt at him in a 
newspaper, was more flush of blood than money. 
As a Barnacle he had his place, which was a 
snug thing enough ; and as a Barnacle he had, 
of course, put in his son, Barnacle Junior, in the 
office. But he had intermarried with a branch 
of the Stiltstalkings, who were also better en- 
dowed in a sanguineous point of view than with 
real or personal property, and of this marriage 
there had been issue, Barnacle Junior, and three 
young ladies. What with the patrician require- 
ments of Barnacle Junior, the three young la- 
dies, Mrs. Tite Barnacle nee Stiltstalking, and 
himself, Mr. Tite Barnacle found the intervals 
between quarter day and quarter day rather lon- 
ger than he could have desired — a circumstance 
which he always attributed to the country's par- 
simony. 

For Mr. Tite Barnacle Mr. Arthur Clennam 
made his fifth inquiry one day at the Circumlo- 
cution Office, having on previous occasions await- 
ed that gentleman successively in a hall, a glass- 
case, a waiting-room, and a fire-proof passage, 
where the department seemed to keep its wind. 
On this occasion Mr. Barnacle was not engaged, 
as he had been before, with the noble prodigy 
at the head of the department, but was absent. 
Barnacle Junior, however, was announced as a 
lesser star, yet visible above the office horizon. 

With Barnacle Junior he signified his desire 
to confer, and found that young gentleman singe- 
ing the calves of his legs at the parental fire, and 
supporting his spine against the mantle-shelf. 
It was a comfortable room, handsomely furnish- 
ed in the higher official manner, and presenting 
stately suggestions of the absent Barnacle in the 
thick carpet, the leather-covered desk to sit at, 
the leather-covered desk to stand at, the formi- 
dable easy-chair and hearth-rug, the interposed 
screen, the torn-up papers, the dispatch-boxes, 
with little labels sticking out of them like medi- 
cine bottles or dead game, the pervading smell 
of leather and mahogany, and a general bam- 
boozling air of How not to do it. 

The present Barnacle, holding Mr. Clennam's 
card in his hand, had a youthful aspect, and the 
fluffiest little whisker, perhaps, that ever was 
seen. Such a downy tip was on his callow chin, 
that he seemed half fledged like a young bird, 
and a compassionate observer might have urged 
that if he had not singed the calves of his legs, 
he would have died of cold. He had a superior 
eye-glass dangling round his neck, but, unfortu- 
nately, had such flat orbits to his eyes, and such 
limp little eyelids, that it wouldn't stick in when 
he put it up, but kept tumbling out against his 
waistcoat buttons with a click that discomposed 
him very much. 

" Oh, I say. Look here ! My father's not in 
the way, and won't be in the way to-day," said 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



50 - 



Barnacle Junior. ''Is this any thing that I can 
do?" 

(Click ! Eye-glass down. Barnacle Junior 
quite frightened, and feeling all round himself, 
but not able to find it.) 

" You are very good," said Arthur Clennam. 
;; I wish, however, to see Mr. Barnacle." 

"But, I say. Look here ! You haven't got any 
appointment, you know." said Barnacle Junior. 

(By this time he had found the eye-glass, and 
put it up again.) 

" No," said Arthur Clennr.m. " That is what 
I wish to have." 

" But, I say. Look here ! Is this public bus- 
iness ?" asked Barnacle Junior. 

(Click ! Eye-glass down again. Barnacle 
Junior in that state of search after it that Mr. 
Clennam felt it useless to reply at present.) 

"Is it," said Barnacle Junior, taking heed of 
his visitor's brown face, " any thing about — 
Tonnage — or that sort of thing?" 

(Pausing for a reply, he opened his right eye 
with his hand, and stuck his glass in it in that 
inflammatory maimer that his eye began water- 
ing dreadfully.) 

"No," said Arthur, "it is nothing about ton- 
nage." 

"Then look here. Is it private business ?" 

"I really am not sure. It relates to a Mr. 
Dorrit." 

" Look here, I tell you what ! You had better 
call at our house, if you are going that way. 
Twenty-four Mews Street, Grosvenor Square. 
My father's got a slight touch of the gout, and 
is kept at home by it." 

(The misguided young Barnacle evidently go- 
ing blind on his eye-glass side, but ashamed to 
make any further alteration in his painful ar- 
rangements.) 

"Thank you. I will call there now. Good- 
morning." Young Barnacle seemed discomfited 
at this, as not having at all expected him to go. 

"You are quite sure," said Barnacle Junior, 
railing after him when he got to the door, un- 
willing wholly to relinquish the bright business 
idea lie had conceived, "that it's nothing about 
Tonnage ?*' 

•■ Quite sure." 

With which assurance, and rather wondering 
what might have taken place if it hud been any 
thing about tonnage. Mr. Clennam withdrew to 
; ursue his inquiries. 

Mem - Street, Grosvenor Square, was not abso- 
lutely Grosvenor Square itself, but it was very 
near it. It was a hideous little street of dead 
■nil, Btables, and dunghills, with lofts over coach- 
es inhabited by coachmen's families, who 
had a passion for drying clothes, and decorating 
their window-silk with miniature turnpike-gates. 
The principal chimney-sweep of that fashionable 
quarter lived at the blind end of Mew Street; 
and the same comer contained an establishment 
much frequented about early morning and twi- 
light, for the purchase of wine-bottles and kitch- 
eu-stuff. Bunch's shows used to lean against 



the dead wall in Mew Street, while their pro- 
prietors were dining elsewhere ; and the dogs of 
the neighborhood made appointments to meet 
in the same locality. Yet there were two or 
three smalb airless houses at the entrance end 
of Mew Street, which went at enormous rents 
on account of their being abject hangers-on to a 
fashionable situation ; and whenever one of these 
fearful little coops was to be let (which seldom 
happened, for they were in great request), the 
house agent advertised it as a gentlemanly resi- 
dence in the most aristocratic part of town, in- 
habited solely by the elite of the beau monde. 

If a gentlemanly residence coming strictly 
within this narrow margin, had not been essen- 
tial to the blood of the Barnacles, this particu- 
lar branch would have had a pretty wide selec- 
tion among let us say ten thousand houses, offer- 
ing fifty times the accommodation for a third 
of the money. As it was, Mr. Barnacle, finding 
his gentlemanly residence extremely inconven- 
ient and extremely dear, always laid it, as a 
public servant, at the door of the country, and 
adduced it as another instance of the Country's 
parsimony. 

Arthur Clennam came to a squeezed house, 
with a ramschackle bowed front, little dingy win- 
dows, and a little dark area like a damp waist- 
coat-pocket, which he found to be number twenty- 
four, Mews Street, Grosvenor Square. To the 
sense of smell, the house was like a sort of bot- 
tle filled with a strong distillation of mews ; and 
when the footman opened the door, he seemed 
to take the stopper out. 

The footman was to the Grosvenor Squaro 
footmen what the house was to the Grosvenor 
Square houses. Admirable in his way, his way 
was a back and a by-way. His gorgeousness 
was not unmixed with dirt ; and both in com- 
plexion and consistency, he had suffered from 
the closeness of his pantry. A sallow flabbiness 
was upon him, when he took the stopper out, and 
presented the bottle to Mr. Clennam's nose. 

"Be so good as to give that card to Mr. Tite 
Barnacle, and to say that I have just now seen 
the younger Mr. Barnacle, Avho recommended 
me to call here." 

The footman (who had as many large buttons 
with the Barnacle crest upon them, on the flaps 
of his pockets, as if he were the family strong 
box, and carried the plate and jewels about with 
him buttoned up) pondered over the card a little ; 
then said, "Walk in." It required some judg- 
ment to do it without butting the inner hall-door 
open, and in the consequent mental confusion 
and physical darkness slipping down the kitchen 
stairs. The visitor, however, brought himself 
up safely on the door-mat. 

Still the footman said "Walk in," so the vis- 
itor followed him. At the inner hall-door, an- 
other bottle seemed to be presented and another 
Stopper taken out. This second phial appeared 
to he filled with concentrated provisions, and 
extract of Sink from the pantry. After a skirm- 
ish in the narrow passage, occasioned by the 



536 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



footman's opening the door of the dismal dining- 
room with confidence, finding some one there 
with consternation, and backing on the visitor 
with disorder, the visitor was shut up, pending 
his announcement, in a close back parlor. There 
he had an opportunity of refreshing himself with 
both the bottles at once, looking out at a low 
blinding back wall three feet off, and speculating 
on the number of Barnacle families within the 
bills of mortality who lived in such hutches of 
their own free flunkey choice. 

Mr. Barnacle would see him. Would he walk 
up stairs ? He would, and he did ; and in the 
drawing-room, with his leg on a rest, he found 
Mr. Barnacle himself, the express image and 
presentment of How not to do it. 

Mr. Barnacle dated from a better time, when 
the country was not so parsimonious, and the 
Circumlocution Office was not so badgered. He 
wound and wound folds of white cravat round 
his neck, as he wound and wound folds of tape 
and paper round the neck of the country. His 
wristbands and collar were oppressive, his voice 
and manner were oppressive. He had a large 
watch-chain and bunch of seals, a coat buttoned 
up to inconvenience, a waistcoat buttoned up to 
inconvenience, an unwrinkled pair of trowsers, 
a stiff pair of boots. He was altogether splen- 
did, massive, overpowering, and impracticable, 
lie seemed to have been sitting for his portrait 
to Sir Thomas Lawrence all the days of his 
life. 

"Mr. Clennam?" said Mr. Barnacle. "Be 
seated." 

Mr. Clennam became seated. 

" You have called on me, I believe," said Mr. 
Barnacle, " at the Circumlocution — " giving it 
the air of a word of about five and twenty sylla- 
bles, "Office." 

"I have taken that liberty." 

Mr. Barnacle solemnly bent his head as who 
should say "I do not deny that it is a liberty; 
proceed to take another liberty, and let me know 
your business." 

" Allow me to observe that I have been for 
some years in China, am quite a stranger at 
home, and have no personal motive or interest 
in the inquiry I am about to make." 

Mr. Barnacle tapped his fingers on the table, 
and, as if he were now sitting for his portrait to 
a new and strange artist, appeared to say to his 
visitor, " If you will be good enough to take me 
with my present lofty expression, I shall feel 
obliged." 

"I have found a debtor in the Marshalsea 
prison of the name of Dorrit, who has been there 
many years. I wish to investigate his confused 
affairs, so far as to ascertain whether it may not 
be possible, after this lapse of time, to ameliorate 
his unhappy condition. The name of Mr. Tite 
Barnacle has been mentioned to me as repre- 
senting some highly influential interest among 
his creditors. Am I correctly informed?" 

It being one of the principles of the Circum- 
locution Office never, on any account whatever, 



to give a straightforward answer, Mr. Barnacle 
said, "Possibly." 

" On behalf of the Crown, may I ask, or as a 
private individual ?" 

" The Circumlocution Department, Sir," Mr. 
Barnacle replied, " may have possibly recom- 
mended — possibly — I can not say- — that some 
public claim against the insolvent estate of a 
firm or copartnership to which this person may 
have belonged, should be enforced. The ques- 
tion may have been, in the course of official 
business, referred to the Circumlocution Depart- 
ment for its consideration. The department 
may have either originated, or confirmed, a 
Minute making that recommendation." 

"I assume this to be the case, then." 

" The Circumlocution Department," said Mr. 
Barnacle, " is not responsible for any gentle- 
man's assumptions." 

" May I inquire how I can obtain official in- 
formation as to the real state of the case?" 

" It is competent," said Mr. Barnacle, "to any 
member of the — Public," mentioning that ob- 
scure body with reluctance, as his natural en- 
emy, "to memorialize the Circumlocution De- 
partment. Such formalities as are required to 
be observed in so doing, may be known on ap- 
plication to the proper branch of that depart- 
ment." 

" Which is the proper branch ?" 

" I must refer you," returned Mr. Barnacle, 
ringing the bell, " to the department itself for 
a formal answer to that inquiry." 

"Excuse my mentioning — " 

"The department is accessible to the — Pub- 
lic" — Mr. Barnacle was always checked a little 
by that word of impertinent signification — "if 
the — Public approaches it according to the of- 
ficial forms ; if the — Public does not approach 
it according to the official forms, the — Public 
has itself to blame." 

Mr. Barnacle made him a severe bow, as a 
wounded man of family, a wounded man of 
place, and a wounded man of a gentlemanly 
residence, all rolled into one ; and he made Mr. 
Barnacle a bow, and was shut out into Mews 
Street by the flabby footman. 

Having got to this pass, he resolved, as an ex- 
ercise in perseverance, to betake himself again 
to the Circumlocution Office, and try what sat- 
isfaction he got there. So he went back to the 
Circumlocution Office, and once more sent up 
his card to Barnacle Junior by a messenger who 
took it very ill indeed that he should come back 
again, and who was eating mashed potatoes and 
gravy behind a partition by the hall fire. 

He was re-admitted to the presence of Bar- 
nacle Junior, and found that young gentleman 
singeing his knees now, and gaping his weary 
way on to four o'clock. 

" I say. Look here ! You stick to us in a 
devil of a manner," said Barnacle Junior, look- 
ing over his shoulder. 

"I want to know — " 

" Look here ! Upon my soul you mustn't come 



LITTLE DORKIT. 



537 



into the place saying you want to know, you 
know," remonstrated Barnacle Junior, turning 
about and putting up the eye-glass. 

" I want to know," said Arthur Clennam, who 
had made up his mind to persistence in one short 
form of words, " the precise nature of the claim 
of the Crown against a prisoner for debt named 
Dorrit." 

" I say. Look here ! You really are going it 
at a great pace, you know. Egod you haven't 
got an appointment," said Barnacle Junior, as 
if the thing were growing serious. 

"I want to know," said Arthur. And re- 
peated his case. 

Barnacle Junior stared at him untill his eye- 
glass fell out, and then put it in again and stared 
at him until it fell out again. "You have no 
right to come this sort of move," he then ob- 
served with the greatest weakness. " Look here ! 
What do you mean ? You told me you didn't 
know whether it was public business or not." 

" I have now ascertained that it is public busi- 
ness," returned the suitor, " and I want to know" 
— and again repeated his monotonous inquiry. 

Its effect upon young Barnacle was to make 
him repeat in a defenseless way, "Look here! 
Upon my soul you mustn't come into the place 
saying you want to know, you know !" The ef- 
fect of that upon Arthur Clennam was to make 
him repeat his inquiry in exactly the same words 
and tone as before. The effect of that upon 
young Barnacle was to make him a wonderful 
spectacle of failure and helplessness. 

"Well, I tell you what. Look here! You 
had better try the Secretarial Department," he 
said at last, sidling to the bell and ringing it. 
"Jenkinson," to the mashed potatoes messen- 
ger, "Mr. Wobbler!" 

Arthur Clennam, who now felt that he had 
devoted himself to the storming of the Circum- 
locution Office, and must go through with it, ac- 
companied the messenger to another floor of the 
building, where that functionary pointed out Mr. 
Wobbler's room. He entered that apartment, 
and found two gentlemen sitting face to face at 
a large and easy desk, one of whom was polish- 
ing a gun-barrel on his pocket-handkerchief, 
while the other was spreading marmalade on 
bread with a paper-knife. 

"Mr. Wobbler?" inquired the suitor. 

Both gentlemen glanced at him, and seemed 
surprised at this assurance. 

"So he went," said the gentleman with the 
gun-barrel, who was an extremely deliberate 
speaker, "down to his cousin's place, and took 
the Dog with him by rail. Inestimable Dog. 
Flew at the porter fellow when he was put into 
the dog-box, and flew at the guard when he was 
taken out. He got half-a-dozen fellows into a 
Barn, and a good supply of Rats, and timed the 
Dog. Finding the Dog able to do it immense- 
ly, made the match, and heavily backed the Dog. 
When the match came off, some devil of a fel- 
low was bought over, Sir. Dog was made drunk, 
Dog's master was cleaned out." 



"Mr. W T obbler?" inquired the suitor. 

The gentleman who was spreading the mar- 
malade returned, without looking up from that 
occupation, " What did he call the Dog?" 

" Called him Lovely," said the other gentle- 
man. " Said the Dog was the perfect picture 
of the old aunt from whom he has expectations. 
Found him particularly like her when hocussed." 

"Mr. Wobbler?" said the suitor. 

Both gentlemen laughed for some time. The 
gentleman with the gun-barrel, considering it on 
inspection in a satisfactory state, referred it to 
the other ; receiving confirmation of his views, 
he fitted it into its place in the case before him, 
and took out the stock and polished that, softly 
whistling. 

"Mr. Wobbler?" said the suitor. 

"What's the matter?" then said Mr. Wobbler, 
with his mouth full. 

"I want to know — " and Arthur Clennam 
again mechanically set forth what he wanted to 
know. 

"Can't inform you," observed Mr. Wobbler, 
apparently to his lunch. "Never heard of it. 
Nothing at all to do with it. Better try Mr. 
Clive, second door on the left in the next pas- 
sage." 

"Perhaps he will give me the same answer." 

"Very likely. Don't know any thing about 
it," said Mr. Wobbler. 

The suitor turned away and had left the room, 
when the gentleman with the gun called out, 
"Mister! Hallo!" 

He looked in again. 

" Shut the door after you. You're letting in 
a devil of a draught here !" 

A few steps brought him to the second door 
on the left in the next passage. In that room 
he found three gentlemen ; number one doing 
nothing particular, number two doing nothing- 
particular, number three doing nothing particu- 
lar. They seemed, however, to be more direct- 
ly concerned than the others had been in the 
effective execution of the great principle of the 
office, as there was an awful inner apartment 
with a double door, in which the Circumlocu- 
tion Sages appeared to be assembled in council, 
and out of which there was an imposing coming 
of papers, and into which there was an imposing 
going of papers, almost constantly ; wherein an- 
other gentleman, number four, was the active 
instrument. 

"I want to know," said Arthur Clennam — 
and again stated his case in the same barrel- 
organ way. As number one referred him to 
number two, and as number two referred him 
to number three, he had occasion to state it 
three times before they all referred him to num- 
ber four, to whom he stated it again. 

Number four was a vivacious, well-looking, 
well-dressed, agreeable young fellow — he was a 
Barnacle, but on the more sprightly side of the 
family — and lie said, in an easy way, "Oh! 
you had better not bother yourself about it, J 
think." 



;38 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



"Not bother myself, about it?" 

" No ! I recommend you not to bother your- 
self about it." 

This was such a new point of view that Ar- 
thur Clennam found himself at a loss how to 
receive it. 

"You can if you like. I can give you plenty 
of forms to fill up. Lots of 'em here. You can 
have a dozen, if you like. But you'll never go 
on with it," said number four. 

"Would it be such hopeless work? Excuse 
me ; I am a stranger in England." 

"/don't say it would be hopeless," returned 
number four, with a frank smile. "I don't ex- 
press an opinion about that; I only express an 
opinion about you. / don't think you'd go on 
with it. However, of course, you can do as you 
like. I suppose there was a failure in the per- 
formance of a contract, or something of that 
kind, was there?" 

" I really don't know." 

"Well ! That you can find out. Then you'll 
find out what Department the contract was in, 
and then you'll find out all about it there." 

" I beg your pardon. How shall I find out ?" 

"Why, you'll — you'll ask till they tell you. 
Then you'll memorialize that Department (ac- 
cording to regular forms which you* 11 find out) 
for leave to memorialize this Department. If 
you get it (which you may, after a time), that 
memorial must be entered in that Department, 
sent to be registered in this Department, sent 
back to be signed by that Department, sent back 
to be countersigned by this Department, and 
then it will begin to be regularly before that 
Department. You'll find out when the business 
passes through each of these stages, by asking 
at both Departments till they tell you." 

" But surely this is not the way to do the 
business," Arthur Clennam could not help saying. 

This airy young Barnacle was quite enter- 
tained by his simplicity in supposing for a mo- 
ment that it was. This light in hand young 
Barnacle knew perfectly that it was not. This 
touch and go young Barnacle had "got up" the 
Department in a private secretaryship that he 
might be ready for any little bit of fat that came 
to hand; and he fully understood the Depart- 
ment to be a politico diplomatico hocus pocus 
piece of machinery, for the assistance of the 
nobs in keeping off the snobs. This dashing 
young Barnacle, in a word, was likely to be- 
come a statesman, and to make a figure. 

"When the business is regularly before that 
Department, whatever it is," pursued this bright 
young Barnacle, "then you can watch it from 
time to time through that Department. When 
it comes regularly before this Department, then 
you must watch it from time to time through 
this Department. We shall have to refer it 
right and left ; and when we refer it anywhere, 
then you'll have to look it up. When it comes 
back to us at any time, then you had better look 
us up. When it sticks anywhere, you'll have to 
try to give it a jog. When you write to another 



Department about it, and then to this Depart- 
ment about it, and don't hear any thing satisfac- 
tory about it, why then you had better — keep on 
writing." 

Arthur Clennam looked very doubtful indeed. 
"But I am obliged to you, at any rate," said he. 
" for your politeness." 

"Not at all," replied this engaging young 
Barnacle. "Try the thing, and see how you 
like it. It will be in your power to give it up at 
any time, if you don't like it. You had better 
take a lot of forms away with you. Give him a 
lot of forms !" With which instruction to num- 
ber two, this sparkling young Barnacle took a 
fresh handful of papers from numbers one and 
three, and carried them into the sanctuary, to 
offer to the presiding Idols of the Circumlocu- 
tion Office. 

Arthur Clennam put his forms in his pocker 
gloomily enough, and went his way down the 
long stone passage and the long stone staircase. 
He had come to the swing doors leading into 
the street, and was waiting, not overpatiently, 
for two people who were between him and them 
to pass out and let him follow, when the voice 
of one of them struck familiarly on his ear. He 
looked at the speaker and recognized Mr. Mea- 
gles. Mr. Meagles was very red in the face — 
redder than travel could have made him — and 
collaring a short man who was with him, said, 
"Come out, you rascal, come out!" 

It was such an unexpected hearing, and it was 
also such an unexpected sight to see Mr. Mea- 
gles burst the swing-doors open, and emerge into 
the street with the short man, who was of an 
unoffending appearance, that Clennam stood 
still for the moment exchanging looks of sur- 
prise with the porter. He followed, however, 
quickly; and saw Mr. Meagles going down the 
street with his enemy at his side. He soon 
came up with his old traveling companion, and 
touched him on the back. The choleric face 
which Mr. Meagles turned upon him smoothed 
when he saw who it was, and he put out his 
friendly hand. 

"Hoav are you?" said Mr. Meagles. "How 
d'ye do ? I have only just come over from abroad. 
I am glad to see you." 

" And I am rejoiced to see you." 

"Thank'ee. Thank'ee !" 

"Mrs. Meagles and your daughter — ?" 

"Are as well as possible," said Mr. Meagles. 
" I only wish you had come upon me in a more 
prepossessing condition as to coolness." 

Though it was any thing but a hot day, Mr. 
Meagles was in a heated state that attracted the 
attention of the passers-by, more particularly as 
he leaned his back against a railing, took off his 
hat and cravat, and heartily rubbed his steam- 
ing head and face, and his reddened ears and 
neck, without the least regard for public opinion. 

"Whew!" said Mr. Meagles, dressing again. 
"That's comfortable. Now I am cooler." 

" You have been ruffled, Mr. Meagles. What 
is the matter?" 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



539 



" Wait a bit, and I'll tell you. Have you leis- 
ure for a turn in the Park?" 

"As much as you please." 

"Come along, then. Ah ! you may well look 
at him." He happened to have turned his eyes 
toward the offender whom Mr. Meagles had so 
angrily collared. " He's something to look at, 
that fellow is." 

He was not much to look at, either in point 
of size or in point of dress, being merely a short, 
square, practical-looking man, whose hair had 
turned gray, and in whose face and forehead 
there were deep lines of cogitation, which look- 
ed as though they were carved in hard wood. 
He was dressed in decent black, a little rusty, 
;md had the appearance of a sagacious master 
in some handicraft. He had a spectacle-case 
in his hand, which he turned over and over while 
lie was thus in question with a certain free use 
of the thumb that is never seen but in a hand 
accustomed to tools. 

"You keep with us," said Mr. Meagles, in a 
threatening kind of way, " and I'll introduce you 
presently. Now, then!" 

Clennam wondered within himself, as they 
took the nearest way to the Park, what this un- 
known (who complied in the gentlest manner) 
could have been doing. His appearance did not 
at all justify the suspicion that he had been de- 
tected in designs on Mr. Meagles's pocket-hand- 
kerchief, nor had he any appearance of being 
quarrelsome or violent. He was a quiet, plain, 
steady man ; made no attempt to escape, and 
seemed a little depressed, but neither ashamed 
nor repentant. If he were a criminal offender, 
he must surely be an incorrigible hypocrite ; and 
if he were no offender, why should Mr. Meagles 
have collared him in the Circumlocution Office*? 
He perceived that the man was not a difficulty 
in his own mind alone, but in Mr. Meagles's too ; 
for such conversation as they had together on 
the short way to the Park was by no means well 
sustained, and Mr. Meagles's eye always wander- 
ed back to the man, even when he spoke of some- 
thing very different. 

At length, they being among the trees, Mr. 
Meagles stopped short, and said: 

"Mr. Clennam, will you do me the favor to 
look at this man? His name is Doyce — Daniel 
Doyce. You wouldn't suppose this man to be a 
notorious rascal, would you?" 

" I certainly should not." It was really a dis- 
concerting question, with the man there. 

"No. Ybu would not. I know you would not. 
You wouldn't suppose him to be a public offend- 
er, would vou ?" 

••V.)." 

"No. But he is. He is a public offender. 
What has he been guilty of? Murder, man- 
slaughter, arson, forgeiy, swindling, house-break- 
ing, highway robbery, larceny, conspiracy, fraud? 
Which should you say now?" 

"I should say," returned Arthur Clennam, 
observing a faint smile in Daniel Doyce's face, 
"not one of them." 



"You are right," said Mr. Meagles. "But 
he has been ingenious, and he has been trying 
to turn his ingenuity to his country's service. 
That makes him a public offender directly, Sir." 

Arthur looked at the man himself, who only 
shook his head. 

"This Doyce," said Mr. Meagles, "is a smith 
and engineer. He is not in a large way, but he 
is well known as a very ingenious man. A dozen 
years ago he perfects an invention (involving a 
very curious secret process) of great importance 
to his country and his fellow-creatures. I won't 
say how much money it cost him, or how many 
years of his life he had been about it, but he 
brought it to perfection a dozen years ago. 
Wasn't it a dozen ?" said Mr. Meagles. address- 
ing Doyce. " He is the most exasperating man 
in the world ; he never complains !" 

" Yes. Rather better than twelve years ago." 

"Rather better?" said Mr. Meagles; "you 
mean rather worse. Well, Mr. Clennam. He 
addresses himself to the Government. The mo- 
ment he addresses himself to the Government, 
he becomes a public offender! Sir," said Mr. 
Meagles, in danger of making himself excess- 
ively hot again, "he ceases to be an innocent 
citizen, and becomes a culprit. He is treated, 
from that instant, as a man who has done some 
infernal action. He is a man to be shirked, put 
off, brow-beaten, sneered at, handed over by this 
highly-connected young or old gentleman to that 
highly-connected young or old gentleman, and 
dodged back again ; he is a man with no rights 
in his own time, or his own property ; a mere 
outlaw, whom it is justifiable to get rid of any- 
how ; a man to be worn out by all possible 
means." 

It was not so difficult to believe, after the 
morning's experience, as Mr. Meagles supposed. 

"Don't stand there, Doyce, turning your spec- 
tacle-case over and over," cried Mr. Meagles, 
"but tell Mr. Clennam what you confessed to 
me." 

"I undoubtedly was made to feel," said the 
inventor, " as if I had committed an offense. In 
dancing attendance at the various offices, I was 
always treated, more or less, as if it Avas a very 
bad offense. I have frequently found it neces- 
sary to reflect, for my own self-support, that I 
really had not done any thing to bring myself 
into the Newgate Calendar, but only wanted to 
effect a great saving ana a great improvement." 

" There !" said Mr. Meagles. "Judge wheth- 
er I exaggerate ! Now you'll be able to believe 
me when I tell you the rest of the case. 

With this prelude, Mr. Meagles went through 
the narrative; the established narrative, which 
has become tiresome ; the matter-of-course nar- 
rative, which we all know by heart. How, after 
interminable attendance and correspondence, 
after infinite impertinences, ignorances, and in- 
sults, my lords made a Minute, number three 
thousand four hundred and seventy-two, allow- 
ing the culprit to make certain trials of his in- 
vention at his own expense. How the trials 



AO 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



were made in the presence of a board of six, of 
whom two ancient members were too blind to 
see it, two other ancient members were too deaf 
to hear it, one other ancient member was too 
lame to get near it, and the final ancient mem- 
ber was too pig-headed to look at it. How there 
were more years ; more impertinences, igno- 
rances, and insults. How my lords then made 
a Minute, number five thousand one hundred and 
three, whereby they resigned the business to the 
Circumlocution Office. How the Circumlocution 



Otficc, in course of time, took up the business ha 
if it were a bran new thing of yesterday, which 
had never been heard of before ; muddled the 
business, addled the business, tossed the busi- 
ness in a wet blanket. How the impertinences, 
ignorances, and insults went through the multi- 
plication table. How there was a reference of 
the invention to three Barnacles and a Stilt- 
stalking, who knew nothing about it ; into whose 
heads nothing could be hammered about it ; who 
got bored about it, and reported physical impos- 




LITTLE DORRIT. 



541 



sibilities about it. How the Circumlocution 
Office, in a Minute, number eight thousand sev- 
en hundred and forty, " saw no reason to reverse 
the decision at which my lords had arrived." 
How the Circumlocution Office, being reminded 
that my lords had arrived at no decision, shelved 
the business. How there had been a final inter- 
view with the head of the Circumlocution Office 
that very morning, and how the Brazen Head 
had spoken, and had been, upon the whole, and 
under all the circumstances, and looking at it 
from the various points of view, of opinion that 
one of two courses was to be pursued in respect 
of the business : that was to say, either to leave 
it alone for evermore, or to begin it all over 
again. 

" Upon which," said Mr. Meagles, " as a prac- 
tical man, I then and there, in that presence, 
took Doyce by the collar, and told him it was 
plain to me that he was an infamous rascal, and 
treasonable disturber of the government peace, 
and took him away. I brought him out at the 
office door by the collar, that the very porter 
might know I was a practical man who appre- 
ciated the official estimate of such characters ; 
and here we are !" 

If that airy young Barnacle had been there, 
he would have frankly told them perhaps that 
the Circumlocution Office had achieved its func- 
tions. That what the Barnacles had to do, was 
to stick on to the national ship as long as they 
could. That to trim the ship, lighten the ship, 
clean the ship, would be to knock them off; that 
they could but be knocked off once ; and that if 
the ship went down with them yet sticking to it, 
that was the ship's look out, and not theirs. 

"There!'' said Mr. Meagles, "now you know 
all about Doycc. Except, which I own does not 
improve my state of mind, that even now you 
don't hear him complain." 

"You must have great patience," said Arthur 
Olennam, looking at him with some wonder. 
" great forbearance." 

" No," he returned, " I don't know that I have 
more than another man." 

" By the Lord, you have more than I have, 
though!" cried Mr. Meagles. 

Doyce smiled, as he said to Clennam, "You 
sec. my experience of these things does not be- 
gin with myself. It has been in my way to know 
a little about them, from time to time. Mine is 
not a particular case. I am not worse used than 
a hundred others, who have put themselves in 
the same position — than all the others, I was 
going to say." 

" I don't know that I should find that a con- 
solation, if it were my case ; but I am very glad 
that you do." 

" Understand me ! I don't say," he replied, 
in his steady, planning way, and looking into the 
distance before him as if his gray eye were meas- 
uring it, "that it's recompense for a man's toil 
and hope; but it's a certain sort of relief to 
know that I might have counted on this." 

lie spoke in that quiet, deliberate manner, 
Vol. XII.-Xo. 70.— M m 



and in that undertone, which is often observable 
in mechanics who consider and adjust with great 
nicety. It belonged to him like his suppleness 
of thumb, or his peculiar way of tilting up his hat 
at the back every now and then, as if he were 
contemplating some half-finished work of his 
hand, and thinking about it. 

"Disappointed!" he went on, as he walked 
between them under the trees. " Yes. No 
doubt I am disappointed. Hurt? Yes. No 
doubt I am hurt. That's only natural. But 
what I mean, when I say that people who put 
themselves in the same position, are mostly used 
in the same way — " 

" In England," said Mr. Meagles. 

" Oh ! of course I mean in England. When 
they take their inventions into foreign countries 
that's quite different. And that's the reason why 
so many go there." 

Mr. Meagles very hot indeed again. 

"What I mean is, that however this comes to 
be the regular way of our government, it is its 
regular way. Have you ever heard of any pro- 
jector or inventor who failed to find it all but in- 
accessible, and whom it did not discourage and 
ill-treat?" 

" I can not say that I ever have." 

' ' Have you ever known it to be beforehand in 
the adoption of any useful thing ? Ever known it 
to set an example of any useful kind ?" 

"I am a good deal older than my friend 
here," said Mr. Meagles, "and I'll answer that. 
Never." 

"But we all three have known, I expect," 
said the inventor, "a pretty many cases of its 
fixed determination to be miles upon miles, and 
years upon years, behind the rest of us ; and of 
its being found out persisting in the use of things 
long superseded, even after the better things 
wera well known and generally taken up ?" 

They all agreed upon that. 

" Well then," said Doyce with a sigh, " as I 
know what such a metal will do at such a tem- 
perature, and such a body under such a pressure, 
so I may know (if I will only consider), how 
these great lords and gentlemen will certainly 
deal with such a matter as mine. I have no 
right to be surprised, with a head upon my 
shoulders, and memory in it, that I fall into the 
ranks with all who came before me. I ought to 
have let it alone. I have had warning enough, 
I am sure." 

With that he put up his spectacle-case, and 
said to Arthur, " If I don't complain, Mr. Clen- 
nam, I can feel gratitude ; and I assure you 
that I feel it toward our mutual friend. Manv's 
the day, and manv's the way, in which he has 
backed me." 

" Stuff and nonsense," said Mr. Meagles. 

Arthur could not but glance at Daniel Doyce 
in the ensuing silence. Though it was evident- 
ly in the grain of his character, and of his re- 
spect for his own case, that he should abstain 
from idle murmuring, it was evident that he 
had grown the older, the sterner, and the poorer 



542 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



for his long endeavor. He could not but think 
what a blessed thing it would have been for this 
man, if he had taken a lesson from the gentle- 
men who were so kind as to take the nation's 
affairs in charge, and had learnt, How not to 
do it. 

Mr. Meagles was hot and despondent for 
about five minutes, and then began to cool and 
clear up. 

"Come, come!" said he. "We shall not 
make this the better by being grim. Where do 
you think of going, Dan ?" 

"I shall go back to the factory," said Dan. 

"Why, then, we'll all go back to the factory, 
or walk in that direction," returned Meagles, 
cheerfully. "Mr. Clennam won't be deterred 
by its being in Bleeding Heart Yard." 

" Bleeding Heart Yard ?" said Clennam. " I 
want to go there." 

" So much the better," cried Mr. Meagles. 
"Come along!" 

As they went along, certainly one of the par- 
ty, and probably more than one, thought that 
Bleeding Heart Yard was no inappropriate des- 
tination for a man who had been in official cor- 
respondence with my lords and the Barnacles 
— and perhaps had a misgiving also that Britan- 
nia herself might come to look for lodgings in 
Bleeding Heart Yard, some ugly day or other, 
if she overdid the Circumlocution Office. 



CHAPTER XL— LET LOOSE. 

A late, dull autumn night was closing in 
upon the River Saone. The stream, like a sul- 
lied looking-glass in a gloomy place, reflected 
th« clouds heavily ; and the low banks leaned 
over here and there, as if they were half curi- 
ous, and half afraid, to see their darkening pic- 
tures in the water. The flat expanse of coun- 
try about Chalons lay a long heavy streak, oc- 
casionally made a little ragged by a row of pop- 
lar trees, against the wrathful sunset. On the 
banks of the River Saone it was wet, depressing, 
solitary ; and the night deepened fast. 

One man, slowly moving on toward Chalons, 
was the only visible figure in the landscape. 
Cain might have looked as lonely and avoided. 
With an old sheepskin knapsack at his back, and 
a rough, unbarked stick cut out of some wood 
in his hand ; miry, footsore, his shoes and gai- 
ters trodden out, his hair and beard untrimmed ; 
the cloak he carried over his shoulder, and the 
clothes he wore, soddened with wet; limping 
along in pain and difficulty ; he looked as if the 
clouds were hurrying from him, as if the wail 
of the wind and the shuddering of the grass 
were directed against him, as if the low myste- 
rious plashing of the water murmured at him, 
as if the fitful autumn night were disturbed by 
him. 

He glanced here, and he glanced there, sul- 
lenly, but shrinkingly; and sometimes stopped 
and turned about, and looked all round him. 
Then he limped on again 



toiling and mutter- 



in?;: 



"To the devil with this plain that has no 
end ! To the devil with these stones that cut like 
knives ! To the devil with this dismal darkness, 
wrapping itself about one with a chill ! I hate 
you!" 

And he would have visited his hatred upon 
it all with the scowl he threw about him, if he 
could. He trudged a little further; and look- 
ing into the distance before him, stopped again. 

"I, hungry, thirsty, weary. You, imbeciles, 
where the lights are yonder, eating and drink- 
ing, and warming yourselves at fires ! I wish I 
had the sacking of your town, I would repay 
you, my children !" 

But the teeth he set at the town, and the 
hand he shook at the town, brought the town 
no nearer; and the man was yet hungrier, and 
thirstier, and wearier, when his feet were on its 
jagged pavement, and he stood looking about 
him. 

There was the hotel with its gatevway, and its 
savory smell of cooking; there Avas the cafe, 
with its bright windows, and its rattling of dom- 
inoes ; there was the dyer's, with its strips of 
red cloth on the door-posts ; there was the sil- 
versmith's, with its ear-rings, and its offering? 
for altars ; there was the tobacco-dealer's, with 
its lively group of soldier customers coming out 
pipe in mouth ; there Avere the bad odors of the 
town, and the rain and refuse in the kennels, 
and the faint lamps slung across the road, and 
the huge Diligence, and its mountain of lug- 
gage, and its six gray horses with their tails 
tied up, getting under weigh at the coach-office. 
But no small cabaret for a straitened traveler 
being within sight, he had to seek one round the 
dark corner, where the cabbage leaves lay thick- 
est, trodden about the public cistern at which 
women had not yet left off drawing water. 
There, in the back street he found one, the 
Break of Day. The curtained windows cloud- 
ed the Break of Day, but it seemed light and 
warm, and it announced in legible inscriptions, 
with appropriate pictorial embellishment of bill- 
iard cue and ball, that at the Break of Day one 
could play billiards ; that there one could find 
meat, drink, and lodging, whether one came on 
horseback, or came on foot; and that it kept 
good wines, liqueurs, and brandy. The man 
turned the handle of the Break of Day door, 
and limped in. 

He touched his discolored slouched hat, as 
he came in at the door, to a few men who oc- 
cupied the room. Two were playing dominoes 
at one of the little tables; three or four were 
seated round the stove, conversing as they 
smoked; the billiard-table in the centre was 
left alone for the time; the landlady of the Day 
Break sat behind her little counter among her 
cloudy bottles of sirups, baskets of cakes, and 
leaden drainage for glasses, working at her 
needle. 

Making his way to an empty little table, in a 
corner of the room behind the stove, he put 
down his knapsack and his cloak upon the 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



43 



ground. As he raised his head from stooping 
to do so, he found the landlady beside him. 

"One can lodge here to-night, Madame?" 

"Perfectly!" said the landlady, in a high, 
sing-song, cheery voice. 

" Good. One can dine — sup — what you please 
to call it?" 

"Ah, perfectly!" cried the landlady as be- 
fore. 

"Dispatch then, Madame, if you please. 
Something to eat, as quickly as you can ; and 
some wine at once. I am exhausted." 

" It is very bad weather, Monsieur," said the 
landlady. 

"Cursed weather." 

"And a very long road." 

"A cursed road." 

His hoarse voice failed him, and he rested his 
head upon his hands until a bottle of wine was 
brought from the counter. Having filled and 
emptied his little tumbler twice, and having 
broken off an end from the great loaf that was 
set before him with his cloth and napkin, soup- 
plate, salt, pepper, and oil, he rested his back 
against the corner of the wall, made a couch of 
the bench on which he sat, and began to chew 
crust until such time as his repast should be 
ready. 

There had been that momentary interruption 
of the talk about the stove, and that temporary 
inattention to and distraction from one another, 
which is usually inseparable in such a company 
from the arrival of a stranger. It had passed 
over by this time ; and the men had done glanc- 
ing at him, and were talking again. 

"That's the true reason." said one of them, 
bringinn; a storv he had been telling to a close, 
" that's the true reason why they said that the 
devil was let loose." The speaker was the tall 
Swiss belonging to the church, and he brought 
something of the authority of the church into 
the discussion — especially as the devil was in 
question. 

The landlady, having given her directions for 
the new guest's entertainment to her husband, 
who acted as cook to the Break of Day, had re- 
sumed her needlework behind her counter. She 
was a smart, neat, bright little woman, with a good 
deal of cap and a good deal of stocking, and she 
struck into the conversation with several laugh- 
ing nods of her head, but without looking up 
from her work. 

"Ah Heaven, then!" said she. "When the 
boat came up from Lyons, and brought the news 
that the devil was actually let loose at Marseilles, 
some flv-eatchers swallowed it. But I? No, 
nut I." 

"Madame, you arc always right," returned 
the tall Swiss. Doubtless you were enraged 
against that man, ?vladamc?" 

"Ah, yes, then!" cried the landlady, raising 
her eyes from her work, opening them very wide, 
and tossing her head on one side. "Naturally, 
yes." 

; - ITe was a bad subject." 



"He was a wicked wretch," said the land- 
lady, "and well merited what he had the good 
fortune to escape. So much the worse." 

" Stay, Madame ! Let us see," returned the 
Swiss, argumentatively turning his cigar between 
his lips. " It may have been his unfortunate 
destiny. He may have been the child of circum- 
stances. It is always possible that he had, and 
has good in him if one did but know how to find 
it out. Philosophical philanthropy teaches — " 

The rest of the little knot about the stove 
murmured an objection to the introduction of 
that theatening expression. Even the two play- 
ers at dominoes glanced up from their game, as 
if to protest against philosophical philanthropy 
being brought by name into the Break of Day. 

"Hold there, you and your philanthropy!" 
cried the smiling landlady, nodding her head 
more than ever. "Listen then. I am a wo- 
man, I, I know nothing of philosophical philan- 
thropy. But I know what I have seen, and what 
I have looked in the face, in this world here, 
where I find myself. And I tell you this, my 
friend, that there are people (men and Avomen 
both, unfortunately) who have no good in them 
— none. That there are people whom it is 
necessary to detest without compromise. That 
there are people who must be dealt with as ene- 
mies of the human race. That there are people 
who have no human heart, and who must be 
crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of 
the way. They are but few, I hope ; but I have 
seen (in this world here where I find myself, 
and even at the little Break of Day) that there 
are such people. And I do not doubt that this 
man — whatever they call him, I forget his name 
— is one of them." 

The landlady's lively speech was received with 
greater favor at the Break of Day than it would 
have elicited from certain amiable whitewash- 
es of the class she so unreasonably objected to, 
nearer Great Britain. 

"My faith ! if your philosophical philanthro- 
py," said the landlady, putting down her work, 
and rising to take the stranger's soup from her 
husband, who appeared with it at a side door, 
"puts any body at the mercy of such people by 
holding terms with them at all, in words or deeds, 
or both, take it away from the Break of Day, 
for it isn't worth a sou." 

As she placed the soup before the guest, who 
changed his attitude to a sitting one, he looked 
her full in the face, and his mustache went up 
under his nose, and his nose came down over 
his mustache. 

""Well!" said the previous speaker, "let us 
come back to our subject. Leaving all that 
aside, gentlemen, it was because the man was 
acquitted on his trial that people said at Mar- 
seilles that the devil was let loose. That was 
how the phrase began to circulate, and what it 
meant ; nothing more." 

"How do they call him?" said the landlady. 
"Biraud, is it not?" 

"Rigaud, Madame," returned the tall Swiss. 



~>u 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



"Rigaud! To be sure!" 

The traveler's soup was succeeded by a dish 
of meat, and that by a dish of vegetables. He 
ate all that was placed before him, emptied his 
bottle of wine, called for a glass of rum, and 
smoked his cigarette with his cup of coffee. As 
he became refreshed, he became overbearing, 
and patronized the company at the Day Break 
in certain small talk, at which he assisted, as if 
his condition were far above his appearance. 

The company might have had other engage- 
ments, or they might have felt their inferiority, 
but in any case they dispersed by degrees, and 
not being replaced by other company, left their 
new patron in possession of the Break of Day. 
The landlord was clinking about in his kitchen ; 
the landlady was quiet at her work ; and the re- 
freshed traveler set smoking by the stove, warm- 
ing his ragged feet. 

" Pardon me, Madame ; that Biraud — " 

"Rigaud, Monsieur." 

" Rigaud. Pardon me again — has contracted 
your displeasure, how ?" 

The landlady, who had been at one moment 
thinking within herself that this was a hand- 
some man, at another moment that this was 
an ill-looking man, observed the nose coming 
down and the mustache going up, and strongly 
inclined to the latter decision. Rigaud was a 
criminal, she said, who had killed his wife. 

"Ay, ay! Death of my life, that's a crimi- 
nal indeed. But how do you know it ?" 

"All the world knows it." 

" Ha ! And yet he escaped justice ?" 

"Monsieur, the law could not prove it against 
him to its satisfaction. So the law says. Nev- 
ertheless, all the world knows he did it. The 
people knew it so well, that they tried to tear 
him to pieces." 

"Being all in perfect accord with their own 
wives?" said the guest. "Haha!" 

The landlady of the Break of Day looked at 
him again, and felt almost confirmed in her last 
decision. He had a fine hand though, and he 
turned it with a great show. She began once 
more to think that he was not ill-looking after 
all. 

"Did you mention, Madame — or was it men- 
tioned among the gentlemen — what became of 
him?" 

The landlady shook her head; it being the 
first conversational stage at which her vivacious 
earnestness had ceased to nod it, keeping time 
to what she said. It had been mentioned at 
the Day Break, she remarked, on the authority 
of the journals, that he had been kept in pris- 
on for his own safety. However that might 
be, he had escaped his deserts ; so much the 
worse. 

The guest sat looking at her as he smoked out 
his final cigarette, and as she sat with her head 
bent over her work, with an expression that 
might have resolved her vioubts, and brought 
her to a lasting conclusion on the subject of his 
good or bad lo®ks if she had seen it. When she 



did look up, the expression was not there. The 
hand was smoothing his shaggy mustache. 

" May one ask to be shown to bed, Madame?'* 

Very willingly, Monsieur. Hola, my husband ! 
My husband would conduct him up stairs. There 
was one traveler there, asleep, who had gone to 
bed very early indeed, being overpowered by fa- 
tigue ; but it was a large chamber with two beds 
in it, and space enough for twenty. This the 
landlady of the Break of Day chirpingly ex- 
plained, calling between whiles, Hola, my hus- 
band ! out at the side door. 

My husband answered at length, "It is I, my 
wife !" and presenting himself in his cook's cap, 
lighted the traveler up a steep and narrow stair- 
case ; the traveler carrying his own cloak and 
knapsack, and bidding the landlady good-night 
with a complimentary reference to the pleasure 
of seeing her again to-morrow. It was a large 
room, with a rough splintery floor, unplastered 
rafters overhead, and two bedsteads on opposite 
sides. Here my husband put down the candle 
he carried, and with a sidelong look at his guest 
stooping over his knapsack, gruffly gave him the 
instruction, "The bed to the right!" and left 
him to his repose. The landlord, whether he 
was a good or a bad physiognomist, had fully 
made up his mind that the guest was an ill-look- 
ing fellow. 

The guest looked contemptuously at the clean 
coarse bedding prepared for him, and, sitting 
down on a rush chair at the bedside, drew his 
money out of his pocket, and told it over in his 
hand. "One must eat," he muttered to him- 
self, "but by Heaven I must eat at the cost of 
some other man to-morrow !" 

As he sat pondering, and mechanically weigh- 
ing his money in his palm, the deep breathing 
of the traveler in the other bed fell so regularly 
upon his hearing that it attracted his eyes in 
that direction. The man was covered up warm, 
and had drawn the white curtain at his head, so 
that he could be only heard, not seen. But the 
deep regular breathing, still going on while the 
other was taking off his warm shoes and gaiters, 
and still continuing when he had laid aside his 
coat and cravat, became at length a strong pro- 
vocative to curiosity, and incentive to get a 
glimpse of the sleeper's face. 

The waking traveler, therefore, stole a little 
nearer, and yet a little nearer, and a little near- 
er, to the sleeping traveler's bed, until he stood 
close beside it. Even then he could not see his 
face, for he had drawn the sheet over it. The 
regular breathing still continuing, he put his 
smooth wli'te hand (such a treacherous hand it 
looked, as it went creeping from him !) to the 
sheet, and gently lifted it away. 

"Death of my soul!" he whispered, falling 
back, "here's Cavalletto!" 

The little Italian, previously influenced in his 
sleep perhaps by the stealthy presence at his 
bedside, stopped in his regular breathing, and 
with a long, deep respiration, opened his eyes. 
At first they were not awake, though open. He 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



lay for some seconds looking placidly at his old 
prison companion, and then, all at once, with a 
cry of surprise and alarm, sprang out of bed. 

"Hush! What's the matter! Keep quiet! 
It's I. You know me?" cried the other, in a 
suppressed voice. 

But John Baptist, widely staring, muttering a 
number of imprecations and ejaculations, trem- 
blingly backing into a corner, slipping on his 
trowsers, and tying his coat by the two sleeves 
round his neck, manifested an unmistakable de- 
sire to escape by the door rather than renew 
the acquaintance. Seeing this, his old prison 
comrade fell back upon the door, and set his 
shoulders against it. 

"Cavalletto! Wake, boy! Rub your eyes 
and look at me. Not the name you used to call 
me — don't use that — Lagnier, say Lagnier !" 

John Baptist, staring at him with eyes opened 
to their utmost width, made a number of those 
national, backhanded shakes of the right fore- 
finger in the air, as if he were resolved on neg- 
ativing beforehand every thing that the other 
could possibly advance during the whole term 
of his life. 

" Cavalletto ! Give me your hand. You know 
Lagnier the gentleman. Touch the hand of a 
gentleman !" 

Submitting himself to the old tone of con- 
descending authority, John Baptist, not at all 
steady on his legs as yet, advanced and put his 
hand in his patron's. Monsieur Lagnier laugh- 
ed ; and having given it a squeeze, tossed it up 
and let it go. 

"Then you were — " faltered John Baptist. 

"Not shaved? No. See here!" cried Lag- 
nier, giving his head a twirl, " as tight on as 
your own." 

John Baptist, with a slight shiver, looked all 
round the room as if to recall where he was. 
His patron took that opportunity of turning the 
key in the door, and then sat down upon his 
bed. 

" Look !" he said, holding up his shoes and 
gaiters. " That's a poor trim for a gentleman, 
you'll say. No matter, you shall see how soon 
I'll mend it. Come and sit down. Take your 
old place!" 

John Baptist, looking any thing but reas- 
sured, sat down on the floor at the bedside, 
keeping his eyes upon his patron all the time. 

"That's well!" cried Lagnier. "Now we 
might be in the old infernal hole again, hey? 
How long have you been out?" 
" Two days after you, my master." 
"How do you come here?" 
"I was cautioned not to stay there, and so I 
left the town at once, and since then I have 
changed about. I have been doing odds and 
ends at Avignon, at Pont Esprit, at Lyons ; upon 
the Rhone, upon the Saone." As he spoke, he 
rapidly mapped the places out with his sunburnt 
hand on the floor. 

"And where are you going?" 
"Going, my master?" 



"Ay!" 

John Baptist seemed to desire to evade the 
question without knowing how. ' ' By Bacchus !" 
he said at last, as if he were forced to the ad- 
mission, "I have sometimes had a thought of 
going to Paris, and perhaps to England." 

"Cavalletto. This is in confidence. I also 
am going to Paris, and perhaps to England. 
We'll go together." 

The little man nodded his head, and showed 
his teeth ; and yet seemed not quite convinced 
that it was a surpassingly desirable arrangement. 

" We'll go together," repeated Lagnier. " You 
shall see how soon I will force myself to be re- 
cognized as a gentleman, and you shall profit by 
it. Is it agreed ? Are we one ?" 

"Oh, surely, surely!" said the little man. 

"Then you shall hear before I sleep — and in 
six words, for I want sleep — how I appear be- 
fore you, I, Lagnier. Remember that. Not 
the other." 

" Altro, altro ! Not Ri— " Before John Bap- 
tist could finish the name, his comrade had got 
his hand under his chin and fiercely shut up his 
mouth. 

" Death ! what are you doing ? Do you want 
me to be trampled upon and stoned ? Do you 
want to be trampled upon and stoned? You 
would be. Y"ou don't imagine that they would 
set upon me, and let my prison chum go ? Don't 
think it !" 

There was an expression in his face as he re- 
leased his grip of his friend's jaw, from which 
his friend inferred that if the course of events 
really came to any stoning and trampling, Mon- 
sieur Lagnier would so distinguish him with his 
notice as to insure his having his full share of 
it. He remembered what a cosmopolitan gen- 
tleman Monsieur Lagnier was, and how few 
weak distinctions he made. 

"I am a man," said Monsieur Lagnier, "whom 
society has deeply wronged since you last saw 
me. You know that I am sensitive and brave, 
and that it is my character to govern. How 
has society respected those qualities in me ? I 
have been shrieked at through the streets. I 
have been guarded through the streets against 
men, and especially Avomen, running at me 
armed with any weapons they could lay their 
hands on. I have lain in prison for security, 
with the place of my confinement kept a secret, 
lest I should be torn out of it and felled by a 
hundred blows. I have been carted out of Mar- 
seilles in the dead of night, and carried leagues 
away from it packed in straw. It has not been 
safe for me to go near my house ; and, with a 
beggar's pittance in my pocket, I have walked 
through vile mud and weather ever since, until 
my feet are crippled — look at them ! Such arc 
the humiliations that society has inflicted upon 
me, possessing the qualities I have mentioned, 
and which you know me to possess. But society 
shall pay for it." 

All this he said in his companion's ear, and 
with his hand before his lips. 



J46 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



"Even here," he went on in the same way, 
" even in this mean drinking-shop, society pur- 
sues me. Madame defames me, and her guests 
defame me. I, too, a gentleman with manners 
and accomplishments to strike them dead ! But 
die wrongs society has heaped upon me are 
treasured in this breast." 

To all of which John Baptist, listening attent- 
ively to the suppressed, hoarse voice, said from 
time to time, " Surely, surely !" tossing his head 
and shutting his eyes, as if there were the clear- 
est case against society that perfect candor could 
make out. 

"Put my shoes there," continued Lagnier. 
"Hang my cloak to dry there by the door. Take 
my hat." He obeyed each instruction, as it was 
given. "And this is the bed to which society 
consigns me, is it ? Ha ! Very well !" 

As he stretched out his length upon it, with a 
ragged handkerchief bound round his wicked 
head, and only his wicked head showing above 
the bed-clothes, John Baptist was rather strongly 
reminded of what had so very nearly happened to 
prevent the mustache from any more going up 
as it did, and the nose from any more coming 
down as it did. 

"Shaken out of destiny's dice-box again into 
your company, eh ? By Heaven ! So much the 
better for you. You'll profit by it. I shall need 
a long rest. Let me sleep in the morning." 

John Baptist replied that he should sleep as 



long as he would, and wishing him a happy 
night, put out the candle. One might have sup- 
posed that the next proceeding of the Italian 
would have been to undress ; but he did exact- 
ly the reverse, and dressed himself from head to 
foot, saving his shoes. When he had so done, 
he lay down upon his bed with some of its cov- 
erings over him, and his coat still tied round his 
neck, to get through the night. 

When he started up, the Godfather Break of 
Day was peeping at its namesake. He rose, 
took his shoes in his hand, turned the key in the 
door with great caution, and crept down stairs. 
Nothing was astir there but the smell of coffee, 
wine, tobacco, and sirups ; and Madame's little 
counter looked ghastly enough. But he had paid 
Madame his little note at it over night, and 
wanted to see nobody — wanted nothing but to 
get on his shoes and his knapsack, open the door, 
and run away. 

He prospered in his object. No movement or 
voice was heard when he opened the door ; no 
wicked head tied up in a ragged handkerchief 
looked out of the upper window. When the sun 
had raised his full disc above the flat line of the 
horizon, and was striking fire out of the long- 
muddy vista of paved road with its weary avenue 
of little trees, a black speck moved along the 
road and splashed among the flaming pools of 
rain-water, which black speck was John Baptist 
Cavalletto running away from his patron. 



ftlntttjiltj Jxitml nf Currant (tok 



THE UNITED STATES. 

¥E are at last enabled to announce that the 
House of Representatives at Washington, af- 
ter a struggle for upward of two months, has suc- 
ceeded in choosing its Speaker. On the 2d of Febru- 
ary the plurality rule was adopted, and under it Mr. 
Banks was elected. The final vote stood thus : for 
N". P. Banks, Republican, of Massachusetts, 103 ; 
and for William Aiken, Democrat, of South Caro- 
lina, 100, with a scattering of 11 votes.' In the 

Senate, on the 24th of January, a Message was re- 
ceived from the President, calling the attention of 
Congress to the disturbed state of affairs in Kansas, 
and recommending the adoption of such measures 
as the exigency of the case required. The Message 
supports the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska 
Act, and says, that while Nebraska was successful- 
ly organized, the organization of Kansas was long 
delayed, and was attended by serious difficulties 
and embarrassments, partly from local mal-admin- 
istration, and partly from the unjustifiable inter- 
ference of the inhabitants of some States with views 
foreign to the interests and rights of the Territory. 
The President says of Governor Reeder, that in- 
stead of giving constant vigilance to his duties, he 
allowed his attention to be turned from his official 
obligations by other objects, thereby himself set- 
ting an example of violation of law and duty which 
rendered his removal necessary. The President re- 
gards the first Legislative Assembly of Kansas, 
whatever may have been the informalities of its 
election, as, for all practical purposes, a lawful 
body ; and in this connection he reviews Governor 



Reeder's conduct in relation to the removal of the 
seat of Government, and his refusal to sign the 
bills that were passed. Relative to the recent 
Convention, which formed a Free State Constitu- 
tion, the President says it was a party, and not the 
people, who acted thus contrary to the principles 
of public law and practice under the Constitution 
of the United States, and the rule of right and com- 
mon sense. The Message regards the movement 
in opposition to the authorities of Kansas as revo- 
lutionary in its character, and, if it should reach 
the point of organized resistance, as a treasonable 
insurrection, which it would be the duty of the 
Federal Government to suppress. Though the 
threatening disturbances of December last have 
been quieted without the effusion of blood, the 
President says there is reason to apprehend re- 
newed disorders unless decided measures are forth- 
with taken to prevent them. He concludes by say- 
ing, that when the inhabitants of Kansas shall de- 
sire a State Government, and be of sufficient num- 
bers for the formation of a State, that the proper 
course will be for a Convention of Delegates to 
prepare a Constitution. The President, therefore, 
recommends the enactment of a law to that effect, 
in order that the admission of Kansas into the 
Union as a State may be conducted in a lawful 
and proper manner; and, further, that a special 
appropriation be made to defray any expenses 
that may become requisite in the execution of the 
laws or the maintenance of public order in the 

Territory. In a letter, published in the New 

York papers, Governor Reeder has replied to this 



MONTHLY EECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 



54^ 



Message of the President. He says that the Pres- 
ident " has misrepresented the position and ob- 
jects of the people of Kansas," and promises " to 
vindicate them and himself Avhen he shall enjoy 

a seat in the House of Representatives." The 

New York Legislature met on the 1st of January. 
The Senate elected its officers the same day, but 
the efforts of the House to choose its Speaker were. 
under the majority rule, fruitless. On the 16th of 
January, a resolution to elect a Speaker by a plu- 
rality of votes was adopted, and Orville Robinson, 
Soft-Shell Democrat, with the support of the Repub- 
lican members, was chosen. Mr. Henry A. Pren- 
dergast, the Republican candidate, had previously 
withdrawn his claims. Simultaneously with the 
election of a Speaker, Governor Clark sent in his 
Message to the Senate. It is chiefly devoted to local 
subjects ; admits that the Prohibitory Liquor Law, 
passed at the last session of the Legislature, is, in 
some of its details, imperfect, but maintains the 
constitutionality of the principle involved; recom- 
mends a further extension of the school system ; 
and sympathizes, toward its conclusion, with the 
position taken by the Free-soil men of Kansas 



The Maine State Legislature met on the 2d of Jan- 
uary and elected Judge Wells, old-line Democrat, 
Governor. Lot M. Merrill, Democrat, was chosen 
President of the Senate, and Josiah Little Speaker 
of the House. In his address, the new Governor 
opposes the Liquor Law, the Alien and Natural- 
ization Laws, and the Personal Liberty Act of 
Massachusetts. In the Massachusetts Legisla- 
ture, which also commenced its session on the 2d 
of January, E. C. Baker, American, was chosen 
President of the Senate, and Dr. Charles A. Phelps, 
American, Speaker of the House. Governor Gard- 
ner's Message was delivered the following day. 
He recommends twenty-one years' residence of for- 
eign-born citizens, and ability to read and write, 
before they are allowed to vote. He also recom- 
mends the repeal of the Personal Liberty Act pass- 
ed by the last Legislature, suggests a reduction in 
the number of members of the popular branch of 
the Legislature, and denounces the prevailing prac- 
tice of "lobbying."- The New Jersey Legisla- 
ture met on the 8th of January — the Senate organ- 
izing by the election of Colonel Alexander, Demo- 
crat, President, and the House by the election of 
Mr. Demarest, Democrat, Speaker. In his Mes- 
sage the Governor, after. reviewing State affairs, 
takes up the Slavery question, and expresses him- 
self in favor of allowing the people interested, 
whether in States or Territories, to decide this mat- 
ter for themselves. He also indorses the position 
taken by the President upon the Central American 

question. The Pennsylvania Legislature Mas 

duly organized on the 1st of January — William M. 
Pratt and Richardson L. Wright being respective- 
ly elected Speakers of the Senate and House of 
Representatives. Governor Pollock's Message is 
almost exclusively devoted to local subjects. It 
makes satisfactory allusion to the financial condi- 
tion of the State, and notices a considerable de- 
crease in the public debt during the past year. On 
National affairs, he refers to hit former Message, 
and re-affirms the sentiments therein expn i d, 

The Maryland Legislature met on the 2d, ami 

organized on the 3d of January. The House 
elected Mr. Traverse, American, Speaker, and Mr. 
Garther. President of the last Senate, was called 
to the chair of the Senate, i In- Governor, in his 
Message, advises the establishment of a coinp 



Public School system for the State ; opposes the 
reduction of taxes, but recommends the abolition 
of the Stamp Tax. He opposes secret political 

associations, and indorses the Nebraska Pill. 

On the 7th of January, the Ohio Legislature was 
organized by the election of N. H. Van Voorhies, 
Speaker of the House. Governor Medill, in his 
Message, urges reform in the administration of lo- 
cal offices, and congratulates the State on its pros- 
perous condition. He opposes tests of birth or re- 
ligion. In Wisconsin, the House of Represent- 
atives elected William Hall, Democrat, Speaker. 
The Governorship of Wisconsin is contested — 
Messrs. Bashford and Barstow being both claim- 
ants of the office — and the case is before the Su- 
preme Court. The Message was consequently de- 
livered by ex-Governor Barstow. It approves the 
Prohibitory Liquor Law. The Minnesota Le- 
gislature was organized by the election of John R. 
Brisbon, Democrat, presiding officer of the Coun- 
cil, and Charles Goodhue, also Democrat, Speaker 

of the House. The Territorial Legislature of 

Nebraska met on the 20th of December, and or- 
ganized the same day. The Message recommends 
that Congress be asked for an appropriation to con- 
struct a Penitentiary, and at least one jail in each 
judicial district, and also that its attention be call- 
ed to a geological survey of the Territory, and to the 
necessity of appropriating 1G0 acres of land to all 
residents now there, and who will, after January 
1, 1856, settle there for two years. From Kan- 
sas we learn that a Free-State Convention was held 
at Lawrence, on the 22d of December, to nominate 
candidates for State affairs under the Constitution. 
The delegates present numbered eighty. C. Rob- 
inson, formerly of Massachusetts, was nominated 
for Governor, and W. Y. Roberts, formerly of Penn- 
sylvania, for Lieutenant-Governor. An opposition 
Free-State ticket was subsequently started, and 
great efforts were made to prevent a split in the 
party. A Proclamation had been issued by the 
Executive Committee for the election of State offi- 
cers, and Members of the General Assembly, on 
the 15th of January. The result is not yet offi- 
cially knoAvn, but it is believed that the regular 

Free-State ticket is elected. From California 

we have no news of special importance to record. 
Accounts from the mines continue to be of a most 
encouraging nature. Oregon dates are to the 20th 
of December. The Indian outbreak in that Terri- 
tory was still unsuppressed. A desperate battle, 
which lasted during the 7th and 8th of December, 
was fought, near Walla-Walla River, between a 
party of volunteers, under Colonel Kelly, and a 
large body of Indians. The volunteers lost eight 
men, and of the Indians fifty at least are supposed 
to have been killed, including the chief of the 
Walla- Wallas. 

MEXICO. 
This Republic is still represented to be in the most 
disturbed and unsettled condition, and the succes- 
sion of Comonfort to the Presidency has not tend- 
ed to restore tranquillity. A press-law has been 
enacted, in consequence of which many journals 
have been obliged to suspend publication. The ex- 
isting government is not regarded with more pop- 
ular favor than the preceding one. Fresh insur- 
rections are frequently taking place. Degollado 
in Guanajuato, and Uraga in die Sierra Gordo, are 
engaged in armed opposition to Comonfort'a admin- 
istration, and Vidanrri is reported to be strength- 
ening himself for some future movement, llaro v 



548 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Tamariz had conspired to overthrow the govern- 
ment and establish an empire, but he was arrested 
before his plans could be put into execution. He 
subsequently, however, escaped, and was joined by 
a strong army, with which, at latest dates, he was 
besieging Puebla. 

CENTRAL AMERICA. 

From Nicaragua we learn that General Jerez, 
the Minister of Relations, had resigned his office. 
Other ministers (Senors Selva and Ferrer) are also 
reported to have resigned, in consequence of differ- 
ences in the cabinet. It was alleged by the official 
paper, published at Granada, that the ministers in 
question were in favor of an immediate invasion of 
Honduras, for the restoration of General Cabanas to 
power in that State, in opposition to the views of the 
Executive, and hence their resignation. It was ru- 
mored that the governments of Honduras and Cos- 
ta Rica were both making preparations to attack 
Walker. The General continued to receive large 
reinforcements of Americans from California and 
the Atlantic States. 

SOUTH AMERICA. 

From Buenos Ay res we learn that affairs were 
still much unsettled, the Southern Indians continu- 
ing troublesome and dangerous. At Montevideo 
a revolution broke out on the 25th of November, 
and for four or five days that city was the scene of 
a fratricidal war. On the 28th the city was de- 
clared by the Governor to be in a state of siege. 
On the 29th order was restored, and the Revolu- 
tionists embarked for Buenos Ayres, in conformity 
with the wishes of the diplomatic agents resident 
in Montevideo, who interposed to prevent the fur- 
ther shedding of blood. This was considered a tri- 
umph for the Flores party. The citizens of foreign 

States maintained a strict neutrality. From Rio 

de Janeiro it is reported that the cholera has dis- 
appeared. Several persons of high standing have 
been imprisoned by order of the Brazilian govern- 
ment for being connected with an attempt to land 
slaves on the coast. It is alleged that an alli- 
ance has been formed between Brazil and the Con- 
federated Provinces against the government of 
Paraguay. It is said that the Brazilian envoy has 
stipulated to give the President $2,500,000 to equip 
a contingent of 8000 men, to act in concert with an 
imperial land and naval force ; and that there is a 
reserved stipulation, bywhich the Empire engages 
to guarantee the integrity of the Argentine terri- 
tory. From Chili we learn than an extra session 

of Congress had been convoked by the President, 
and that the special measures to be submitted for 
its consideration were " certain additions to the 
estimates for indispensable expenditures ; the con- 
sideration of the new civil code ; the treaty with 
the Argentine Republic, and the consular treaties 
with New Granada and Ecuador." Gold deposits, 
it was reported, had been discovered near Valpa- 
raiso, and reports were rife of discoveries of silver 

veins in Huasco. Advices from Peru have for 

some time indicated the breaking out of another 
revolution. In Lima many arrests had been made 
of persons supposed to be hostile to the existing 
government. The news from other South Amer- 
ican States presents no feature of importance. 
EUROPE. 

A grand council of war assembled in Paris on 
the 11th of January to collect and consider all pos- 
sible information in relation to the war. The Em- 
peror presided, and among the members present 
were the Prince Jerome Napoleon, the Duke of 



Cambridge, Prince Napoleon, Sir Edmund Lyons, 
Admiral Dundas, Generals La Marmora, Canrobert, 
and Bosquet, and Admiral Hamelin. The council, 
as officially announced, is not commissioned to ar- 
range the plan of the approaching campaign, but 
" to enlighten the Allied Governments as to the 
various military combinations which can be adopt- 
ed, to foresee all eventualities, and to determine 
their exigencies." The French troops lately re- 
turned from the Crimea have been publicly received 
in Paris by the Emperor. His Majesty said on the 
occasion — " I have recalled you, though the war be 
not terminated, because it is only just to relieve in 
their turn the regiments that have suffered most. 
Each will thus be able to take his share in glory, and 
the country, which maintains 600,000 soldiers, has 
an interest in maintaining in France a numerous 
and experienced army, ready to march wheresoever 
necessity may require. Preserve, then, carefully 
the habits of war, and fortify yourselves in the ex- 
perience you have already acquired." A subject 

of great excitement in Paris has been the appear- 
ance of a pamphlet under the title of Necessite oVun 
Congres pour pacijier V Europe, par un Homme d'etat, 
urging an assemblage of Representatives of all the 
European States to deliberate upon the great issues 
now pending. It was at first supposed that the 
pamphlet was written by Napoleon himself, but as 
it was violently attacked by the English, and sub- 
sequently by the French press, such an idea was 
soon dissipated. The pamphlet was believed by 

many to be of Russian origin.' The rumor is 

once more current that the Emperor Napoleon will 

assume the command of an army in the spring. 

The French official organ has announced that the 
United States Government has arranged one of the 
claims raised by the capture of certain French mer- 
chant vessels by the customs of San Francisco in 

1819 and 1850.' The treaty between Sweden and 

the Allies has at length been published. By it the 
King of Sweden engages not to cede to Russia, by 
exchange or otherwise, any portion of the territory 
belonging to the crowns of Sweden and Norway, or 
the right of any pasturage or fishing-ground ; and 
in case Russia should make a demand for such ex- 
change, cession, or right, the King of Sweden en- 
gages to communicate her proposition to France 
and England, who, on their part, bind themselves 
to provide Sweden with sufficient naval and mili- 
tary forces to resist the claims or aggressions of 
Russia. It is reported that a secret clause is ap- 
pended to this treaty, providing for Sweden taking 
the field against Russia. The war preparations 
going on in the former kingdom would seem to 
strengthen such a supposition. The Danish Gov- 
ernment, in a circular addressed to the various Eu- 
ropean States, persists in maintaining Denmark's 
neutrality, and refuses to admit that she is bound 
in any way by the treaty lately concluded between 
Sweden and the Western Powers. The Government 
had also issued invitations for a new conference on 
the Sound Dues, but subsequent advices state that 
the proposed conference had been indefinitely post- 
poned. An imperial ukase has been issued, au- 
thorizing a new Russian loan for fifty millions of 
silver roubles. The Czar has also issued a decree 
conferring on peasants the right to possess landed 
property in Poland. Personal serfdom is to be re- 
placed by annual payment. Three years are al- 
lowed for the execution of the decree. The Grand 
Council of War at St. Petersburg has closed its 
session. It has principally been engaged in con- 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



549 



sidering questions relating to the fortification of 
ihe strategic points of the empire. Recent orders 
for the removal of Russian troops from the Crimea 
to reinforce the corps of General Mouravieff and 
join the Grand Army of the Centre, hare given 
rise to the supposition that it is the intention of the 
Czar to abandon the Crimea rather than dispute 
its possession during another campaign. 
THE EASTERN WAR. 
While the rival armies of Russia and the Allies 
are inactive during the winter months, an attempt 
has again been made to reopen negotiations. Aus- 
tria, Avith the consent of England and France, has 
submitted certain peace propositions, said to be an 
ultimatum,, which was dispatched from Vienna to 
St. Petersburg in charge of Count Esterhazy. 
These propositions, five in number, are in sub- 
stance : 1. Complete abolition of the Russian Pro- 
tectorate over the Principalities ; those Provinces 
to receive an organization suited to their own con- 
dition, respecting which their population would be 
consulted ; such constitution to emanate from the 
initiative of the Sultan, with the cognizance of the 
Powers. A rectification of the Russian frontier 
with European Turkey, following the line of mount- 
ains from Chotym to Lake Sasik, completely re- 
moving the boundary backward from the Danube. 
2. Surrender of the Danube mouth to a Syndicate 
representing the European governments. 3. Neu- 
tralization of the Black Sea, by closing it against 
all armed ships, opening it to all merchant ships ; 
naval arsenals being neither constructed nor main- 
tained. A naval police to be maintained by Rus- 
sia and Turkey under a separate convention, but 
with the cognizance of the Powers. 4. New se- 
curities and guarantees for the religious and polit- 
ical rights of the Christian subjects of the Porte, to 
be granted by the Sultan on deliberation with Aus- 
tria, France, and Great Britain. Russia to be in- 
vited, after the peace, to join in these delibera- 
tions. 5. Right reserved to the belligerent Powers 
to bring forward particular conditions beyond the 
four guarantees. To these propositions Russia 
was required within a specified time to answer, 



categorically, yes or no. The envoy reached St. 
Petersburg on the 26th of December.* It was al- 
leged that his reception by the Czar was most dis- 
couraging ; a: .d all prospects of peace had been 
thus dispelled from the public mind, when an offi- 
cial announcement in the London papers that 
" Russia accepted the Allied propositions as a basis 
of negotiations," suddenly revived expectations of 
the success of Count Esterhazy's mission. Beyond 
the bare announcement of the willingness of the 
Czar to reopen negotiations, nothing was known at 
the time we close this Record. 

CHINA. 
From Hong Kong we learn that a difficulty had 
occurred in that port between the local authorities 
and the American Consul. The master of an Amer- 
ican ship, it seems, was arrested on board his own 
vessel for an assault on the carpenter, and fined 
$75. Payment was refused through the advice 
of the American Consul, on the ground that the 
court had no jurisdiction over an affair that had 
taken place on board an American ship. The 
police then proceeded to arrest the defendant, but 
he took refuge on board the United States ship of 
war Potchattan, whose captain considered the ac- 
tion of the court illegal, and consequently refused 
to deliver him up. A correspondence thereupon 
ensued between the Governor of Hong Kong and 
the Captain of the Powhattan, in relation to the 
question of jurisdiction at issue, and the former de- 
termined to lay the whole matter before his Gov- 
ernment, and await its decision in the premises. 
There is no political news of importance from 
China. From Manilla we learn that the Ameri- 
can ship Waverley, with Chinese laborers, had put 
into that port to bury her captain. While there, 
a revolt took place on board, and the mate, it is 
alleged, shot two or three Coolies, drove the rest 
below, and then went ashore to bury the captain. 
Upon his return the hatches were opened, and it 
was found that out of 450 men, 251 had died from 
suffocation. The mate and crew had been arrest- 
ed by the Spanish authorities. 



t\\mx\\ UntirE 



0. 



The History of England, by Thomas Babington 
Macaulay. (Harper and Brothers.) No work of 
the season has been received with warmer acclam- 
ations than those which, both in England and in 
this country, have welcomed the appearance of the 
new volumes of the most brilliant modern histor- 
ian. The fame of Macaulay is established upon a 
substantial foundation. The great work of his life 
will prove one of the noblest literary monuments 
of the age. With whatever faults of purpose or of 
execution it may be charged, its rare and admira- 
ble qualities will give it a pre-eminent place among 
the historical treasures of future generations, as 
well as among the most remarkable productions of 
the present age. Macaulay is deficient in the love 
of philosophical unity. He never ventures upon 
the pregnant generalizations which embody the 
results of a large experience in rigid scientific for- 
mulas. He prefers the detail of political events to 
the analysis of first principles. His imagination 
is easily seduced by the picturesque aspect which 
is often revealed beneath the darkest features of 
history. He delights in comments, rather plausi- 



ble than profound, on the course of affairs — he has 
a passion for striking contrasts and impressive sit- 
uations — his zeal for elucidation often leads him 
into prolixity. Nor are we to expect in Macaulay 
the calm and judicial impartiality which is so 
singularly characteristic of Prescott, and which, 
though forming the basis of excellence in histor- 
ical composition, is, in fact, so rarely found in the 
most renowned historians of ancient or modern 
times. Macaulay makes no pretension to sage in- 
difference of opinion. He always Avrites as a parti- 
san, often as a special pleader. Not that he con- 
ceals "br distorts facts — not that he willfully sup- 
presses important points of evidence — not that he 
indulges in deliberate or cold-blooded sophistry — 
but he shows a marvelous ingenuity in placing the 
lights and shades of his narrative in a manner to 
give the most attractive coloring to his views, 
often requiring a sturdy resistance on the part of 
the reader not to surrender his convictions to the 
enticing eloquence of the advocate. 

But, on the other hand, what historian has gath- 
ered up such ample stores of information — or ar- 



550 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ranged them in such lucid and agreeable forms — 
or given perpetual life to his pages by such a series 
of animated sketches — or more fully sounded the 
polluted depths of political intrigue — or spread 
over his narrative such vivid glimpses of the 
springs of popular action, which form the heart of 
modern history ? With such qualities as a writer, 
Macaulay must always be not only one of the most 
fascinating, but one of the most instructive of his- 
torians. In the most fervent glow of his composi- 
tion he furnishes the reader with sufficient light to 
correct the errors into which he might be betrayed 
by the vehement partisanship of the author. Mak- 
ing allowance in the present volumes for the spirit 
of unqualified eulogy in which the character and 
the administration of William III. are portrayed, it 
is impossible to gain a more lively or more com- 
plete conception of the troubled and transitional 
epoch of his reign, than is presented in their bold 
and highly-colored descriptions. 

But instead of exhausting our limited space in 
general criticisms on this great work, let us select 
a specific topic which may serve to illustrate both 
the defects and the merits to which we" have allud- 
ed. Perhaps Mr. Macaulay's account of the mas- 
sacre of the Scotch Highlanders at Glencoe may 
answer our purpose as well as any other. It is 
certainly a consummate specimen of historical nar- 
rative. The details are arranged with admirable 
skill, and no art of composition is spared to en- 
hance the effect of the description. The ingenious 
subtlety with which Mr. Macaulay attempts to 
palliate the agency of William in the transaction 
shows his power as an advocate, but it fails to re- 
lieve the character of the King of the most con- 
spicuous blot in the history of his reign. 

The chiefs of the wild Celtic tribes among the 
mountain ranges of Scotland had been distin- 
guished for their fidelity to the dethroned mon- 
arch. Nothing could chill their loyal attachment 
to the dynasty of the Stuarts. But they were sore- 
ly burdened by poverty. Their scanty resources 
were inadequate to the struggle in which they were 
engaged. Early in the year 1G91 they had an- 
nounced their need of succor from France. In an- 
swer to their request, James had furnished them 
with a small supply of meal, brandy, and tobacco, 
telling them at the same time that he could do no 
more. He was unable to spare them even so much 
as six hundred pounds, which sum would have 
been an important addition to their funds. With 
his consent, therefore, they were ready to make 
peace with the new government. Meantime it was 
decided by the English cabinet to apply twelve or 
fifteen thousand pounds to the pacitication of the 
Highlands. This was an ample amount, and to an 
inhabitant of Appin or Lochaber must have seem- 
ed almost fabulous. The distribution of this money 
was intrusted to Breadalbane, one of the princes of 
the mountains, belonging to the house of Campbell. 
He was a man utterly destitute of moral principle, 
combining the opposite vices of two different states 
of society — the barbarian pride and ferocity which 
he had learned in his castle among the hills, and 
the taint of corruption and treachery which he had 
contracted in the Council-chamber at Edinburgh. 
Inviting the Jacobite chiefs to a conference at his 
residence, he made but slow progress in the treaty. 
Every chief claimed more than his share of the En- 
glish treasure. Breadalbane was suspected of a 
purpose to cheat both the clans and the King. 
Among the chiefs most obstinate in his resistance 



to the government was Mac Ian of Glencoe, who 
dwelt in the mouth of a ravine near the southern 
shore of Lochleven. Two or three small hamlets 
in the neighborhood were inhabited by his tribe, 
making a population of not over two hundred souls. 
The locality was marked by dreariness and gloom. 
Even on the finest days of summer the landscape is 
sad and awful. The path lies along a dark and 
sullen stream, between huge precipices of frowning 
rock. Streaks of snow are often seen near the sum- 
mits, unmelted even by the sun of July. It was 
natural that the clan which inhabited this rugged 
desert should be engaged in deeds of violence and 
rapine. The Highlanders generally regarded rob- 
bery as no less honorable than the cultivation of 
the soil, and of all the Highlanders the Macdonalds 
of Glencoe were led by their peculiar position to 
engage most largely in the pursuit. Their mount- 
ain fastnesses afforded them a secure retreat ; and 
thus far they had escaped the penal retribution 
which had been attempted against them by suc- 
cessive governments. They, moreover, maintained 
a hereditary feud with the tribe of Campbell, and 
hence, when the chief of Glencoe made his appear- 
ance at the congress in Glenorchy he met with a 
cold reception. Breadalbane demanded reparation 
for the property which had been stolen by Mac 
lan's followers. Mac Ian was glad to escape from 
reproach and menace, and return in safety to his 
own glen. Wounded pride, no less than interest, 
prompted him to reject the overtures of the govern- 
ment. His example had great weight with his 
confederates. His venerable age and majestic as- 
pect added influence to his words. He declined 
making the concessions which were demanded by 
the authorities as the condition of pardon until it 
was too late. He thus placed himself in the power 
of his enemies. The news Avas received with 
malignant joy by Breadalbane, Argyle, and the 
Master of Stair, who at that time were the ruling 
spirits in the administration of Scotland. They 
formed a plan for the total extirpation of the re- 
fractory race. This w T as executed with all the hor- 
rors which military cruelty could add to private 
treachery. Availing themselves of the hospitality 
of the doomed chieftains, which was freely accord- 
ed to ties of ancient relationship, the emissaries of 
Stair completed their bloody task by general assas- 
sination. In one cabin, which had furnished lodg- 
ings to the leader of the band, ten of the Macdon- 
alds were dragged out of their beds, bound hand 
and foot, and murdered in cold blood. A boy 
twelve years old clung round the captain's legs and 
begged hard for life, but begged in vain. In an- 
other rude dwelling the head of the family was sit- 
ting with eight of his followers around the fire, 
when a volley of musketry laid all but one of them 
dead on the floor. The old chief Mac Ian was shot 
through the head while ordering refreshments to 
the murderers who, under the guise of friendship, 
had sought admission into his cabin. Two of his 
attendants were slain at the same moment. Still, 
by a series of blunders on the part of those to 
whom the execution of the infamous plan had been 
intrusted, about three-fourths of the clan of Mac 
Ian escaped the fate of their chief. Alarmed by 
the peal of musketry, the half-naked Highlanders 
fled from fifty cottages to the recesses of their path- 
less glen. Even the sons of Mac Ian contrived to 
escape from the massacre. The eldest son, who 
became the patriarch of the tribe by the death of 
his father, had scarcely left his dwelling when it 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



551 



was surrounded by twenty soldiers "with fixed bay- 
onets. Upon the arrival of a reinforcement of 
troops, upon the morning after the tragedy, they 
found the -work not even half performed. About 
thirty corpses lay in their blood on the dunghills 
before the doors. The deserted hamlets were set 
on fire ; the flocks and herds were driven away by 
the troops, and the fugitives left to incredible suf- 
ferings. Old men, women with babes in their arms, 
sank down and slept their last sleep in the snow ; 
many were fain to crawl into the nooks and holes 
of the mountains, where they were picked to the 
bone by the birds of prey that hovered over those 
grim solitudes. The number of those who perished 
by cold and weariness and want, was probably not 
less than of those who were slain by the assassins. 
After the departure of the troops, the Macdonalds 
crept out of the caverns of Glencoe, and gathering 
the scorched remains of their kindred from the 
smoking ruins, performed over them some rude anA 
melancholy rites of sepulture. A Highland tradi- 
tion relates, that the hereditary bard of the tribe 
took his seat on a rock which overhung the place 
of slaughter, and made the desert echo with his 
mournful wail over the desolate homes of his mur- 
dered brethren. 

Mr. Macaulay makes a strenuous effort to clear 
the skirts of his hero from the blood of this dark 
episode in Scottish history. It was necessary that 
William should give his consent to the destruction 
of the rebel tribes. This, according to his eulogist, 
was obtained by the duplicity of the Master of 
Stair. Mac Ian, it must be understood, had actu- 
ally made the required concessions, but at too late 
a day to entitle him to the benefit of the royal am- 
nesty. The evidence of this had been concealed 
from the King. He had probably never heard the 
Glencoe men spoken of except as banditti. He 
knew that they had failed of submission by the 
prescribed day, but not that they had subsequently 
yielded. This, however, furnishes no excuse for 
his consent to their wholesale destruction. Under 
any circumstances, the transaction involved too 
grave interests to be decided on partial representa- 
tions. But, following the authority of Burnet, Mr. 
Macaulay supposes that William might have signed 
the order for the depopulation of Glencoe without 
being aware of its import. It is even suggested 
that he had not read the order at all, as his mind 
was too full of schemes involving the fate of Eu- 
rope to feel any interest in an obscure tribe of re- 
mote mountaineers. But this argument commends 
the policy of the monarch at the expense of his 
justice. Nor does it possess even a moderate de- 
cree of plausibility. It is inconsistent with the 
previous statements of the historian in regard to 
the political importance of the Highland clans. 
He expressly declares that they bud caused much 
anxiety to the government. The civil war con- 
tinued to smoulder in their rude retreats after its 
(lame had elsewhere subsided. Several plans had 
been proposed for their pacification. The subject 
had been long and earnestly discussed. The ques- 
tion was surrounded with difficulties, and had cx- 
ercised the wisdom of eminent statesmen. It is 
impossible that William, with his comprehensive 
sagacity, his circumspect and wary habits of mind, 
and bis attention to the least significant political 
details, should have preserved such an indifference 
in regard to the state of the Highlands as is claimed 
for him by his advocate. He might have signed 
the order without actually reading it, but it is not 



easy to believe that he did so before he was fully 
cognizant of its import. 

But, allowing that he did read the order to which 
he affixed his name, Mr. Macaulay does not hesi- 
tate to exonerate him from blame. He argues that 
the command to extirpate the tribe should not be 
construed in its literal sense, but is susceptible of 
a perfectly innocent interpretation. William prob- 
ably understood by it nothing more than a direc- 
tion to break up the gang of freebooters, which in 
fact composed the clans of Glencoe — to occupy their 
place of residence by military force, and, if resist- 
ance were attempted, to put it down by a strong 
hand. Severe punishment was to be inflicted on 
those who were proved to have been guilty of great 
crimes ; those who were more used to handle the 
sword than the plow were to be sent to the army 
in the Low Country ; others were to be transported 
to the American Plantations; while those Avho re- 
mained in their native glens should give hostages 
for their good behavior. But the document, of 
which Mr. Macaulay quotes the essential portion, 
can not be made to bear such a construction except 
by the utmost license of special pleading. Its 
terms are fearfully precise and explicit. Such an 
array of exceptions and conditions as are set forth 
by Mr. Macaulay, are entirely foreign to its scope 
and bearing. They can not be reconciled either 
with its letter or its spirit. It plainly declares 
that, for the vindication of public justice, it is 
proper to extirpate the tribe of Glencoe. The pro- 
cess of extirpation is a definite one. In this order 
it meant the complete destruction of the tribe. It 
was so understood by the statesmen who framed 
it. It was so understood by the military officers 
who executed it. It was so understood by the 
King, whose signature gave it validity. It must 
be so understood by every one who reads it, unless, 
like Mr. Macaulay, he has a case to make out with 
which that construction would be at war. 

Mr. Macaulay adds, in favor of the interpreta- 
tion which he gives to the. order, that a similar 
plan had previously been the subject of much dis- 
cussion in the political circles of Edinburgh, and 
that William would have been entitled to credit if 
he had thus extirpated not only the tribe of Mac 
Ian, but every other clan of Highland marauders. 
But if the Edinburgh plan was the one submitted 
to the King, why was it not so stated in express 
words ? On such a subject ambiguity itself would 
have been a crime. Can any one believe that 
William was deluded by the terms of the order, 
and gave it the royal signature as a measure which 
blended justice with humanity? The views of 
the Master of Stair were no secret at court. They 
were openly declared and vehemently maintained. 
The extirpation at which he aimed for the free- 
booters of Glencoe was the butchery of " the whole 
damnable race." He cherished this purpose as an 
act of conscience. He had no perception of its 
great wickedness. He disguised his cruelty under 
the names of duty and justice, and very probably 
the disguise imposed upon himself. With such 
convictions, could he have desired to conceal his 
project from the King — to blind him to its true 
character — to gain his consent to an order by ' w pal- 
tering with him in a double sense," when be I e 
lieved that the order embodied a wise? and neces- 
sary policy? The Master of Stair had intimate 
access to the royal ear. The treatment of the 
Glencoe rebels was the subject of private confer- 
ence. The King must liave been fully informed 



552 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



as to the views of Stair. It is incredible that any 
argument should have been spared by the latter 
to impress his convictions on William's mind. Be- 
sides, the King was too crafty a diplomatist him- 
self, not to detect any symptom of management or 
subterfuge on the part of th£ courtier. We must 
conclude, then, that they coincided in opinion be- 
fore the signature of the order. William knew 
what he was about when he affixed his name to 
the instrument, and intended to issue the command 
for the "extirpation" of the Highlanders, without 
softening the obvious force of the term by any in- 
genious quibbles. Such a course of reasoning was 
foreign to the habits of the times. It required a 
special pleader of the present day to set it forth in 
the imposing colors of rhetoric. The "guilt and 
infamy," therefore, which belong to the execution 
of the royal order, are inevitably attached, in some 
degree, to him by whom it was issued. 

This view of the case is confirmed by the subse- 
quent conduct of William toward the Master of 
Stair. Three years after the massacre, a special 
commission was instituted to make inquiry into 
the circumstances of the transaction, which had 
now awakened a general indignation in the public 
mind. This commission reported that the slaugh- 
ter of Glencoe was a barbarous murder, of which 
the letters of the Master of Stair were the sole war- 
rant and cause. The Scottish Parliament virtual- 
ly accepted the report of the commission, but in- 
stead of demanding the trial of Stair as a mur- 
derer, left him to be dealt with by the King in a 
manner to vindicate the honor of the government. 
William could not entertain any doubt of his guilt, 
after examining the documents which were pre- 
sented during the inquiry ; but he could not per- 
suade himself to visit the instrument by which his 
own orders had been executed with plenary retri- 
bution. He merely deprived the Master of Stair 
of the office which he held in the administration 
of Scotland. Such a gross act of injustice is too 
much even for the partiality of the historian. Mac- 
aulay himself is obliged to abate his accustomed 
panegyric, and pronounce the course of the King 
as "a great fault, a fault amounting to a crime." 
In our view, it was not only a fault growing out 
of an excess of leniency, but a proof that William 
was fully cognizant of the plan of extirpation, and 
was aroused to a consciousness of its guilt by the 
indignant voice of the world. 

But though differing from Mr. Macaulay on this 
topic, as well as on various others which he dis- 
cusses with characteristic eloquence and force, we 
can not withhold our tribute of admiration from 
the vast amount of historical knowledge which he 
has embodied in these volumes. We can nowhere 
find such a mass of exact and well-digested inform- 
ation concerning the state of England during the 
few years immediately subsequent to the Revolu- 
tion of 1688. The period was marked by a polit- 
ical corruption and profligacy of the deepest dye, 
but it was prolific of salient characters and signifi- 
cant events. Under the vigorous pen of Mr. Mac- 
aulay these all assume fresh vitality and profound 
interest. They are made no less familiar to the 
reader than the prominent characters of the pres- 
ent day. The portraiture of Marlborough alone, 
as drawn in numerous passages of exquisite com- 
position, affords a subject of fruitful and instruct- 
ive contemplation, although it may well be doubt- 
ed whether the historian has not heightened the 
dark shades in the career of the greatest British 



general by too freely using the colors of political 
animosity. The edition before us is issued in a 
neat and convenient style, and retains the com- 
plete and valuable index of the original London 
copy. With this essential aid to consultation the 
labor of the reader is greatly facilitated in his com- 
prehension of the work as a whole. 

D. Appleton and Co. have published a new Ele- 
mentary Treatise on Logic, by Professor D. W. Wil- 
son, of Geneva College, comprising an analytic 
view of the principles of the science, a lucid expo- 
sition of logical methods, and a collection of prac- 
tical examples for criticism. Professor Wilson at- 
taches a higher importance to the study of logic 
than is usually accorded to it in modern systems 
of education. With Cousin he regards logic as 
the "mathematics of thought," comprehending an 
analysis of the formulas which we use in thinking, 
and of the methods which guarantee a successful ap- 
plication of these formulas. He judiciously avoids 
the wide range which has been given to the pur- 
poses of the science by many writers on the sub- 
ject, and limits the comprehension of the term, 
like Archbishop Whately, to the laws of reasoning, 
or, in other words, to the science of deductive think- 
ing. This limitation gives substantial unity to the 
volume, and places it in the rank of specific scien- 
tific treatises. The author, though evidently fa- 
miliar with the writings of his predecessors in the 
same field, makes no attempt to reproduce their 
processes, but presents the subject in an original 
point of view. He aims less at popular elucida- 
tion than at scientific rigor. A volume which so 
bristles with technicalities will scarcely attract 
general attention, but it can not fail to prove an 
efficient aid to the student in the mastery of a diffi- 
cult branch of education. 

A new edition of Professor Henry's translation 
of Cousin's Elements of Psychology is issued by 
Ivison and Phinne3 r , revised according to the au- 
thor's last corrections, and wUh additional notes 
by the translator. The American public is largely 
indebted to Professor Henry for his labors in in- 
troducing the higher European philosophy to the 
attention of intelligent scholars in this country. 
No more admirable embodiment of the conclusions 
reached by the most profound thinkers of the age 
is contained in English literature than the present 
translation of Cousin's vigorous polemic against 
the materialism of Locke. 

The History of Hernando Cortex, by John S. C. 
Abbott, gives a familiar account of the wild and 
romantic adventures of the conqueror of Mexico. 
The author follows the current of popular tradition 
on the subject, without attempting a critical ex- 
amination of authorities, and embodies the well- 
known incidents in the career of the Spanish 
commander in a graceful and pleasing narrative. 
He has evidently had the young in view in the 
composition of his work, but it is well adapted 
to interest readers of all ages by its lively de- 
scriptions and flowing diction. (Harper and Broth- 
ers.) 

Among the recent publications of Harper and 
Brothers are a new edition of Parisian Sights and 
French Principles, with several additional chapters : 
three numbers of Harper's Story Books, comprising 
Ancient History, English History, and American His- 
tory ; and a new volume of the Picture Books, in 
which Mr. Jacob Abbott shows his characteristic 
ingenuity in imparting pleasant instruction to the 
youngest class of learners. 



LITEEARY NOTICES. 



553 



It is proper to state that the article on the Japan 
Expedition in the present Number was not intended 
to precede the publication of the Government work. 
The latter, however, having been delayed unex- 
pectedly, it was found impossible to arrange the 
appearance of the article in the succession that eti- 
quette seemed to require. It may be stated that 
Commodore Perry is not in any manner responsible 
for the opinions of the article, nor, in fact, was he 
cognizant of its intended appearance. 



The enormous sale of Macaulay's History of En- 
gland appears to have thrown all other recent pub- 
lications in London entirely in the shade. The 
first edition of the commencing volumes was 5000, 
and the first edition of the volumes now placed be- 
fore the public is stated to be not less than 35,000. 
This is principally for England. In this country 
the circulation will be much more extensive. The 
work has been reprinted in New York, by Messrs. 
Harper and Brothers, from early sheets, for which 
they paid £300 to the author ; and " we happen to 
know" (as Tom Hill would say) that they sold as 
many as 73,000 volumes, in the first ten days, of 
their three distinct editions. The sum paid by the 
London publishers to the author for the volumes 
now published is said to be £16,000. 

Among the forthcoming works are the Rev. 
Alexander Dyce's "Journal of Conversations with 
Rogers the Poet;" a new volume of "Tales and 
Irish Sketches," by Mrs. S. C. Hall; "The Lump 
of Gold," a poem, by Charles Mackay, editor of 
the Illustrated London Netcs; "Memorials of the 
Present Century, Social, Literary, and Political," 
by Mrs. Gore, the novelist ; and the " Kaffir Jour- 
nal" of Sir George Cathcart, formerly Governor of 
the Cape of Good Hope, who ended the Kaffir war, 
and fell, last year, before Sebastopol. A report 
that Mr. Layard had a new work on Assyrian An- 
tiquities nearly ready, has been contradicted on 
authority. 

Although the existing periodicals in England 
have confessedly declined, of late years, from their 
high and "palmy state," we find several new ones 
in the field at the commencement of 185G. These 
are The Monthly Review of Literature, Science, Art; 
The Idler, which promises to be " cheap, not as dust 
is cheap, but as flowers are," and numbers among 
its principal contributors the leading dramatic 
critics and writers of London ; The Train, which 
appears to rely on its low price as much as its 
clever articles ; and the Oxford and Cambridge 
Magazine, to be supported by the rising talent of 
the rival universities. The copyright of the Dub- 
lin University Magazine has been purchased by a 
London house, but the work will continue to be 
published in Dublin, and its distinctive Irish char- 
acter will be preserved. 

George Sand, whose new comedy, " LTrresolu," 
lias been accepted (on a majority of one) by the 
conducting committee of the Theatre Francais, is 
about publishing an extensive work, of an original 
character, in conjunction with M. Paulin Limayrac. 
The first part, in two volumes, to be called "Les 
Amants Celebres," will be devoted to Adam and 
Eve, and succeeding volumes will treat of cele- 
brated lovers of fancy and fact, tradition and his- 
tory, ancient and modern times. The thirteenth 
volume of M. Thiers'a " Consulate and Empire" is 
in the press. Some hitherto unpublished fragments 
of Montaigne, containing that brilliant essayist's 
opinion of Caesar and his Commentaries; have been 



printed in Paris — but only one hundred copies 
struck off". M. Nestor Roqueplan, ex-Director of 
the Grand Opera at Paris, has just published a 
chatty book of gossiping recollections called "Les 
Coulisses de l'Opera." Victor Cousin has resumed 
his Sketches of Celebrated French Women during 
the 17th Century. 

Death has again been busy with men of letters. 
Adam Mickiewitz, the Polish poet, has died at Con- 
stantinople. Michael Vorosmorsy, whose " Sz6- 
rat," or "Appeal," has been called the Hungarian 
Marseillaise, and was long sung at festive and pa- 
triotic gatherings in Hungary, and Josiah Conder, 
author of a poem entitled " The Star of the East," 
and editor of the Eclectic Review from 1814 to 1837, 
have also been called away. To this list is to be 
added the name of Samuel Rogers, the Nestor of 
British authors. 

Born, on the 30th July, 1763, Samuel Rogers 
(who died on December 18, 1855) had entered his 
ninety-third year. Born to large wealth, he suc- 
ceeded his father, a banker in London, and though 
his name remained as head of the firm (which con- 
tinues to stand high in the monetary world), did 
not apply himself to business. At an early age, as 
was the fashion of the time, he went to foreign 
countries to obtain a knowledge of art, languages, 
and manners. In 1786, being then twenty-three 
years old, he produced his " Ode to Superstition," 
treating Cadell, who published it, in a very bank- 
erly mode, by sending him the manuscript and a 
check for £500 to defray the cost of bringing it. 
before the public. Six years later appeared his 
" Pleasures of Memory" — followed, in 1795, by an 
epilogue spoken by Mrs. Siddons on her benefit, 
and, in 1798, by his " Epistle to a Friend." By 
this time, he had made acquaintance with Mr. Fox, 
leader of the Whigs, and henceforth his politics 
were liberal. Twenty years passed before Mr. 
Rogers again produced a poem. " The Vision of 
Columbus," though more spirited than any of his 
former writings, was too fragmental, and neither 
"Jacqueline" nor "Human Life" raised his repu- 
tation. The first part of " Italy," which appeared 
some years later, excited little interest. The con- 
clusion, not published until after Byron's death, 
contained allusions to the meeting of the two poets 
in Italy, well-written and well-timed. In 1830-34, 
Rogers issued all of his poems, corrected and per- 
haps enfeebled by excess of revision, with illustra- 
tions by Turner, Stothard, and others. On this he 
expended £10,000, but the sale of the volumes more 
than repaid the outlay. For the last thirty years 
Rogers had not published any thing. He has left 
a very curious Diary, parts of which he was fond 
of reading to his visitors. It is full of anecdotes 
of his contemporaries, and will probably be pub- 
lished. Mr. Rogers was never married. His life 
was passed in London ; and in his house in St. 
James's Place (looking into the Park), the leading 
wits, literati, and politicians of his time were in 
the habit of meeting. He was fond of Americans, 
and almost invariably had one or two at his table 
when he extended his breakfast hospitality on 
Tuesdays. His house, though small, was a sort of 
cabinet of art and vertu. Three of his best paint- 
ings (by Titian, Gorgione, and Guido) he bequeath- 
ed to the National Gallery of England. He re- 
tained most of his intellectual faculties to the last. 
In conversation he was brilliant and sarcastic. Tin- 
man who delighted in saying bitter things was fond 
also of doing kind deeds. 



dMtnr'B €Mt 



DOMESTIC SOCIETY IN OUR COUNTRY. 
— The numerous articles which were called 
forth in the newspapers and magazines of the Unit- 
ed States by the exposure of the Free-Love Asso- 
ciation of New York City, were calculated to ar- 
rest the attention of every thoughtful man. The 
moral of these sharp and severe criticisms was 
proof enough that such abominable principles, in 
league with the most iniquitous passions, could 
find no favor with our people. Men wrote and 
spoke as if this tyranny of lust were the most 
odious tyranny that could threaten them, and they 
wisely thought that the presence of such an evil, 
even in an incipient form, was calculated to alarm 
all who looked on the domestic constitution as the 
security of all virtue and the foundation of all ex- 
cellence. It was easy to see that there was no pro- 
fessional parade of editorial pens on this subject. 
The deep and earnest feeling, that can not be mis- 
taken — that pharisaical sanctimoniousness can 
not counterfeit — was every where apparent. It 
was not a conventional homage to an accepted and 
honored institution, because it is the fashion to 
speak reverently of Marriage, but a truthful con- 
viction, that uttered its profound hostility to a 
cheat, a lie, a social infamy of the meanest, Ioav- 
est, blackest sort. Whatever shortcomings may 
be charged on the American Press, it came up, in 
this instance, to the standard of duty. It showed 
itself a watchful guardian of the great interests of 
society, and fairly won the hearty tribute of all 
good and true men. The lesson should not be for- 
gotten. Vice may hope for some success so long as 
it can keep its ancient friendship with secrecy and 
darkness. In this way, the race of certain beasts 
of prey, fitted to ravage and destroy, has been per- 
petuated. The instinct of night has preserved 
them from extirpation, and they have never failed 
to value that to which they have owed so much. 
The advocates of a bestial immorality ought, at 
least, to be beasts enough to know the difference 
between sunshine and midnight. 

There is, we repeat, a most instructive moral in 
the history of this exposure. It has aroused men 
to recall some old-fashioned ideas that the mad 
spirit of innovation was bent on exterminating. 
They have taken a new look at these ancient and 
hereditary sentiments, and fervently thanked God 
that they had been trained to prize them as the 
elements of all domestic sanctity. While it has 
demonstrated that no institution, however vener- 
able by age or hallowed by usage, can escape the 
assaults of a false philosophy and a heathenish 
morality, it has also proved that some grand 
truths have found a home in the shelter of our in- 
tuitions, and that no sophistry and no temptations 
are sufficiently strong to drive them from this safe 
retreat. It is well for men to have their thoughts 
turned in this direction. Home is the gi*eat power 
that rules the civilized man, and as it is Marriage 
that makes home all that it is, it can scarcely be 
possible for us to attach too much importance to its 
position in the economy of nature and Providence. 
One of the most fortunate things in our condition 
as a free, self-governed people, is the prominence 
that is given to this beautiful sentiment of home. 
The same circumstances that lay such an emphasis 
on the possession of liberty, exalt the charms of 



home, and stimulate men to seek its calm and ele- 
vating pleasures. More than this, they put a 
home within his reach. A country*like ours en- 
courages the domestic affections ; for here industry 
is sure of its rewards ; toil can easily find a place 
to rest its weary limbs, and the tranquil enjoy- 
ments of the fireside are open to all who desire to 
experience them. The influence of this fact is be- 
yond calculation. It is the main secret of our 
prosperity. It has done more to expand the terri- 
tory, develop the resources, and enrich the wealth 
of our nation than any thing else. Not only may 
the humblest citizen secure his own home, but, if 
he has ordinary tact and enterprise, he may create 
a home that will satisfy his highest ambition. It 
may become an abode of comfort, and, perchance, 
of luxury, where Literature, Taste, Art, and Ele- 
gance may minister to his finer tastes and adorn 
the hours that cheer his fireside. Political econ- 
omy computes not the productive power of this 
sentiment in its statistical tables, and yet all its 
skill and science can not accomplish for Govern- 
ment what this single impulse is doing in the an- 
nals of everyday life. Every home becomes not 
only an argument for the protection of Govern- 
ment, but it contributes its proportion to the gen- 
eral wealth of the land. It has the germ of the 
factory, the store, the exchange. It originates the 
laws of trade and commerce, and multiplies its 
simple ideas in all the myriad shapes of this busy 
world. The facility, therefore, with which a home 
may here be obtained is one of the most favorable 
circumstances of our condition. It constitutes a 
marked feature of our civilization, and places man, 
both in his individual character and social rela- 
tions, on the best possible foundation for true and 
thorough progress. The most of men never recur 
to philosophical reasons as the warrant for their 
principles or the support of their actions. Nor is 
this necessary, for their own native instincts an- 
ticipate the deductions of logic, and render them 
practically wise in the genuine interests of human 
life. And yet philosophy, as it examines the do- 
mestic laws of our nature, and traces their connec- 
tion with the order of Providence in this new world 
of Western Life, can not fail to be struck with the 
special significance that is here stamped on the 
economy of the household, and the striking part 
it is destined to act in the magnificent future of 
American Freedom. 

If the sentiment of home, as a sentiment of the 
Anglo-American heart, is the main-spring of our 
industry and enterprise, it is equally the strong 
conservative power of the country. It binds us to 
our institutions. It establishes a partnership be- 
tween every man who has a home, or hopes to have 
one, and the Government. It teaches him to be a 
friend to law and authority. Magnify as we may 
all other conservative agencies, it is the strength 
and sanctity of this home-feeling that impart force 
to their operation. Patriotism would be a feeble 
passion ; wealth would lose much of its value as a 
means of promoting the stability of institutions ; 
and brotherhood would vanish as a sickly dream, 
but for its vital presence. The lowliest cottage 
that stands in a hidden valley contains an unre- 
cognized statesmanship that is working, in holy 
union with a heavenly law, to perpetuate the birth- 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



right of liberty. Its humble toil, its daily inter- 
coarse of love, its morning and evening prayers, 
are steadily and surely creating a moral grandeur 
that is far mightier than physical defenses, and far 
more assimilative than political doctrines. It is 
not, therefore, what home is simply in itself as a 
domestic economy, but home as a national strength, 
that "\ve are to study its laws and estimate its rela- 
tions. Our firm conviction is, that this sentiment 
ought to occupy a higher position here than in any 
other country, and that it is the plan of Providence 
for it to produce more important results in the 
career of man, than under any other circumstances 
by which it is surrounded. In brief, be it said, 
that the legitimate action of our institutions is to 
place the family in the foreground of human inter- 
ests, and to intensify its agency to the utmost 
scope of its capacity for social and philanthropic 
influence. Nowhere in the world ought there to 
be such homes as in the United States, because no- 
where is there such an opportunity, on so broad 
and munificent a scale, to collect the elements of 
domestic power and distribute them through all 
the channels of personal and relative activity. 

The men and the women of our country are or- 
dinarily left free in the choice of their connections 
for life. ]So one ran doubt that a larger propor- 
tion of persons marry in the United States, under 
the simple impulse of affection, than in any other 
community. There arc comparatively few tempta- 
tions to marriage for the sake of position and in- 
fluence. Families may have a certain sort of pres- 
tige, and among themselves the pride of hereditary 
renown may be valued, but outside of their own 
circle it commands no homage. It does not weigh 
an atom in the popular scale. The nearest relative 
of Hancock, Adams, Jackson, borrows nothing 
from his ancestry. Had George "Washington left 
a line of descendants, they would have derived no 
advantage from the splendor of his name. Our 
leading families have made no mark either in our 
social or political history, nor do they to-day en- 
joy, as such, any degree of special consideration. 
Hence marriage connections for the purpose of 
gaining distinction or perpetuating celebrity are 
so rare as to attract no attention. If the natural 
affinities of taste and affection are disturbed, it is 
certainly not the effect of our social organization. 
Men and women may sometimes be base enough to 
marry from secondary and selfish motives, but this 
is not the fault of society. The prevailing rule is 
a domestic union, founded on attachment. Com- 
mon sense and ardent feelings usually determine 
the choice of companionship. Not even does im- 
agination lend more than a subdued lustre to the 
hours of courtship and the bridal scene. Romance 
has but a Blight charm for us. Our real life finds 
it almost impossible to domesticate those excite- 
ments of the fancy that give to marriage an air of 
chivalric achievement ; and our novels, where they 
undertake to appeal to such sentiments, have in- 
stantly Ho fly to a foreign imagery and a pre-dem- 
ocraiic period. Both race and country combine 
with us to reivhr marriage an act of affection ; and 
where Buch is the fact, human nature is strong 
enough to do without fictitious impulses. A man 
or a woman who is heartily in love is far in ad- 
vance of dainty poets and picturesque DOVi 
There is something much more tender and winning 
than romance — a life beyond the imagination — a 
new world barred to all save the captives of this 
luxurious joy. It is a divine prelude to the most 



glorious of human experiences, that is too self-sat- 
isfying for the mimic pantomime of fiction. And 
hence our good old Saxon blood takes marriage 
with God's message in it, and we come to our fire- 
side to find the awaiting beatitudes of peace and 
happiness. A practical people like ourselves are 
naturally impelled to contemplate marriage in this 
light, and we instinctively seek its blessings as a 
compensation for the " Avear and tear" of outward 
life. The mere fact that we are a practical people, 
tends to preserve us, on the one hand, from imag- 
inative sentimentality, and on the other, from those 
grosser amusements which the idleness and brutal- 
ity of less vigorous races have always indulged. 
There is an intimate connection between the pur- 
suits of a country and its domestic habits, and it 
will be seen by every one examining this subject, 
that a nation of enterprising industry, in which 
mind and muscle are taxed to their utmost limit, 
is compelled to depend on the calm and renovating 
power of home-life. But for this great restorative, 
the working force of our people would be soon ex- 
hausted. It is the fireside, with its soothing tran- 
quillity ; the family table and its glad companion- 
ship; the evening hours and their genial inspira- 
tion, that once, at least, in twenty-four hours renew 
the souls of men and gird their loins afresh for the 
struggle of business. If, therefore, we take only a 
commercial view of the value of home, it will ap- 
pear that the foundations of domestic life are deeply 
laid in the relations of business as well as in the 
organic structure of human nature ; and conse- 
quently that the more active and industrious a 
community may be, the more essential is home to 
the development and direction of its enterprise. 
Apart, then, from the native instinct of domestic 
life which a Christian civilization cultivates, the 
mighty interests of trade and commerce contribute 
to enhance and discipline its operations. Home is 
intensified into an urgent want. The farmer as a 
farmer, the merchant as a merchant, no less than 
the man as a man, needs its supporting strength. 
It is indispensable to all genuine vitality of nerve 
and limb ; and hence, stimulated both by his nature 
and circumstances to seek a home as the true com- 
plement of himself, he will find it the best earthly 
instrument of Providence to call out his energies, 
(rain his virtues, secure his happiness, and prolong 
his existence. Now it would be arrogance to claim 
that these are American ideas of domestic life. 
But no one can deny that these ideas ought to have, 
and must have a prominence, a force, a meaning 
here that arc not common elsewhere. The reason 
is obvious. Social liberty, as the necessary par- 
allelism of political liberty, is universal. It is a 
liberty from false restrictions. It is a liberty that 
circumstances may modify but can not destroy. 
Any man who has a heart can have a home. r l he 
rewards of industry are sufficiently ample to en- 
able, him to gratify his taste and affei ! '.< ns in the 
choice of a wife. Whatever position is attainable 
by toil and worth is open to his and iti< n. '1 here 
is an abundance around him, out of which he can 
carve the goodly fortunes of home. The most 
magnificent residences of the city are an adver- 
tisement of what his enterprise nay accomplish, 
and the eloquent lessons of their architecture tell 
him what his own unaided hands may rear. Ev- 
ery thing that surrounds him teachi • the humblest 
working-man that lie can reach the front rank of 
society and enjoy the cordial recognition of his fel- 
lows. There is a social dignitv for his wife and 



55 G 



BARTER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



children more noble than blood, and more valuable 
than caste; and industry, economy, intelligence, 
and virtue can secure its honors and privileges. 
All of us know that this exuberance of opportunity 
is frequently perverted. But its uses are much 
greater than its abuses. Its tremendous agency 
in encouraging, vivifying, and enlarging the do- 
mestic sentiment of the country is beyond appreci- 
ation, and its service to the wealth, purity, and 
growth of our community is far more extensive 
than its injury. One thing it has effected, viz. : 
it has grafted the mighty energy of American life on 
the domestic sentiment, and made our countrymen 
more ambitious to have social distinction than any 
other position. This is not an unmixed good, but 
nevertheless it is a good. Men must have some- 
thing to live for in this world as well as in the 
world to come ; there must be prizes for the senses, 
the intellect, the heart, no less than for the faith 
and hope of our higher nature ; and it is better, 
vastly better, that our restless activity, our eager 
thrift, our boundless enterprise should spring out 
of a social impulse and covet a social gratification, 
than expend themselves, as they otherwise would, 
in military passions and political contests. Talk 
as we may, this very earnestness to advance our 
personal interests — this daily strife that goads such 
a multitude of men to elevate their domestic con- 
dition — is the safety-valve of Anglo-American life. 
It is this engrossing excitement that keeps down 
our fighting, bull-dog propensities. It is this that 
tempers our party-rage, and mollifies our sectional 
animosities. It is this that inspires us, in part, to 
value education and the other arts of a well-bred 
manhood. And, therefore, we trace the hand of 
God in this extraordinary development of the do- 
mestic sentiment of our country, and believe that 
He is using it, not only to illustrate the inherent 
beauty and utility of this sacred law in its connec- 
tions with the household, but likewise to perpetu- 
ate and exalt the agency of Republican institu- 
tions. 

Other causes are co-operating in the United 
States to encourage the growth and activity of the 
domestic sentiment. Witnin a few years past 
there has been less of a disposition to resort to the 
old, popular forms of amusement. The tendency 
of general taste and culture has been in the direc- 
tion of such relaxations as the family could partici- 
pate in and enjoy. The more exclusive and select 
kinds of entertainment, that appealed to fashion- 
able pride, have declined, and diversions, music, 
and lectures for the many have multiplied in num- 
ber as well as increased in importance. The pat- 
ronage that supports this extensive system of in- 
struction and pleasure is the patronage of the fam- 
ily. It is the great domestic heart of the coun- 
try that now seeks these recreations, and hence 
they are operating so successfully to socialize 
the fireside by the addition of new sources of joy. 
Moreover, a modern home is often able to sup- 
ply, through itself, the most interesting of these 
pleasures. How many homes in this land are now 
furnished with those means of tasteful gratification 
that formerly had to be sought in public ! A com- 
paratively small proportion of families may pos- 
sess wealth and refinement sufficient to have statu- 
ary and paintings, but notwithstanding, a constant 
movement is discernible in this direction, and a 
considerable part of our people are learning to re- 
gard pianos, books, engravings, as a necessary out- 
fit in a dwelling. American homes are daily be- 



coming fuller representatives of art and beauty. 
The scope of home — its inward dominion — is ex- 
panding and private munificence is every where 
intrenching on ground that we used to think was 
the property of the public. A great work of art is 
hardly announced before the tidings follow that 
it has been sold to enrich a private gallery. Such 
examples of splendid opulence are necessarily rare, 
but they are tokens of a progressive mind in our 
country, that magnifies the attractions of home. 
And then, newspapers and literature, what a house- 
hold power have they attained ! What materials 
they contribute to the conversation of the table 
and the family fireside ! It is scarcely possible for 
us to measure the extent of that change, which the 
modern press, in this particular, has introduced. 
The swift couriers that fly over sea and land ; the 
telescopic eyes, that search all climes ; the mighty 
steam-press issuing its daily bulletins of thought, 
word, and deed ; the reported cloud, wind, tempest 
of the air ; the reported events and movements of 
the world are not for merchants and statesmen 
alone. The eyes of the domestic groups that fill 
the city and the country await them. The young 
children discuss them, and the aged grandfather 
replenishes his stock of chat out of their ready re- 
sources. The whole world is thus brought to the 
hearth-stone, and home is converted into a recepta- 
cle for the intellect, trade, impulse, and advance- 
ment of the entire race. Such characteristics of 
American homes give a wonderful significancj^ to 
their position and influence. They forcibly illus- 
trate the fact, that the educating agencies of our 
life are accumulating more and more within the 
circle of domestic power, and that from hence are 
to issue forth the master-thoughts and the master- 
passions w r hich are to sway the destinies of our 
people. 

Another point should be considered. Any esti- 
mate of the domestic prospects of a community 
must be radically defective that fails to take cog- 
nizance of the interest evinced in children. It is 
just here that the domestic sentiment of our coun- 
try show r s one of its most beautiful features. No- 
where on this earth is there such a general and 
generous sympathy cherished for children. And 
how numerous and. diversified the forms which it 
assumes ! A ministry for childhood fills the land. 
It is a ministry of Literature — thinking, creating, 
printing, diffusing thousands of special volumes for 
its hand and heart. It is a ministry of Charity — 
establishing Five Points' missions, and building 
hospitals for orphan loneliness. It is a ministry 
of Government — providing the means of gratuitous 
education, and inviting all to partake of its ben- 
efits. It is a ministry of Piety — turning from the 
toil of the week to the labors of the Sabbath, and 
sheltering these little lambs in the pastures of the 
Great Shepherd. There can not be a more touch- 
ing expression of domestic heart than this, nor is 
there one more precious to Heaven. Wherever 
such scenes are unfolded, the prophetic benedic- 
tion of Christ, as childhood lay in his arms and 
caught his smile, is fulfilled. But there is yet an- 
other aspect in which this deep interest in children 
may be contemplated. It acts quite as powerfully 
on the maturing and adult mind of the country a? 
on its immediate objects. It is a living inspiration 
of domestic sentiments. For us, these institutions 
have a voice and an example. They keep fresh and 
buoyant the childhood of our own spirits. They 
strengthen our reverence for home ; they bless our 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



557 



firesides, and lift their flames higher toward heav- 
en. The bright images of home that flash out 
from the eyes of happy children imprint them- 
selves on our hearts, and we return to the world 
with nobler impulses and for better deeds. There 
are about eight millions of children in our country 
under fifteen years of age ; and if one brings this 
vast mass before him, and connects with it the stu- 
pendous moral and intellectual machinery acting 
on it, and considers also that, in its turn, it is af- 
fecting the spirit and sympathies of the community 
through the tenderest ties of our nature, what an 
aggregate of power presents itself to us! The 
care of children is the most exalted discipline of 
human life, and forming, as they do, the great 
focus in which the warm rays of wedded love meet 
and grow warmer, they raise affection to its holiest 
height on earth. Public opinion and public vir- 
tue need the same kind of training. They are half 
dead where the children make no element of public 
regard. We do not believe that a nation can ever 
have a mighty heart if it cherish no solicitude, and 
exercise no concern in behalf of the most moment- 
ous trust which God has laid on its responsibility. 
And hence we feel assured that, among the effect- 
ive means which are educating the American peo- 
ple in the experience and practice of domestic sen- 
timents, a prominent place is to be assigned to the 
relation that children sustain to the benevolence 
of the country. 

But what were all this landscape of home with- 
out the charm of Woman, its central figure ? The 
history of her creation contents itself with showing 
that she was made of man and for man. A deep 
sleep fell upon Adam, and he was awakened to find 
his help-mate, the Eve of prospective life. May 
not poetry see a symbol in that sleep ? Whether 
so or not, a deep sleep long held the senses and the 
souls of men, until Christianity had prepared them 
to start from their carnal slumbers, and behold the 
restored ideal of the Christian woman. Thanks to 
Heaven the vision has been given us ! The faded 
form of Paradise has not been returned, for then 
our hearts would sadden in the hopelessness of 
unattainable companionship ; nor yet, indeed, has 
saintliness shrouded itself within her, and set her 
apart for distant admiration. Christianity has 
brought her back to the heart of man, and devoted 
her to the associations of his purest thoughts and 
best affections. Where Christianity is unknown, 
who sees her side by side with him, breathing the 
same atmosphere, sharing the same joys and chas- 
tened by the same sorrows, walking in the same re- 
deeming path, and looking upward to the hasten- 
ing heritage of the same beatitudes ? Let any one 
compare Avoman as she appears in the brightest 
page of classical literature, with woman as she is 
honored and loved in the teachings of Jesus Christ, 
and he will easily see the vast difference between 
them. The world has but imperfectly learned the 
lesson that Christ taught on the character, office, 
and glory of the Christian woman. But still this 
may be truthfully and gladly said : the grand idea 
has been steadily coming forth into a more lumin- 
ous position, and modern civilization has its thought 
and affection directed toward its advancing efi'ul- 
genoe. 

When we picture to ourselves the simple, beau- 
tiful, touching ideal of woman as Christianity an- 
nounces it — the inspiring help-mat e of a redeemed 
manhood — the queenly ornament of a kingly race 
— and then turn to what she is even in her best 
Vol. XLL— No. 70.— N n 



estate, in the realms of Christendom, the unreal- 
ized fulfillment is mournfully oppressive. The 
saddest feature of it is, that men know not the 
heart that God has given them for woman. They 
are but partially conscious of their capacity to leve. 
Not even does imagination, so competent to evoke 
a well-defined world from the dim nebulous masses 
of the firmament, catch more than the outline. 
The shadows of earth have fallen on the fair orb, 
and it moves before us in eclipse. Apart from the 
testimony of Revelation, we have painful evidence 
of the fact, that our loss of Divine love has been 
followed by a diminution of power in those sensi- 
bilities to which the loveliness, purity, and worth 
of woman appeal. But yet, even now, if men cul- 
tivated the sentiment which draws them to the 
other sex, and nourished it with the thought and 
emotion which are needful for its growth, how soon 
would woman be appreciated in conformity with 
the Divine will ! It is the heart that makes the 
clear, strong eye ; and if that heart were but true 
to its Heavenly Father, it would not fail to recog- 
nize her beauty and excellence. She has a char- 
acter, an office, a sphere all her own, and God has 
anointed her for a special work. Christianity has 
defined her place and sanctified her service. Juda- 
ism instituted the family, but Christianity perfect- 
ed its idea by raising woman to her proper attitude. 
The progress of this Christian sentiment has been 
slow, and yet it is executing its task by subordin- 
ating the world to its authority. 

If, however, the position of woman be consider- 
ed relatively ; if we take the general feeling of our 
public mind toward her, and measure it in connec- 
tion with our realization of other moral and social 
facts as they stand related to Christianity, we 
think it must be obvious that we are not without 
reason for thankfulness and hope. Our conception 
of what she is, and our practical observance of the 
hallowed code of conduct that God has written for 
our obedience, are far below the just standard. 
Nevertheless, it may be affirmed that the expression 
of this sentiment in our civilization is emphatic. 
She is a great moral and social power in our coun- 
try. No people defer more to her than ourselves. 
She gives law to our households, and even outside 
of that she reigns in many things supreme. No 
civilized man is so helpless and dependent in cer- 
tain respects as an American gentleman ; and the 
reason is obvious : our wives do our thinking in 
these matters, and we are perfectly content to fol- 
low their lead. A large part of our social system 
is under their control, and they legislate for our 
dress, etiquette, and manners without the fear of a 
veto. Take a number of our most thriving me- 
chanical trades, and any workman will tell you 
that he succeeds by pleasing women. The same 
fact holds good with regard to most of our retail 
merchants. As for several of the learned 'profes- 
sions, they are at the mercy of our women. A doc- 
tor's diploma is worthless until they sign i(, and 
the popularity of the minister often hangs on their 
favor. It is, indeed, the subtlest, strongest, and 
most pervasive influence in our land, and, in a 
thousand shapes and forms, it moulds our judg- 
ments, directs our words, and determines our ac- 
tions without our consciousness of its mighty pres- 
ence. 

Illustrations of this truth are abundant. Look 
for a moment at one of them. The recent unpre- 
cedented growth of readers in our country is one 
of the significant signs of the times. Wo are lit- 



558 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



earally becoming a nation of readers. The publish- 
ing houses of the United States are frequently un- 
able to supply the demand for books. They cry 
out for something faster than steam, and swifter 
than expresses. Our readers are not confined to 
one class, distinguished by opulence and leisure, 
but they are found among all classes that enjoy 
any degree of easy circumstances. The diffusion 
of educational advantages has introduced a new 
condition of things, and converted the million 
into the patrons of literature. The special feature 
of this remarkable state of intellectual activity is 
the prominence of our women. They are the great 
customers at the book-stores, and of any popular 
work there are ten readers among the women for 
one among the men. We have often had an op- 
portunity of verifying this fact, and hence the con- 
viction in our mind that American women are the 
main agency in this increased use of books. Nor 
is this all. Viewed as a class, they are more cul- 
tivated than our sex, and they are impressing 
themselves more fully and successfully on the spir- 
it of the age in all its better characteristics. The 
education of American women has not its external 
scope and exercise to the same extent that it should 
have, but there is this fortunate circumstance con- 
nected with it, viz., a cheap press and a substan- 
tial literature afford them means of enjoyment as 
well as of intellectual nutriment. 

There is another noticeable fact bearing on the 
position of American women, and it is — the unusu- 
ally large proportion of them in our middle classes 
who are refined and ennobled by the influence of 
personal piety. The extreme upper class, as it is 
indulgingly called, is not remarkable either for its 
benevolence or religion. Fashion has its sway 
over these persons ; and wherever this is the case, 
fashion will be sure to do its work. A woman who 
has no religious principle, is compelled to tax her 
senses to the uttermost for pleasure, and within the 
range that virtue and propriety allow, she will be 
sure to make the outward world of show and sound 
minister to her gratification. Fine carpets, splen- 
did upholstery, gaudy walls, and French mirrors, 
image her forth to shallow admirers in the com- 
pleteness of her artificial character, while gay liv- 
eries and dashing turn-outs repeat her thoughts and 
aims to the staring crowds of the street. Down 
to their level she straightway falls — a creature of 
perfumery and paint — moral enough for the world's 
standard, but, for all spiritual significance, hardly 
worthy of a comparison with the cold statuary 
that tells a sculptor's dream. Such women, how- 
ever, are rare. Fashion lives on exclusiveness, 
and as this is the most difficult of all attainments 
in our democratic land, the select circle of its de- 
votees have to put up with a most meagre minor- 
ity. The great mass of our women are in the mid- 
dle classes, and the preponderating portion of them 
are true to Avomanly instincts in their genuine ap- 
preciation of goodness. Out of these classes has 
come a noble host of our best educators, philan- 
thropists, and writers — quiet, unobtrusive, pure- 
hearted women, who could grapple with ignorance, 
destitution, and wretchedness, and yet be women. 
Itis this sincere veneration for Christianity that con- 
stitutes one of the chief charms of American women ; 
and if it were possible to analyze that prodigious 
influence which they are exerting, it would be seen 
that the religious sentiment is one of its main ele- 
ments. How could it be otherwise? The time 
has past for woman to exercise her power over man 



by appealing to his imagination. She is no more 
a romantic creature. She has abandoned the com- 
pany of fairies, and grown too wise to trust to 
the deceitful arts of magic. Christian^, acting 
through the structure of modern society, has up- 
lifted the genuine sensibilities of human nature, 
and thereby dispelled the fictitious emotions which 
chivalry and poetry combined to produce. Wo- 
manhood now speaks to the heart of man, yearning 
for communion with the realities of beauty and ex- 
cellence, and seeking substantial strength in its 
blessedness. And in harmony with this law, the 
religious sentiment must inspire woman, if she ex- 
pect to be truly appreciated and devotedly loved. 
It is not woman that troubadors sung and knights 
worshiped, but the home-Avoman — the gentle, ten- 
der, morally impassioned woman of the Christian 
bridal and the Christian fireside, that men now 
admire and cherish. And toward this ideal Amer- 
ican mind is moving. Deriving its original im- 
pulse from the Saxon heart, it has organized insti- 
tutions, and established usages, forms, and man- 
ners that tend to maintain woman in this high 
position, and draw holy affections and generous 
services to her, as the " type and tabernacle of 
love." 



(Kftitor'fl €m\\ $>\m. 

OUR FOREIGN GOSSIP. 

¥E take up our foreign chit-chat where w r e left 
it a month ago — snow on the roofs of the 
Paris houses, and witty dowagers (in view of the 
dog-tax) christening their puppies Dix Francs. So 
many have been the slaughtered dogs through the 
country districts, that in certain townships the au- 
thorities have been compelled to prescribe a form 
of burial for the brutes, that the air might escape 
the taint of their corruption. 

The last month chronicled the names of many 
French dead, and we give a sombre turn to our first 
leaf now, by adding mention of the death of one of 
the most popular song-writers of France, M. Berat. 
He was a native and resident of Rouen, in Nor- 
mandy, and his most popular chanson bears this 
refrain : 

" J'irai revoir ma Normandie !" 

A pretty thing it is, and has warmed many a 
Norman heart estray. They tell a story of a young 
physician and enthusiastic naturalist, who, years 
ago, in Chili, on the South American shores, wan- 
dered into the mountains, with only a Chilian boy 
for guide. Under the summer heats the boy grew 
fevered, and died. The naturalist was alone in the 
wilderness, with no knowledge of its paths or in- 
habitants. Fever and fatigue overcame him, and, 
after struggling manfully but vainly, he laid him- 
self down under an oak to die. As the mists of a 
fevered and delirious sleep settled ion him, and his 
last hopes faded, there came to his ear, like a breath 
of home, the refrain : 

"J'irai revoir ma Normandie 1" 
The song and voice lightened his heart once more ; 
he found strength to rise, to totter forward, to cry 
out. Friendly hands aided him ; and he lived to 
come again to France, and to thank M. Frederic 
Berat for the song that saved him. The story Avill 
hang like a wreath of immortelles (which they sell 
for sixpence) on the head-stone of the songster. 

There is another brave dash of sentiment in the 
story of a young corporal of the Imperial Guard, 
who lost an arm bv a sword-cut before Sebastopol. 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



559 



and came home to be pensioned with a livelihood 
among the lazy veterans at the Hotel des Invalides. 

But the laziness was irksome to the hot-blooded 
corporal, so he wrote boldly to the Emperor, saying : 

" Sire — Though I have lost an arm, and my 
musket days are over, yet I could handle a sword 
in your Majesty's service : the country, too, would 
save my pension, and gain another soldier." 

The Emperor sent for the corporal ; dismissed 
him with the sword of a lieutenant, and the cross 
of the Legion of Honor. 

Are not these officers from the ranks of a value 
which our own administrators would do well to 
think of? 

There is talk among literary causeries of a new 
work projected by Madame George Sand, and 
in which she will be assisted by Paulin Limay- 
rac, the literary critic of the Presse, entitled " Cel- 
ebrated Lovers." The galaxy is to open with a 
two-volume development of the loves of Adam and 
Eve ; and subsequent studies are to give us Ninus 
and Semiramis, Pyramus and Thisbe, Joseph and 
the AVife of Potiphar. It is a piquant rumor. 

Victor Hugo, meantime, is coming again upon 
the tongues and thought of people in a volume of 
verse, published simultaneously in Brussels and in 
Paris, but it will be a matter of disappointment 
to many that he has not sharpened his pen on any 
of the political whetstones of the day ; his themes 
are those supplied by quiet meditation in his prison- 
isle of Jersey. 

Berryer, too, another man of the times which are 
gone by, has startled very honest plaudits within a 
month past, by a display of his old forensic vigor 
in the courts of Paris. The journals give it only 
faint mention, however, as the echo of a voice 
which once made itself heard in the halls of legis- 
lation. A country must needs be prolific of genius 
when it can drive to the wall such minds as those 
of Hugo and Berryer (to say nothing of Guizot and 
Michelet), without feeling their loss. 

Apropos of men of letters and of books, what 
shall we say of Dr. Veron and his romance of 
14 Five Hundred Francs Revenue ?" 

The man himself is noticeable; noticeable for 
th? great success with which he has turned only 
average abilities to the largest account. Dr. Ve- 
ron prides himself on the title of Bourgeois of Paris ; 
he is, indeed, a good type of the progressive, keen- 
witted, money-loving, self-indulgent bourgeois. He 
has turned all changes to account; has never enter- 
tained principles that would not yield to judicious 
persuasion, and never prosecuted philanthropic 
measures beyond remunerative limits. 

Whether as critic, as opera-manager, or news- 
paper proprietor, he has conducted his schemes so 
shrewdly as to insure himself a wide reputation, 
abundant wealth, and hosts of flatterers. Even his 
enemies have never treated him with dangerous re- 
gard, and all their animosity has never risen above 
contempt. 

When Louis Napoleon came from England, as 
member of the Constitutional Assembly, he took 
\ip his quarters at the II kd dn lihin, upon the 
Place Veiidome, and he summoned to his counsels, 
with that sagacity which for the last eight years 
has so uniformly befriended him, the prince of 
bourgeois editors — this Dr. Veron. This gentle- 
man at that time, through his paper, the Conttittl- 
tionnel, represented the moneyed interests of Paris, 
and was as good a republican, without doubt, as 
either M. Thiers or the best of the shopkeeper?. 



From time to time he dined with the Prince Louis 
Napoleon, and may have proved the source of many 
valuable suggestions to the Prince while he was 
yet in the novitiate of his French career. 

The Presidential election came on, and passed, 
Dr. Veron still dining from time to time with the 
Prince, and still representing, by his paper, the 
Constitutionnel, the bourgeois wealth of France. 
Finally came the second of December, and an Im- 
perial scion grafted on the Republican stock. Dr. 
Veron was still a guest at the Napoleon table, and 
still the manager of the great newspaper of all 
good bourgeois. 

But rumor says (or did say) that the Doctor, 
finding that the Prince had made so grand a stride 
by means of his suggestions, claimed a larger con- 
sideration and larger perquisites than suited the 
Imperial will. A sudden coolness ensued; the 
editor, presuming too much on his prestige, offered 
advice too freely, and urged it in his journal. But 
journals and editors had now a master in the 
Imperial Commission. The Constitutionnel was 
warned. 

Doctor Veron, too sagacious to contend farther, 
opened negotiations for the sale of his journal — 
found a purchaser, and after a long suit with un- 
willing stockholders, secured an ample fortune as 
his own share of the spoils. 

Thenceforward he devoted himself to all the in- 
dulgences of an epicure — in dinners, music, paint- 
ing, and letters. Is there a sale of rare sketches, 
at the hotel in the Rue Drouot, one is quite sure to 
find Dr. Veron among the visitors, if not the pur- 
chasers. Is an old cabinet of quaint workman- 
ship, or a unique collection of pottery on exhibi- 
tion — the late editor of the Constitutionnel is a nice 
judge and a willing possessor of both. 

His friends consult him regarding the merits of 
a new dancer at the Grand Opera, or a new dish in 
the cuisine of the Provencal Restaurant, with equal 
confidence. 

His Reminiscences of a Bourgeois, making up a 
glowing piece of egotistical entertainment ; and his 
new book, which we cited on our first mention of 
his name, is a happy hit at the moneyed fever of 
the hour. It is a pleasant report of those observa- 
tions which the Doctor has now ample leisure to 
make, upon the dealings at the Bourse, and the 
fevered life of the money-seekers of Paris. Its 
moral rises as near to soundness of principle as 
any thing in the character of the Bourgeois ; it is 
this : Do not make haste to be rich. 

We think that we dropped a mention some 
months ago, of the offer of certain premiums by the 
same Dr. Veron, for a poem, an essay on the letters 
and literary men of the nineteenth century, a dis- 
sertation upon the genius of Balzac, and a story. 
The first has been awarded by a committee of 
literary gentlemen (among whom figure several 
members of the Academy) to a poet previously un- 
known, and an employe in one of the public offices. 
The second has been declared in favor of a profes- 
sor in the University of France ; while none of the 
dissertations on Balzac have been found worthy ; 
and the decision respecting the novelette is yet in 
abeyance. 

The Count Mole, of whose death we had occa- 
sion to speak a month since, has left a mass of val- 
uable historic material in the shape of memoirs of 
his times: whether they will be made public under 
the present dynasty, or. indeed, for many years to 



560 



HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



come, is, however, very doubtful. Like, those of 
Prince Talleyrand (which are still under the seal 
he himself imposed), they would compromise too 
many men of the epoch. Political history (in 
France) needs a succession of chroniclers. Men 
like Mole and Talleyrand lived too long for safe 
memoirs. 

And while we have touched with our pen these 
literary waifs of gossip, why not complete our re- 
cord by a mention of that little peace pamphlet, 
which (so far as popular discussion goes) has won 
all the honors of the day ? It is not every book of 
six pages, even upon the engrossing subject of the 
war, which can serve as bait to a leader in the 
Times; yet the little appeal for a Peace Congress 
has not only won this notice, but has been the sub- 
ject of commentary in every European journal of 
distinction. Even supposing (as was rumored for 
a time) that it was dictated by the Emperor him- 
self, what a change in literary appreciation since 
those days when he wrote slow-selling books upon 
artillery and Socialism ? Is his logic or style bet- 
ter now than then ? Or do the five hundred thou- 
sand bayonets, which do his bidding, give the 
added weight and worth to his argumentation ? 
Truth is always truth, to be sure; and common 
sense always common sense ; but as the world 
runs, they count more in the mouth of a monarch 
than elsewhere. 

We see it asserted in late papers that the pam- 
phlet which attracted so much attention is due to 
the pen of a retired dramatic author, of litcle dis- 
tinction, and scarcely known out of France. It is 
to be feared that a small name will blast a repu- 
tation which a great one had made ; and all the 
more surely, since the chances of any Peace Con- 
gress seem to be fading fast in those warlike prep- 
arations which come to us from every corner of 
Europe. 

At this moment, under our hand, lies a descrip- 
tion of new w r ar projectiles in course of manufac- 
ture in the foundries of Great Britain, which far 
exceed in magnitude any thing as yet known to 
military art ; these are nothing less than bombs 
©f three feet diameter, and weighing, without their 
charge, the enormous sum of twenty-five hundred 
pounds ! One can easily imagine what the mor- 
tars must be for the discharge of such shot, and 
what the vessels, to give bed to such artillery ! 

We can not fail to observe, in this connection, 
that England is just now ripening all her energies 
for war, at a time when the opinion of the whole 
Continent of Europe seems tending toward peace. 
There is a rapidly-growing divergence of tone be- 
tween the journals of France and of London. Is 
this not the beginning of the end of the alliance ? 
If Great Britain continues obstinately to demand 
indemnities for the war, and France chivalrously 
ignores such a claim on Russia, will not a strong 
cementing bond of the alliance at once be severed? 
Let us note here the opinions and the expressions 
©fa French correspondent of one of the leading Con- 
tinental journals — he is speaking of the anonymous 
pamphlet to which we just now alluded — "Not- 
withstanding the disavowals of the Parisian jour- 
nals, and the divulgence of the real authorship by 
tfee Morning Post, the British public persists in re- 
garding this proposition of a Peace Congress as the 
suggestion of the French Government ; and every 
body is satisfied that such a congress, if it took 
place, would diminish still more the diplomatic in- 
fluence of Great Britain. 



" Better perhaps so for herself and for the world, 
when one considers the violence of her antipathies 
and the rashness of language which characterizes 
(even in these delicate times of negotiation) those 
journals which are supposed to represent the feel- 
ings of the nation. 

" We have seen this people transfer its regard 
in a breath from Palmerston to Aberdeen, and from 
Aberdeen back to Palmerston — ignoring to-day its 
sympathies of yesterday. 

"Is it not worth while to inquire, in view of 
such results of caprice and popular intrigue, if it 
be desirable for the good of Europe that England 
should maintain the diplomatic influence which 
she once possessed ? Just now, Lord Palmerston 
and a fraction of the aristocracy, basing their zeal 
upon an over-excited national pride, demand a new 
campaign, that they may efface the memory of re- 
cent errors, and bolster up, as long as may be, their 
system of military aristocracy." 

This surely is a falling away from the interna- 
tional compliments with which we were surfeited 
two years ago. 

Indeed, although the world is advancing by de- 
grees toward a kind of millennial brotherhood, 
where national characteristics will blend and lose 
themselves in a manner and in tastes common to 
all (at least, such is the theory of good peace proph- 
ets), we do sincerely believe that English and 
French tastes will be among the very last of coali- 
tions. And with this thought strongly entertained, 
we have far less faith than most in the permanence 
and in the cementing forces of the present alliance. 

England makes war either to ward off' what she 
may count aggression upon her commercial rights, 
or to extend, either immediately or remotely, her 
mei*cantile interests. She regards commerce (and 
very justly in many respects) as the great Chris- 
tianizer and civilizer of the world. But she per- 
sists in reckoning herself the appointed missionary, 
under whose hands these great issues of commercial 
success are to have development. France, on the 
other hand, sublimes her war-thought into some 
generous propagandism of political faith, or the ex- 
ecution of some chivalrous engagement toward that 
European society, of which she counts herself the 
accomplished mistress. 

France will find a satisfying remuneration for 
the present war in the trophies from South Sebas- 
topol which have been added to her galleries, and 
in the glory which has accrued to her armies ; En- 
gland, even could she boast such, would reckon 
them worthless in comparison with such substan- 
tial advantages as a moneyed immunity, or a new 
high road to India. 

We jot these things down as so many shadows 
of the leaders in Continental journals. 

We glance, in this connection, at that great 
gala-day of France, when the troops who stormed 
Sebastopol made their entrance into Paris, and 
defiled along the Boulevard. The banners and 
arches which had crowned the welcome of Victoria 
and of King Emmanuel were utterly eclipsed by 
the gorgeousness and heartiness of that display 
which greeted the armies of France. Never had 
the Emperor passed along his streets with so brill- 
iant a retinue as attended him, when on that twen- 
ty-ninth of December he went to the Column of 
the Bastile to welcome, in a Roman way, his re- 
turning legions as they entered the gates of the im- 
perial city. 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



561 



When war is loved for its glory, it is well to 
glorify its veterans. France will never lack sol- 
diers, and brave ones, while she thus takes to her 
bosom, in the eye of the world and with festal hon- 
ors, the shattered debris of her armies. 

The National Guard stretched upon one side of 
the Boulevard, from the palace of the Tuileries to 
tha Bastile ; and on the other side were drawn up, 
in line, the garrison of Paris. 

"Within this pathway, and between the walls of 
houses decorated with every device of welcome, and 
alive with shouts of greeting, and with fluttering 
banners, and the waving kerchiefs of ladies, the 
veterans of the Sebastopol camp passed down to 
the Place Vendome, where the Emperor took, his 
second station, and where the Empress was look- 
ing down from her balcony in the Palace of Justice. 

The papers give us touching little episodes of 
this festal passage of the troops. They tell us of 
the scars which many wore — of the arms in slings 
— of the limping gait — of the tattered coats, with 
blood-stains still on them ; and of a white-haired 
general, whose bandaged head called every where 
for a special prean in his honor. They tell us of 
mothers stealing along behind the line of hedging 
National Guard, with eyes fixed on some child not 
seen or heard of since the harshest days of the bat- 
tle — all inattentive to the music, scarce minding 
her steps, following only her heart and her eye — 
not yet seen by him, and waiting the chance to 
rush through the lines and give a mother's em- 
brace. 

They tell us of others as eager — not yet seeing, 
but hoping to espy husband or son ; now stepping 
slowly, with their eyes running swiftly over the 
ranks, and again, rushing madly toward some dis- 
tant figure, in which they fancy a resemblance to 
the friend they seek. 

Among the rest who won high tribute upon that 
day was the General Canrobert, now for the first 
time meeting the public eye. Rumor says that he 
would have declined any place in that day's pi*o- 
cession, and occupied an humble position in the 
suite of the Emperor; but his Majesty's commands, 
given at the foot of the Bastile itself, were at once 
flattering and imperative : " General, go place 
yourself at the head of the army you have saved to 
France!" 

The modesty and worth of Canroberthave endear- 
ed him to the heart of France, and he offers the sin- 
gular, and perhaps unique example of a commander 
who has Withdrawn from his position without win- 
ning a victory, and has yet conquered renown ; a 
proof, if one were needed, that not the least of mil- 
itary virtues lies oftentimes in inaction. 



In the midst of fetes — for the Carnival is now on 
the march, and the Tuileries is lighted up with ball 
splendor — the great works of city improvement are 
steadily progressing. The Rivoli is now a street 
of cities. The tower of the Jacquerie has renewed 
the airy lightness which belonged to it in the cen- 
turies of its erection. They are now piercing the 
ground on the place which encircles it for a pair 
of bronze fountains. The workmen have com- 
menced the demolition of the long line of houses 
which stretches hence from the Boulevard St. Mar- 
tin, and in a six months' time at the least the eye 
can sweep through from the old fountain of the 
Chatelet, by the Seine, to the brilliant station of 
the Strasbourg railway. Another clean cut is in 
progress, from the gates of the Tuileries garden, 



opposite the Place des Pyramides, to the Boulevard 
des Italiens ; and the narrow streets of St. Anne 
and Grammont will be transmuted into a brilliant 
Boulevard de l'Emperatrice. 

Cheap, open-air kitchens have sprung up, under 
the government patronage, all over the city, where 
blouses may buy a pot of soup, or a dish ef boiled 
meat and vegetables, for a sum which would seem 
small even to our country livers of the West. The 
old economic suggestion of horse-flesh is bruited 
once more, whereupon Charivari (the Paris Punch) 
gives us this pleasant transcript of recent expe- 
rience : 

" It will be remembered that not a very long 
time ago, M. Geoftroy St. Hilaire discussed pub- 
licly, in the Academy of Sciences, the merits of 
horse-flesh as an article of food, and declared it 
equal, if not superior, to ox-beef. 

"A few curious ones, on the merit of this decla- 
ration by a distinguished savant, have recently 
made a practical trial, and a couple of experiment- 
al dinners have been served — one at the govern- 
ment school of Alfort, and the other at the veter- 
inary college of Toulouse. 

"All meats except horse-flesh were excluded. 
This was served in soup, as a simple boiled dish, 
and in filet (roast). 

" We are not informed if the saddle and bridle 
contributed to the soup. 

" After dinner, the following series of resolutions 
was passed unanimously : 

"'1. Resolved — That the horse soup is, upon 
the whole, superior to that made from beef. 

"'2. Resolved — That the boiled dish (cut from 
the flank of a Flemish mare) was somewhat drier 
than similar pieces of ox meat, but possessed, on 
the other hand, a most exquisite flavor. 

"'3. Resolved — That the filet (from a broken- 
winded roadster) was beyond all praise, and would 
compare favorably with woodcock or venison.' " 

The same paper gives us the following letter 
from St. Lo: 

" Monsieur — The epicures of our neighborhood 
assembled yesterday at the inn of the Golden Lion, 
for the purpose of making trial of a new dish ; and 
the result of their experience is of so interesting a 
nature, that I can not forbear the pleasure of re- 
cording it, for the benefit of the public generally. 

" The dish referred to was dog — roasted. You 
are aware, perhaps, that the Chinese have indulged 
in this luxury for many ages, but I am not aware 
of its previous introduction to the tables of Europe. 

"To make the experiment as conclusive as pos- 
sible, an animal was selected of very indifferent 
breed — old, blind, and one which the owner had 
turned into the high road as utterly valueless. 

" The meat was considered excellent. I hardly 
know to what it could be compared. It was even 
better than a horse-filet. Its aroma was suggest- 
ive of pheasant, pine-apple, mustard, and turbot. 
Exclamations of admiration were unbounded. If 
an old dog proves so exquisite a morsel, I leave 
you to infer what might be hoped from a dish of 
fat, full-fed, well-bred pups ! 

" If you have a dog, my dear Sir, pray put him 
on the spit. It is the best thing you can do with 
him." 



Madame Ckuvetxi, the eccentric and the fa- 
vorito, has again become the subject of wide news- 
paper mention. She has abandoned the Opera for 
a husband. She is now La Baronne Vizier. Yet 



562 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



her entrance upon private life has not, unfortunate- 
ly for her, stayed the tongues or the pens of the 
Paris feuilletonistes. There are hints dropped of a 
quarrel between the late star of song and the lad} r 
members of the Vigier family, thus early. The 
Cruvelli insists upon her right and her intention — 
when matrimony has grown tame — of returning to 
the stage, by way of occasional relief. The elegant 
dames Vigier are naturally horrified, and what may 
be the upshot another budget of Jules Lecomte 
can alone tell us. 

The same gossip-monger to whom we are in- 
debted for this, ventures a mention of the marriage 
(accomplished, or approaching) of one or two mon- 
eyed American girls with certain poor gentlemen 
of title who are hovering about the French court ; 
and he impudently adds — " These pretty Repub- 
licans are crazy for titles !" 

Will not some accomplished American penster, 
who knows their tastes better than we, undertake 
their defense ? Or is it true that the longings of 
our American girls abroad are thoroughly title- 
ward, and so, indefensible on any Republican 
grounds ? Did not that most accomplished Dem- 
ocrat-ess, Margaret Fuller, come back from Italy a 
Countess? Are Republican ladies to be blamed 
if princes will leave their thrones to become their 
suitors ? 



Have we mentioned yet, in this fly-away gossip 
of ours, how Jenny Lind (Madame Goldschmidt) 
has sung again to a crowded and an applauding 
house in London ? Or how she was feted by the 
venerable Swedish minister while in Paris, and 
purposely slighted and sneered at by all the Paris 
feuilletonistes, because, forsooth, she has never, and 
never will give them occasion to judge of her merit, 
by a hearing in their prostituted temples of music ? 
But Paris can never forgive singer or actress a 
reputation which has not received the imprimatur 
of her critics. 



Even as we write, the over-ocean journals give 
us new tidings of the pace which the war spirit is 
taking over the "old countries." 

The coolness and the reflection which the cab- 
inet of Petersburg is giving to the Austrian pro- 
posals of Esterhazy, is provoking to the last de- 
gree : provoking to the new Emperor of France, 
who had put on an unaffected air of conciliation, 
and was heartily satisfied (if Russia would admit 
his terms) with the glory which France had al- 
ready won. 

Had he not welcomed his returning legions with 
a Roman air? Had not all Paris, Avith its world- 
wide guests, seen the tattered banners and the tat- 
tered coats of his Imperial Guard pass through 
amidst shouts ? Had not the name of Malakoff 
fallen under French embalmment? Had not his 
Gallic army given most grateful proof of their 
spirit and their power, in extending its protective 
arm over those British battalions — ill-clothed, ill- 
fed, and every way needy ? 

Had not that great country of Louis XIV., 
which had said "yes" to his appointment to his 
ten year' Presidency, and winked gratefully at 
his assumption of the Imperial purple — had not 
France asserted, with cannon, sword, and foresight, 
her position as first nation of Europe ? 

What did Napoleon need more? Could any 
thing more grateful come to his heart or his pride 
out of this war against the Czar ? 



Had he any highway to India to look after ? 
Was he a trader, to consider what bills for bombs 
and battle were to be paid ? 

Not one bit of it : and only since the news has 
come back from Petersburg that the Czar makes 
little of his propositions, has the war-spirit wak- 
ened in him again. 

Now, he says, he will lead an army : now he will 
make peace in the capital of the hostile state. 

There is something grand in firmness and ener- 
gy, wherever it comes from. Who does not admire 
the mephitic blaze which Milton has thrown around 
the Satan of his Paradise? {The true^re of action 
will not let a man (least of all our quick-blooded 
American race) question the rule and the law, if 
only supreme energy manifests itself, and strikes to 
its issues with nerve and tact. 

Has not Napoleon done this ? Do not our sym- 
pathies therefore lie with him, rather than with the 
hesitating, commercial bantering which has mark- 
ed British action in this great European action 
since the very commencement of the war ? Is there 
any forbidding (or any wish to forbid) the voice 
from following with a plaudit where the heart runs 
with its instinctive likings ? 

We set down here, in the coolness of our Easy 
Chair chat, no judgments based upon fatiguing and 
night-long thought. We only dash at the currents 
of opinion as they drive past us and merge in the 
cumulative thought of the nation. We think we 
are right, too, in putting down national sympathies, 
just now, as joining heat with the fervor and en- 
ergy of Napoleon. 

We — the Easy Chair, Avith republican frame, re- 
publican lining, and republican stand-point — are, 
after all, quickened with that SAvift American pulse 
which loves deeds of daring and energy ; Ave lament 
— tearfully and soberly, if you please — that France 
has not yet wrought itself up to that republican 
level whereon Ave profess to stand : Ave lament — 
with as many good sighs as you Avish for — that 
Paris, Avith its great metropolitan heart, pumps all 
the life-blood into the political organization of 
France; and Ave lament, ten-fold more, that any 
one man should direct the machinery by which that 
life-blood is put in motion. But while it is thus, 
and Louis Napoleon sits there upon the Tuileries' 
throne as the representative of this imperial cen- 
tralization, Ave applaud Avhat is manly and earnest 
in him as sincerely and as heartily as if he Averc 
the chief of a Avild American tribe collecting his 
energies for battle. • 

Heaven only knows Avhat will be the end of this 
all! What follows in its train Ave see already. 
Those shattered arms and that mutilated face of 
the poor general Avhom Ave saw keeping his way in 
the procession of the returning army of the 29th 
December, tell us something. The poor famish- 
ed ones of Kars (whose story is now before the 
Avorld) tell us e\ r en more ; and, with our thoughts 
resting on those miserable famine-stricken soldiers, 
who braved all the terrors of the enemy that they 
might dig up the carcasses of horses slaughtered 
weeks before in battle, what should Ave do but pray 
Heaven that the great war may cease, and that the 
other, which threatens betAveen us and the "father- 
land," may be quieted even before it Avakes. 



Shall we spend a closing period upon that school- 
boy play which keeps our Legislative House in up- 
roar these six Aveeks gone ? 

Of Avhat material is our Congress made, that it 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



ot>; 



offers to the world, month after month, such dis- 
play of littleness ? If there ever was a time when 
our Republic should wear an air of dignity — the 
dignity of conscious strength and well-ordered 
growth — it surely should be in these times of trial 
to the old, and what we reckon the ill-formed na- 
tionalities of Europe. 

Yet what spectacle do we offer ! Petty strifes 
and miserable personalities have brought down oui 
legislative assembly to the level of every honest 
man's pity ! And that national voice — that peo- 
ple's voice, which we have reckoned on too fondly 
as the exponent of freedom and individual dignity 
(in these days of trial) — where is it? 

Lost in idle votes for Mr. Banks, and Mr. Orr, 
and Mr. What-d'ye-call-'em ! 



Trinity to the San Antonio, easterly and wester- 
ly, camping out much of the time ; and notwith- 
standing all these favorable opportunities to make 
the acquaintance of all the snakes in Texas, he has 
seen but two centipedes and one tarantula, only 
one rattlesnake, ami " nary one copper-head." It 
is very obvious, therefore — as this observing and 
extensively-traveled Texan has never come across 
the serpents, and so forth — that they can not be 
as numerous as our former correspondent supposed, 
and the readers of the Magazine may safely travel 
in those parts if they are so disposed. 



MARS is the god of March, but there is little 
of war that the Drawer ever brings. It may 
be that the reign of the god of war in this month 
explains the phenomena of so many storms that 
the almanacs with so much certainty and regularity 
predict ; but however it is with the weather, we are 
concerned with the march of time, and the march 
of mind, leaving the inarch of armies to the men 
who manage them, and who are fond of the glory 
that is got by being shot through the neck and 
having your name spelled wrong in the newspaper. 
This reminds us of the " Dead March in Saul," and 
that reminds us of an incident which we do not be- 
lieve, though we have the authority of the Home 
Journal for it, which ought not to tell such a story 
unless it were true. That journal, devoted in great 
part to the ladies, tells us that a lady playing on 
a pianoforte, on being called upon for a dead march, 
asked a celebrated professor of music what she 
should play ? He replied, "Any march that you 
may play will be a dead one, for you are sure to 
murder it!" — a speech so rude, we venture to say, 
no man with music in his soul ever made. To 
march him out of the room, quick-step, would have 
been a very gentle punishment for such an offense. 
And it was in immediate juxtaposition that the 
same paper describes the following marches in the 
" battle of life." " Courtship is the engagement or 
siege ; the proposal is the assault ; the engagement 
is the surrender; and marriage celebrates the vic- 
tory." And what comes after matrimony? "Why," 
says this ungallant writer, "I am sure I don't 
know, unless the Te Deurn (the tediuni) that comes 
after most victories." One can not help feeling 
some compassion for the poor fellow whose expe- 
riences lead him to such records. Let us leave 
him " alone in his glory," and MARCH on to some- 
thing better. 

And not much better will it be ; for we take up 
a letter from a gentleman in Texas, who has been 
reading in the Drawer a statement concerning a 
" pleasant region" in that new and fast-rising State, 
where the snakes of all kinds, and the spiders whose 
bite is death, and a general assortment of poison- 
ous reptiles too numerous to mention, are said to 
abound ; and the writer now desires us to say, lest 
nervous and thin-skinned people should be deterred 
from coming to Texas, that he has actually lived 
two whole years in Texas, and traveled through 
it from its northern to its southern boundary ; 
from Red River to the Gulf of Mexico ; from the 



The extremest case of human weakness on re- 
cord is that of the poet and wit Dr. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, who was prevented from delivering a lec- 
ture on account of illness, and wrote to the Com- 
mittee a letter of apology, in which he says, " I 
am satisfied that if I were offered a fifty-dollar bill 
after my lecture, I should not have strength enough 
left to refuse it." 



In England they turn out to the left, and so 

" The laws of the Road are a paradox quite, 
For when you are traveling along, 
If you keep to the left you're sure to he eight, 
If you keep to the eight you'll be weong !" 



Governor Snyder, the governor of the Key- 
stone State, was sitting comfortably in his parlor 
at Selinsgrove, his rural abode, the cares of state 
sitting lightly on his breast, for he had just left his 
dinner-table and felt at peace with all the world, 
when a knock was heard at the front door, and 
Patrick O'Hannegan was ushered into the presence 
of the good-natured Governor. 

" Guvner Snyder, I suppose," said Pat, with an 
attempt at an elegant bow. 

"So I am called: pray be seated, and tell me 
what I can do for you to-day." 

Pat cast a look around the room, rubbed his 
knees as he sat down on the edge of the chair, and 
after a few moments' hesitation he began on this 
wise : 

" Wa'al, Guvner, it's about six years since I came 
till this country, and I've been a-livin' all that time 
up there on Lycomin' Creek, and I thought it was 
about time I was goin' home till the ould country, 
to see my poor ould mother, God bless her! before 
she dies, and all my ould friends there ; and so I'm 
on my way, you see; and I thought, as I had 
heard people talkin' a great deal about Guvner 
Snyder, and what a great guvner he was, that I 
would call and pay my respects till him." Ileru 
Pat took a rest, and began again : "And so I'll b« 
goin' to Philadelfy, and a good long step it. is to 
go afoot, and then I'll go to New York, and go 
aboard a ship, and sail till ould Ireland, and [here 
he took a long look at the sideboard sparkling 
with its well-filled decanters] when I see my ould 
mother, and all my ould friends, I'll tell them how 
I called on the guvner of Pinsylvany, and how he 
was mighty polite, and give me a glass of brandy 
to drink his Honor's health." 

The Governor took the hint, and filled a glass, 
which Pat emptied as soon, saying, " Your good 
health, Guvner, and long life till ye, and all your 
kith and kin !" 

Down sat Pat again, and after answering a few 
kind inquiries of the Governor, he rose and spoke: 
" Wa'al, I 'spose I must be movin'. I'm goin' from 
here to Philadelfy, and it's a long step to go afoot, 



5G4 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



and from there I'll go till New York, and then 
I'll go aboard a ship to ould Ireland, and there I'll 
tell all my ould friends that here I called on the 
great guvner of Pinsylvany, and he give me two 
glasses of brandy to drink his Honor's health." 

The Governor was caught, and poured out the 
second glass, which loosened the other end of Pat's 
tongue, and he went over the rigmarole again, 
ending with three glasses of brandy ! 

" Ah," said the Governor, " but you have not 
had three glasses !" 

Pat was all cut up and cut down by this unex- 
pected answer. He pushed his fingers through his 
hair, dropped his lower jaw, and looked like a 
deeply wounded " jintleman" as he was. A happy 
thought hit him, and brighteningup he said, " But 
you would'nt have me tell my ould mother a lie, 
would you ?" 

The good Governor was melted for a moment, 
and the third glass passed from the sideboard into 
the longing bosom of the dry Irishman, who drank, 
and thus began : 

" A thousand thanks, Guvner ! the saints bless 
and the Virgin kape you, and give you long life 
and plenty of such brandy as this, your Honor ! 
and now I'll be goin' to Philadelfy, and it's a long 
way there afoot, and trren — " 

The Governor could stand it no longer, but half- 
laughing, and half-mad at the impudence of Pat 
and his OA\n readiness to be coaxed, he showed his 
guest to the door, and told him, as it was so far to 
Philadelfy, he had better be making tracks in 
that direction without any more delay. 



It was very hard work to get the right answer 
out of the boy whom a traveler on horseback found 
at work in a field of miserable, yellow, sickly-look- 
ing corn that ought to be sent to the springs for 
its health. 

" Your corn looks very yellow," said the travel- 
er, as he stopped in his ride and talked to the boy 
over the fence. 

" Yaas," said the boy ; " it was the yaller kind 
we planted." 

u And it's mighty small, too," the traveler con- 
tinued. 

"In course," said the boy, "cause we planted 
the small kind of corn." 

" Yes, yes, I know ; but I don't think you'll have 
over half a crop ; do you?" 

" Why, no, in course we shan't ; cause for we 
planted this ere field at the halves." 

" Good-by," said the traveler; "I think you'll 
do for seed." 

But the boy would not let him off so. Calling 
him back after he had got on a feAV rods, the boy 
cried out : 

" I say, stranger, I hope you pick up a deal of 
valuable information in the course of vour travels." 



The Temperance Reform does not date as far 
back as 1785, but a correspondent vouches for the 
correctness of the following report of a sermon 
preached in that year, in the County of Middle- 
sex, Massachusetts : 

" Text. Isaiah v. 22 : ' Woe unto them who are 
mighty to drink wine.' 

'"'■Doctrine. It is very hurtful to a man to drink 
strong drink to excess. • 

" Proofs. 1st. The text. 2d. Proverbs, xxiii. 
29: 'Who hath woe? who hath sorrows? who 
hath contentions ? who hath babblings ? who hath 



wounds without cause ? who hath redness of eyes ? 
They that tarry long at the wine.' And now I 
have proved that if a man drinks too much rum 
his eyes will turn red and be painful ; and he will 
babble and talk vain things ; and he will have 
contentions, and wound himself or get wounded 
when there is no cause for it ; and when the rum 
has done its work, and he becomes sober, he will 
be sad and sorrowful. 

"Improvement. And now, my hearers, I meant 
this sermon for you; and you ought to hear it, 
and consider of it, and believe it, and not be mighty 
to drink wine and rum. For you will get up your 
teams, and you will go down to Boston, and you 
will stop at the taverns, and you will drink rum, 
and you will get drunk, and you will fall down, 
and you will roll over, and you will act more like 
beasts than like men. Though I must confess that 
it is good to take a drop now and then, and I must 
confess that if a man don't drink enough to feel it, 
he may as well drink none at all." 

And a good deal better drink none at all is the 
doctrine of the present ; but this sermon was 
preached seventy years ago. And, as the boy said, 
" Times ain't now as they used to was." 

Did you ever observe the change that is gradu- 
ally made in the style of our cravats as we grow in 
years ? Up to the age of ten our necks are left at 
liberty. As far as eighteen the cravat is a matter 
of utility. From twenty to twenty-five it is an ar- 
ticle of taste ; at thirty it is an object of study : at 
forty it is a work of art. Having passed this age, 
our pretensions to elegance have become extinct ; 
our cravat does as it likes ; we take no heed of it ; 
it gets flabby and humiliated ; the shirt-collar rides 
rough-shod over it, or it becomes a kind of bag, ill 
which we bury the chin, the mouth, and sometimes 
the end of the nose. 



Small wits, who seek to make themselves merry 
at the expense of the clergy, are sometimes Avell- 
come up with, as in the case of the English mer- 
chant's traveling clerk in a rail-car with a clerical 
gentleman who had given him no occasion to be 
impertinent. But the conceited youngster thought 
to show his wit by asking : 

"Does your reverence know the difference be- 
tween a priest and an ass ?" 

" No, I do not," returned the priest. 

"Why," said the young man, "one carries a 
cross on his breast, and the other a cross on his 
back?" 

"And now," said the priest, "do you know the 
difference between a conceited young man and an 
ass?" 

" No, I do not, I am sure," said the youth. 

" Nor I either," said the priest, and the applause 
of the passengers sealed the retort and rebuke. 



There are some districts of country in enlight- 
ened England, even at this day, where the light 
of knowledge has not become so bright as to ren- 
der further increase impossible, as will be inferred 
from the following well-attested fact. A clergy- 
man was preaching in a hamlet where the families 
were all weavers, working at home, and by the 
piece, for which they were paid by the employers 
in a neighboring town. The preacher took for his 
text those beautiful words from the sermon on the 
mount, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they 
shall inherit the kingdom of heaven," and explain- 



EDITOR'S DRAWER 



565 



ad it to the great dissatisfaction and regret of the 
whole community, who up to that time had always 
supposed the blessing to have been pronounced 
upon people like themselves, who were piece-mak- 
ers, and specially mentioned by the Lord ! It was 
in vain that the good clergyman sought to show 
them how they might still enjoy the blessing ; the 
charm of the passage was gone, now they knew it 
had no specific reference to men of their cloth. 

Love's Art Gallery is very well drawn in the 
following lines by a new contributor: 

'Tis a pleasant summer night, 
And the moon is shining bright, 
But the shutters are closed in ; 
Yet, within 

Beams the magic Star of Love 
On a youth and lady-love, 
Who begin, 

Though their hearts o'erflow with pleasure, 

To converse, in sober measure, 

Of a future happy day, 

When, away 

From their present place of meeting, 

They may give each other greeting, 

Every day ! 

They alternately make pictures, 
And the paints they use are mixtures 
Of love's blue with gold of youth ; 
And, in sooth, 

Thus combining blue and yellow 
On the canvas green and mellow, 
Gloweth truth ! 

And, with Fancy's airy brushes, 

Now they give the final touches 

To the picture number one, 

And 'tis done. 

There's a bridegroom, bright and ready, 

And he standeth near the lady 

He has won ! 

They approach before the altar, 

And their voices shall not falter. 

As they promise to be true, 

And to do 

All they can to please each other; 

While from parents, sister, brother, 

Rise anew 

Earnest prayers to God in heaven 
That these bonds may not be riven, 
K. n though the divider Death, 
With his breath, 
Blow the limbs of life apart; 
For he can not crush the heart 
That's beneath. 

Making pictures! Pretty pictures! 

Bright the colors in their mixtures; 

Yet a sombre hue appears, 

For our fears 

Show us griefs that might befall us; 

So to mix our water-colors 

We usz tears I 



Ri< ii \i:i> RlKBB, or, as he has come down to us, 
Dicky Rih \ si Recorder of the City of New York, 
has recorded bis own name among the names that 
the people will not willingly let die. The good 
things he said, and the better things he did, arc 
among the legacies of the public; and every now 
and then the newspapers tell them over and over, 
as they are called up by the passing create of our 
own days. He is the father of an expression often 
used without reference to its paternity; but there 
are many still living who have heard him address- 
ing many a prisoner in such words as these : 

"Young man! I am sorry to see you here: I 



think I have seen you here before : I must send you 
up. The fact is, stealing is a vice which is becom- 
ing altogether too common in this community. I must 
send you up for six months." 

At one time-the Recorder himself was "up" at 
Blackwell's Island, on one of those junketing ex- 
cursions in which the City Fathers often indulge 
even in these days of no liquor and reform. In 
the old times, when Dicky Kiker reigned, they 
used to stay all night out there and have a " regu- 
lar time of it," lingering two or three days, and 
taking the matter quietly. On one of these occa- 
sions the Recorder needed the services of a barber 
to put a smooth face on his Honor before he re- 
turned to the city, but unhappily there was no 
knight of the razor on the Island except the pris- 
oner who did the shaving for his fellow-convicts. 
To him the Recorder was therefore obliged to sub- 
mit himself, but with some misgivings. He took 
his seat, shut his eyes, and the white foam soon lay 
like snow on the hills and vales of the Recorder's 
face. The criminal barber now took his customer 
gently by the nose, and with the other hand raised 
the razor to commence operations. The Recorder 
opened his eyes, and, as they rested on the face of 
the Island barber, a flash of dim recognition for an 
instant lighted them up, and, in his blandest tones, 
he said : 

"My friend, what unfortunate circumstance has 
brought you here ?" 

The barber scowled savagely, and, with a pro- 
fane expression for a preface, he replied with great 
earnestness and spite, 

"No unfortunate circumstance at all, Sir; you 
sent me here. A man stands no chance at all in 
your hands ; but you are in mine just noiv." 

And as he said this, with a quick movement he 
dipped the razor into a cup of boiling water that 
Avas standing on a stove at hand, and drew the hot 
back of it, with all his might, across the bare throat 
of the Recorder, as it lay temptingly before him. 

"Murder! murder!" roared the judge, as lie 
sprang from the chair, gathering up the towel close 
about his neck and sinking down again, in the full 
conviction that he was a dead man. His shout 
had raised the house ; the prison officers and alder- 
men came rushing in to know what was the mat- 
ter. 

" Don't you see the blood," faintly gasped the 
dying Recorder, as he pressed the linen more closely 
to the gaping wound to stanch the crimson current! 
His friends loosened his grasp, removed the towel, 
and assured him there was some great mistake, for 
his neck was innocent of blood. Sensible at last 
that such was the case, the Recorder slowly let the 
towel fall, recovered his breath, drew his hand 
lightly across his throat to assure himself that it 
was all right, and then, while the rest indulged 
themselves in a hearty laugh, he solemnly said to 
the barber, 

" Young man, you took me by surprise. I was 
not quite ready to be murdered ; jests are good, but 
such jests as these should not become too common 
in the community." 

This anecdote of our ancient Recorder reminds 
us of a revolutionary incident, not written in any 
of the books, but admirably illustrative of (he spir- 
it of those times when boys as well as men were 
heroes, and the spirit of patriotism burned like 

that, of martyrdom in all hearts. The British 

army were in po -••- ion of the city of New York. 



566 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Petty tyrannies were, of course, not unusual, and 
sometimes they became very capricious and intol- 
erable. An officer entered a barber's shop, where 
only a boy was in attendance, and after a deal of 
blustering and swearing because the master was 
out, he drew his sword, laid it on the table with 
much flourish, and thus addressed the lad : 

"Now, my boy, shave me, and, by the Lord 
Harry, if you draw one drop of blood on my face, 
with your blundering work, I will run that sword 
through your body : you hear, do you ; and now 
take care how you work." 

The lad proceeded deliberately with his business, 
and shaved the officer as well as he could, and for- 
tunately without nicking the skin of the elegant 
Englishman, who surveyed himself in the glass, 
and again addressed the youngster : 

" Now tell me how you dared to shave me at all, 
after I had threatened to kill you if you cut my 
face?" 

" Because," said the boy, " I knew I had the ad- 
vantage of you ; for if I had been so unfortunate 
as to nick your chin, I would have cut your throat 
from ear to ear !" 

The cold sweat broke out on the officer's brow at 
the thought of his own escape, and he marched out 
of the shop, wondering at the race of rebels with 
whom his country had to contend. 



A correspondent says that he has seen the 
first part of the following story in the New, York 
Observer, and he thinks the latter part, though bor- 
dering on the profane, is worth preserving as show- 
ing the u Spirit of 7G." 

During the hard-fought battle of Bennington, 
two brothers fought side by side, protected by the 
trunk of a fallen tree. The oldest was a man of 
prayer, but the other was not. Baum's Indian 
allies were in ambush, picking oft* the Americans, 
when the elder brother got sight of one of them, 
and, taking a long aim, lifted up heart and voice 
in prayer, saying, "Lord have mercy on that In- 
dian's soul !" and buried his bullet in the red-skin's 
brain. The other brother got a shot at another 
Indian at the same moment, and as his ball entered 
his head, he bit oft* the end of his cartridge to load 
again, and said, " There's another Indian gone to 
hell!" 



Few anecdotes of the late Hon. John C. Calhoun 
are floating in the public mind. He was not a man 
of the people, but his genius and his habits placed 
him above the masses, whom he nevertheless held 
with a fascination as hard to explain as to resist. 
The following has never been published, and though 
it is not one of humor, it is remarkably character- 
istic of Mr. Calhoun, and well deserves to be re- 
peated : 

"In the early days of his political career, Mr. 
Calhoun had a powerful rival and opponent in the 
Abbeville District. South Carolina was at this 
time in a state of high excitement, and party feel- 
ing raged fiercely in a struggle to overthrow an 
aristocratic feature of the constitution. The issue 
was upon topics that enlisted the interests and 
prejudices of parties, and they waged the contest 
with the energy of a civil war. Mr. Calhoun and 
Mr. Yancy were on opposite sides, the leaders of 
hostile bands, and the idols of their respective 
hosts. There was, and is, for he still lives, a man 
named Marvin, one of the most violent of Mr. 
Yancy's party, warmly attached to him as a per- 



sonal and political friend, and following him blind- 
ly as an infallible guide. He was a very eccentric 
man, and his peculiarities had perhaps led the peo- 
ple to call him ' Uncle Jacob,' by which name he 
was better known than that of Marvin. Bitter in 
his prejudices and strong in his attachments, he 
could see no right in an enemy, no wrong in a 
friend. On the other hand, Mr. Yancy was one 
of the most amiable and candid of men. The 
strength of his mind, combined with the tolerance 
of his feelings, raised him above the meanness of 
clinging to error when reason opposed it. In the 
discussion that ensued, Mr. Calhoun's arguments 
overpowered him, and he candidly confessed him- 
seif a convert to his great rival's opinions. Great 
was the rage of ' Uncle Jacob' when he heard that 
Yancy had struck his colors to Calhoun. He swore 
a big oath that he would thrash Calhoun if the story 
was true. He soon found that it was so, and started 
at once to put his threat into execution. 

" He found Mr. Calhoun walking slowly and 
calmly back and forth, for exercise, on the piazza 
of the hotel where he was boarding. Mr. Calhoun 
had been informed of Marvin's intention, and as 
soon as he saw him coming, prepared himself for a 
triumph, not of force, but of manner and address. 
Marvin took his stand where Mr. Calhoun was to 
pass, and awaited the trying moment. Mr. Cal- 
houn approached, spoke kindly, and passed on with 
his blandest smile. Again he passed, and again, 
each time repeating his soothing salutation, and 
expecting the man to commence his attack. But 
a strange fascination had seized upon ' Uncle 
Jacob.' The spell which genius throws over those 
who approach it, had unmanned him. At last he 
could stand it no longer, but bursting into tears, he 
grasped the proffered hand of Mr. Calhoun, told 
him frankly the errand on which he had come, and 
begged his pardon. Mr. Calhoun then began to 
press his arguments cautiously but forcibly, and in 
a few minutes Marvin was one of his converts, and 
a decided friend. Prom that day onward Mr. Cal- 
houn had no more ardent follower than Marvin, 
and of all ' rabid nullifiers' Uncle Jacob was the 
rabidest, and to this day he believes there never 
was such a man in this world as that same John 
C. Calhoun whom he tried to whip, and who con- 
quered hi in without raising a finger or saying a 
word." 

The writer of this admirable incident adds, that 
if the ambition of Mr. Calhoun had not been chas- 
tened by exalted virtue, he would have possessed 
an influence over men dangerous to his country. 



The precocious lad who invented the following 
conundrum has had ice on his head for some days, 
and it is thought he will recover if kept quiet a 
week or so : 

" Why is an elephant unlike a tree ? 

" Because a tree leaves in the spring, and the 
elephant leaves when the menagerie does." 



Thomas Jefferson Sole, an independent 
farmer, writes the following letter to the county 
newspaper. His complaints are reasonable, and 
we trust he will soon find a teacher to his taste : 

"Mr. Editor — I have ben sendin' my dater Nan- 
cy to scool to a scoolmaster in this naborhood. Last 
Friday I went over to the scool just to see how 
Nancy was gettin' along, and I sees things I didn't 
like by no means. The scoolmaster was lain in' 
her things entirely out of the line of eddy cat ion, 



EDITORS DRAWER. 



567 



and as I think improper. I set a while in the 
scoolhouse and heerd one cias say ther lesson. They 
was a-spellen, and I thot spelled quite exceedingly. 
Then cum Nancy's turn to say her lesson. She 
said it very spry. I was shot ! and determined 
she should leave that scool. I have heerd that 
gramer was an oncommon fine study, but I don't 
want eny more gramer about my house. The les- 
son that Nancy sed was nothing but the foolishest 
kind uv talk, the ridicles luv talk you ever seed. 
She got up, and the first word she sed was : 
I love ! 

" I looked rite at her hard for doin' so improper, 
but she went rite on and sed : 
Thou lovest, 
He loves, 
and I reckon you never heerd such a riggermyrole 
in your life — love, love, love, and nothin' but love. 
She sed one time, 

I did love. 

" Ses I, ' who did you love V Then the schol- 
lars laffed, but I wasn't to be put off, and I sed, 
1 who did you love, Nancy ? I want to know — 
who did you love ?' The scoolmaster, Mr. M'Quil- 
lister, put in and sed he wood explane when Nan- 
cy finished the lesson. This sorter pacyfied me, 
and Nancy went on with awful love talk. It got 
wus and wus every word. She sed : 

I might, could, or would love. 

" I stopped her again, and sed I reckon I would 
see about that, and told her to walk out of that 
house. The scoolmaster tried to interfere, but I 
wouldent let him say a word. He sed I was a fool, 
and I nockt him down and made him holler in short 
order. I taukt the strate thing to him. I told 
him I'd show him how he'd larn my dater gramer. 

" I got the nabers together and we sent Mr. 
M'Quillister off in a hurry, and I reckon thar'l be 
no more gramer teechin' in thees parts soon. If 
you know of any rather oldish man in your regeen 
that doant teech gramer, we wood be glad if you 
wood send him up. But in the footure we will be 
keerful how we employ men. Yung scoolmasters 
wont do, especially if they teeches gramer. It's a 
bad thing for morils. Yours till deth. 

"Thomas Jefferson Sole." 



It is astonishing how far some men will allow 
their feelings of religious sectarianism to carry 
them. There was John Munson, or "old Mun- 
son," as he was known all the way from New York 
to Albany in those times when steamboats were 
rare, and railroads unheard of, who kept tavern at 
Poughkeepsie, on the " old Post road." John Mun- 
son was a rare old Churchman, a Church of En- 
gland man, of the straightest, strictest sort, and it 
became a well understood fact, that he would al- 
ways treat his Episcopal guests to the best his 
house afforded, and rather slight the " Dissenters," 
as he reckoned all other people. 

It chanced one day that a stranger on horseback, 
who had heard of Munson's peculiarity, called at 
his house for lodging, and was riding a splendid 
horse, of which he was remarkably fond, and re- 
quired to be well taken care of wherever he put up. 
The attentive landlord met the stranger with bis 
beaming smile, who, as soon as he dismounted, be- 
gan: 

"Ah, landlord, I hear you are a sound Church- 
man, a true Episcopalian !" 

" That I am," said Munson, " and I trust you 
are the same. 5 * 



" Very near it," said the stranger. " The truth 
is, I am a Presbyterian myself, but my horse, the 
noble fellow, is a decided Episcopalian. You'll 
take good care of him, won't you ?" 



That was a very fair retort of a pretty girl, an- 
noyed by the impertinences of a conceited beau at 
a wedding party : 

" Do you know what I was thinking of all the 
time during the ceremonv ?" he asked. 

"No, Sir, how should I ?" 

" Why I was blessing my stars that I was not 
the bridegroom." 

"And I have no doubt the bride was doing the 
same thing," said the girl, and left him to think it 
over again. 



As a general thing we hate parodies, for the same 
reason that Ave hate a clam — it seems a miserable 
attempt to be an oyster ; but the following, for a 
parody, is very fair : 

MY OLD STRAW HAT. 

A Parody on " The Old Arm-Chair." 

"I love it, I love it, and what of that, 
Who'll chide me for loving that old straw hat ? 
I've gazed on it oft with unspeakable pleasure ; 
I've preserved it long as a sacred treasure ; 
I've guarded it long with tender care ; 
'Twas the gift of a maiden so loved and fair — 
Her fingers have woven each delicate plait, 
And a eacred thing is that old straw hat. 

"I love it, I love it, and who will say 
That I should now cast that old hat away ? 
It hath circled my head where the sea-winds hlow. 
It hath shielded my hair from the mountain snow ; 
From noonday sun it hath sheltered my brow, 
And think ye when old I'll desert it now ? 
In sunshine and storm, and in wintry weather, 
That old hat and /have been friends together. 

"I'll cling to it fondly yet many a day, 
Till my eyes grow dim and my locks are gray ; 
And when Death's cold shaft to my bosom hath sped. 
It shall moulder unseen in my earth-bound bed. 
It tells me that life's parting sands run fast, 
That earth's choicest gifts not long can last, 
And I joy that a lesson so pure as that 
May be gleaned from the fate of my old straw hat." 



An ear-witness of the following sends it to us 
from the shades of Harvard University : 

In the Court of Common Pleas in Boston, Thom- 
as Brown brought his action against James Turn- 
er, both of them being gentlemen of color, to re- 
cover some goods which Turner alleged in his de- 
fense he had bought of Brown by a regular bill of 
sale. It became necessary for Turner to prove the 
handwriting of Brown to said bill. A number of 
witnesses were called who failed to prove it. Mr. 
Morris, the counsel for defense, now called, with a 
triumphant air, for Mr. John Wright, a man as 
black as night, who took his place on the stand, 
and showing the whites of his eyes, and a pure set 
of ivory, waited for the questions. 

Mr. Counselor Morris speaks : " Did you ever 
see Brown write ? John Wright replies : " Oh 
yes-ur, nummer o' times." 

Mr. Morris (highly elated). "Well, how does 
that look ?" showing Brown's supposed signature. 

Mr. Wright holds up both hands, and exclaims, 
"Oh, I knows nuffin' 'bout dat, Sur; I tho't you 
axes me, ' Did you ever see Brown, Wright ?' Dat's 
my name; I seed Brown, but I neber seed Brown 
make his write ; not at all ; neber, Sur." 



56a 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Judge Hoar did his endeavors to preserve the 
gravity and dignity of the Court, but it was of no 
avail — the people would laugh, and nobody could 
stop them. 

Charles Lamb, at work as a clerk in the " Old 
India House," is often pitied by those who think the 
drudgery of accounts must be very irksome to a 
man of his literary taste and genius ; but he has 
his own quiet enjoyment over his daily labor, as a 
quarto volume of Interest Tables attests, with such 
remarks as these on the fly-leaf, in Lamb's round, 
clerkly hand : 

"A book of much interest." — Edinburgh Review. 

"A work in which the interest never flags." — 
Quarterly Review. 

" We may say of this volume, that the interest 
increases from the beginning to the end." — Monthly 
Review. 



Not lately has a neater epigram than this, from 
the Evening Post, been found in the Drawer : 
"As my wife and I, at the window one day, 
Stood watching a man with a monkey, 
A cart came by, with a 'broth of a boy,' 
Who was driving a stout little donkey. 
To my wife I then spoke, by way of a joke, 

4 There's a relation of yours in that carriage.' 
To which she replied, as the donkey she spied, 
'Ah, yes, a relation — by marriage!'" 



The Prosecuting Attorney had more than his 
match in Mr. Parks, when that witness took the 
stand, and the following examination took place : 

Pros. Attorney. "Mr. Parks, state, if you 
please, whether you have ever known the defend- 
ant to follow any profession ?" 

Witness. "He's been a professor ever since I 
knew him." 

" Professor of what ?" 

" A professor of religion." 

"You don't understand me, Mr. Parks; what 
does he do?" 

" Generally whatever he pleases." 

" Tell the jury, Mr. Parks, what the defendant 
follows ?" 

" Gentlemen of the Jury, the defendant follows 
the crowd when they go to drink." 

" This kind of prevarication, Mr. Parks, will not 
do here. Now state what this defendant does to 
support himself?" 

" I saw him last night support himself against 
a lamp post." 

To the Court. "May it please your Honor, this 
witness has shown a disposition to trifle with the 
Court." 

Judge. "Mr. Parks, if you know any thing 
about it, state what the defendant's occupation is." 

" Occupation, did you say?" 

Counsel. " Yes, what is his occupation ?" 

" Well, if I am not mistaken, he occupies a gar- 
ret somewhere in town." 

"That's all , Mr. Parks." 

Cross-examined. Mr. Parks, I understood you to 
say that the defendant is a professor of religion. 
Does his practice correspond with his profession ?" 

"I never heard of any correspondence passing 
between them." 

"You said something about his propensity for 
drinking ; does he drink hard ?" 

"No, I think he drinks as easy as any man I 
ever saw." 

" You can take your seat, Mr. Parks ;" and Mr. 



Parks took his seat with the air of a man who had 
made a clean breast of it, and told all he knew of 
the subject in hand. 

"Mine neighbor, Wilhelm, vot you tink of bol- 
itics, hey ?" asked Peter Von Slug, of his neighbor 
Von Sweitzel, the Twelfth Ward Blacksmith, one 
evening, as he seated himself beside him in a 
' Bierhaus.' 

" I t'inks much," said Sweitzel, giving his pipe 
a long whiff. 

"Veil, vot you tinks ?" 

" I comes to der conclusion dat bolitics is one big 
fool." 

"Ah !" exclaimed Pete, after taking a draught 
from his mug, " how do you make him dat?" 

" Vel, mine frien', I tell you," replied Sweitzel, 
after a few whiffs and a drink, " I comes to dish 
place ten years last evening by der Dutch Almanac, 
mit mine blacksmit shop. I builds fine little house, 
I poots up mine bellers, I makes mine fire, I heats 
mine iron, I strikes mit mine hammer, I gets blen- 
ty of work in, and I makes mine monish." 

" Dat is goot," remarked Pete, at the same time 
demanding that the drained mugs be refilled. 

" I say that I made much friends," continued 
Wilhelm, relighting his pipe. "Der beeples all 
say, Von Sweitzel bes a good man, he blows in der 
morning, he strikes in der night, and he mind his 
bus'ness. So dey spraken to me many times, and 
it makes me feel much goot here," slapping his 
breast. 

' Yaw, yaw, dat ish gooter," remarked Pete, 
who was an attentive listener. 

" Veil, it goes along dat way tree year. Tree ? 
Let me see, von year I make tree hoondred tollar, 
der next tree hoondred an' fifty — der next four 
hoondred and swonzy, and der next five hoondred 
tollar. Dat make five yeer. Veil, I bes here five 
yeer, when old Mike, der watchman, who bees such 
a bad man, comes to me, and he say, ' Sweitzel, 
vot makes you vork so hard ?' ' To make monish,' 
I dell him. ' I dells you how you makes him 
quicker as dat,' he say. I ask him how, an' den he 
tells me to go into bolitics, an' get big office. I 
laugh at him, ven he tells me that Shake, der law- 
yer — vat makes such burty speeches about Fader- 
land — bes agoin' to run for Gongress, and dat Shake 
der lawyer dells him to dell me, if I would go among 
der beeples and dell them to vote mid him all der 
while, he would put me into von big office, where 
I makes twenty tousand tollars a year." 

"Twenty tousand, mine Got!" exclaimed Pete, 
thunderstruck. 

" Yaw, twenty tousand. Well, by shinks, I shust 
stops der strikin', an' goes to mine friens, an' all der 
Yarmans vote for Shake, and Shake bes elected to 
der Gongress." 

Here Mynheer Von Sweitzel stopped, took a 
long draught of beer, and fixing his eyes on the 
floor, puffed his pipe as if in deep thought. 

"Veil, mine neighbor," said Pete, after waiting 
a due length of time for him to resume, "vat you 
do den, hey ?" 

" Veil, I ask Mike, der swellhead watchmans, for 
der office, an' he dells me I gets him der next year. 
I waits till after der next krout-making time, an' 
den I say again, ' Mike, ven vill Shake give me 
dat twenty tousand tollar office ?' ' In two year, 
sure,' he say, ' if you work for der barty.' Veil, I 
stop a blowin' mit mine bellers agin, an' I blow 
two years for der party mit mine mout." 



EDITOK'S DRAWER. 



;69 



" Two year mit your mout ?" asked Pete, in as- 
tonishment. 

;> Yaw, two year. Den again I go to Mike, der 
swellhead watchmans, an' dell him der twenty tou- 
sand tollar about, an' he dells me in wun more 
year I gets him sure. I dinks he fools me, yet I 
blow for der barty anudder year, an' den, vat you 
dinks ?" 

" Dinks ! Vv, you gets him twenty tousand 
tollar." 

" Gets him ! Py shinks, Mike, der swellhead 
watchmans dells me I bes von big fool, an' dat I 
might go to der bad place, an' eat sour-krout." 

" He tell you dat ?" 

"Yaw. Sure as my name bes Von Sweitzel." 

" After you do der blowing mit your mout for 
der partv?" 
„."Yaw." 

"Mine Got! vat you do den, mine neighbor?" 

" I makes a fire in mine blacksmit shop, I blows 
my own bellers again, I heats mine own iron, and 
strikes mit mine own hammer. I say to mine- 
self, ' Wilhelm Yon Sweitzel, bolitics bes a hum- 
bug, and boliticians bes a bigger von. Wilhelm 
Von Sweitzel, do yer own blowing and let boliticians 
dodersF" 

Neighbor Pete thought he had come to a wise 
conclusion, and after wishing all sorts of bad luck 
to politicians, that class of men whose patriotism 
and integrity lie in their pocket, they ordered their 
mugs to be again refilled, and changed the topic of 
conversation. 



"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL." 
A friend of mine was married to a scold, 
To me he came, and all his troubles told. 
Said he, " She's like a woman raving mad." 
"Alas! my friend," said I, "that's very bad." 
"No, not so bad," said he; "for with her, true, 
I had both house, and land, and money, too." 

" That was well," said I. 

" No, not so well," said he; 
" For I and her own brother 
Went to law with one another; 
I was cast, the suit was lost, 
And every penny went to pay the cost." 

"That was bad," said I. 

"No, not so bad," said he; 
" For we agreed that he the house should keep, 
And give to me fourscore of Yorkshire sheep; 
All fat, and fair, and fine, they were to be." 
" Well, then," said I, " sure that was well for thee." 

" No, not so well," said he; 

"For, when the sheep I got, 
They every one died with the rot." 

"That was bad," said I. 

• No, not so bad," said he; 
" For I had thought to scrape the fat, 
And keep it in an open vat, 
Then into tallow melt for winter store." 
"Why, then," said I, "that's better than before." 

" No, not so well," said he; 
** For having got a clumsy fellow 
To scrape the fat and make the tallow, 
Into tin; melting fat the fire catches, 
And, like brimstone matches, 
Burned my house to ashes." 

"That was hurl," said I. 

" No, not so bad," said he ; 

" For, what is best, 
-My scolding wife is gone among the rest." 



" I will drown, and nobody shall help mo !" ex- 
claimed the man in the water: and though it was 
not a favorable moment to study English grammar, 
he would have expressed hia own idea just oppo- 



site to the one conveyed in this exclamation ; for 
he intended to say, " I shall drown, and nobody 
will help me!" 

We were rushing along the Highlands the other 
morning, in the Hudson River Railroad cars, sur- 
veying the cold, bleak, but superlatively grand 
scenery of that neighborhood, when our friend, 
who occupied a seat by our side, said, looking at 
the frozen river on which people Avere walking : 

" Did you ever hear of a wedding on the ice ?" 

We replied that we had heard of weddings hav- 
ing taken place in very singular localities, such as 
in the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, under the 
bank at Niagara Falls, and the like, but never on 
the ice of a river, to our recollection. 

" Well," said our friend, " there was a wedding 
one night in the very middle of the Hudson, on 
the ice," and he proceeded to tell the story. 

" A young man, the son of a wealthy resident of 
the western bank of the Hudson, became enamored 
of a young, beautiful, and wealthy girl on this side. 
His affection was fully reciprocated ; but the father 
and family of the young lady opposed their union, 
and finally told the young lover that his suit would 
be in vain, and that consent to their marriage 
would never be obtained. He was even informed 
that thenceforth all intercourse between the lovers 
must thenceforth cease. 

"But 'love is stronger than bolts or bars,' and 
they did meet, and that frequently, notwithstand- 
ing the most watchful surveillance. Many a time 
did the young man row quietly over the tranquil 
waters when the long shadows from the moon slept 
upon its bosom, and in 

' The silent woody places, 
Stand tranced in long embraces' 

with his heart's idol. This was at last discovered, 
however, and a closer and more effective watch was 
the consequence. The young lady was sent to the 
metropolis for two months in the autumn, with the 
hope that she might forget her ' unfortunate at- 
tachment' in the gayety and everlasting bustle of 
society in town. 

" But not so ; absence only strengthened the 
sentiment of true passion in both hearts. Whether 
the two corresponded or not, I don't know. 

"At last autumn passed away. The winds 
blew, and the snow descended; and during this 
time the lovers had communicated with each other 
and formed their plans. 

" Did you notice that little church in the woods 
on the side-hill, opposite St. Anthony's Nose?" 

" Yes ; with alittle shrine-like turret at the end." 

"The same. There was a man preaching there 
at the time who fell in with the young people's 
plan at once, after having been made their confi- 
dant. They were more closely watched than 
ever; even the young man's family now began to 
protest against a match so obstinately contested. 

" But their time was coming. They were wait- 
ing for the Hudson to freeze over! It was all ar- 
ranged ; the minister was in the secret — and being 
a young man and in love himself, he felt a sym- 
pathy with both parties. 

"One bitter cold night the ice 'made' from 
shore to shore. Three cold nights succeeded ; and 
presently boys appeared on the western shore with 
their little sleds. 

" The time had come, (.'old as it was, the rigor 
of the season had not cooled the ardor of the 'party 
of tho first' or ' second part.' By appointment, and 



570 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



with much skillful manoeuvring, and with the aid 
and connivance of the clergyman, they met on the 
ice, in the middle of the river, in the moonlight 
shadow of a great mountain, and there, standing 
amidst the grandeur and solemn winter-stillness of 
Nature, were made man and wife !" 

" Is this really true ?" we asked, " or is it a rail- 
road traveler's story ?" 

" True!'''' said our friend, "is it true?" "Why 
there is not a man, woman, or child within ten 
miles of St. Anthony's Nose that couldn't tell you 
the story a good deal better than / have told it. 
But look there ! — there is their residence at this 
moment!" pointing to a large and imposing man- 
sion, of a picturesque architecture, surrounded by 
a grove of leafless trees, which in summer must 
hide the house entirely from view. " There they 
live — their families reconciled — with four little 
children around them, the pets and idols of the 
old people." 

"How strangely events do shape themselves!" 
we said. 

" That's a fact !" was the reply, and the story 
was ended. 



A newspaper in one of the midland counties of 
Pennsylvania relates the following : 

"A singular accident occurred on the Reading 
Railroad on Monday last. As the morning train 
was approaching Manayunk, the cylinder-head of 
the engine blew out, and with such tremendous 
violence, that, at the distance of forty yards, it 
struck a man who was walking between two others 
on the opposite track, carrying away the top of his 
head entirely, leaving his companion uninjured, 
but — considerably astonished." 

" Considerably astonished /" We should think so. 

A man — a friend — is walking by your side, along 
the public highway. You are talking as you jog 
along, when presently your friend has half of his 
head completely blown off by an explosion, and 
you are " considerably astonished I' 1 '' 

That is to say, the man w r as quite surprised! It 
seems to us that the use of this word, in this place, 
is almost as ridiculous as the Frenchman who said 
to an American friend, that he was " very much 
dissatisfied, having just heard of the death of his 
father!" 



There are two kinds of witnesses that lawyers, 
as Mrs. Gamp says, " can't a-bear." The one is, 
the " too willing witness," and the other the "un- 
willing witness." There was one of these latter — 
"Uncle Josh," by popular name — once on a time 
in the State of Georgia, of whom a friend, now de- 
ceased, gave the following ludicrous and amusing 
picture : 

" One day, before our Justices' Court, it became 
necessary, to identify an individual, to ascertain 
whether, at a certain place, he turned to the right 
or the left, and it was unavoidable to swear the 
only person present in Court who was known to 
be acquainted with the circumstances. That per- 
son was ' Uncle Josh.' 

" With much trepidation, and after considerable 
consultation with his client, ' Uncle Josh' was put 
upon the stand : 

" ' Well, Uncle Josh,' said the attorney for the 
plaintiff, ' the boys around here say that you can't 
tell the truth by accident ; but I know you better 
—don't I, old fellow?' 

" ' Ye-e-s, Billy, you've known the old man too 



well to believe all the lies told on him. I've kissed 
the Good Book, my son, and I'll tell the truth as 
straight as a shingle. Don't you be skeert, Billy.' 

" ' Go on, then, Uncle Josh, and let us hear all 
about it.' 

" ' Well, you see there was a pretty sharp shower 
of old men at Joe White's " Entertainment," and we 
got talking about old times, and the like, and after 
we had taken a dram or two, maybe three, I start- 
ed up the road ; and as I walked pretty brisk, I 
see a man ahead of me, whom I first took for Bill 
Sikes ; but when I looked ag'in, I allowed it was 
Bill Thompson ; and so he kept up the road — ' 

" ' Stop, Uncle Josh ! Tell us, now — you know 
that road, don't you V 

" 'Well, I reckon I do. I traveled it afore you 
w r as born. I've walked it, man and boy, these 
sixty years, and I've never been a squirrel's jump 
from it. There ain't a green shrub, or an old 
stump onto it that I don't know by heart.' 

" ' Very well ; now go on with your story.' 

" ' Yes, — wa'al : And so the man kept up the road, 
till he came to the forks ; and when he come to 
that, he took the road to the right — ' 

" ' Huzza! I said so!' exclaimed the enthusias- 
tic attorney ; ' I said "Uncle Josh" would tell the 
truth when it came to the push ; the old man is the 
genuine thing after all. You see, gentlemen of 
the jur} r , as he turned to the right, it must have 
been Sikes.' 

"During this outbreak of feeling 'Uncle Josh' 
had received a wink from the opposing counsel, 
and, without noticing the interruption, proceeded 
with his evidence : 

" ' Well, as I was saying, when he got there, he 
turned to the left — ' 

" ' Hollo ! — stop there, old man ; none of } r our 
" tricks upon travelers !" You said, just this min- 
ute, that he took to the right.'' 

" ' No, I didnt: 

" ' Yes, you did!' exclaimed a score of voices. 

" ' Silence in the Court!' said the Justice, in au- 
thoritative tones. 

'"Well, children,' said "Uncle Josh," 'don't 
crowd the old man ; give him time. Memory ain't 
picked up like chips. So I did say the right; 
your right, as you stand to me, Billy, and my left 
as I stand to you. You know, my son, there are 
two rights — ' 

" 'Which neither make one wrong nor one left, 
you old villain !' said the counsel. ' Now listen to 
me. The road that leads up from Joe White's tav- 
ern is straight until it comes to a fork. The right 
hand of the fork leads to Bill Sikes's house, and 
the left hand side to Bill Thompson's. Now, no 
more of your 'rights' and 'lefts,' but just tell me, 
did the man you saw go up Sikes's or Thompson's 
road ? That's the question, " Uncle Josh." ' 

" ' I — I — dis-remember.' 

" ' You " dis-remember !" 3-011 hoary-headed old 
scoundrel! Have'nt you "traveled that road all 
your life ?" Have you ever ' ' been as far as a squir- 
rel's jump from it?" Don't you " know every green 
bush and every old stump ' onto' it by heart ?" and 
yet you can't tell which road the man took no lon- 
ger ago than last week ?' 

" ' No. Billy, my son,' replied " Uncle Josh," ' the 
old man is no chicken — he is gitting a leetle old 
now. I was born in the Revolution, and when 
the British—' 

"'Sit down, you gray-haired alligator!' ex- 
claimed the exasperated attorney ; ' sit down ! 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



571 



You have perjured yourself. From the word " Go," 
you have ; you have equivocated from Dan to 
Beersheba ; you have lied from Joe White's tavern 
to the forks of the road ; and if the jury believe one 
word you have said, they are greater rascals than 
either you or the Justice there takes them to be !' " 
How many such witnesses as " Uncle Josh" have 
we not seen on the stand in the criminal amd civil 
Courts of this city within the last two years ! 



Having occasion to call upon a friend and cor- 
respondent from the country the other day at the 
Astor House, we sent up our card ; and as his room 
— in the crowded state, at the time, of the hotel — 
was " on the first floor from the roof," we stepped 
into one of the gentlemen's parlors adjoining the 
"office," and took a look at the papers while the 
servant was conveying our message. We had 
scarcely taken up a paper when a white-haired, 
benevolent-looking gentleman laid his down, and 
slapping his hand upon it in undisguised anger, 
and shoving his gold spectacles up on his forehead, 
said : 

" What cruelty ! Read that ! If I was on the 
jury that tried that boy, I would sit till doomsday 
until a verdict was rendered that should consign 
him to the State prison." 

He put his finger upon the paragraph, and point- 
ed it out to his friend. And this was it : 

" In Cincinnati, on the 10th instant, one boy in- 
duced another to put his tongue against a fluted 
iron lamp-post, the thermometer at the time being 
far below zero. The tongue stuck fast, of course, 
and the poor boy suffered great agony. Several 
passers-by endeavored to release him, but in vain. 

"Matters were in this situation for over five 
minutes, when a gentleman named Taylor went 
into the Telegraph House and brought some hot 
water and whisky, with which he bathed the tongue 
of the suffering boy, finally liberating about one- 
half, leaving the other sticking to the post, where 
it attached itself for the remainder of the day — a 
warning to youngsters how they recklessly lick 
cold iron in freezing weather. The luckless boy 
was taken to his home in extreme agony." 

" ' A warning to youngsters !' — ' luckless hoy !"' 
exclaimed the old gentleman ; " why didn't the 
editor expose the little scoundrel who made that 
little boy put his tongue to that cold iron lamp- 
post ? I speak feelingly on this subject, for I have 
good reason. One of the wealthiest merchants 
now in your city served me just such a trick once, 
when we were boys together. At his suggestion, 
one cold, biting winter morning, I 'ran out my 
tongue as far as I could' to ' lick an ax !' It took 
half an hour to liberate me, and even then half my 
tongue was gone. I have never forgiven him — I 



never can! 



Du. Franklin* himself can hardly b*e said to 
have enforced a lesson of frugality — "economy, 
with .small gains" — more strikingly than is done in 
the following: 

"JVo, Sir! he did not die of cholera at all ! He 
died of bro!:< rx, Sir" said a man to anot-her in the 
streets of Buffalo, "lie projected an unwise im- 
provement of a piece of real estate, made loans, 
covered himself with bonds and mortgages, and 
finally incurred l a gtreet-deM of two thousand dol- 
lars, which rapidly rolled up to eight thousand 
dollars, and crushed the life right out of him. lie 
borrowed Canada money 'on call,' to be paid in 



current funds ; got paper discounted, payable in 
seven days, in the city of New York ; borrowed 
Ohio and Kentucky currency for one day, returna- 
ble in notes of Buffalo banks; 'shinned it' from 
street to street} and friend to friend, to keep the 
debt ahead of him. Why, Sir, I couldn't sit down 
to consult with him, or do any kind of business 
with him, with the least assurance that he would 
not jump up suddenly to go out and give another 
shove to that accursed debt. The memorandum- 
book of his obligations was always in his bosom ; 
and, Sir, it burned to the poor man's heart ! 

" He was owned by brokers. He u-orked for 
them — lived for them — died for them. He did not 
die of cholera at all, Sir. He died of a ' street- 
debt,' upon which he had expended his strength 
every week, in throwing it ahead from one day to 
seven days !" 

How many there are bustling about Wall Street 
in agony every day, who can testify to the truth 
of this only too graphic sketch ! 



Quite a wholesome lesson, and not ineffective, 
is conveyed by a little piece of verse which we find 
in one of our country exchanges, entitled " lie had 
no Tongue in his Sled." Not a stone's-throw from 
our office may any day, during the " cold snap" in 
which this is written, be seen the difference between 
one who has and one who has not " a tongue in his 
sled," as he slides from Franklin Square down 
Frankfort Street: 

" While taking a walk one day through the snow, 

A hoy with a sled came along ; 
But straight in the road his sled wouldn't go, 

It 'Avabbled,' and 'always went wrong.' 
With urchins beside he could not keep pace, 

He jerked it — then kicked it — and said, 
'Confound the old thing! it's no use to chase, 

Because I've no tongue to my sled!' 

" Now many I see bestrewing the path 

Of life, like this boy with his sled, 
Who grumble and growl, and kick from mere wrath, 

When, 'wabbling,' some pleasure has fled. 
The fault is tWeir own, I slyly suspect, 

And to this conclusion I'm led : 
I see, poor fellow ! 'tis all your neglect 

In not putting a tongue to your sled. 

"When young men are courting of too many girls, 

And flirting with all in their way ; 
First struck by bright eyes, then caught by fine curls, 

Thus fruitlessly passing youth's day: 
At last they propose, but find none willing 

With Cupid's old foot-ball to wed : 
Bachelors' graves they soon must be filling, 

Because they'd no tongue in their sled. 

"In fact, the whole world is one living mass 

Of hiilf-finished, ' wabbling' jobs ; 
With rubbing and jostling each as they pass, 

Its head 'gainst its neighbor it bobs: 
Twist and turn it, to suit your own taste, 

For now, after all I have said, 
I find that my time and labor I waste, 

Because I've no tongue in my stod !' 



Among the items of intelligence in the summary 
of a recent English journal, we find the annexed: 

"The gallant Sir Thomas Trowbridge, who had 
both his feet shot away at the Battle of Inkermann, 
has led to the altar Miss Louisa Gurney, daughter 
of Daniel Gurney, Esq., of Norwich, and sister of 
the late Hon. Mrs. W. Cooper. The engagement 
is an old one." 

A true woman that — who saw in her mutilated 



572 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



betrothed more honor than all the gold medals 
which could have covered his unharmed person. 

We are reminded by this of the brave English- 
man who lost a leg and an arm in the battle on 
Lake Erie, in our war. On arriving in London, he 
wrote a letter to a beautiful young lady, who was 
affianced to him, saying that his misfortunes in war 
had not left him the same man he was when he last 
took leave of her ; that he was mutilated in person, 
though as whole in heart as ever. 

The noble girl replied that she was ready at any 
moment to consummate their nuptials; that as 
long as he had body enough left to contain his no- 
ble heart, her own was wholly and only his ! 



It amuses us not ^infrequently, in looking over 
our exchanges, so see with what virulence our 
country contemporaries sometimes write, in rela- 
tion to matters which, after all, the public have not 
the slightest interest in — not even readers in their 
own immediate circle. Here, for example, is a 
specimen, copied literally from a Western paper 
now before us. We " name no parties" and no 
locality, and only wish to enforce a lesson in the 
extract which we make, and a single word of com- 
ment which we desire to offer : 

" Truth is a word unknown in the vocabulary of 

the ' D .' The man whose midnight hours and 

whole family substance has been wasted at the 
gaming-table ; whose life has been a living lie upon 
his professions ; whose pen has been a willing in- 
strument in the hands of lynx-eyed jealousy, to 
defame character and to decry virtue — such a man 
is a fit subject to sprawl on the floor at the feet of 
a liquor-fumed statesman !" 

"Liquor-fumed statesman," as Polonius says in 
Hamlet, " is good." But hear the gentle editor a 
little farther : 

" We pronounce his paragraph in relation to the 
writer of this paragraph as every iota a falsehood. 
We cast the falsehood in his teeth, and brand it on 
his brow. Go, viper! back to your native haunts, 
there to feed and fatten on the foul creations of 
your own distempered brain! Go, howl your 
maudlin plaudits in the ears of your admiring mas- 
ter!" etc., etc. 

Whew ! and what, after all, was all this about ? 
Why, some six lines, in the columns of a contem- 
porary, in which our editor had been rather slight- 
ingly spoken of, and wdiich, if he himself had not 
alluded to, or replied to it, would have been wholly 
forgotten in two or three days. 

There is a lesson in this, and a valuable one. 
Let us hope it may be heeded. 

" If the moon is made of green cheese," said a 
philosophical old lady once upon a time, in the 
town of Rye, on Long Island Sound, " then that set- 
tles the question about its being inhabited ; 'cause 
every body knows that cheeses is inhabited!" 

Good reasoning : but Lord Ross (whose famous 
telescope is one of the wonders of the world) don't 
seem to think so. He says, in a late communica- 
tion to an English paper : 

" Every object on the surface of the moon, of 
the height of one hundred feet, has been distinctly 
seen through my instrument ; and I have no doubt 
that, under very favorable circumstances, it would 
be so with objects of sixty feet in height. On its 
surface arc craters of extinct volcanoes, rocks, and 
masses of stones almost innumerable. I have no 
doubt whatever, that this building, or such an one 



as we are now in, if it were upon the surface of the 
moon, Avould be rendered distinctly visible by these 
instruments. But there are no signs of habitations 
such as ours ; no vestiges of architectural remains 
to show that the moon is, or ever was, inhabited 
by a race of mortals similar to ourselves. It pre- 
sents no appearance which could lead to the sup- 
position that it contained any thing like the green 
fields and lovely verdure of this beautiful world of 
ours. 

" There is no water visible ; not a sea, or a river, 
or even the measure of a reservoir for supplying a 
town or a factory. All is desolate !" 

" Hence," says Dr. Scoresby, " would arise the 
reflection in the mind of the Christian philosopher, 
' Why had this devastation been ? Was it a lost 
world? Had it suffered for its transgression? 
Had it met the fate which Scripture foretold us 
was reserved our world?' All. all is mysterious 
conjecture." 

Rufus Sm alley — who he is, or where he lives, 
or where he writes from, is to us a mystery — sends 
us a curious brochure, entitled " Travels through 
the Scriptures by Faith — in Verse." The measure 
is very unique, and the entire performance exceed- 
ingly funny. A "sample-parcel" is subjoined, 
which it is hoped will " satisfy the sentiment," and 
afford an example of the entire poem : 

" By Faith when Moses was born he was a fair child, 

Then Pharaoh's law must be beguiled 

Then he was hid for three months 

While his parents for him never hunts 

As the place of hiding please him so well, 

And of that place they never tell. 

Then a curious tragedy was sought 

A little ark for him was wrought. 

That the little sailor might ride home, 

"Where Pharaoh's daughter often come. 

She was the first that did him spy ; 

As to the shore he was very nigh. 

When first upon him she did peep, 

The little sailor lay fast asleep. 

She catched him up and then run in 

And thus her story did begin : 

Saying, I found him in a little ark 

Made of most curious work ; 

And now I have got him he is mine, 

No other shall have him I design. 

Then for a nurse I quickly sent, 

A Hebrew woman to him went 

That was the mother of the child, 

Who Pharaoh's law had so well beguiled ; 

Here he was brought up in every thing 

Fit for any office up to a king. 

But when he came to riper years, 

He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter 
it appears. 

Choosing rather to suffer affliction with God's people, 

Than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. 

As he was no Egyptian born 

Nor to their Idols could return. 

As Jews and Samaritans could never agree. 

So it is he says with me. 

As he walked out it was on a day 

He saw two men striving away ; 

The one an Egyptian the other a Hebrew, 

In avenging the former the latter he slew ; 

And as he walked out the next day 

He saw two more striving away, 

Those both Hebrews ; he says why strive ye one w 
another 

Are ye not both Hebrew brothers — " 

Talk of the measure of Longfellow's " Hiawatha" 
after this, and much more in the same vein ! 1 1 i? 
not the Trochaic metre ; it is Smalleyic in the high- 
est sense'! and "it isn't any thing else!" 



tl v >ittblugt{. 




RAISING THE WIND. 




A FAIR WIND. 




A WHITE SQUALL 




AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NOBODY GOOD. 



- 



-T-<\ /.;.,' ,'^j 




RUNNING BEFORE THE WIND. 



A BLAST OF WIND-INSTRUMENTS. 



Vol. XII.— No. 70.— N ** 



574 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




A MARCH WIND. 




BLOW1J tEAT GUNS. 




LAYING-TO FOR A CHANGE OF WIND. 




A HEAVY BLOW. 




SCUDDING UNDER BARE POLES. 




A WHIRLWIND. 




A HURRICANE 



A CALM. 



$m\)kw far Mm\). 



Furnished by Mr. G. Brodie, 51 Canal Street, Neiv York, and drawn by Voigt 

from actual articles of Costume. 




~«y»« 



Figures 1 and 2.— Promenade Costume. 



676 



THE Mantilla of which Figures 1 and 2 pre- 
sent a front and back view, is appropriate both 
for the earlier and more advanced portion of the 
season. For the early months it may be fashioned 
of velvet and moire antique; for late spring and 
early summer of poult de soie or glace silks, with 
borders, etc., of moir. The silks form the body of 
the garment ; while the velvets, or (as in the illus- 
tration) the moirs antiques form the deep borders, 
the facings of the Rood, the under tabs, and the 
revers. Made of velvet, the favorite colors are 
black, purple, and maroon, with moirs to match. 
Of silk, any desirable color may be selected, either 
uniform or of pleasing contrast. The illustration 
represents one of mode color. The hood is gath- 
ered by moire antique ribbons passing back and 
forth through slits, and tied in a three-looped bow, 
the ends forming streamers. The bottom is either 
shawl-shaped or round ; the former, as in the illus- 
tration, being preferable. The border and hood 
are trimmed with drops, which also ornament the 
revers and upper tabs. The front is surplice-shaped, 
with a revers scrolled to match the outline of the 
garment. The tabs are double, the upper ones be- 
ing of the same tissue as the body of the Mantilla. 
A crochet fringe completes the ornaments. 

The Bonnet in Figure 1 is of Schamyl (vanilla 
color) velvet. A band of satin to match encircles 
the crown, and crossing at the top is curved down 
toward the corners. The fore part is trimmed with 
a wreath of evergreens. Marabouts ornament the 
sides. The inside trimmings are of lace, and small 
flame-colored blossoms. — The Bonnet in Figure 2 
is of the new style of terry velvet, called " double 
imperial" velvet. The face trimming is composed 
of a profusion of blonde, wreathing over and en- 
tirely concealing the outline of the brim. The 




^m I, • 



outside ornaments are canary colored clustering 
droops of buds, and nozuds of satin ribbon. — Bon- 
nets are made with fronts reaching somewhat fur 
ther forward; the cheeks still remaining small. 
The curtains are deep and boldly plaited. Black 
or white lace is a favorite trimming. 

For the promenade, bodies are worn high, and 
sleeves are closed. Flounces are in favor, though 
the frequency of rich fabrics which do not admit 
of them, renders plain skirts equally admissible. 

The Head-Dress is composed of thread lace, 
bordered with guipure, arranged in lozenge-formed 
drops. The crown, of similar shape, forms a Marif 
Stuart front. It is trimmed with lillies of the val- 
ley, with a Marabout. 




Fig. 4. — Chemisette. 



The Chemisette and Under-Sleeves are en 
suite. In both the bouillonees — alternately wide 
and narrow — are transparent. The ruffles are of 
Brussels point. 

The Infant's Cap is of Valenciennes inser- 
tion, with Valenciennes ruffle, gathered very full 
A succession of loops of pink satin ribbon, with 
rosettes at the corners, enliven the uniformity of 
the lace. The strings are of 
pink gauze, with satin knots. 



Fig. '6. — Head-Dressj 




Fig 5. — Under-Sleeve. Fig. 6. — Cap. 



HARPER'S 

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



No. LXXI -APRIL, 1856.— Vol XII. 









IS 







I'T'TNAM | TOMH. 

Vol. XII.— No. 71.— O o 






ISRAEL PUTNAM. 

THERE is a region known in the early 
annals of Massachusetts Ray as Sa- 
lem Village, and in modern gazetteers as 
Danvers. There still blooms, in every 
lovely May-time, the pear-tree planted by 
the hand of Endicott, the persecutor of 
Quakers and Churchmen; and there, ac- 
cording to the credulous Mather and the 
mummied legislation of the Puritan magis- 
trates, was the centre of enchanted ground 
many long years ago, when a belief in 

Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 
1866, by Harper ana Brothers, in the Clerk's Office 

of the District Court fur tin; Southern District of New- 
York.. 



578 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



witchcraft was a part of the social creed, and its 
denial a heresy not easily forgiven by the mag- 
nates of church and state in the New England 
capital.. The pear-tree had then bloomed for 
half a century, and witches suddenly became as 
plentiful as its buds on All-Fools' Day. Weird 
sisters were not seen around seething caldrons, 
concocting deadly potions of 

"Eye of newt and toe of frog, 
Wool of bat and tooth of dog, 
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, 
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing, 
For a charm of powerful trouble" — 

yet the lynx-eye of superstition in authority 
beheld, in almost every household, " a woman 
with a familiar spirit," as palpable as was the 
dweller in the cave at Endor to the vision of 
the bad king of Israel. The enchantment was 
brief in operation, terrible in its results, and 
shameful to its promoters and dupes. When 
the spell was broken, all sought to forget the 
follies of Salem witchcraft. 

Although angels of peace ministered to the 
disturbed in spirit, the charmers in Puritan 
households were not exorcised. Wherever there 
was a daughter blooming in young womanhood, 
there was witchery irresistible ; and ever since, 
even to this day, all over New England, far be- 
yond the charmed circumference of Salem Vil- 
lage — " the centre and first-born of all the towns 
in the colony" — such enchantresses have been, 
and are now, continually disturbing the frigid 
peace of bachelordom, and "afflicting" the weak 
Malthusians. 




PUTNAM 8 BIRTH-PLACE. 

One of these, a sweet, round-faced, black- 
eyed, rosy-cheeked daughter of a Suffolk immi- 
grant, bewitched the affections of an excellent 

* We are indebted to Mr. M. C. Oby, of Danversport, 
Massachusetts, for accurate pencil sketches of Putnam's 
birth-place, and the room in which he was born, from 
which our engravings have been made. 



son of an early settler in Salem. He had al- 
ready built a modest house in the midst of his 
fertile acres, almost within sound of the war- 
bling birds in the branches of the old pear-tree 
in Endicott's garden. Under that roof, for 
more than forty summers, he lived happily with 
his charmer; and as years rolled on, the ring- 
ing laugh of their merry children around the 
hearth-stone at Christmas-time, or in their gam- 
bols upon the lawn in flowery June, echoed the 
joy of those two loving hearts. One of that 
group of merry children became a devoted pa- 
triot and courageous hero in the conflicts of two 
wars, and won for himself a name as imperish- 
able as the hills in whose presence his valor was 
vindicated by his deeds. That patriot and hero 
was Israel Putnam. » 

In the large room of the modest dwelling of 
Captain Putnam, where low projecting beams 
and capacious fire-place — preserved until our 
day — attest its early origin, Israel Putnam was 
born, on the 7th of January, 1718. A stately, 
high-backed chair, a small table, a mirror, and 
one or two other pieces of furniture which 
graced the parlor at his birth, are preserved 
with care as family relics of much interest. 
They appreciate in value as the mould of an- 
tiquity deepens upon them. 

From earliest boyhood Israel was remarkable 
for his personal courage, his resolute mainte- 
nance of his known rights, and as a lover of gen- 
erous deeds. These traits of character devel- 
oped with his physical growth. Like Nelson, 
he might have asked in sincerity — " Fear ! 
What is fear ? I never saw it." His 
frankness was as natural as it was free. 
He despised concealment, and hated 
dissimulation. His courage was often 
stronger than his discretion, and his 
intrepidity in military life sometimes 
appeared like recklessness. His self- 
esteem and sensitive spirit, regulated 
by a sound judgment and exalted ideas 
of right, always vindicated the true 
dignity of his character; and he would 
never allow himself to be insulted with 
impunity. On his first visit to Boston, 
while yet a small boy, he was jeered 
in the streets by a lad twice his age and 
size, because of the coarse quality and 
rustic fashion of his clothes. Israel's 
indignation was kindled in a moment. 
He challenged his persecutor to fight, 
and in the presence of a crowd of cheer- 
ing spectators, the little chubby "pump- 
kin" from the fields whipped the big 
town boy to his heart's content. When 
on the verge of early manhood, he over- 
heard a neighbor's son, a proud, rustic 
coxcomb, speak disparagingly of another neigh- 
bor's daughter. Young Putnam immediately 
demanded proof of the truth of his assertion. 
The offender, richer in this world's goods, but 
poorer in spirit than his questioner, haughtily 
replied, "It's none of your business." "It's 
any body's business to defend a good girl," 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



i79 




KOOM IN WUICH PUTNAM WAS BOEN. 



quickly responded Putnam, as he walked close 
up to the defamer. " I know you have slander- 
ed Nelly P . You think because she is a 

poor girl, and has no father, that you may say 
what you please about her. Twice you've done 

the same thing. Now own to Charley D , 

here, that you've lied about Nelly, or I'll thrash 
you." The slanderer was, as usual, a poltroon, 
and quailed before these expressions of the chiv- 
alry of his earnest, rough-fisted neighbor. He 
acknowledged the libel, and avoided the inevi- 
table chastisement. 

Young Putnam's education was exceedingly 
limited, for his father was in moderate circum- 
stances, and required his labor on his farm. 
There he worked faithfully, and acquired ro- 
bust health and industrious habits — the richest 
legacies a young man can receive from a parent. 
Before he had reached lawful age he married a 
daughter of John Pope, of Salem, who bore him 
ten children, and then died, just as the storm- 
clouds of popular discontent were beginning to 
gather darkly in the political firmament, pre- 
saging that tempest in which her husband be- 
came so distinguished a few years later. 

Soon after his marriage Putnam bought a 
tract of new land in Pomfret, Connecticut, 
about forty miles east of Hartford, and applied 
himself diligently to its improvement. For 
years he contended manfully with the rough 
soil, and the numerous wild beasts that ravaged 
his flocks and his poultry-yard, and conquered. 
Industry, perseverance, and skill were brought 
to bear with surprising effect upon his shaggy 
domain, until soon its rough features disap- 
peared, prosperity and plenty sat in fond dal- 
liance upon his threshold, and he was regarded 
as one of the most thrifty farmers in all that 
region. 

Putnam's unflinching courage was forcibly 
illustrated by his dealing with a she-wolf, who, 
with her annual whelps, had committed great 
depredations in the neighborhood for a long 
time. In one night, in the spring of 1743, 
seventy of his fine sheep and goats were killed, 



and several others were maimed, by the depre 
dator. Her young were generally soon destroy- 
ed by the hunters, but the old dam eluded their 
most earnest vigilance and skill. "When too 
closely beset, she would fly to the deep forests 
westward of Pomfret, and return the following 
season with a new family of young ones. Fi- 
nally, Putnam and several of his neighbors 
agreed to hunt the marauder to destruction, if 
possible. The toes of one of her feet had been 
bitten off by a trap, and her tracks were easily 
recognized in the snow. On one occasion, early 
in April, she was thus tracked to the borders of 
the Connecticut River, from whence she had re- 
traced her steps toward Pomfret. The dogs, in 
full cry, chased her into a rocky cavern, about 
three miles from Putnam's house, and there the 
people collected and tried to drive her out by 
the use of ignited straw and sulphur. The 
dogs were sent in, and they came out howling, 
with bad wounds, and refused to return. Put- 
nam tried to persuade his negro servant to go 
down and shoot her, but he would not venture. 
Irritated by the fellow's cowardice, and aroused 
by his impatience to destroy the pest of the 
neighborhood, Putnam cast off his coat, waist- 
coat, shoes, and stockings, tied a rope to one of 
his legs with which to signal danger and receive 
aid, if required, and lighting some birch-bark 
for a torch, he descended the 6mooth rocks into 
the black cavern, in spite of the earnest remon- 
strances of his friends, who tried to dissuade 
him from the perilous effort. He soon discov- 
ered the eye-balls of the wolf glaring angrily 
in the light of his torch, and heard her gnash- 
ing teeth and menacing growl. He pulled the 
rope, when his alarmed friends drew him out 
with so much haste that his shirt was almost 
stripped from his back and his flesh Avas badly 
lacerated. After adjusting his clothing, he 
loaded his musket with buckshot, and with the 
weapon in one hand and his lighted torch in 
the other, he again descended. A growl and 
the crack of a musket were heard in quick suc- 
cession, and again Putnam was drawn out. He 



;80 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



descended a third time, took the dead wolf by 
the ears, and both were brought out together, to 
the great joy of all parties. The conqueror 
was accounted a model of courage ; and when, 
in after years, he asked for volunteers to ac- 
company him to the wars, his neighbors re- 
membered his adventures with the she-wolf and 
cheerfully enlisted under his banner. 

Mr. Putnam was called into the public serv- 
ice at the age of thirty-seven years. For a cen- 
tury the French and English colonies in Amer- 
ica had been gradually expanding and increas- 
ing in importance. The English, more than a 
million in number at the period in question, oc- 



cupied the Atlantic seaboard from the Penob- 
scot to the St. Mary's — a thousand miles in ex- 
tent — all eastward of the great ranges of the 
Alleghanies, and far northward toward the St. 
Lawrence. The French, not more than a hun- 
dred thousand strong, had made settlements 
along the St. Lawrence, the shores of the great 
lakes, on the Mississippi and its tributaries, and 
upon the borders of the Gulf of Mexico. They 
early founded Detroit, Kaskaskia, Vincennes, 
and New Orleans. The English planted agri- 
cultural colonies ; the French were chiefly en- 
gaged in traffic with the Indians. That trade 
and the operations of Jesuit missionaries, who 




PUTNAM AND THE SUE-WOO 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



581 



were usually the self-denying pioneers of com- 
merce in its penetration of the wilderness, gave 
the French great influence over the tribes of a 
vast extent of country lying in the rear of the 
English settlements. The ancient quarrel be- 
tween the two nations, originating far back in 
feudal ages, and kept alive by subsequent col- 
lisions, burned vigorously in the bosoms of the 
respective colonists in America, where it was 
continually fed by frequent hostilities on front- 
ier ground. They had ever regarded each 
other with extreme jealousy, for the prize be- 
fore them was supreme rule in the New World. 
The trading posts and missionary stations of 
the French in the far northwest, and in the bo- 
som of a dark wilderness, several hundred miles 
distant from the most remote settlement on the 
English frontier, attracted very little attention 
until they formed a part of more extensive oper- 
ations. But when, after the capture of Louis- 
burg in 1745, the French adopted vigorous meas- 
ures for opposing the extension of British pow- 
er in America ; when they built strong vessels 
at the foot of Lake Ontario — made treaties of 
friendship with the Delaware and Shawnee 
tribes — strengthed Fort Niagara, and erected 
a cordon of fortifications, more than sixty in 
number, between Montreal and New Orleans, 
the English were aroused to immediate and 
effective action in defense of the territorial 
claims given them in their ancient charters. 

One of these claims was speedily brought to 
an issue, when a company of London merchants 
and Virginia land-speculators commenced erect* 
ing a fort at the forks of the Ohio, and the French 
drove them off. For a year and a half the dis- 
pute rested chiefly between the French and the 
Virginians, and during that time young Wash- 
ington won his first military laurels. The other 
colonies gradually became implicated, and, early 
in 1755, General Braddock came over with Brit- 
ish regulars to assist the Americans. At a con- 
ference between Braddock and several colonial 
governors, held at Alexandria, in Virginia, three 
separate expeditions against the French were 
planned. One was in the direction of the Ohio, 
to be led by General Braddock ; a second against 
Niagara and Frontenac (now Kingston, Upper 
( lanada ), to be commanded by Governor Shir- 
ley, of Massachusetts; and a third against Crown 
Point, on Lake Champlain, under General Will- 
iam Johnson, then an influential resident among 
the Mohawk Indians. Governor Shirley had al- 
ready arranged a fourth expedition, under Gen- 
eral Win-low, destined to drive the French from 
Nova Scotia and other parts of Acadia. 

Johnson's chief officer was General Lyman, 
of Connecticut, who, as colonel of militia, had 
been very active in raising troops in that prov- 
ince. Early in the summer of 1755 he was 
promoted to brigadier; and in July he had col- 
lected about six thousand Provincial troops on 
the Upper Hudson, and commenced a fortifica- 
tion which was named Port Edward. Among 
the earliest of his Connecticut recruits was Is- 
rael Putnam, to whom he gave the commission 



of Captain, with orders to raise a company. Put- 
nam was very popular, and soon after receiving 
his commission and instructions he was on his 
way to join the gathering army at Fort Edward 
with a fine corps of respectable and hardy young 
men of his neighborhood. At the fort he first 
became acquainted with the famous partisan 
commander, Robert Rogers, whose corps of Ran- 
gers performed important services during the 
greater part of the French and Indian War, as 
the contest in question was called. With that 
partisan he was often associated in perilous en- 
terprises and gallant achievements in the vicin- 
ity of Lakes George and Champlain ; and there, 
with Stark, Pomeroy, Ward, Gage, and others, 
Putnam learned those useful military lessons 
which gave him high rank and executive skill 
when called to the field, twenty years later, in 
defense of the liberties of his country. 

Putnam's company appears to have been em- 
ployed as Rangers from the commencement. 
No service was better adapted to the daring ac- 
tivity, love of adventure, and masterly inven- 
tion, skill and bravery in sudden and perilous 
movements, which always distinguished Put- 
nam. The duties of the Rangers were cease- 
less, arduous, and varied. They acted inde- 
pendently of the main army in reconnoitring 
the position and works of the enemy ; guiding 
their friends ; surprising detached parties of their 
foes ; making prisoners by force or stratagem to 
obtain intelligence ; destroying public property 
belonging to their opponents; cutting off con- 
voys of provisions, arms, and clothing, and act- 
ing as scouts on all occasions. Caution, cool- 
ness, prudence, and bravery were the chief re- 
quisites. Although Rogers, in his Journal pub- 
lished after the war, rarely mentions Putnam, 
contemporary records show that they often act- 
ed in concert, though independent of each oth- 
er, and that they were intimate friends during 
the period of their service. 

One of the earliest enterprises in which Put- 
nam and Rogers were engaged, was a recon- 
noissance of the enemy's fortifications at Crown 
Point, then known as Fort Frederick, and much 
inferior to the regular works constructed there 
by the English under Amherst in 1759. The 
French possessed unbounded influence over the 
Indian tribes on both sides of the St. Lawrence, 
and great numbers of these dusky warriors were 
in alliance with the Gallic forces. Their knowl- 
edge of the country in the deep forests in North- 
ern New York was of great service to the French, 
and made the operations of the English more 
perilous, for there was danger of ambuscade on 
every side. Yet these perils were cheerfully 
braved by the partisans. They left Fori Ed- 
ward on a sultry morning in August. At the 
southern point of West (now Bulwaggy) Bay, a 
short distance from Crown Point, they left their 
men concealed among some dwarf willows, and 
at the evening twilight the two leaders, a little 
distance apart, stole cautiously toward the fort- 
ress. They passed the night within a few rods 
of the ravelins, made all necessary observations 



;82 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



at dawn, and were about to depart when Rogers 
was met by a stout French soldier. The latter 
seized the Ranger's fusee with one hand and 
attempted to stab him with the other, at the 
same time calling lustily to the guard for assist- 
ance. Putnam saw the peril of his companion, 
and springing forward he killed the Frenchman 
by a single blow with the butt-end of his gun. 
With the guard in full chase they both escaped 
to their men. All gained the neighboring hills, 
and through the forests, swarming with hostile 
Indians, they made their way to Port Edward 
with the desired information without the loss 
of a man. 

Early in December scouts brought informa- 
tion to Port Edward that Dieskan, the French 
commander, was approaching from Lake Cham- 
plain with a large body of Canadians and In- 
dians. Putnam and Rogers hung upon the flank 
and rear of the enemy, and watched their move- 
ments with great vigilance. The Indian allies 
heard of the cannons at Fort Edward, and re- 
fused to face such fearful weapons, so Dieskau 
turned to the right and hastened toward the 
head of Lake George, where Johnson was en- 
camped with the main body of the army. Put- 
nam informed Johnson of the movement, and 
that general immediately sent out a thousand 
Massachusetts troops under Colonel Williams, 
and two hundred Mohawk Indians under the 
famous chief Hendrick, to meet them. They 
fell into an ambuscade ; Williams and Hen- 
drick were killed, and their followers retreated 
to Johnson's camp in great confusion. 

Flushed with victory, Dieskau pushed for- 
ward. Johnson had cast up a rude breast-work 
of logs and branches, and mounted two cannons 
upon it. These were unsuspected by the ene- 
my, and they rushed forward with a shout to 
attack the Provincial camp. One discharge 
from the heavy guns made the Indians fly in 
terror; and the Connecticut forces under Gen- 
eral Lyman approaching at that moment, the 
Canadians fled. Dieskau was wounded and made 
a prisoner, and Johnson was the victor. He 
erected Fort William Henry upon the site of 
his camp, garrisoned that and Fort Edward, 
disbanded the remainder of his troops, and re- 
turned home. Putnam went back to Pom fret, 
not, however, to remain content with such a 
brief military experience, but to prepare for an- 
other campaign in the following spring. 

England made a formal declaration of war 
against France in May, 1756, and sent regu- 
lar troops to America to assist the Provincials 
against the French. General Abercrombie, the 
lieutenant of Lord Loudon (the appointed gen- 
eralissimo), became the commander-in-chief. 
Crown Point was again one of the places of 
contemplated attack, and in that service, under 
General Webb, who was in command at Fort 
Edward, Putnam was again a commissioned 
officer, and became the associate of Rogers in 
many daring exploits during the summer. On 
one occasion, while reconnoitring at midnight 
nearTiconderoga, with a single companion, Put- 



nam came near losing his life or liberty. De- 
ceived by the arrangement of the watch-fires of 
the enemy, they had crept cautiously into their 
very midst before perceiving their mistake and 
peril. The French sentinels fired upon them, 
and slightly wounded Durkee, Putnam's com- 
panion. They both fled in the darkness, fol- 
lowed by a shower of bullets fired at random, 
and escaped in safety to the neighboring ledges. 
There they lay down to rest, and Putnam gen- 
erously offered his canteen to his wounded com- 
panion. A bullet had tapped the vessel, and 
the rum was all gone. They resumed their 
march toward Fort Edward at early dawn, when, 
on examining his blanket, the brave Captain 
found it perforated by fourteen bullets. 

A little later in the season six hundred 
French and Indians plundered some provision 
wagons between Fort Edward and Lake George, 
and returned to their vessels at the present 
Whitehall. General Webb sent Putnam and 
Rogers, with one hundred men, to intercept the 
marauders. They went down Lake George to 
a certain point, crossed the country to Lake 
Champlain, and, at a narrow place, they fired 
deadly volleys upon the enemy as they passed 
in their bateaux and canoes laden with plun- 
der. Many of them were killed, several ba- 
teaux were sunk, and the remainder of the fleet 
escaped to Ticonderoga. Three hundred men 
were immediately sent from the garrison there, 
up Lake George, to attack the Rangers on their 
return to their boats. A severe engagement 
ensued. The Rangers were victorious, and 
Putnam and Rogers returned to the British 
camp with the loss of only one man killed and 
two slightly w r ounded. The operations of the 
whole campaign of that year consisted of such 
fragmentary adventures, and were fruitless of 
gain to either party. Again the Pomfret sol- 
dier returned home, but on the opening of an- 
other spring he was among the earliest in the 
field, and honored with the commission of Ma- 
jor by the Legislature of Connecticut. 

General Webb was again in command in 
Northern New York, at the opening of the cam- 
paign in 1757, with a force of about seven thou- 
sand men. These were quite sufficient, in the 
hands of a brave and skillful commander, to 
have swept the French from the lakes during 
the summer. But skill and bravery did not be- 
long to the character of Webb. Putnam was 
among the most energetic and useful of the 
Provincial officers. Late in July he accom- 
panied the General, as escort, from Fort Ed- 
ward to Fort William Henry, and then, with a 
few followers, he went down Lake George to 
watch the movements of the enemy at Ticon- 
deroga. He soon returned with the intelligence 
that Montcalm, the French commander, was 
embarking at the foot of the lake with a large 
body of troops, and earnestly solicited Webb to 
concentrate his forces and proceed against him. 
The General was evidently alarmed ; and in- 
stead of doing his duty as a brave man, accord- 
ing to the suggestions of his subaltern, he or- 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



583 



dered Putnam to keep the whole matter secret, 
and to escort him back to Fort Edward imme- 
diately. Colonel Monro, a brave English of- 
ficer, was ordered to proceed with his regiment 
and take command of the garrison at Fort Will- 
iam Henry. Montcalm soon appeared before 
the fortress with seven thousand white men and 
two thousand Indians, while the garrison did 
not exceed three thousand in number. He de- 
manded its instant surrender ; but Monro, con- 
fident of the co-operation of his commander-in- 
chief, promptly refused acquiescence, defied the 
power of the invader, and sent an express to 
Fort Edward for aid. General Johnson had 
just arrived there with a large body of militia, 
and, after repeated solicitations, General Webb 
permitted him to march with them for the re- 
lief of Monro, accompanied by all of the Pro- 
vincial troops and Putnam's Rangers. They 
had proceeded but a few miles toward the be- 
leagured garrison when they were ordered back; 
and instead of sending relief to Colonel Mon- 
ro, the recreant Webb dispatched a letter, in 
which he advised him to surrender. It was in- 
tercepted by Montcalm just as he was contem- 
plating an abandonment of the siege and a pre- 
cipitate retreat to Ticonderoga, because of a re- 
port of an Indian scout (who saw the approach- 
ing forces under Johnson), that the English 
were " as numerous as the stars in the sky and 
the leaves on the trees." He immediately sent 
the letter in to Monro, accompanied by a per- 
emptory demand for a surrender. The brave 
Colonel saw no hope, and yielded. The gen- 
erous Montcalm, pleased with his gallantry dur- 
ing a siege of six days, allowed him honorable 
terms, and promised a safe escort for the gar- 
rison to Fort Edward. That promise he could 
not fulfill. The Indians were determined to 
have blood and plunder, and they fell upon the 
prisoners with great fury. Many were slain, 
most of them were plundered, and the fugitives 
who escaped were pursued to within cannon- 
shot of Fort Edward. Montcalm burned the 
fort and all its appurtenances ; and, with can- 
nons and other munitions of war, he returned in 
triumph to Ticonderoga, closely watched by 
Putnam and his Rangers. When that brave 
officer visited the ruins of the fort the next day, 
his stout heart was deeply stirred, and he wept 
over the mutilated bodies of men, women, and 
children strewn among the smoking wreck. It 
was a sad and terrible commentary upon the 
cowardly or treacherous act of the commanding 
general. 

At the close of August General Lyman suc- 
ceeded General Webb in the command at Fort 
Edward. He immediately commenced strength- 
ening the fortress and establishing outposts for 
winter duty, as no active operations were to be 
undertaken during the autumn. Putnam and 
Rogers, with their respective corps, were sta- 
tioned upon an island in the Hudson, opposite 
Fort Edward, yet known as Rogers's Island. 
Parties were sent out daily, under an escort of 
British regulars, to cut timber at the head of a 



dense swamp ; and there was the scene of one 
of Putnam's brave and generous exploits. One 
day, while a company, guarded by fifty regulars, 
were busy in the forest, they were attacked by 
quite a large body of Indians who lay concealed 
in the swamp. Many of the Provincials were 
killed and scalped, and the remainder fled to 
the fort under cover of the regulars. The lat- 
ter were in great jeopardy, for the Indians were 
numerous. The commander sent to the fort 
for aid; but General Lyman, apprehending a 
serious assault, called in his outposts and closed 
the gates. The little band outside were now 
exposed to almost certain destruction. Put- 
nam saw their peril, and at the head of his 
men he dashed into the fordable stream and 
pressed forward to the relief of his fellow-sol- 
diers. General Lyman, feeling that the brave 
band were rushing to certain death, called to 
Putnam from the parapet of the fort, and per- 
emptorily ordered him back to the island. Put- 
nam uttered a hasty apology for intended diso- 
bedience, pushed forward, and joined the brave 
regulars, who were defending themselves with 
vigor. A moment longer and all would have 
been lost. At the suggestion of the Major the 
united forces rushed furiously into the swamp 
with shouts and huzzas. The terrified Indians 
fled in all directions, and soon the gates of the 
fort were opened to the redeemed escorts, while 
shouts of exultation greeted the ears of the no- 
ble liberator as he hastened back to his post on 
the island. General Lyman had too much good 
sense to allow him to arraign Putnam for his 
disobedience. While the rules of war would 
not permit him to publicly sanction insubordi- 
nation, even under such extraordinary circum- 
stances, the General, with that generous enthu- 
siasm which noble and disinterested deeds al- 
ways awakened in his heart, privately com- 
mended the daring Major for his act. 

The results of the war, thus far, were humil- 
iating to British pride. A weak and corrupt 
Ministry held the reins of power. The people 
clearly perceived it, and clamored for a change. 
The popular voice was potential. William Pitt, 
by far the ablest statesman England had yet 
produced, was called to the control of public 
affairs. Energy and good government marked 
every movement of his administration, especial- 
ly in measures for prosecuting the war in Amer- 
ica. Lord Loudon was recalled, and General 
Abercrombie was appointed to succeed him. 
Twelve thousand additional troops and a strong 
naval armament were allotted to the service in 
America. Pitt addressed a circular letter to 
the several colonies, asking them to raise and 
clothe twenty thousand men ; and promised, in 
the name of Parliament, not only to furnish 
arms, tents, and provisions for them, but to re- 
imburse the colonial treasuries all the money 
that should be expended in raising and clothing 
the levies. The response was immediate and 
ample. New England alone raised fifteen thou- 
sand men ; and when Abercrombie took com- 
mand of the army, in the spring of 1758, he 



r>84 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Ay /' 







PUTNAM SAVING FOET EPWAED. 



found fifty thousand men at his disposal — a 
number greater than the whole male population 
of the French dominions in America at that 
time. In that single effort the Anglo-Ameri- 
can colonists had a revelation of their confed- 
erated strength, which ever afterward made 
them bold in the assertion of their own rights. 
In the mean while a large body of Provincial 
troops had remained in service during the win- 
ter at Fort Edward under the command of Col- 
onel Haviland. Among these were Putnam and 



his Rangers, who were hutted on Rogers's Island 
near by. Early in the morning of a mild day 
in February one of the rows of barracks in the 
fort took fire. The flames had progressed ex- 
tensively before discovered. The garrison were 
called to duty, but all efforts to subdue the fire 
were in vain. Putnam and several of his men 
crossed from the island on the ice just as the 
fire was approaching the end of the building 
contiguous to the magazine. The danger was 
imminent and frightful ; for an explosion of the 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



5S{ 



powder would destroy the fort, and many lives 
would be sacrificed. The water-gate was thrown 
open, and soldiers were ordered to bring filled 
buckets from the river. Putnam mounted to 
the roof, and, by means of a ladder, he was sup- 
plied with water. But the fire continued to 
rage with increasing fury. The gallant Major 
stood unflinching in the midst of enveloping 
flames, smoke, and cinders. Perceiving Put- 
nam's danger, Colonel Haviland ordered him 
down. He begged permission to remain while 
there appeared a prospect of success. It was 
granted, and the brave Major leaped to the 
ground only when the half-consumed buildings 
were tottering to their fall. 

A few feet from the blazing mass, as it fell 
with a crash, was the magazine, its exterior al- 
ready charred by the heat. Unmindful of the 
amazing peril, Putnam placed himself between 
the conflagration and that tremendous sleeping 
power in the menaced building, which a spark 
might arouse to fearful activity, and under a 
shewer of cinders he hurled bucketful after 
bucketful of water upon the kindling maga- 
zine with ultimate success. The commander, 
charmed by his boldness, kept every man to 
duty, saying, "If we must be blown up, we will 
go all together." At last the flames slackened, 
the magazine, fort, and garrison were saved, 
and the intrepid Putnam retired from the ter- 
rible conflict, amidst the huzzas of his com- 
panions-in-arms, to have his severe fire-wounds 
dressed. His mittens had been burned from 
his hands, and his legs, thighs, arms, and face, 
were dreadfully blistered. For a month he re- 
mained an invalid in the hospital, when he again 
took post on the island at the head of his troops. 

The spring buds soon opened into leaves and 
blossoms, and the colonial armies began to gath- 
er, preparatory to the arrival of Abercrombie, 
who, with the young Lord Howe, led an army 
of seven thousand regulars, nine thousand Pro- 
vincials, and a heavy train of artillery, against 
Ticonderoga, in July. Just before leaving Fort 
Edward the commanding general sent Putnam, 
with sixty of his picked men, to range in the 
vicinity of South Bay, near the head of Lake 
Champlain, at its narrowest part. There, upon 
a rocky ledge, they built a parapet of stone, 
masked it with pine-trees, and watched for sev- 
eral days and nights. At about ten o'clock one 
evening, while the moon was bathing every 
thing in its full light, a fleet of canoes, filled 
with French and Indians, approached. Put- 
nam ordered perfect silence until he should give 
a signal by firing. Just as the enemy were in 
front of the Rangers, a soldier hit his musket 
against a stone. The people in the canoes were 
startled, and the little vessels huddled together 
as if in consultation. The moment was pro- 
pitious for the Provincials, and Putnam and his 
men poured a deadly volley upon the frightened 
foe, entirely ignorant of the fact that they were 
provoking the ire of the famous French parti- 
san, Molang, and five hundred Canadians and 
Indians. 



Molang soon discovered, by the firing, that 
the Provincials were few, and landing a part of 
his force, attempted to surround them. Put- 
nam was vigilant, perceived his danger, and re- 
treated in time to escape the snare. Just at 
dawn, while on a rapid march,, his party was 
fired upon by mistake by a Provincial scout, but 
with so little effect that Putnam declared to 
their leader that they all deserved to be hanged 
for not killing more when they had so fair a 
shot. The next day they met a reinforcement 
sent out from Fort Edward, and Putnam re- 
turned to his post upon Rogers's Island with the 
loss of only two men. 

Abercrombie collected his army at the head 
of Lake George, and at the close of a calm Sab- 
bath they went down that beautiful sheet of 
water in flat-boats, and landed at its northern 
extremity at dawn the next morning. The 
whole country from there to Ticonderoga was 
covered with a dense forest, and tangled mo- 
rasses lay in the pathway of the English army. 
The wilderness was swarming with hostile In- 
dians, watched by vigilant scouts, and within 
the ravelins of the fort to be attacked were 
four thousand troops under the skillful Mont- 
calm. The English and Provincials pushed 
boldly forward, led by Lord Howe, who was ac- 
companied by Major Putnam. Incompetent 
guides soon bewildered them, and they had just 
passed the Falls, where the village of Ticonde- 
roga now stands, when a French picket, five 
hundred strong, fell upon the left of Abercrom- 
bie's force. "Putnam, what means that fir- 
ing?" asked Lord Howe. "AVith your lord- 
ship's leave," he replied, "I will see." "And 
I will accompany you," said the nobleman. Put- 
nam tried to dissuade him. "If I am killed, 
my lord," he said, "the loss of my life will be 
of little consequence, but the preservation of 
yours is of infinite importance to this army." 
Howe replied, "Putnam, your life is as dear to 
you as mine is to me ; I am determined to go. 
Lead on!" At the head of one hundred men 
Putnam darted forward, and they soon met the 
enemy's advance. A bloody encounter ensued, 
and Lord Howe was killed at the first fire. Put- 
nam's party were finally successful, and the army 
pressed forward toward the fortress. They were 
met at the outworks with terrible opposition ; 
and, after a sanguinary conflict of four hours, 
Abercrombie fell back to Lake George, with a 
loss of almost two thousand men dead or wound- 
ed. Putnam and his Rangers, who had per- 
formed gallant service in the expedition, re- 
turned to their camp on Rogers's Island at Fort 
Edward. 

A few days after his return Major Putnam 
visited Fort Miller, a small work on the west 
side of the Hudson, nine miles below Fort Ed- 
ward. He crossed over to the eastern shore in 
a bateau one pleasant afternoon, when he was 
surprised by a large number of Indians, who 
suddenly appeared, some on land rushing to- 
ward the bank, and others sweeping down the 
stream in their canoes. To stay and be sacri- 



586 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 






^i^fefc J, i%. ,.-M 




PUTNAM'S ESCAPE DOWN TIIE 2APIDS. 



ticed, to attempt to cross the river and be shot, 
or to go down the roaring rapids a few rods be- 
low him, were the alternatives placed before 
him. There was no time for deliberation. He 
chose the latter chance ; and, to the great amaze- 
ment of the savages, who dared not follow where 
a canoe had never yet ventured, his bateau shot 
down the foaming channels among the dan- 
gerous rocks, and he reached the smooth wa- 
ters below in safety, and escaped. The In- 
dians regarded him as a special favorite of the 
Great Spirit, and his name was ever afterward 
uttered by those pursuers with superstitious rev- 
erence. 

After repulsing Abercrombie, Montcalm men- 
aced the country in the direction of Albany with 
invasion. The troops at Fort Edward were vig- 
ilant ; and early in August Putnam and Rogers 



took post at South Bay, with five hundred men. 
to watch the movements of the enemy. They 
separated into two divisions, which were station- 
ed at distant points, until they were discovered 
by the French scouts, when they were reunited. 
It was soon perceived that Molang, with a large 
body of French and Indians, was stealthily 
traversing the forest to get in the rear of the 
Provincials. The latter instantly changed front, 
and retreated toward Fort Edward. On the 
margin of Clear River, a little distance from 
Fort Ann, they fell into an Indian ambuscade. 
Putnam's division was a little in advance of the 
others, and received the first and most deadly 
onslaught of the savages. The fight soon be- 
came general and scattered. Man to man, and 
hand to hand they fought, with terrible despera- 
tion, and instead of aggregative warfare the 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



587 



contest became a system of bloody duels. Put- 
nam had laid several Indian warriors on the 
forest leaves, when, as he presented his fusee 
to the breast of a stalwart savage, it missed fire. 
The Indian instantly sprang forward, seized the 
Major, bound him tightly to a tree, and then 
resumed the conflict. Putnam's situation soon 
became extremely perilous, for, as the combat- 
ants changed ground, he was placed directly 
between the fire of the two parties. Many bull- 
ets struck the tree, several went through his 
garments, but his person remained unhurt. For 
an hour the fight raged furiously around him ; 



and then a young savage amused himself by 
throwing his tomahawk into the tree to which 
Putnam was tied, sometimes within an inch of 
the prisoner's head. 

The French and Indians were finally re- 
pulsed, and on their return toward Lake Cham- 
plain they took Major Putnam with them. He 
was continually exposed to insults and cruel- 
ties ; and when his savage captors had separ- 
ated from their French allies, they prepared to 
torture their prisoner to death in the depths of 
the solemn forest. They tied him to a tree, 
piled dried fagots around him, commenced their 



>f r\\ V 




I'UTXAM EESCCTEO BY MOLANG. 



588 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



wild songs and dances, and kindled the fatal 
fire. Just then a thunder-peal burst over the 
forest, and a sudden shower extinguished the 
flames. For a moment the savages stood still 
in amazement. But soon the pyre again smoked 
and blazed. Hope died in the bosom of the 
hero as the fiery circle grew hotter; when sud- 
denly a French officer dashed through the cor- 
don of savages, hurled them right and left, scat- 
tered the blazing wood, and cutting the thongs 
which bound Putnam to the tree, saved him 
from a horrible death. That deliverer was 
Molang. A tender-hearted Indian had inform- 
ed him of the orgies in the wilderness. Molang 
was a brave and generous man, and admired 
the character of Putnam. He hastened to the 
rescue of a brave soldier, and severely rebuked 
the Indians for their cruelty. Under his pro- 
tection the captive hero was sent to Ticondergo, 
where he Avas well treated by Montcalm, for a 
few days, and then escorted to Montreal. He 
was in a miserable plight on his arrival. He 
had neither coat, vest, nor stockings ; his re- 
maining garments were tattered, his hair was 
matted with blood and leaves, and his person 
was disfigured by scars and wounds. Colonel 
Peter Schuyler, then a prisoner, visited him im- 
mediately, relieved his most pressing necessi- 
ties, and by his influence obtained Putnam's 
early exchange, and a permit to return to his 
family. 

There is a bit of romance connected with 
Putnam's return from Canada. Three years 
before, a Mrs. Howe, who had lost two husbands 
by Indians' weapons, was carried into captivity 
with her seven children. An old French officer 
at St. John, on the Sorel, ransomed her. She 
was yet beautiful, and her liberator and his son 
were both intensely enamored of her. Her sit- 
uation became one of great perplexity, and she 
was in continual danger of violence from the 
young man. At length Colonel Schuyler, re- 
leased on a short parole, was at St. John. She 
had been taught to revere that gentleman for 
his goodness of heart, and she frankly laid be- 
fore him all her griefs. He paid the French- 
man her ransom-money, became her protector, 
and she was an inmate of his house at Montreal 
on the arrival of Major Putnam. Her children 
had all been redeemed from the hands of the 
Indians, and she was anxious to return to New 
England. Putnam agreed to be her protector 
on the journey, and they departed in company. 
For some time she had been again annoyed by 
the importunities of the younger Frenchman, 
and now he became more impetuous than ever. 
He pursued her like her own shadow wherever 
she went. His passion was governed neither 
by reason or common courtesy, and Major Put- 
nam was obliged to become her knight, and to 
threaten her persecutor with chastisement. The 
rash lover was not dismayed. He followed them 
to Lake Champlain, and when they had em- 
barked, and pushed off from shore, the mod- 
ern Leander plunged into the flood and swam 
after them. Putnam begged of him to desist, 



but in vain. The oarsmen were strong and ex- 
pert, and the despairing lover was soon left far 
behind. Whether he perished or wisely return- 
ed, tradition has not informed us. The gallant 
Putnam was faithful to his charge until he left 
Mrs. Howe with her friends, and then he hast- 
ened to his own home in Connecticut. 

Major Putnam was in the field at the open- 
ing of the campaign in 1759 — a campaign which 
resulted in the capture of Quebec, and led to 
the final destruction of the French empire in 
America. Pitt had planned the campaign on a 
magnificent scale. Three powerful armies were 
to enter Canada by different routes. One, un- 
der Wolfe, was to ascend the St. Lawrence ; 
another, under Amherst, was to sweep Lake 
Champlain, and then join Wolfe at Quebec ; and 
another, under Prideaux, was to capture Fort 
Niagara, then go down the Lake and the St. 
Lawrence, seize Montreal, and join the grand 
army below. Putnam was with Amherst, and 
on his old scouting grounds he was a most val- 
uable officer. He bore the commission of Lieu^ 
tenant-Colonel, and was often impatient of the 
cautious delay of Amherst in his progress to- 
ward Canada. Quebec was taken by the En- 
glish, but with the loss of Wolfe ; Niagara was 
also captured, with the loss of Prideaux; and 
Amherst did not reach the St. Lawrence at all. 
He captured the fortresses on Lake Champlain, 
which the French abandoned on his approach, 
and greatly strengthened Crown Point toward 
the close of the season. But the next year he 
penetrated Canada by the way of Lake Ontario 
and the St. Lawrence, and participated in the 
final subjugation of the province. 

The campaign of 17G0 ended the war in 
America. Late in summer Amherst and his 
army Avent down the St. Lawrence in bateaux, 
and Putnam was the Commander-in-Chiefs most 
reliable provincial officer. When the English ap- 
proached Fort Oswegatchie (now Ogdensburg), 
they found the passage of the river and the ap- 
proach to the fortress disputed by two armed 
French vessels. With a thousand men in fifty 
bateaux, Putnam undertook to board and cap- 
ture the vessels. His plan was to first disable 
them by fastening their rudders with wedges, 
and thus prevent their manoeuvring so as to 
bring broadsides to bear upon the flotilla. Put- 
nam, provided with beetle and wedges for the 
purpose, led the armament with a picked crew, 
but the fears of the French, excited by their 
approach, gave the English a bloodless victory. 
One of the vessels surrendered ; the other was 
worked ashore, and the crew escaped to the fort. 
That fortress was soon afterward surrendered, 
and Amherst pushed forward toward Montreal, 
at the head of ten thousand disciplined troops 
and a thousand warriors of the six nations of 
Iroquois. He was joined on the day of his ar- 
rival by General Murray, with four thousand 
troops from Quebec, and the following day Col- 
onel Haviland arrived from Crown Point with 
three thousand more. Montreal, and every oth- 
er military post in Canada, was surrendered to 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



589 




WES. HOWE FOTtSUED BY HER LOVEE. 



the English, and the Gallic power in America 
passed away forever. 

Putnam returned to his farm after the sur- 
render of Montreal, but he was soon called to 
the public service again. Great Britain de- 
clared war against Spain, and in the spring of 
17G2 a powerful armament, composed of regular 
and Provincial troops, proceeded to attack 
Havana. General Lyman raised a thousand 
troops in Connecticut, and Putnam was among 
the officers, bearing the commission of Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel. When the chief command of the 
Provincials was given to Lyman, that of the 
Connecticut levies devolved on Lieutenant-Col- 
onel Putnam. In a terrible storm, which drove 
some of the fleet upon the Cuban coast, in the 
siege that followed, and in the midst of the ter- 
rible mortality which decimated the besiegers, 
Colonel Putnam behaved with the greatest gal- 
lantry, and received the just plaudits of all. He 
was among the few Americans who escaped the 
fatal effects of Spanish weapons and the Cuban 
climate, and he returned home with a full har- 
vest of well-earned honors. 



Once more before the Seven Years' War was 
ended, Putnam led Connecticut troops against 
the dusky warriors of the wilderness. Pontiac, 
a sagacious Ottawa chief, who had been an early 
ally of the French, and then proudly wore a 
military coat presented to him by Montcalm, 
secretly confederated several of the Algonquin 
tribes in the spring of 17G3, for the purpose of 
expelling the English from the country west of 
Niagara and the Alleghanies. After the fall 
of Montreal he had professed an attachment to 
the English, and as there seemed safety for set- 
tlers west of the mountains, emigration began to 
pour its living streams over those barriers. 

Like Philip of Mount Hope, Pontiac saw, in 
the future, visions of the displacement, perhaps 
extinction of his race by the pale faces ; and he 
determined to strike a blow for life and country. 
So adroitly were his plans matured, that the 
commanders of the western forts had no suspi- 
cions of his conspiracy until it was ripe, and the 
first blow had been struck in the pleasant month 
of June. Within a fortnight, all the English 
posts taken from the French west of Oswego 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



fell into his hands except Niagara, Fort Pitt, 
and Detroit. Bouquet saved Pittsburg ; Niagara 
was not attacked; and Detroit, after sustaining 
a siege of almost twelve months' duration, was 
relieved by Colonel Bradstreet, in May, 1764. 
It was in that expedition that Putnam, bearing 
a Colonel's commission, for the first time led 
the Provincials of Connecticut. There was very 
little opportunity for the display of military 
qualities, for, even before their arrival, Pon- 
tiac had become convinced of the hopelessness 
of his cause, and the great mass of the Indians 
were longing for peace. 

And now, after nine years' military service, 
Colonel Putnam returned to the pursuits of 
peace, honored by all who knew him for his 
many excellent qualities as a brave soldier and 
good citizen. His countrymen loved and re- 
spected him for his wealth of generous emo- 
tions and manly vigor of thought and action, 
and that love and respect was shown by calling 
him to public duties. There was no camp to 
invite a display of his military experience, but 
civil station opened a new and useful field. He 
was chosen to fill the higher municipal offices 
of his neighborhood, and he was elected to a 
seat in the General Assembly of Connecticut. 
There, as in the camp and on the battle-field, 
he was remarkable for his boldness and sound 
judgment ; and he was among the earliest op- 
ponents of those measures of the British Par- 
liament which contained the germs of tyranny, 
and menaced the Anglo-American colonists 
with political slavery of a kind the most dis- 
tasteful to a free-born man. 

In the spring of 1765 the famous Stamp Act 
received the signature of the British King. It 
declared invalid all legal instruments of writing 
which did not bear the stamp of the imperial 
government in prescribed form, for which a 
specified sum was to be paid to certain officials, 
who were appointed by the crown its sole agents 
for their sale, and who were called Stamp Dis- 
tributors. This was a tax levied upon the colo- 
nists without their consent. They resolved, 
simultaneously in all the colonies, not to pay it, 
and the Stamp Distributors who had accepted 
appointments were warned not to commence 
the hated traffic. Men gathered in every ham- 
let and village, city and sea-port, to encourage 
each other and to strengthen their league against 
the scheme to enslave them. 

Colonel Putnam was among the most active 
abettors of the wide-spreading rebellion. He 
urged the people to unite and tell Mr. Ingersoll, 
an excellent man and native of the colony of 
Connecticut, that he must resign the office of 
Stamp Distributor which he had accepted, or 
suffer the penalty of an offender against uni- 
versal public opinion. A great number of the 
people from the eastern counties of Connecticut, 
mounted on horseback, and furnished with pro- 
visions, soon marched toward Hartford to de- 
mand Ingersoll's resignation. An accident pre- 
vented Putnam's presence with them, or he 
would doubtless have been their leader. They 



met Ingersoll at Wethersfield, and informed 
him of their errand. After some hesitation he 
mounted a round table-,- read his resignation, 
and after shouting "Liberty and Property!" 
three times, at the request of the multitude, he 
dined with some of the principal men at a tavern. 
He was then escorted by about five hundred 
horsemen to Hartford, where the General As- 
sembly was in session, and there again he read 
his resignation, in the presence of a yast con- 
course of people, who properly regarded the 
event as a popular victory. The utmost good- 
nature prevailed on the road, and Ingersoll, 
who was witty and highly esteemed by all, con- 
tributed his share to the general mirthfulness 
which pervaded the cavalcade. He rode a 
handsome white horse, near the head of the 
troop, and on being asked what he thought of 
the fact of his being attended by such a retinue, 
he quickly replied, "I have now a clearer view 
than I ever before conceived of the passage in 
the Apocalypse which describes Death on the 
pale liorse and Hell following Mm. 

Soon after this event Colonel Putnam, with 
two other gentlemen, was appointed by the peo- 
ple to confer with Governor Pitch on the sub- 
ject of the stamped paper. 

"What shall I do," asked the Governor, "if 
the stamped paper shall be sent to me by the 
King's authority ?" 

"Lock it up until we shall visit you again," 
replied Putnam. 

"And what will you do then?" 

"We shall expect you to give us the key of 
the room in which it is deposited ; and if you 
think fit, in order to screen yourself from blame, 
you may forwarn us upon our peril not to enter 
the room." 

"And what will } r ou do afterward?" 

" Send it safely back again." 

"But if I should refuse admission ?" 

" In such a case your house will be leveled 
with the dust in five minutes." 

This conversation was doubtless reported to 
ministers, and its lesson heeded, for no stamped 
paper was ever sent to Connecticut. 

After that time Colonel Putnam visited Bos- 
ton frequently, and on one occasion, when Gen- 
eral Gage was civil and military governor of 
Massachusetts, he had a free and friendly con- 
versation with that officer, Lord Percy, and 
others, concerning the aspect of public affairs 
in America, and was asked what part he in- 
tended to take in the event of the armed resist- 
ance of the people to government authority. 
He assured them that he would be found on 
the side of the people ; and when they ex- 
pressed surprise that one so well acquainted as 
he with the military strength and boundless 
resources of Great Britain should be willing to 
espouse a cause so certain of suffering utter dis- 
comfiture, he coolly told them that "if the 
united forces of Great Britain and the colonies 
required six years to conquer Canada, it would 
not be easy for British troops alone to subdue a 
country with which Canada bore no compari- 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



m 



son." Gage did not believe in such logic, and 
expressed the opinion that five thousand veteran 
troops might march from one end of the conti- 
nent to the other unharmed. " So they might," 
Putnam replied, " if they behaved themselves 
properly and paid for what they wanted ; but 
should they attempt it in a hostile manner, the 
American women would knock them on the 
head with their ladles." It was not long before 
that important question was definitely settled. 

Putnam was active during 1774 in drilling 
the militia of his neighborhood, and in imbuing 
the minute-men around him with patriotic and 



martial sentiments. The unlearned and hum- 
ble would come long distances, when the snows 
of winter had fallen, to hear the old hero read 
those glorious state papers put forth by the Con- 
tinental Congress in the autumn of 1774; and 
they always departed with Putnam's injunction, 
"Be ready!" He was then residing at Brook- 
lyn, directly south from Pomfret, on the ex- 
treme eastern borders of Connecticut. 

The spring of 1775 was exceedingly mild, and 
long before the close of March daffodils peeped 
from the brown earth, and bluebirds were sing- 
ing among the budding branches. Early in 




''"—^'i/?,*//-! 



PUTNAM STARTING KOK C'AMlSKIlMiE. 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



April the New England plowmen were turn- 
ing the furrows : and on the memorable nine- 
teenth Putnam was then preparing his fields for 
the oats and Indian corn. On that morning 
the first thunder-peal of the tempest of the Rev- 
olution, awakened at Lexington and Concord, 
rolled over New England, and before noon the 
next day it fell upon the ear of the veteran 
while he was plowing in his field. The intelli- 
gence was brought by a swift messenger, who 
hastened onward, from farm to farm, to spread 
the " Lexington alarm," and arouse the minute- 
men. The brave Colonel of the old war stopped 
not a moment to consider. Faithful to his own 
injunctions to others, he, too, was ready. He 
unyoked his cattle in the furrow, and said to the 
boy who had been driving them, "Run, run to 
the house for my coat !" He then hurried to 
his stable, saddled a fleet horse, and without 
stopping to change his clothes, he mounted the 
gelding and hastened toward Cambridge. He 
arrived there late at night, and the next morn- 
ing he was present at a second council of war, 
at which General Artemas Ward presided, when 
a plan for a campaign was arranged. The min- 
ute-men were then flocking thither from all di- 
rections, and veterans who participated in the 
conquest of Canada, almost twenty years before, 
were there and eager for battle. General Ward 
was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Mas- 
sachusetts troops, and those from the other col- 
onies, by common consent, obeyed him as gen- 
eralissimo of the gathering host. 

The Connecticut Assembly were then in ses- 
sion, and the noble Trumbull, the only one of 
all the colonial governors who loved freedom 
better than honors and emoluments, and re- 
tained both, was in the executive chair. Put- 
nam was immediately recalled to confer with 
the Legislature concerning military matters. 
All hopes were centred in his experience, brav- 
ery, and executive skill. Provision was made 
for troops for a campaign, and Putnam was 
commissioned a Brigadier-General. He could 
not wait for the gathering soldiers, but imme- 
diately returned to Cambridge with orders for 
the troops to follow. In a few days three thou- 
sand hardy sons of Connecticut were on their 
way to join his standard. 

We have not space to recount the important 
events which hourly transpired in the vicinity 
of Boston from that time until the first great 
battle, almost two months afterward, known as 
that of Bunker Hill, occurred, in which Putnam 
bore a conspicuous part. It was a period of 
active preparation. Around the cage of the 
Boston peninsula, in which the British troops 
were imprisoned, the patriots commenced pil- 
ing huge fortifications, under the guidance of 
Richard Gridley, an engineer of the old war; and 
every avenue for the enemy to reach the main 
was closely guarded. At the same time, strong 
reinforcements came from England and Ire- 
land ; and on the first of June there were ten 
thousand British troops in Boston, under such 
eminent officers as Howe, Clinton, and Bur- 



goyne. Thus strengthened, General Gage de- 
termined to pass the bounds of his prison, and 
fortify the heights of Charlestown and Dorches- 
ter, preparatory to an invasion of the country 
with those " five thousand veterans" whom he 
expected to lead unmolested "from one end of 
the continent to the other." The fact was re- 
vealed to the vigilant Americans. The danger 
was imminent, and the Committee of Safety 
ordered Colonel Prescott to lead a thousand 
picked men over Charlestown Neck on the 
evening of the lGth of June, to cast up a re- 
doubt on Bunker's Hill. At twilight that cho- 
sen band listened to an impressive prayer from 
the lips of President Langdon, of Harvard Col- 
lege, and at midnight they were busy with mat- 
tock and spade upon Breed's Hill, an eminence 
of Charlestown Heights, nearer to Boston than 
Bunker's Hill. At dawn the next morning the 
British in the city and on the shipping in the 
harbor were amazed and alarmed by the appari- 
tion of a formidable redoubt overlooking their 
vessels of war and confronting their chief bat- 
tery on Copp's Hill. It seemed to be the work 
of magic. All was confusion in Boston. The 
drums beat to arms — soldiers hurried to their 
alarm-posts, and the Tories Avere filled with 
dreadful apprehensions of evil. Heavy iron 
balls were hurled against the offending redoubt, 
but without effect ; and toward noon a large 
body of the choicest troops crossed the Charles 
River to drive the Americans from their great 
vantage-ground. A sanguinary battle ensued, 
and success was with the patriots until their 
ammunition failed. Then the British troops, 
no longer annoyed and decimated by dead- 
ly volleys of musketry, scaled the breast-works, 
and the Americans, overpowered by numbers 
and fighting with clubbed muskets, retreated 
toward Bunker's Hill, from whence Putnam 
had been sending forward reinforcements dur- 
ing the battle. Many of these had never heard 
the sound of a cannon before, and when they 
saw the patriots retreating from the redoubt and 
the enemy in close pursuit, a panic seized them, 
and they fell back in the greatest confusion. 
Putnam used every exertion to keep them firm 
and resist the pursuing Britons. He command- 
ed, pleaded, and cursed and swore like a mad- 
man ; and he was seen at every point in the 
van, with the Connecticut flag in one hand and 
his drawn sword in the other, trying to rally the 
scattered corps by shouting "Victory shall be 
ours ! Make a stand here, we can stop them 
yet! In God's name, fire, and give them one 
shot more !" His efforts were powerless. Away 
they went, like sheep before worrying dogs, 
down the green slopes of Bunker's Hill and 
across Charlestown Neck, terribly smitten by 
an enfilading fire from the enemy's vessels. 
Putnam had done all that mortal could do, and 
was almost the last man of all that retreating 
host to leave Bunker's Hill. When the war was 
ended, and the old hero Avas borne upon crutch- 
es to the little rural church at Brooklyn, of 
which he was a member, he stood up in the 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



593 





PTTTNAM ON BUNKEB 8 HILL. 



congregation, and publicly confessing his foul 
profanity on that occasion, said, "ItAvas almost 
enough to make an angel swear to see the cow- 
ards refuse to secure a victory so easily won." 
No doubt, upon those oaths, as in the case of 
Uncle Toby, the Recording Angel "dropt a 
tear and blotted them out forever." 

Two days before the battle of Bunker's Hill, 
the General Congress — in session at Philadel- 
phia since the 10th of May preceding — adopting 
the motley corps then gathered around Boston 
as a Continental Army, appointed George Wash- 
ington, of Virginia, commander-in-chief of all 
the forces " raised or to be raised for the de- 
fense of American liberty." Two days after 
the battle, Congress appointed Israel Putnam 
one of four major-generals for that army, and 
that commission he held until his death. It 
Vol. XII.— No. 71.— Pr 



was borne to Cambridge by the Commander-in- 
Chief, and presented to the brave veteran on the 
3d of July. He had, in the mean while, indig- 
nantly refused a similar commission in the Brit- 
ish army, which, with a large sum of money, 
General Howe had found opportunity to offer 
him through a subordinate officer. He accepted 
the one from the Grand Council of his country 
with joyous gratitude. 

From that time until early in the following 
spring the Continental army, under Washing- 
ton, closely besieged Boston. In all the move- 
ments of that siege General Putnam bore a 
conspicuous part. It went on slowly, because 
proper arms and ammunition were lacking. 
Sometimes they were animated with hope, and 
then again depressed with despondency. Home 
manufactures could not supply their needs, and 



J94 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



to the numerous cruisers on our coasts the Amer- 
icans looked for their chief supply of besieging 
arms and ammunition. On one occasion a Brit- 
ish ordnance brig was captured and taken into 
Cape Ann. Washington sent four companies 
to receive her spoils and bear them to the camp. 
They consistedof two thousand muskets, one hun- 
dred thousand flints, thirty thousand round-shot, 
thirty tons of musket-shot, eleven mortar-beds, 
and a superb thirteen-inch brass mortar, weigh- 
ing twenty-seven hundred pounds. A letter 
written by Colonel Moylan describes the joy of 
the camp on their arrival. He says : " Such 
universal joy ran through the whole camp, as 
if each grasped victory in his hand. To crown 
the glorious scene, there intervened one truly 
ludicrous, which was Old Put mounted on the 
large mortar, which was fixed in its bed for the 
occasion, with a bottle of rum in his hand, stand- 
ing parson to christen, while godfather Mifflin* 
gave it the name of Congress. The huzzas on 
the occasion, I dare say, were heard through all 
the territories of our most gracious sovereign in 
this province." 

At length, at the close of the year, Colonel 
Knox arrived at Cambridge with forty sled-loads 
of cannons, mortars, ammunition, and balls, the 
spoils of victory at Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point some months before. An assault was 
now determined upon, but powder was yet too 
scarce. February came, and with it mild weath- 
er. " The Bay is open," wrote Colonel Moylan 
from Roxbury. "Every thing thaws here, ex- 
cept Old Put. He is as hard as ever, crying 
out, ' Powder ! powder ! Ye gods give me pow- 
der !' " It was soon supplied. Bombardments 
became more frequent and severe. Dorchester 
Heights were strongly fortified during a single 
night, and i,he British, perceiving their immi- 
nent danger, evacuated the city on Sabbath 
morning, the 17th of March, 1776, and sailed 
for Halifax. The gates on Boston Neck were 
unbarred, and General Ward, with five thousand 
of the troops at Roxbury, entered in triumph to 
the tune of Yankee Doodle. General Putnam 
then assumed the command of the whole vic- 
torious force, and on Monday, in the name of 
the Thirteen United Colonies, he took possession 
of all the forts and other defenses which the 
retreating Britons had left. 

It was not certainly known to the Americans 
whither the fugitive British army had gone. 
Might they not be on their way to take possession 
of and fortify the city of New York ? Washington 
thought so. Already General Lee was on the 
watch near that city, and immediately after the 
evacuation of Boston the main body of the Con- 
tinental army was put in motion in that direc- 
tion. Late in April fortifications were com- 
menced in the vicinity of New York and among 
the Hudson Highlands ; while Lee hastened 
southward to watch the movements of Sir Henry 
Clinton, who had sailed toward the Carolinas 
with a large land force. 

Spring passed away and midsummer arrived, 



Washington's aid, and afterward a major-general. 



when General Howe appeared off the harbor of 
New York with a strong army, accompanied by 
a considerable naval force under the command 
of his brother. Detachments of Americans were 
already stationed near Brooklyn, and had cast 
up redoubts on the height in its rear. 

The British and the Hessian hirelings com- 
menced landing upon Long Island, and Wash- 
ington sent General Putnam to take general 
command of all the forces there, intended to 
beat back the invaders. A bloody battle en- 
sued. The British were victorious, and almost 
two thousand Americans were lost. The re- 
mainder were sheltered behind the ramparts of 
Fort Putnam (since Fort Greene) ; and, early 
on the morning of the 30th of August, 1776, 
they all retreated safely to New York, across 
the East River, under the direction of Wash- 
ington, to the great chagrin of the British com- 
manders, who were not aware of the movement 
until the last boat-load was crossing the stream. 

It soon became evident to Washington and 
his officers that they could not hold the city; 
and, toward the middle of September, the Con- 
tinental army retreated to and fortified Harlem 
Heights. General Putnam commanded the last 
division that moved in that retreat, and the 
march was performed in the midst of many per- 
ils. Already a strong British force had landed 
at Kip's Bay, and were stretching a line of in- 
terception across the island. The greatest en- 
ergy and coolness were needed to insure safety. 
Putnam was every where seen on the line of 
march, his horse covered with foam, and his 
own grizzly locks dripping with perspiration. 
They had several encounters on the way, and 
did not reach the lower lines on Harlem Heights 
until after dark, when all hope for their safety 
had faded. But for the coolness, energy, and 
skill of Putnam, all would have been lost. 

In the subsequent march into Westchester 
County to confront the invading Britons there 
— the battle at White Plains — the flight of the 
" phantom of an army" of Americans across 
New Jersey after the fall of Forts Washington 
and Lee — and in the perilous crossing of the 
freezing Delaware early in December, Putnam 
was one of the most useful officers upon whom 
Washington implicitly relied. His presence al- 
ways seemed electrical in its effects upon the 
soldiers ; for he never asked a man to go where 
he himself was unwilling to lead — he never 
asked a man to suffer what he himself was un- 
willing to endure. 

It was now a dark hour in the history of the 
War for Independence. Expiration of enlist- 
ments, desertion, sickness, and death had re- 
duced the effective soldiers of the Continental 
army to a mere handful in numbers, and these 
stood shivering, half-naked, and half-starved on 
the banks of the narrow stream which formed 
the only formidable barrier between a well-fed, 
well-clad, numerous and victorious enemy and 
the seat of the central government of the re- 
volted colonies at Philadelphia. Yet Washing- 
ton was faithful and hopeful ; and his faith and 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



595 



hope were strengthened by the promises of the 
folly of Cornwallis, his pursuer, who, sure of 
victory whenever he should choose to put forth 
his hand and take it, was regardless of the dan- 
gers of delay, and resoh'ed to wait for the Dela- 
ware to become strongly bridged by ice, that he 
might march over, and without opposition enter 
the Federal City, and scatter the civil, as he 
appeared to have done the military power of the 
patriots, to the winds. Cornwallis was so con- 
fident that the rebellion was utterly crushed, 
that he left the pursuing army to drive Congress 
from Philadelphia at its leisure, while he re- 
turned to New York to embark for England. 
But he was kept here almost six years longer, 
and was then sent home a prisoner on parole. 

The defense of Philadelphia was now the 
chief object of Washington's solicitude, and he 
sent General Putnam thither with a small de- 
tachment to construct temporary fortifications, 
and to awe the numerous Tories. He perform- 
ed these duties with his usual zeal. In the 
mean while the pursuing army, despising the 
weakness of the Americans, were cantoned at 
several points in New Jersey, the strongest part 
being that occupied by some Hessians and Brit- 
ish cavalry at Trenton. There Washington re- 
solved to strike stealthily, and prepared to re- 
cross the Delaware for the purpose. He felt 
the need of Putnam's co-operation ; yet there 
appeared as great a need for him to remain in 
Philadelphia and keep the Tories in check, who 
were prepared for an insurrection. He remain- 
ed there, and Washington struck the blow suc- 
cessfully without him. It was followed by a 
remarkable retreat of the Americans a few days 
afterward, a severe battle at Princeton, and the 
formation of a strong winter encampment at 
Morristown, in the hill country of New Jersey. 
The British army concentrated at Brunswick 
and Amboy, and early in January Putnam left 
Philadelphia and took post at Princeton, with- 
in a few miles of Cornwallis's head-quarters. 
There he co-operated with Washington in a 
series of enterprises against the British Regulars 
and Tories, by which their power was complete- 
ly broken in New Jersey, and the hopes of the 
patriots greatly strengthened. In the course 
of the winter and spring Putnam's detachment 
alone, took a thousand prisoners, chiefly armed 
Tories, and kept the Loyalists of West Jersey 
in awe. 

Putnam's benevolent nature was nobly illus- 
trated on his arrival at Princeton. There he 
found a wounded Scotch officer, left to die be- 
cause be was thought incurable. Putnam min- 
istered to his necessities, and the officer recov- 
ered, lie was exceedingly grateful, and could 
hardly be made to believe that Putnam was not 
a Scotchman, for he thought it impossible for 
any but one of his own countrymen to be so 
generous. 

It was believed, in the spring of 1777, that 
the British plan of operations was to invade the 
country watered by the Hudson and its tribu- 
taries, and the region along Lake Champlain, 



by two powerful armies, moving simultaneous- 
ly, one north and the other south, so as to cut 
off all communication between New England 
and the other colonies. This was indeed the 
plan. Sir Henry Clinton was to go up the Hud- 
son, and Sir John Burgoyne was to march from 
Canada, and the conquerors were to meet and 
take a Christmas dinner in Albany. To pre- 
vent this junction was a matter of vast import- 
ance to the patriots, and Washington chose 
General Putnam, above all others, to take chief 
command on the Hudson, and guard the passes 
of the Highlands. This choice evinced the 
great estimation in which the vigilance and ex- 
ecutive skill of Putnam were held by the Com- 
mander-in-Chief. 

General Putnam's head-quarters were near 
Peekskill, during the summer of 1777, and a 
part of his army was encamped about two miles 
from that town, upon a high hill overlooking 
the Canopus Valley and Continental Village. 
There a circumstance occurred which illustrates 
the character of Putnam as a stern military 
commander, and has given the name of " Gal- 
lows Hill" to that eminence. At that time the 
conduct of the Tories in Westchester County 
and its vicinity was specially annoying, and 
Putnam had become greatly irritated. Finally 
a young married man, connected with some of 
the most respectable families in that region, 
was caught in Putnam's camp, with enlisting 
papers signed by the royal governor, Tryon, and 
being known as a lieutenant in a Tory company. 
He was tried, found guilty, and condemned as 
a spy. His young wife pleaded for his life, and 
his friends sought the interference of Sir Henry 
Clinton. More urgently than in the case of 
Andre three years afterward, did the stern rules 
of war require his life, and Putnam was not un- 
willing to make a warning example. Sir Henry 
sent a flag to the veteran on the morning fixed 
for the execution, claiming the spy as a British 
officer, and menacing the Republican with his 
severest wrath if he was not delivered up. The 
messenger carried back to Sir Henry the follow- 
ing laconic note : 

" Head-quarters, 7th August, 1777. 

" Sir — Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy's serv- 
ice, was taken as a spy, lurking within our lines. Ho has 
heen tried as a spy, condemned as a spy, and shall he ex- 
ecuted as a spy ; and the flag is ordered to depart imme- 
diately. Israel Putnam. 

" P.S. — He has been accordingly executed." 

Spies were scarce in Putnam's camp after 
that. 

Putnam watched there all summer long, and 
heard from time to time of the invasion of Bur- 
goyne from the north, who, from June until 
September, was making his way slowly but vic- 
toriously from the St. Lawrence to the Hudson. 
Yet Sir Henry Clinton made no direct move- 
ment up the river to meet him. He made un- 
successful attempts to draw the whole force of 
the Americans from the Highlands by incursions 
into New Jersey, but so long as Putnam stood 
like a Cerberus at the gate to the upper coun- 



596 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



try, he did not choose to venture in that direc- 
tion. At length the old hero became tired of 
inaction, and devised a plan for attacking the 
enemy at four points simultaneously, namely, 
Staten Island, Long Island, Paulus's Hook 
(Jersey City), and New York, by way of Har- 
lem and Bloomingdale. He had promises of 
large numbers of troops from Connecticut, and 
expected much strength from the militia of 
New Jersey. When his plans were almost ma- 
tured, toward the close of September, he re- 
ceived an urgent letter from Washington, sum- 
moning him to send twenty-five hundred men 
from the Highland camp to assist the army un- 
der the chief, then confronting the enemy near 
Philadelphia. The disastrous battle on the 
Brandywine had just occurred, and the Federal 
City was menaced. This summons was a se- 
vere blow to the pride and ambition of the vet- 
eran, yet he immediately complied, and was left 
with only fifteen hundred men to occupy the 
passes of the Highlands. 

Burgoyne had now reached Saratoga in his 
victorious march toward Albany, where he was 
effectually checked in a severe battle on the 19th 
of September. He sent urgent dispatches to 
Clinton to hasten up the Hudson with a com- 
petent force to effect the intended junction, for 
no time must be lost. Clinton could no longer 
hesitate. But at the very entrance to the High- 
lands there were three considerable forts — In- 
dependence, Clinton, and Montgomery — well 
garrisoned ; and the vigilant Putnam was keep- 
ing guard over the country around. There was 
also a strong boom and chain across the channel 
of the river at Fort Montgomery, and higher 
up, opposite West Point, was Fort Constitution. 
With these obstacles in his way Sir Henry Clin- 
ton did not expect to penetrate beyond the 
Highlands, but he resolved to attack these 
mountain fortresses, hoping thereby to relieve 
Burgoyne by calling away large detachments 
of Gates's army at Stillwater to assist the patri- 
ots on the lower Hudson. He sailed up the 
river on the 5th of October, landed a large body 
of troops at Verplanck Point, and feigned a dis- 
position to march upon Peekskill and Fort In- 
dependence. Early the following morning, un- 
der cover of a dense fog, he sent a considerable 
force across to Stony Point, to hasten over the 
rough hills and attack the twin fortress, Clin- 
ton and Montgomery, on the west side of the 
.river. His plans were successful. While Put- 
nam was reconnoitring the enemy at Ver- 
planck's Point, the Highland forts were sur- 
prised and captured. A messenger sent by the 
commander to Putnam for aid proved treach- 
erous, and these fortifications were in posses- 
sion of the enemy before the veteran had sure 
information of what was transpiring there. 

The loss of these fortresses was a severe blow. 
Forts Independence and Constitution were aban- 
doned, and Putnam and his little army were 
compelled to retire to Fishkill, north of the 
mountains, and leave the Hudson free for the 
.passage of British ships. Clinton, however, did 



not venture. He sent a small detachment to 
depredate, and thus to, alarm the country and 
draw troops from Saratoga for its defense. Kings- 
ton was burned, and other places menaced ; but 
Burgoyne, in the mean while, had suffered an- 
other defeat, and was summoned to surrender. 
The marauding expedition hastened down the 
river. Putnam, strengthened by new recruits, 
re-crossed the mountains and took possession 
of Peekskill and the Highland passes, and Sir 
Henry Clinton, informed of the surrender of 
Burgoyne and his large army, made a speedy 
voyage back to New York. Five thousand troops 
were ordered from Gates's army to join Putnam, 
and the dark cloud of disappointment which, 
for twelve days, had brooded over his spirit sud- 
denly disappeared. At the same moment an- 
other cloud overshadowed him. Intelligence 
of the death of his wife reached him at Fish- 
kill. She was his second consort, and greatly 
beloved ; yet he did not allow his private griefs 
to interfere with his public duties. He went to 
the house of Beverley Robinson, where her corpse 
lay, dropped tears of deep affection upon her cof- 
fin, placed her remains in the vault of the Robin- 
son family, and then hastened back to camp. 

Putnam now resolved to execute his plans 
against the enemy at New York; and he was 
encouraged by a letter from Washington, writ- 
ten before the Commander-in-Chief had heard 
of the return of Clinton to his head-quarters, 
in which he suggested the propriety of getting 
in the rear of that officer, and cutting off his re- 
treat to the city. But as soon as Washington 
heard of the return of Clinton, he dispatched 
Colonel Hamilton to the Highland camp to di- 
rect Putnam to send forward to his aid, near 
Philadelphia, the brigade which he had received 
from the Northern army. Hamilton then went 
on to the camp of Gates, to direct him, likewise, 
to send to the chief a large portion of his force, 
now not needed in the northern department. 
Putnam did not wish, a second time, to be foil- 
ed in his own scheme of conquest, and, with the 
plea that he was unwilling to send his troops 
away from such an important post without ex- 
plicit orders from the Commander-in-Chief, he 
did not comply. Hamilton wrote to him with 
some severity, of which Putnam complained to 
Washington. The latter sustained the course 
of his aid-de-camp, and then, for the first time, 
the old hero felt the implied censure of his chief. 
He was grieved, but, like a true soldier, he 
promptly sent forward the required troops, and 
with the remainder he marched down the Hud- 
son to watch the movements of the enemy in 
Lower Westchester. Soon afterward he took 
post at New Rochelle, from which he sent out 
detachments against British and Tory posts or" 
Long Island. 

At the middle of December, 1777, Putnam 
went into winter-quarters with his little army, 
among the Highlands, while the troops under 
Washington encamped at Valley Forge. It 
was a season of intense suffering for both ar- 
mies. At Valley Forge almost three thousand 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



;97 



men were unfit for duty, " because they were 
barefoot and otherwise naked ;" and of his troops 
Putnam wrote to Washington, in February, 1778 : 
"Dubois's regiment is unfit to be ordered on 
duty, there being not one blanket in the regi- 
ment. Very few have either a shoe or a shirt, 
and most of them have neither stockings, breech- 
es, nor overalls." At that time the snow lay 
two feet deep on the ground. Putnam cheer- 
fully suffered with them ; and his sympathy, 
like that of Washington at Valley Forge, fed 
and kept alive the patriotism of many whose 
sufferings made them careless even of liberty 
and life. 

Early in January Putnam received instruc- 
tions from Washington to make all efforts in 
his power to fortify the Highlands. All the 
old works having been demolished, new sites 
were chosen, and, at the suggestion of Govern- 
or George Clinton, the chief works were com- 
menced at West Point. Their construction 
was begun, under the direction of Kosciuszko, 
on the point of the promontory where the mon- 
ument to the memory of that Polish hero now 
stands; and the fortress was called Fort Clinton, 
in honor of the Governor of New York. On 
an eminence in the rear, five hundred feet above 
Fort Clinton, another strong work was erected, 
and named Fort Putnam, in honor of the com- 
manding general. Its ruins now form a pic- 
turesque feature in the Highland scenery. Lit- 
tle was done there until the arrival of General 
M'Dougall in March, as the successor of Gen- 
eral Putnam, for the latter was away in Con- 
necticut on business. Other subordinate works 
were constructed during the spring ; and in April 
the famous iron chain was stretched across the 
river at West Point. 

At this period General Putnam was under a 
cloud. The loss of the Highland fortresses in 
the autumn was charged to his want of vigi- 
lance ; and complaints against the old hero, aris- 
ing often from small causes but magnified by 
strong prejudices, became so universal and clam- 
orous that Washington was compelled, though 
reluctantly, to give the command in the High- 
lauds to another. With that generous frank- 
ness which always marked him, the Command- 
er-in-Chief said, in a letter to Putnam announc- 
ing that fact: "General M'Dougall is to take 
the command of the army in the Highlands. 
My reason for making this change is owing to 
the prejudices of the people, which, whether 
well or ill grounded, must be indulged ; and I 
should think myself wanting in justice to the 
public, and candor toward you, were I to con- 
tinue you in a command after I have been in al- 
most direct terms informed that the people of 
New York will not render the necessary sup- 
port and assistance while you remain at the 
head of that department." Congress, however, 
on investigating the causes of those disasters, 
attached no blame to any officer. Among the 
most serious charges made against Putnam by 
those who clamored for his removal, was that 
of too much lenity in his treatment of Tories — 



a charge highly honorable to his character as a 
man and a Christian. 

The old soldier — now sixty years of age, and 
bearing many scars — cheerfully acquiesced in 
the action of his Commander-in-Chief, and re- 
turning to Connecticut, was very efficient all the 
spring in raising and hastening the march of 
new levies, by which Washington was enabled 
to follow and attack the British army in its 
flight from Philadelphia to New York, early in 
the summer of 1778. The famous battle of 
Monmouth occurred at the close of June ; and 
soon after that event Putnam returned to the 
camp, and took command of the right wing of 
the army. During the remainder of the season 
very little active militaiy service was performed 
at the North ; and the veteran, with three bri- 
gades, composed chiefly of Connecticut and NeAv 
Hampshire troops, went into winter-quarters at 
Reading, in Connecticut, for the purpose of cov- 
ering the country from the British lines at New 
York eastward along the Sound, and to support 
the garrison at West Point. It was another sea- 
son of suffering, and in January a mutinous 
spirit pervaded the Connecticut troops. They 
were badly fed and clothed, and worse paid, for 
their small pittance, when received, consisted 
of the rapidly-depreciating Continental bills. 
They brooded over their hard lot, and finally 
resolved to march to Hartford, and demand of 
the Assembly a redress of the grievance. The 
second brigade had assembled under arms for 
that purpose, when information of the move- 
ment reached Putnam at his head-quarters near 
Reading. He instantly galloped to the encamp- 
ment, and in his earnest, uncouth manner, thus 
addressed them: "My brave lads, where are 
you going? Do you intend to desert your of- 
ficers, and to invite the enemy to follow you 
into the country ? Whose cause have you been 
fighting and suffering so long in ? Is it not 
your own ? Have you no property, no parents, 
wives, or children ? You have behaved like men, 
so far ; all the world is full of your praise, and 
posterity will stand astonished at your deeds — 
but not if you spoil all at last. Don't you con- 
sider how much the country is distressed by the 
war, and that your officers have not been better 
paid than yourselves ? But we all expect bet- 
ter times, and that the country will do us ample 
justice. Let us all stand by one another, then, 
and fight it out like brave soldiers! Think 
what a shame it would be for Connecticut men 
to run away from their officers !" If this speech 
did not display the polished eloquence of De- 
mosthenes, who made the Athenians cry out 
with one voice, "Let us go and fight Philip !" it 
possessed the same spirit, and produced a sim- 
ilar result. When Putnam had concluded his 
short address, a loud cheer burst from the dis- 
contented regiments, and they returned to their 
quarters in good-humor, resolved to suffer and 
fight still longer in the cause of liberty. 

During the same winter General Putnam per- 
formed a daring feat, which has ever been a 
popular theme for the story-teller, the poet, and 



;os 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 







Putnam's escape at hokseneck. 



the dramatist, and spice for the grave compound 
of the historian. He was at the house of a friend 
at Horseneck (now West Greenwich), toward 
the close of March, 1779, on a visit to that out- 
post, and while standing before a looking-glass 
early in the morning, shaving himself, he saw 
the reflection of a body of "red coats" marching 
up the road from the westward. He dropped 
his razor, buckled on his sword, and, half-shav- 
en, mounted his horse, and hastened to pre- 
pare his handful of men to oppose the approach- 



ing enemy. They were almost fifteen hun- 
dred strong, British regulars and Hessians, 
who had marched from their lines near King's 
Bridge, under General Tryon, the previous even- 
ing, with the intention of surprising the troops, 
and destroying the salt-works at Horseneck 
landing. Putnam confronted them with his 
one hundred and fifty men, but after his first 
fire, perceiving their overwhelming numbers, he 
ordered a retreat. It became a rout, and each 
sought safety in his own way in the adjacent 



ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



599 



swamps. The General put spurs to his horse 
and sped toward Stamford, closely pursued by 
some British dragoons. He came to a steep de- 
clivity, on the brow of which the road turned 
northward, and passed in a broad sweep around 
the hill. Putnam perceived that his pursuers 
were gaining upon him, and with the daring of 
desperation he left the road, wheeled his horse 
while on full gallop down the rocky height, 
making a zigzag course to the bottom, near 
where some stone steps had been made for the 
accommodation of people who worshiped at the 
church on the height, gained the road, and es- 
caped. The dragoons dared not follow his per- 
ilous track, but sent a volley of bullets after him 
without effect. Putnam soon collected a few 
militia at Stamford, followed Tryon on his re- 
treat at evening, and captured about forty of his 
men and a large quantity of the plunder he was 
carrying away. The declivity down which the 
old soldier rushed and escaped is still known as 
Putnanis Hill. 

In June, 1779, General Washington removed 
his head-quarters from Smith's Clove, back of 
Haverstraw, to New Windsor, and left General 
Putnam in command of the right wing of the 
army, consisting of the Maryland line. A lit- 
tle later Putnam took post with his troops at 
Buttermilk Falls, two miles below West Point, 
where he remained until autumn, when all the 
strong works in the vicinity were completed. 
After the army had departed for New Jersey, 
to go into winter-quarters at Morristown, he 
visited his family at Brooklyn. On his return- 
ing journey in December, while at the house of 
his friend, Colonel Wadsworth, in Hartford, he 
was disabled by a paralysis of his right side. He 
was unwilling to believe in the malignant char- 
acter of the disease, and tried to throw it off by 
great exertions. It was in vain : the disease 
was permanent. His blood flowed sluggishly in 
veins threescore years in use, and his nerves had 
lost their wonted vigor. His military life was 
now ended, and with it his usual activity. He 
retired to the bosom of his family at Brook- 
lyn, where, unlike many of his compatriots in 
the field, he possessed a competence for his 
comfort in the evening of life. His bodily in- 
firmities disqualified him for public employment, 
but he was able to walk a little and ride much ; 
and during the remainder of his days — protract- 
ed almost eleven years — he enjoyed social life 
in an eminent degree. 

The memory of General Putnam's public serv- 
ices, genial character, and generous deeds, was 
sweet to those who had participated with him in 
the perils and privations of war, and at the close 
of the contest, just before the Continental army 
was disbanded in 1783, Washington wrote to 
the veteran from Newburgh, and said: "I can 
assure you that among the many worthy and 
meritorious officers with whom I have had the 
happiness to be connected in service through 
the course of this war, and from whose cheerful 
assistance and advice I have received much sup- 
port and confidence in the various and trying 



vicissitudes of a complicated contest, the name 
of Putnam is not forgotten, nor will be, but with 
that stroke of Time which shall obliterate from 
my mind the remembrance of all those toils and 
fatigues through which we have struggled, for 
the preservation and establishment of the rights, 
liberties, and independence of our country. 

"Your congratulations on the happy pros- 
pects of peace and independent security, with 
their attendant blessings ^to the United States, 
I receive with great satisfaction, and beg that 
you will accept a return of my congratulations 
to you on this auspicious event — an event in 
which, great as it is in itself and glorious as it 
will probably be in its consequences, you have 
a right to participate largely, from the distin- 
guished part you have contributed toward its 
attainment." 

Colonel Humphreys, his biographer — who was 
Putnam's aid during his command in the High- 
lands, and before, and knew him intimately in 
public life — loved him as a father, and took 
every suitable opportunity to testify his esteem 
for the noble veteran. Pour months after the 
hero was " laid up in ordinary" at his home in 
Brooklyn, the gallant Colonel, in a poetic Letter 
to a young Lady in Boston, written at New Haven, 
and describing his journey thither from the 
Massachusetts capital, thus alludes to his brief 
sojourn with the General, while on his way : 

" The sun, to our New World now present. 
Brought in the day benign and pleasant ; 
The day, by milder fates attended, 
Our plagues at Gen'ral Putnam's ended. 
That chief, though ill, received our party 
"With joy, and gave us welcome hearty ; 
The good old man, of death not fearful, 
Retained his mind and temper cheerful ; 
Retain'd (with palsy sorely smitten) 
His love of country, pique for Britain ; 
He told of many a deed and skirmish, 
That basis for romance might furnish ; 
The stories of his wars and woes, 
Which I shall write in humble prose, 
Should Heaven (that fondest schemes can mar) 
Protract my life beyond this war." 

That promise was redeemed eight years after- 
ward, and while the old hero was yet alive. In 
the autumn of 1787, Colonel Humphreys spent 
several weeks with General Putnam, and in his 
little parlor, sitting in his arm-chair, the veteran 
"fought his battles o'er again." Day after day 
he related to his friend the incidents of his 
eventful life, such as we have delineated in out- 
line in this sketch ; and that faithful friend 
committed them to paper as materials for a 
truthful narrative of the patriot's career. With 
those materials he went to Mount Vernon, in 
obedience to an invitation from Washington to 
spend several months with him; and in that 
now hallowed mansion he wrote, for the ar- 
chives of the Connecticut State Society of the 
Cincinnati, his admirable Essay on the Life of 
the Honorable Major-Ckncral Putnam, 

"in humble prose;" 

"the first effort in biography," he said, "that 
had been made on this continent." He under- 
took the pleasing task because General Putnam 



600 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




PUTNAM AND COLONEL HUMPHREYS. 



was " universally acknowledged to be as brave 
and as honest a man as ever America produced." 
He revered him as one who seemed "to have 
been formed on purpose for the age in which 
he lived. His native courage, unshaken integ- 
rity, and established reputation as a soldier, 
were necessary in the early stages of our oppo- 
sition to the designs of Great Britain, and gave 
unbounded confidence to our troops in their 
first conflicts in the field of battle." 

General Putnam lived two years after that 
Essay was written, in the enjoyment of com- 
parative health, and great social and religious 
happiness. On the 27th of May, 1790, he was 
attacked by an acute inflammatory disease. He 
regarded it as fatal from the first, and calmly 
prepared for departure to the spiritual world. 
That departure took place two days afterward. 



His body was borne to the grave-yard south of 
the village by his loving fellow-citizens, and 
deposited in the earth with appropriate military 
honors and religious rites. Over it a neighbor 
and warm personal friend pronounced a touch- 
ing eulogy ; and to mark the spot an humble 
monument has been erected, covered with a 
marble slab, on which is engraven the following 
words, from the pen of his friend, President 
Dwight, of Yale College : 

"This monument is erected to the memory 
of the Honorable Israel Putnam, Esq., Major- 
General in the Armies of the United States of 
America, who was born at Salem, in the prov- 
ince of Massachusetts, on the 7th day of Janu- 
ary, 1718, and died at Brooklyn, in the State 
of Connecticut, on the 29th day of May, a.d. 
1790. 



MADEIRA, PORT, AND SHERRY. 



601 



"Passenger, if thou art a Soldier, go not 
away till thou hast dropped a tear over the 
dust of a Hero, who, ever tenderly attentive to 
the lives and happiness of his men, dared to 
lead where any one dared to follow. If thou 
art a Patriot, remember with gratitude how 
much thou and thy country owe to the dis- 
interested and gallant exertions of the Patriot 
who sleeps beneath this marble. If thou art 
an honest, generous, and worthy man, render a 
sincere and cheerful tribute of respect to a man 
whose generosity was singular, whose honesty 
was proverbial, and who, with a slender educa- 
tion, with small advantages, and without power- 
ful friends, raised himself to universal esteem, 
and to offices of eminent distinction by personal 
worth and by the diligent services of a useful 
life." 

General Putnam was of medium height, with 
an uncommon breadth of chest, an athlete in 
muscular energy, and weighed at the time of 
the Revolution about two hundred pounds. His 
hair was dark, his eyes light blue, his complex- 
ion florid, and his face broad and good-humored 
in expression. 

MADEIRA, PORT, AND SHERRY.* 

THEY who go down upon the waters in ships 
see the wonders of the Lord; but they who 
go down in schooners, it is also said, see — a place 
not to be mentioned to ears polite. Whomever 
unkind fate has driven upon the reckless waters 
in a vessel of ridiculous tonnage, let him be 
pitied, by all at least who have no stomach for 
the sea. The author of this book, commissioned 
to explore the countries that bear the vines 
whose products serve as caption to this article, 
undertook to reach Madeira in 
a schooner numbering less than 
200 tons. An " old salt" would 
laugh at the fastidiousness, per- 
haps, that found this too small. 
But the author is not an old 
salt ; nor, unless such can be 
made on dry land, probably ever 
will be. He entertains quite a 
different opinion of the sea from 
Cooper's Tom Coffin, who could 
not, indeed, see the use of land 
at all. 

To be a week in the British 
Channel with nothing but storms 
forcontemplation by day, or lull- 
aby at night — with sickness that 
prevents you from eating, and 
weariness that indisposes you 
to sleep — with danger as an in- 
separable companion, and ship- 
wreck as a probable termination, 
this is not so pleasant as terra 
jinna, a wholesome appetite, and dinner a la 
carte t 

But the author was not cast away in the 
British Channel, nor wrecked in the dreadful 

* Sketches and Adventures in Madeira, Portugal, and 
the Andalusias of Spain. 12mo. Illustrated. Harpers. 



Bay of Biscay. In spite of storms, hurricanes, 
or calms, he arrived in Madeira in twenty days 
from Southampton. What more pleasant pros- 
pect to the eye than the first view of land to 
the sickened, nauseated, cadaverous passenger ! 
Funchal rising from the sea, its castles and 
towers, and its sparkling houses, crowning the 
rocks and clinging to the mountains, gave new 
life to the tempest-vexed, half-starved voyagers. 
In England every thing had assumed the sere 
and yellow leaf; storms ushered in and closed 
the days. The trees had put off their foliage 
and the earth its festive dress. What a change 
greeted the new-comer! Winter had become 
glorious summer; the naked trees had put on 
luxuriant and varied foliage, and flowers of 
every kind enlivened and scented the air. 
Hills covered with the verdant vine, and gar- 
dens loaded with the ripening fruit, gladdened 
the eye, while the picturesque costume of the in- 
habitants, and their earnest welcome, delighted 
the mind ; at the very moment, too, when to 
have landed upon an uninhabited barren island 
would have been counted a blessing. 

The soil produces spontaneously the fruits of 
the tropics, the orange, the pomegranate, the 
banana, the guava, the citron, and olive, as well 
as many of the productions of colder latitudes. 
The fish of its deep waters, the game of its 
mountains, its herbage-fed and luscious beef, 
its inimitable turkeys and various web-footed 
birds, supply an abundant table. It is its wine, 
however, for which Madeira is world-famous — a 
wine redolent of great facts. For under its in- 
spiration what epics, acted or written, have not 
been achieved ! It has inspired the poet's brain, 
it has warmed the speaker's tongue, and has 



V'",)?, 







BRINGING WINE IN SKINS. 

thawed the miser's heart. One glass of it makes 
the whole world kin ; strangers, meeting at ab- 
rupt angles of life, never before encountering, 
have embraced and sworn eternal amity over 
its rosy goblets. It decorates prosperous days, 
and takes the sting from misfortune. 



602 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




.. -« 



sraffiSral 




FUNCHAL, FEOM THE BAY. 



Sometimes when the carriers are bringing 
the juice to market, or rather to the storehouses, 
in their goat-skins, they grow fatigued beneath 
the burden, and place it on some fortuitous rock 
or auxiliary stump of tree. Here they pull out 
the stopper from the mouth of the bota, or skin, 
and stop it by another mouth, which is found to 
facilitate evaporation very much. Of course 
the lighter their burden the lighter their spirits ; 
and sometimes by the time they arrive in Fun- 
chal the skin of the animal and the skin of 
the man seem to have changed functions. A 
safer way of getting it along is by oxen on 




UAULINQ WINE ON SLEDGES. 



sledges ; no wheel carriages can be used in the 
island from its precipitous formation, and the 
other fact that the streets are paved with a flat 
smooth stone, necessary to prevent the roads 
from being broken up by the raging inundations 
that sometimes occur, one of which some years 
since carried houses and all their occupants into 
the unreturning sea. These inundations are 
terrible when unchecked, and their ravages 
sometimes obliterate the former pathways. 

Over these smooth stones the smooth-worn 
sledges glide almost as easily as sleighs upon 
the snow-covered earth. The cattle, however, 
have none of the ambition of 
our 2 40's, but move along slow- 
ly, sedately, and with a con- 
sciousness of their priceless 
cargo. 

The language used by these 
hurroqueros, or ox-drivers, to 
their four-legged companions 
is a dialect unwritten, but most 
expressive. The beasts evi- 
dently understand and obey it. 
But to an " outsider" it has a 
shrill, and almost unearthly 
sound. Indeed it has a fearful 
influence upon the animals 
themselves, for they start at it 
more than at the puncture of 
the goad. 

Madeira is also renowned 
for its climate. Immortality, it 
is true, has not as yet been dis- 
covered there, notwithstand- 
ing the numerous experiments 



MADEIRA, PORT, AND SHERRY. 



603 



to attain it. Still, in no place, perhaps, in 
the world are so few natives affected with dis- 
ease. They drop off like ripened fruit, but 
seldom go out of the world in the immature, 
and perhaps convulsive way of less favored 
countries. Nor is the sole commendation of 
the climate its inducing and cherishing hale old 
age. It has a generative as well as conserva- 
tive power, and aids to bring people into the 
world as well as to keep them there. Children 
are daily seen following their mothers in broods, 
like chickens — hanging on to their skirts, fall- 
ing round their feet, and scraping about gener- 
ally, their different ages hardly more than the 
customary months apart. One lady of the writ- 
er's acquaintance made her husband three of 
these invaluable presents, one at a time, within 
twenty-nine months. What says the Psalmist ? 
"Like as arrows in the hands of the giant, so 
are the young children. Happy is he that hath 
a quiver full of them." Of a verity the people 
of the island seem to be of opinion with the in- 
spired writer, for they discharge these arrows 
continually. This fecundity is not confined to 
the native population, but reaches the tempo- 
rary sojourners, of which the following is one of 
the many cases in point : When the English, 
during their intemperate contest with Napoleon, 
garrisoned Funchal, as ally of Portugal, they 
stationed two regiments here. The soldiers, 
many of them, brought childless wives with 
them, but all returned with the honors of pater- 
nity, though some of the wives had been barren 
for years. Scandal, it is true, affected to be- 
lieve that these "femmes du regiment" changed 



more than climate ; but it is credible other- 
wise. 

The scenery of Madeira is got up in a style 
of surpassing eccentricity. Every rule of Aris- 
totle is violated - : there is no beginning, middle, 
or end. Mountains, precipices, chasms, gorges 
— all seemed to have been formed by Nature 
when suffering from the night-mare. The Arco 
do Sao Jorge is more regular in its proportions 
than most of the many designs of nature, but 
yet wants chiseling or rounding off. It is a 
magnificent view, nevertheless, and well de- 
serves a limner. The mountains, too, of Ma- 
deira are not so hackneyed as those of Wales 
or Switzerland, for instance, while they are fully 
as impressive. If they boast no avalanches — 
those miracles in snow — they unvail a pictur- 
esque grandeur which you look for in vain upon 
the Swiss elevations, where the glacier covers 
every thing. Mont Blanc, it is true, is higher 
than any of the mountains of Madeira, Pico 
Ruivo, the highest, being but a little more than 
GOOO feet above the level of the sea ; but so great 
an altitude seems a waste, and is, indeed, of lit- 
tle practical purpose. But the view from the 
summit of Pico Ruivo is probably more pictur- 
esque and imposing than from the Swiss mon- 
ster-mountain. From that you see but an end- 
less ocean of snow, varied by billows, perhaps, 
but still monotonous ; while from the summit of 
Pico Ruivo you behold, within an appreciable 
circuit, ever-impressive ocean, and nearer, every 
combination of salient views ; lofty and perpen- 
dicular cliffs, sometimes reaching thousands of 
feet in height, gulfs fearful to look down upon, 















•M* 



£3sf 




v-~ 












BAO JOEGF, 



604: 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



precipices that threaten to topple over meet your 
eye every where around you, while the master- 
pieces of Madeira scenery, surpassed nowhere 
— the Curral, an enormous ravine overhung by 
startling peaks ; the Torriubas, so called from 
their strange resemblance to castellated fortress- 
es ; and the Peuka d' 'Aguia, which — a solid 
rock — springs abruptly from the plain two thou- 
sand feet in height, you make out in clear dis- 
tinctness. All these are in nature's Doric, be- 
fore she would consent to subscribe to rules, 
and get up scenes to please milder sensibilities. 

A system of compensations dominates the 
universe. Advantages and pleasures are con- 
trasted with defects and inconveniences every 
where, and Madeira obeys the universal rule. 
Her wines and fruits are luscious, her climate 
delicious, her scenery unequaled, but her women 
are by no means fascinating . Nature here has re- 
versed her poetical order, and tried her 'prentice 
hand on the sex. For the men, indeed, are 
handsome, tall, symmetrical, and well-favored; 
but the fair sex have little of attraction — that 
is, generally. In the upper classes, before the 
fatal embonpoint sets in, there is beauty of ex- 
pression — eyes and hair are beautiful ; but be- 
low, among the general crowd, want of person- 
al attraction is truly melancholy. 

It is the great reason, perhaps, why the writer 
tarried no longer than three months on the isl- 
and. A human, and desirous of embracing all 
humanity in his experience, he could not re- 
main longer without foregoing a better part of 
his mission. 

Lisbon is a port opportune to Madeira, as 
much so at least as any on the Continent, and 
Madeira is an integral part of Portugal — two 
sufficient motives for a visit. The city, with 
its seven hills, reclines on the Tagus ; one of 
the many illustrations of that wise ordinance 
of nature which has always caused rivers to 
flow past large places. The first interrogatory 
to a stranger, even before he is allowed to land, 
is, " How are you off for soap ?" This is not 
hyperbole — it is simple truth ; and the question 
arises not from any regard to your proper con- 
dition, but from an anxiety to prevent your use 
of that article unless purchased in Lisbon. You 
must either use no soap or that of Lisbon man- 
ufacture; for soap is a monopoly, and on it 
hangs a portion of every official's livelihood, 
from the king down to the tide-waiter. A piece 
no bigger than the pebble that overcame the 
dread son of Anak, yclept Goliath, hidden about 
your person or carelessly left in your trunk, 
might much embarrass your passage through 
the custom-house. The visitatorial police who 
board you have no keen scent for the article, 
and much might escape in consequence; but 
what they have a keen scent for, and seize re- 
morselessly even when soap openly escapes, is 
tobacco, another monopoly, still more rigorously 
enforced. A violation of the revenue laws in 
this respect, when discovered, is punished with 
more severity than actual crime. Besides, the 
latter is pardonable by the king, while the for- 



mer is beyond his clemency, the law leaving to 
the monopoly alone the punishment of trans- 
gression against its provisions. 

Portugal is quickly "exploited." Its history 
is more picturesque than its actualities. Visit 
Cintra, that you may fill your mind with pleas- 
ant memories of perhaps the loveliest spot in 
creation ; Batalha, if you would see the finest 
cathedral in Portugal, and one of the finest in 
the Peninsula ; Mafra, where you will find pal- 
ace, convent, and church in one strange build- 
ing, on the top of which it is said ten thousand 
troops can be reviewed at once ; Torres Vedras, 
where " the Duke" erected his celebrated lines, 
and held the French at bay till he taught his 
soldiers to whip them — and you have seen all 
of Portugal worth seeing, with the exception of 
Oporto, which, indeed, you need not visit, unless 
you want to select your own Port, and this wine 
has fallen into a great deal of disuse. Brum- 
mell is quoted as saying, "A gentleman never 
malts : he ports." However it may have been 
in those days when his fat friend, the Prince 
Regent, held his famous, or infamous, orgies at 
Carlton House, and your two-bottled men were 
in high repute, strong wines like Port are, at the 
present day, in small estimation even in England. 
Port has gone out with Toryism, and Claret and 
Conservativism come in. Whether the English 
character has degenerated in consequence of 
the adoption of new ideas in both respects, is a 
matter to be argued at another time. 

The easiest Avay to Spain from Portugal is by 
steam from Lisbon, and this the author adopted, 
and reached Cadiz the day after leaving the 
former port. Though Portugal is not without 
its attractions, entering Spain directly from it 
is emerging from a dull, dreary, drizzling No- 
vember day into sunlit May. Every thing seems 
so racy, so fresh, so hilarious ; a novelty strikes 
you at every step; manners, dress, habits, the 
dignity of the men, the beauty of the girls, keep 
eye and mind at a continual tension. The 
guitar and the castanets, amorous ditties and 
twinkling feet, are heard and seen every where 
around you. The alameda, or public prome- 
nade, which surmounts the sea-girdled walls, is 
an entertainment far surpassing operatic or the- 
atrical display. Here ladies in full dress, the 
national mantilla coquettishly floating over the 
darker hair, glide over the up-springing flowers 
beneath their tiny feet as " swift Camilla flies 
o'er the unbending corn." Ah ! their gait is a 
poem or a melody ; an inspiration, and not an 
art. This, gracing and illustrating the Moorish 
eye, the rounded form and swelling bust, and 
the smile, which, like Tasso's Armida's, to see 
and feel was to be lost, annihilates a man. 
Our senses reel, and we become suspended ani- 
mations. 

Cadiz, too, was built in the palmy days of 
Spain, when the rich-laden galleons from her 
transatlantic possessions poured into the coun- 
try rivulets of gold ; and her architecture reflects 
the pride of those imperial days. The cathe- 
dral, one of the most magnificent in Europe, 



MADERIA, PORT, AND SHERRY. 



605 



was two centuries in building, and, by decree 
of the reigning monarchs, each import paid trib- 
ute to its completion and decoration. It is but 
fair to add, however, that its claims to superi- 
ority have been contested, and from an unsus- 
pected quarter. Our worthy consul tells the 
story in this wise: "A supercargo of a vessel 
from some port in New England was accredited 
to me by some friend, and in taking him round 
to see the lions, I, of course, carried him to the 
cathedral. As a cicerone it became my prov- 
ince to point out some of its most striking beau- 
ties. The Down-easter gave a half assent to 
some of my observations, but seemed in no way 
to partake of my enthusiasm. Indeed, after I 
had got through, although he acknowledged it 
was 'some pumpkins,' he had seen, he said, a 
considerable greater sight. 'You mean, per- 
haps,' I replied, ' the cathedral at Seville ?' No ; 
he had never been at Seville. ' Notre Dame, or 
the Madeleine, at Paris ?' He had never 'hearn 
tell' of either. ' St. Peter's,' I persevered, ' at 
Rome ?' I was still at fault ; so that I finally 
asked him, point-blank, what cathedral he had 
seen finer than this ? ' Wa'al,' says he, ' as for 
cathedrals, and them kind of things, I guess we 
hain't got none in Ameriky. Our parson used 
to say they were Papistical, and had nothing to 
do with true religion. But I can tell you that 
the " meetin'-us " at Passamaquoddy, in the 
State of Maine, will take the shine out of your 
cathedral, and all the St. Peters and Magdalens 
in the world. It will so.' " 

No one, indeed, can quit Cadiz without the 
wish to return. A lifetime would hardly " ex- 
ploit" its pleasures. Long before profane his- 
tory was composed, it was known, sought, or 
avoided for its piquant and somewhat licentious 
indulgences. It indeed tries one's virtue, as a 
smoky room one's eyes ; both may be strength- 
ened, as one is said to be, by the experiment, 
but no one weak in either respect would be ad- 
vised by the author to undergo either ordeal. 

Xeres is accessible, within two or three hours, 
from Cadiz, and this was in the author's pro- 
gramme. For it produces one of the three wines 
that illustrate the modern world. It is an old 
place, Xeres — one of the oldest in Spain — "so 
far doting in age," as old Fuller says of the 
pyramids, "as to have forgotten the names of 
its founders." Its wine contests with Maderia 
and Port the suffrages of the enlightened; bar- 
barous countries knowing nothing of the hu- 
manizing properties of the grape, but indulging 
in strong drink and ignorance. While Maderia 
enriches the imagination, and Port strengthens 
the understanding, Sherry excites the fancy. 
It gives birth and brilliancy to the epigram, and 
polishes the keen edge of a sarcasm. Sound ser- 
mons can be predicated of Port — there is many 
an Iliad in Maderia — while sparkling thoughts 
and gay fancies gather round the Sherry, as bees 
upon the lips of Plato. 

The vineyards and gardens are inclosed gen- 
erally by hedges of the cactus, or prickly pear, 
and the aloe ; the latter being inferior because 



it dies after having flowered, while the former, 
occasionally renewed with fresher plants, will 
endure almost forever. Fields are never in- 
closed. Soon as the corn or grain is gathered 
in, cattle and sheep run at large over every 
man's grounds — not a very favorable symptom 
of careful agriculture. Oxen are not yoked like 
ours by the neck, but by the head, the yoke be- 
ing placed immediately behind the horns, and 
fastened to the foreheads. The Spaniards have 
heard their fathers say that so it was plowed in 
their days, and in the old times that were be- 
fore them, and they object to change. Like 
old Mause Headrigg, they are opposed to all 
innovations in agriculture — to all "new-fangled 
machines for dighting the corn frae the chaff, 
thus impiously thwarting the will of divine Prov- 
idence by raising wind for one's ain particular use 
by human art, instead of soliciting it by prayer, 
or waiting patiently for whatever dispensation 
of wind Providence was pleased to send." In- 
deed, the Spaniard has a marvelous reliance 
upon Providence : " Si Dios quiere — Just as God 
pleases," is their philosophy. 

Rivers, useful every where, are almost the 
sole means of intercommunication in Spain. 
The highways are hardly traversable, not prob- 
ably having been repaired since the times of 
the Romans. So, instead of taking the direct 
route to Seville by land from Xeres, the author 
made a detour, and at Bananza struck the Gua- 
dalquiver — " the Great River," as the Arabians 
called it — from never having seen the Mississip- 
pi, Missouri, or Amazon, the large-scaled rivers 
of the Western Continent. It is a muddy and 
an indolent stream, and its banks are low and 
spiritless. Still this same stream has borne the 
Phoenician, the Carthaginian, the Roman, the 
Vandal, the Arab, and the Goth, each in tri- 
umphant array ; and these shores have vibrat- 
ed to the tread of the armed battalions of Han- 
nibal, of Caesar, of Tarik, and San Ferdinand— 
and it is something to follow in their wake. 

Seville bursts upon the sight like fairy-land. 
Mosques and minarets, convents, cathedrals, 
and cloud-reaching spires strike the yet distant 
eye ; while groves of orange-trees, clumps of 
palms, the olive, the acacia, and magnolia deck 
the shores of the river. You land under an en- 
chantment, which continues till you leave. 

Seville, "famous for women and oranges," 
can never be exhausted till our senses fade. 
The tertitlia, the bull-fight, the baile or dance, 
the theatre, the walks, the architecture, Muril- 
lo, and the twehackas, are always fascinating 
and always novel. If the girls of Cadiz are 
pretty, those of Seville are entrancing. They 
are more guapita (lovelier), more graciosa (gen- 
teeler), have more air, grace in walking, and 
more sangre azui, or better descent. Look at 
Dolores as she kneels in church. She stoops 
to the marble pavement to her knees, and is 
bending her head in devotion. The earliest 
rays of the morning sun but faintly penetrate 
the deep-stained glass, and all objects appear 
in that chiaro-oscuro (subdued light) so favor- 



606 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




DOLORES. 



able to beauty. Her eyes, inspired with an 
expression of mingled love and reverence, and 
her chiseled hands crossed upon her gently- 
budding breast, you could not fail to liken her 
to Murillo's inimitable personation of ideal 
grace and natural loveliness, the Madonna of 
the " Immaculate Conception." Who would 
not know her, and, knowing her, who could 
escape loving her ? 

She is not a creature of the mind, but a 
flesh and blood existence. Her story is that of 
many a girl of Seville and Spain — a refinement 
beyond her station, and a station above her 
means ; she can never marry equally, nor live 
unmarried without degradation. The daughter 
of an artist who was too proud to beg, too hon- 
est to steal, and too indolent to work, and who 
deserted his family to seek a selfish existence 
elsewhere, she lives with her mother and an 
elder sister. By embroidery and other occupa- 
tions for delicate tastes and hands, they seek 
to live ; and, with the assistance of the sister's 
amigo, accomplish a stinted livelihood. Her 
father's desertion and sister's example, how- 
ever, foretell too surely her probable destiny — 
a destiny unaccelerated, it is true, but yet un- 
diverted by the episode of her acquaintance 
with the writer. That acquaintance took place 
on the introduction of her confessor, a friar 
of the order of St. Francis, and its finale runs 
thus : It is related of Scipio Africanus, that, 
when fighting the battles of Roman conquest in 
Spain, he took captive a beautiful native prin- 



cess, whom, notwithstanding the report of her 
matchless charms, he dismissed unseen to her 
friends — thereby achieving a greater victory 
than his subsequent one at Zama. 

The author, taking a stroll one evening some 
time after his arrival in Seville, met the Friar- 
Confessor. After the exchange of a few pre- 
liminary nothings, the Friar asked him when he 
had seen Dolores ; to which he replied : 

" Two or three days before ; but that as he 
thought he perceived a change in her manner 
toward him, and was unconscious of the cause, 
he had concluded not to call again till he had 
seen his friend the Friar, and been informed as 
to the cause." 

" Do you love Dolores ?" the Friar inquires. 

"With a love surpassing the love of woman — 
like Jonathan's for David," is the reply. 

" Then why, my son, have you not given them 
to understand so much ?" 

"Reverend Father, if Dolores don't under- 
stand my sentiments toward her, I know no 
words to express them. Do you imagine the 
girl ever lived who could not divine, without 
the mediation of language, the nature of a man's 
feelings toward her? Depend upon it, they re- 
quire no declaration of love to know our love." 

" But you have not communicated with the 
mother, who has for a long time expected it. 
Your attentions have been marked and assidu- 
ous. You have appeared to all friends as her 
querido, and yet have said nothing to mother or 
daughter." 

"What should I say, holy Father? I can 
not marry Dolores, and, God knows, I never 
supposed it was expected." 

"Marry! who talks of marriage, my son? 
But you certainly could make some settlement 
upon her, and treat her as your wife so long as 
you remain in Spain ; and this her mother is 
anxious for." 

"And Dolores?" 

" Dolores, my son, would be an obedient 
daughter." 

The steamer was to start for Cadiz the next 
morning at five o'clock. The traveler returned 
to his hotel, packed his portmanteau, paid his 
bill, and next morning, soon after the earliest 
cock had first done salutation to the morn, was 
once more upon the Guadalquiver. Inasmuch 
as he resisted temptation — after having been 
exposed to it in its most dangerous form — he 
thinks himself superior to Scipio, who was afraid 
to trust himself with the presence of danger. 

This is a common peril in Spain, and not al- 
ways overcome. 

But Catalina, the actress, stands out from the 
canvas in better defined lineaments than Do- 
lores, though the latter may have been more 
beautiful. A girl of bon ?nots, piquant sallies, 
and, doubtless, warm heart ; interesting from 
her foibles — for she was none of your faultless 
characters, who may make excellent saints but 
are intolerable companions. She was not so 
good as to have provoked attack, nor so bad as 



MADEIRA, PORT, AND SHERRY. 



607 



to have deserved it. You might not have re- 
spected her — nor, indeed, have loved her — but 
you would have been glad to know her, and 
taken good care not to offend her. 

The gipsy dances needs must be interesting, 
there is so much life and so little convention- 
ality in them ; and the girls must have been in- 
teresting, if only that they were so savagely vir- 
tuous, in a country, too, where female chastity is 
hardly considered decorous. There is one vice, 
it seems, the man is free from — drunkenness ; 
one virtue the girl possesses — chastity. He is 
a thief by profession, a cheat from inclination, 
and a murderer on provocation, but a drunk- 
ard never; while the girl will lie, steal, and per- 
haps poison — be perhaps worse than the man — 
but she will not fornicate. She will allure in 
every possible way — by gesture, by language, by 
every art of her dangerous eye — and will serve 
as procuress, but defends her own person with 
the ferocity of the tigress. Like the Old Guard, 
" she dies, but never surrenders." 

The fandango, danced by the gipsy man and 
girl, arrives to the dignity of a fine art. It is 
a love-scene set to music and expressed in mo- 
tion. The danseur accompanies his step with 
the castanets — in the hands of an Andalnsian 
so joyous and melodious an instrument. He 
advances toward the girl, who retreats in a half- 
reluctant, half-inviting motion ; he hastens in 
pursuit — she flies as if alarmed. His counte- 
nance and attitude express hope, her's simulate 
hesitation ; his gestures indicate persuasion, 
her's rebuke presumption ; his eye betrays de- 
sire, her's a soft languor that encourages. After 
countless feints on one side, successfully evaded 
on the other; approaches admirably planned, 
and retreats no less ably accomplished ; prom- 
ises, prayers, menaces, are passionately proffered, 
and playfully or scornfully repulsed ; the girl, 
as if tired of even a victorious contest, consents 
to parley. The dancers approach each other, 
at first with hesitating steps, then with quick- 
ened motions, and at last with eager vehemence, 
music and gesture illustrating the different phases 
of their passion, till their breath commingles, 
their arms interlace, and their lips encounter — 
the crowning glory of their exploits ! 

The Majo is an institution in the Andalusias. 
He is a swell, and of the tallest kind. In 
gaudy attire, flash language, and striking pecu- 
liarities, he outswells the swells of any other 
country. A short jacket of broadcloth, with 
sleeves slashed with crimson velvet and pend- 
ant tassels of silver, to be thrown over the shoul- 
ders rather than worn ; breeches of the same 
material, decorated with double rows of silver 
buttons from waist to knee; a chalico, or waist- 
coat, also of broadcloth, and resplendent with 
rows of silver rings ; an embroidered shirt, with 
collar, a la Byron, falling over a neck-tie of 
stunning colors ; Sifaja, or sash, of richest silk, 
and more variegated than Joseph's many-col- 
ored garment; bottinos, or spatterdashes, of the 
finest russet leather, open on the outside to 
show the gaudy hose of silk, with two whitest 



handkerchiefs dangling from each pocket of the 
jacket — such is the costume of the Majo ; while 
his attitudes, his walk, and his speech are made 
up " to match.'' There is much ponderacion in 




MAJO OF SEVILLE. 

his language. His words have a sonorous ar- 
ticulation, and he talks like one having author- 
ity. He is the intimate of bull-fighters, the 
connoisseur in tauromachia, the oracle of the 
" aficion" the "fancy -man" of the muchackas, 
and the envy of the poor devils who can't ape 
his finery. A great braggart, and generally a 
great coward. 

At La Luisiana, on the road to Cordova, the 
author had a night-adventure at a posada, not 
probably infrequent in Spain, though this may 
have had a different termination from such ad- 
ventures generally. Rooms in hotels, whether 
in Spain or elsewhere, have such a general re- 
semblance, on the outside at least, that one would 
be very likely, particularly in the dark, to make 
a wrong selection ; but women can not be too 
careful from exposing themselves to the danger 
of such errors, especially where there are jeal- 
ous husbands about. 

Cordova is worth visiting from its mosque 
alone, unless perhaps also for the historical as- 
sociations connected with it. Under the Om- 
meyan dynasty of the Arabs, it was the seat of 
science and taste, while the rest of Europe was 
still groping and plunging in darkness ; and its 
famous mosque still attests the lively genius 
and vast wealth of that wonderful nation. Un- 
der the reconquering Spaniard it languished 
and fell to decay ; and now, like most others 
of the cities of Spain, it is only interesting from 
the relics of the past. 



608 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



miwm P 

Ify 







KONDA. 



Retracing his steps to Seville, and thence to 
Cadiz, the author skirted the western coast of 
Spain to Gibraltar, which he describes with ap- 
propriate language. To Ronda, where his im- 




J08E, THE RKTIKED BANDIT. 



pulse tended, because there the crack bull-fights 
in all Spain take place, a guide was necessary, 
and, on the principle of setting a thief to catch 
a thief, a robber was selected — not one, indeed, 
in the active discharge of the duties of his pro- 
fession, but what may be called a retired bandit. 

He was a picaro of a fellow — as the Spaniards 
would describe a man of social qualities, com- 
bined with a necessary proportion of mischiev- 
ous propensities — fond of jokes, addicted to 
pleasant scrapes, and unimbued with any thing 
ferocious. The slow, difficult, and even dan- 
gerous path to Ronda was enlivened with his 
frequent sallies and illustrative anecdotes. 

Ronda is built on a rock, like an eagle's eyrie. 
It is girdled by the waters of the Guadiaro, and 
is only accessible by a narrow, precipitous path 
which the old Moorish castle completely enfi- 
lades. It was tossed off in one of Nature's 
freaks— so strange, chaotic, and mysterious is 
its form. A tajo, or chasm, six hundred feet 
in depth, surrounds three-fourths of the hill, 
and adds to its picturesque sublimity. 

It is the great place for bull-fights and fairs, 
and the resort, during the latter spring, of all 
the picturesque characters in Spain — bull-fight- 
ers, contrabandistas, gipsies, and robbers. The 
funcion of bulls is performed here always with 
the greatest eclat. Cuchares, the lion-tauridor 
of present Spain, here displays, to the wonder 
of all the aficion, his wonderful skill, here 
achieves his greatest triumph, and obtains from 
the intelligent sympathies of his audience his 
best-prized honors. When he succeeds in his 
great undertaking of killing the bull with a sin- 



MADEIRA, PORT, AND SHERRY. 



609 



- 



; - 




THE ALHAMI5KA. 



gle thrust, the tumultuous applause of the au- 
dience is overwhelming. The animal rushes 
madly upon the banner of the matador, who, 
springing to one side, allows him full impetus 
against its yielding folds, confounding him with 
the apparent slightness of the opposed obstacle. 
This ruse he repeats a number of times, till the 
bull, becoming more and more exasperated, his 
previous wounds disgorging blood and life all 
the while, loses more and more the power to 
direct his blows. This game of life against life, 
where the chances seem so equally poised, ex- 
cites the admiring crowd. Their 
passions hang on the crisis of the 
combatants. They rise upon the 
benches and in the galleries. 
The women repeat their Pater- 
nosters, the boldest majo holds 
his breath, and all eyes cleave 
to the glittering blade seen to 
protrude beyond the crimsoned 
banner. Cuchares holds this 
banner, pointed directly over 
the head of the animal, in his 
left hand, while with his right 
he points and directs the blade 
above. The bull now makes a 
fearful rush ; the banner, as be- 
fore, gives way; the animal's 
head passes beneath the arm of 
the matador, whose sword at 
the very moment pierces deep 
into his back, just where the 
vast neck mingles with the chine, 
Vol. XII.— No. 71.— Qq 



and remains there transfixed to the very hilt. 
The whole amphitheatre gives one shout of ap- 
plause, amidst waving of handkerchiefs and 
trampling of benches, and the clangor of trump- 
ets swells the triumph of Cuchares. 

But we hasten from Ronda, strangely beauti- 
ful as it is, to reach Granada — a name not to 
be pronounced without the revival of all the 
poetry of youthful imagination. For Florian, 
and Chateaubriand, and our own Irving have 
made its history familiar to us, and have given 
it all the vigor of personal associations. Po- 



mMiiMM^k** _. 




CUCHARES STRIKING- THE BULL. 



610 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



etry and romance, and the no less faithful pencil, 
have made it ours, and in visiting it we but pro- 
pose to confirm the hopes of childhood. The 
Alhambra — whose beauties, though faded, no 
art of coloring can enhance, whose history, 
though well attested, no genius of the poet can 
render more dazzling — still unchanged, crowns 
the hill where Boabdil held his court, and check- 
ed or encouraged the brilliant warriors of Mos- 
lem chivalry. Centuries have but hallowed its 
beauties, softening its incongruities, and mel- 
lowing its fullness. 




V^ "**• 



SMUGGLER. 



In prohibiting indispensable articles of con- 
sumption, the law invites a large crowd of per- 
sons to violate its provisions by temptations too 
powerful to be resisted. A hatred of the ex- 
cise is a natural instinct with the people of all 
countries. The Spanish smuggler, far from be- 
ing dishonored by the profession he exercises, 
is the most popular man in his village. He di- 
vides the national heart with the tamer of bulls. 
He enjoys the brilliant reputation, which, with 
a nation of individual exploits, always rewards 
successful audacity. He is the hero of the the- 
atre ; he comes upon the stage in the map cos- 
tume, with his retayo in his hand, sings his fa- 
mous sinquidilla, " Yo que soy contrabandista yo 
ho" to the universal gratification of his audi- 
ence from Gibraltar to the Bidassoa. 

Another institution is the beggar — as regular 
a profession as that of the contrabandista, and 
as equally palliated, if not justified, by the laws 
of the country. In the beggars' Jiest a, or frolic, 
the author has given some idea of the graces as 
well as skill of this metier. The arts practiced 



to extort alms are only less deplorable than the 
destitution which gives them birth. If the 
mendicants do not enforce their entreaties with 
the display of a carabine, like Gil Bias, their 
importunities are nearly as effective. You give 
rather than endure their presence. There is a 
cabalistic phrase which, like the reading of the 
Riot Act, generally disperses the mob : When a 
beggar accosts you with the stereotyped phrases 
of the profession, reply to him, with determined 
suavity, " P'erdone usted por Dios, hermano" — 
" For God's sake, excuse me, brother" — and this, 
nine times in ten, will put an end to their sup- 
plications and your torments ; for the command 
of this shibboleth convinces them that you are 
impenetrable. 




THE BEGGAR. 



Some of them, in the dignity of their address 
and general appearance, are quite Homeric. 
The author had one sketched who might well 
resemble Belisarius asking an obolus. But 
mostly they are a miserable, repulsive, disgust- 
ing crowd. 

The author would seem to have made a pleas- 
ant tour. His sojourn in Andalusia must have 
been agreeable. He was fond of the corridas de 
foros(bull-fights) — of the baile, or national dances 
— of the ollapodrida (national dish) — of the ala- 
medas, where the beautiful muchachas congre- 
gate — of the old architecture and glorious scen- 
ery — all novel, all racy, all inimitable. Nor, 
perhaps, could a person of leisure and means 
to spare do better than follow his whole route. 



A HOME IN THE CINNAMON ISLE. 



611 




KtTINS AT POLLANARUA. 



A HOME IN THE CINNAMON ISLE. 

IT was about the time that Alexander the 
Great began the restoration of Babylon, in 
order to adapt it to become the capital of the 
world, that the city of Pollanarua was founded. 
The site chosen was lovely. One of the richest 
plains of the Island of Ceylon. In front of the 
principal gate a silvery lake, imbedded in a park 
of tamarinds, and other tropical trees, and dot- 
ted with the gorgeous blossoms of the pink lo- 
tus : carpet-like lawns here, covered with sa- 
gacious elephants ; there, golden corn-fields, 
with rows of palm for fences, under whose shade 
sturdy buffaloes rested from the day's labor. In 
a few years it was a great city. Four miles 
stretched the main street, in a perfectly straight 
line, between royal palms. On either side were 
splendid dwellings, with gilded domes ; temples 
to strange gods, with massive statues in front ; 
groves of cocoa-nut, and stately arecas. In the 
centre of the city was reared the great Dagoba, 
the national monument. A pedestal two hun- 
dred and sixty feet high; above the pedestal 
two colossal steps, each twenty feet high by 
fifty wide, serving to support broad flights of 
stairs ; above these, a dome of solid brick-work, 
covered with polished stucco varied by bas-re- 
liefs; above the dome another pedestal, a cube 
of some thirty feet, wholly of stucco; on this a 
tall spire thickly gilt; and this last crowned with 
a golden umbrella. From this Dagoba radi- 
ated all the great streets in the city. On one 
of them stood the palace of the King of Pol- 
lanarua, a lofty building, with octagon towers 
at the corners; on another the rock temple, 



with the gigantic idols of Buddha staring piti- 
lessly at the devotee as he entered. The whole 
swarmed with human beings. No censuses were 
there in those days in the Cinnamon Isle, and 
no man can say how many hundreds of thou- 
sands dwelt in Pollanarua, or in that far greater 
city of Ceylon, Anaradupoora, whose ruins cover 
two hundred and fifty-six square miles. But 
this we know ; they were like the insects of the 
jungle, crowded, heaped, packed together — 
vastly relieved, in truth, when the Queen of the 
South set her armies in motion from her great 
city of Mahagam, or the Malabars took the field 
from the North, and fell upon Pollanarua, and 
slaughtered their tens of thousands. 

Another stride through time, and about the 
period when Christian nations went to war with 
the Saracen for the Holy Sepulchre, some un- 
known enemy destroyed Pollanarua. Not the 
buildings themselves — the Dagoba was for the 
most part almost indestructible — but the people, 
men, women, and children. How it was done no 
one knows. Probably the enemy gained posses- 
sion of the high lands above the city and cut off 
the supply of water; which Avould put an end to 
all agricultural operations, cause speedy famine, 
and soon enable the jungle to encroach upon 
the city, and breed devastating pestilences. Per- 
haps the cold steel and the flames had a large 
share in the work. Anyhow, Pollanarua was 
depopulated. 

Now one common turf covers houses, and 
people, and streets, and sculptures. The Da- 
goba is there in massive ruin ; but a banyan- 
tree has struck its roots through the brick-work, 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



and cleft it in two ; and the fragments are so 
overgrown with jungle-grass and lichens that 
they look like mere mounds of earth, which the 
traveler might pass without notice. Elsewhere, 
fragments of the old huge idols protrude from 
the jungle, and here and there a pair of dull 
eyes stare at the intruder as they stared at wor- 
shipers a thousand years ago ; beside them, may- 
hap, lie slabs of granite graven with elaborate 
inscriptions which — like the dialect in which 
Eliot's Bible was written — are now a sealed let- 
ter to the most learned. Amidst the desolate 
ruins crouch the fiery leopard and the hungry 
bear: the jackal deserts them, for they do not 
contain a single bone he can pick. 

The history of Pollanarna is that of the whole 
island. Our North American Indians are not 
fading more rapidly from the earth than the 
native Cingalese. The jungle is closing around 
them, and every year disease tightens its grip. 
One season, cholera or fever attacks a village 
of two hundred souls, and carries off half of 
them. The survivors are unable to keep the 
same quantity of land under cultivation as for- 
merly; and in consequence, next season, the 
jungle has closed still further upon them, and 
the fatal epidemic returns with fresh violence. 
Reduced to a miserable few who can not even 
cultivate their rice-plots, the remaining tenants 
of the village wait passively for cholera to ex- 
terminate them, which it does in a couple of 
seasons at farthest, leaving nothing but a few 
towering cocoa-nut trees to show where a village 
once stood. 

In olden time the science of irrigation was 
thoroughly understood by the Cingalese, and 
immense tracts of land were kept under culti- 
vation by a system of tanks and canals. But 
in the old wars most of these were destroyed, 
and the people have not had the enterprise, nor 
the British colonial government the sagacity to 
restore them. The consequence is, that from 
being one of the greatest rice-growing countries 
in the world, Ceylon now imports rice from In- 
dia ; and the jungle-grass has overgrown the 
lands on which this staple was formerly grown. 
So utterly wretched is the soil, and so improvi- 
dent have been its owners, that it is now be- 
coming unprofitable even to plant coffee there, 
and the only articles of production which pay 
are cinnamon and cocoa-nuts — both of which 
luxuriate in a dry, sandy soil. 

In the mountains tracts of land are found 
which, with plenty of manure, may be made to 
produce most of the necessaries of life. Some 
six or seven years ago, an Englishman, Mr. S. 
W. Baker, purchased a tract at a place called 
Newera Ellia, or Royal Plains, peopled it with 
English emigrants, and stocked it with cattle. 
He met with the usual mishaps of pioneers. 
One day a pair of his best Australian horses ran 
away, and smashed a carriage and themselves. 
Then a cow — a thorough-bred Durham short- 
horn — died, on the way up to the settlement, 
from the heat. Then his groom, after investi- 
gating the quality of the native liquors, rode his 



best elephant to death. Finally, his settlers, of 
course, took the earliest opportunity of quarrel- 
ing with him, and going' to law. * Happily for 
him he was blessed with patience and perse- 
verance ; bore all trials with fortitude, buried 
his murdered cattle, and imprisoned his refrac- 
tory tenants ; and, in the end, had the satisfac- 
tion of seeing his settlement thrive, and his 
farmers accumulate small fortunes by dint of 
large doses of economy and manure. 

He would have borne the struggle with for- 
tune less patiently had he been less of a sports- 
man. Ceylon, as every one knows, is the Par- 
adise of Nimrods. South Africa beats it, in- 
deed ; but who has hunted its wildernesses save 
Mr. Gordon dimming? The elephant, the bear, 
the wild boar, the leopard, the elk — besides 
countless other denizens of the forest, of less 
note — abound in the silent jungles of Ceylon ; 
many and many a week did the lord of the 
manor of Newera Ellia spend in hunting them 
down. A hunter, he, in the grain. None of 
your amateur gunners, who run out of town for 
a day or two at a time to shoot woodcock, or 
even murder moose ; but a methodical, busi- 
ness-like sportsman, regarding the craft as one 
of the highest vocations to which a man can be 
called — a man who knows of nothing that can 
give such a delightful feeling of calm excite- 
ment as wild sports — who buries a couple of 
favorite hounds side by side, and tearfully ex- 
claims, " There are no truer dogs on the earth 
than the two that lie there together !" — who can 
not even talk of a hunt without bursting into a 
parenthetic "Yoicks! for-r-r-rard !" — who speaks 
of his double-barreled four-ounce No. 10 rifle 
with emotion and gratitude, and sits down mourn- 
fully, in a dearth of game, to shoot crocodiles 
for fear of being idle. 

The elephant is, of course, the royal game of 
Ceylon. The Cingalese variety of the beast is 
inferior to that of Africa, as it is rarely a "tusk- 
er." Now and then an elephant is found with 
tusks ; but, unlike all other races of elephants, 
the animals usually shot on the island have no- 
thing but miserable little grubbers, projecting 
two or three inches from the jaw and pointing 
downward. Still they are fine hunting, and 
to come upon a herd of them browsing quietly 
on the tall rushy grass in one of the old desert- 
ed tanks — as happened to Mr. Baker and a 
friend of his — must have been tolerably exciting. 

They spent half an hour behind the trees 
watching the beasts disport themselves in the 
cool water ; then, sending a party of Cingalese 
round to the enemy's flank to shout and terrify 
him, the hunters and their men took up a posi- 
tion at the outlet of the tank. The Cingalese 
howl was followed instantly by a mighty roar 
of water caused by the rush of the herd, and at 
this moment the excitement was tremendous. 
The natives saw no fun in the sport, and scram- 
bled up trees ; Baker and his friend cocked 
their rifles with a grim smile. On came the 
elephants, dashing up the spray before them, 
when, to the horror of the hunters, just as they 



A HOME IN THE CINNAMON ISLE. 



613 




TANK SCENE AT EVENING. 



were at twenty paces' distance, the frightened 
natives scrambled still higher in the trees, and 
gave the alarm by their noise. The leaders 
veered round in an instant. Baker and his 
friend, having no choice, leaped down among 
them, and bagged a couple each with the reg- 
ulation shot behind the ear. The others took 
to the water, which was too deep to admit of a 
foot-race; but Baker, judging that they would 
again attempt to enter the jungle at some dis- 
tance, followed them on the edge of the lake. 
His suspicion was verified; he had just time to 
ensconce himself behind a tree on the margin 
of the tank when the roar of the rushing water 
was heard. Again the stupid natives spoilt the 
sport by showing themselves, and the herd gal- 
loped off, dashing the spray before them. Thus 
detected, Baker threw off all disguise, and ran 
toward the herd as best he could through the wa- 
ter, shouting and screaming in order to induce 
the old bulls to charge ; but his challenge was 
unheeded, and the elephants, with remarkable 
sagacity, scattered in all directions, and made 
for a piece of thick jungle a couple of hundred 
yards off. In despair, he knocked over the 
hindmost with a long shot ; when, to his delight 
he heard one of the leading bulls trumpet shril- 
ly, and rock his head from side to side with 
ears cocked. Baker knew that this meant 
fight, and redoubled his shouts. 

The chase was terrific. Forty yards still di- 
vided the hunter and his prey, and blown as the 
former was, there was every chance that the herd 
would reach the jungle before him. His only 



hope was that the angry bull would turn on him. 
But, to his disgust, when the herd did win the 
race and reach the jungle, this fellow rushed in 
with the others. 

The disappointment lasted but for a few sec- 
onds. After seeing the other elephants safe, he 
of the cocked ears came rushing out again in 
full charge. It was, as the grim hunter says, 
"very plucky, but foolish," for he straightway 
bagged him by the forehead shot. 

Almost immediately afterward he heard a 
tremendous roaring behind him ; and loading 
his rifles hastily, ran to the spot. Instead of the 
herd he had hoped to find, he saw a young ele- 
phant, four feet high, who, being fool-hardy, as 
became his years, charged the hunter directly. 
Baker — vastly to the disgust of the natives — 
laid aside his rifle, and as the young brute rush- 
ed at him, jumped on one side and caught him 
by the tail. Then followed a comical scene. 
The juvenile elephant ran away with Baker 
without feeling him : he called to the natives to 
bring ropes or cotton cloths to tie his legs, but 
they were too frightened to come. A couple of 
gun-bearers ran to his assistance, and took a 
twist in the brute's tail, but it was of no use; he 
ran away with all three of them like a steam- 
engine running off with an empty railroad-car. 
So Baker was obliged at last to send for a gun 
and settle him. 

This business done, and his huntsman's blood 
being up, he turned to other game. Attacking 
a Cingalese for his cowardice, the fellow laugh- 
ed in his face ; whereupon Baker cut a stout 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZLNE. 



stick. The native ran off at top speed, and the 
hunter gave chase. It was a long run, but, as 
the victor says, " I ran into him at last in heavy 
ground, and I dare say he recollects the day of 
the month." 

As a general rule Cingalese elephants are 
shot almost a bout portant. Eight or ten paces 
are the usual firing distance, and the brain is 
invariably the part aimed at. When Mr. Baker 
arrived in Ceylon, with his usual earnestness 
he went straight to the museum, and spent a 
week studying the anatomy of an elephant's 
skull. When his studies were over, he felt as- 
sured that, from whatever direction he fired, he 
would be able to hit the brain. It was well for 
him he could. 

Walking through the jungle one day, he sud- 
denly noticed a young tree, as thick as a man's 
thigh, shake violently over his head. Looking 
up he saw, just above him, the trunk of an ele- 
phant, who was engaged in barking the tree as 
high as he could reach with his trunk. There 
was no time to be lost ; the next moment the 
elephant would perceive him. He raised the 
rifle, took the eccentric line for the brain, and 
fired upward through the jaw. The ball had to 
pass through bones and tough membranes for 
a distance of two feet ; but the rifle was true, 
and "a hard hitter," and the animal fell stone 
dead, with the wad smoking in the wound. 

It appears quite common to approach ele- 
phants as close as this without seeing them, so 
nearly does the color of their hide resemble that 
of the decaying and burnt jungle. Mr. Baker 
often took aim at an elephant which was with- 



in eight paces of him, when a friend who was 
at his elbow could not see him at all. 

The wild boar is not, bad sport, though not 
to be mentioned in the same month with the 
elephant. Of course, for such game one does 
not take gun or rifle. The long boar-spear, 
sharply and freshly pointed, is the consecrated 
weapon, and Mr. Baker admits that, for the en- 
counter, it is the best possible. But it is no easy 
matter to carry a boar-spear over the rugged 
mountains in the highlands without blunting it 
against some awkward rock or other; and the 
hunter of NeweraEllia, accordingly, preferred the 
knife. "A boar," says he, sententiously, "which 
can beat off a good pack of dogs and a long 
knife, deserves, in my opinion, to escape." His 
own knife was a model. It was one foot long, 
exclusive of the handle, and the blade was tAvo 
inches broad in the widest part ; the whole knife 
weighed three pounds. The blade was shaped 
somewhat 'after the fashion of the Nepaulese 
creases, slightly concave in the middle ; which 
peculiarity gave great force to a blow, and ren- 
dered it as formidable a weapon as any West- 
ern bowie-knife. 

Strolling through the jungle one day with the 
hounds, he came upon the track of a boar. The 
dogs went off in full chorus ; and presently was 
heard the rush of the boar through the jungle, 
followed by the bay of the pack. Plunging and 
tearing through the tangled grass, Baker reached 
the scene of action in time to see the boar in 
deadly conflict with half a dozen of the bravest 
dogs. His own knife was drawn ready. The 
moment the boar saw him, it shook off the dogs 




CLOSE QUARTERS. 



A HOME IN THE CINNAMON ISLE. 



615 




THE ELK HUNT. 



vrith a surprising effort and charged him. He 
sprang aside, and instinctively made a cut at 
the boar with the knife as it passed. To his 
amazement the brute fell dead on, the spot ; and 
on looking at the wound, it appeared so huge 
that the animal seemed half divided. The fact 
was, in the act of springing the boar had dis- 
tended the muscles of his back to the utmost 
degree of tightness, and the heavy knife falling 
upon them at right angles, had severed not only 
the muscles but the spine, and entered the vi- 
tals. This distension of the muscles is the se- 
cret of the feats performed by the Asiatic swords- 
men — such as cutting off a buffalo's head at a 
blow. The animal's head is tied down, and in 
endeavoring to raise it, it distends the muscles 
so " taut" that the least blow with a sharp edge 
will divide them. 

The boar's flesh is poor eating. The Cin- 
galese enjoy it; but Mr. Baker had too often 
M.en the boars feasting on the putrid carcasses 
of dead elephants to like it. Better feeding, in 
every way, is to be had when a good fat elk has 
been run down. The elk is the royal game for 
horse and hound in Ceylon; and the Lord of 
Xewera Ellia, as an old follower of the British 
hounds, liked nothing better than a day's race 
after a well-fed buck. 

Even these sports are not devoid of danger in 
the hilly country of Ceylon. One fine morning 
in May, 1853, Mr. Baker was out with the pack 
and fell upon the fresh track of an elk. The 
dogs went off in full cry, and after half an hour's 
sharp run up hill and down dale, the hunter 
broke cover close to the elk, a magnificent fel- 



low, thirteen hands high, with every nerve on 
the stretch, and nostril distended. Close to the 
spot where they were ran a precipitous mountain 
torrent, banked on either side by high rugged 
rocks. The buck slowly picked his way down 
the rock side, the pack following, and Baker 
himself, over ground which nothing would have 
induced him to travel in cold blood. A few 
yards below the spot where they were the tor- 
rent fell over a cliff with a roar like a mighty 
cataract. Heedless of the falls and the sound, 
the pack rushed on, baying, till the buck, hav- 
ing reached the bottom, and seeing that retreat 
was impossible, boldly leaped across. Poor fel- 
low! he had miscalculated the distance. He 
lighted upon a shelving rock so steep that he 
could not retain his foothold, and slid slowly 
down into the water. Two of the best dogs, in 
spite of the hunter's efforts, dashed down after 
the elk, and in a moment all three were rolling 
over and over in the torrent, and drifting toward 
the fall. Baker was in agony ; the couple were 
his favorite dogs. He hallooed, screamed, beck- 
oned ; but they could neither hear nor see him. 
He had given them up, when all at once they 
struck upon a ledge in the torrent, overgrown 
with lemon-grass, and scrambled ashore. Mean- 
while the buck swam to a safe landing-place, 
breasting the fierce torrent nobly ; and the rest 
of the pack, fired at the sight, likewise plunged 
into the water. One of them, a favorite bitch, 
went over the fall, and was never seen more ; 
but the others, by dint of good luck and strength 
of limb, contrived to make their way across and 
land close on the elk's heels. 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Then the chase was renewed, the antlered 
king leading dogs and men a tremendous race 
through brush and briar. At length the dogs 
drove him again toward the torrent. He sprang 
down ledge after ledge, and at last arrived on a 
platform some twenty feet wide, which overhung 
the abyss below the fall. From hence there was 
no escape. It was impossible to reascend the 
precipice down which master elk had leaped, 
and the dogs were on his heels, driving him to 
the edge of the platform. On the very brink 
he stood — looking as proud and as brave as 
ever — when Mr. Baker reached the spot. Fear- 
ful lest the hounds should press on him and he 
should throw a few of them over, the hunter re- 
solved to hamstring him, and cheered the dogs 
on. But the elk, looking boldly in his face, 
made one charge, scattered the hounds, then 
turning, looked over the ledge and leaped into 
the abyss. It was the work of a second — a 
crash — and the royal elk lay a mass of broken 
bones at the bottom. 

Another buck committed suicide in precisely 
the same way shortly afterward. Only one dog 
was following him — that one a splendid hunt- 
er — both were going like rockets, and uncon- 
sciously nearing a chasm of great depth. To 
look at them, it seemed that their impetus must 
of necessity carry both of them over. Happily 
for the dog, he sprang at the buck close to the 
edge and struck his ear ; the check saved him. 
The buck, on the contrary, went clean over, 
and spun round and round in his descent till 
the centrifugal motion drew out his legs and 
neck as straight as a line. An awful sight to 



see so large an animal rushing through the air 
with such fearful momentum ! 

The dogs who figure in these hunts were Mr. 
Baker's grand allies, endowed, as he is persuad- 
ed, with reason almost human. His great "find- 
er" — Bluebeard — was a fox-hound, whose under- 
standing in his trade appears to have been equal 
to the average of man's. He could tell the date 
of a track by its appearance, and when once start- 
ed on a cold scent, never lost it till the hunters 
had run into the game. More than once, when 
an elk had taken to the water and made off 
through the jungle, would old Bluebeard plunge 
in at the very spot where the game had left the 
shore, and swim across the stream, and up or 
down for great distances, until he came upon 
the exact point at which the elk had landed. 
There was no deceiving him. He was killed at 
last, poor fellow ! while on the track of an elk. 
He had been leading the pack, and the other 
dogs and the hunters were following, when all 
at once Mr. Baker came up with Bluebeard, 
sitting up and looking faint. He was covered 
with blood, and five holes were cut in his throat 
by a leopard's claws. He choked and strained 
so violently that it was plain his windpipe was 
injured ; but he had persevered in the chase till 
his breath failed him. His master had him 
slung in a blanket and carried homeward be- 
tween two men ; but he never reached his ken- 
nel, and lies buried in a decent grave. 

These leopards are the most troublesome 
vermin on the island. They are cowardly, as 
many varieties of the feline tribe are ; stalk 
their game, hiding themselves until the mo- 




THE ELK S LEAI>. 



A HOME IN THE CINNAMON ISLE. 



617 




THE LAST PLUNGE. 



iueut comes for the spring. Then they fly 
through the air and fasten their teeth and claws 
in an animal's throat, while they throw their 
body on its back with such a wrench that the 
spine of the victim .is generally broken. Such 
strength have they in their claws, that with a 
single blow they will rip open a bullock ; and 
from their being constantly engaged in tearing 
putrid flesh, their scratch is generally venom- 
ous. The Ceylon bears — which adopt very sim- 
ilar tactics, and have been known to tear off a 
man's face like a mask with a single blow of 
their paws — are less troublesome than the leop- 
ards, from the reason that they are more sav- 
age, and keep at a greater distance from settle- 
ments. 

The leopard will eat any thing. He is seen 
gorging the putrid flesh of slaughtered elephants, 
and has been known to tear open a grave to 
gnaw the human dead. But his especial lux- 
ury is a shcepfold or a cattle-pen. They will 
sometimes scratch a hole through a thatched 
shed in order to get at cows. Now and then, 
however, they pay the penalty of their daring, 
as when the calf is with the native Cingalese 
cow she is very pugnacious. 

One dark, rainy night, as the blacksmith at 
Newera Ellia had locked his door and tucked 
the bed-clothes round himself and his wife, a 
leopard came sneaking round, and soon discov- 
ered, by the scent, a fine cow and calf within a 
shed. After examining the shed closely, to see 
if there was no aperture, and finding that it was 
tight and close, the vermin sprang upon the roof 



and began to tear away the thatch. But the 
sharpness of scent was not all on his side. As 
he sniffed the cow, she sniffed him ; and while 
he was scratching the thatch, she was standing 
below, en garde, ready for a charge. In a mo- 
ment down he came with a spring. The cow 
was ready for him. As he sprang she charged, 
and pinned him to the wall with her horns. A 
fight ensued of the most terrific nature. The 
blacksmith, aroused by the noise, hastened to 
load a pistol and proceed to the scene of action. 
When he reached the door, however, he be- 
thought himself that caution was the better part 
of valor, and therefore discreetly looked through 
the keyhole. The growls of the leopard had 
ceased ; but there was the cow, mad with fury, 
tossing a dark mass into the air, catching it on 
her horns as it fell, then pinning it to the wall 
with a savage charge as it lamely endeavored to 
crawl away. This was the beef-eater in reduced 
circumstances. Taking courage from the sight, 
the blacksmith opened the door and fired his 
pistol at the dying leopard. Startled by the 
sound, the cow, whose blood was up, dashed at 
the man, and he had actually some trouble in 
escaping the infuriated animal. 

Leopards are often shot, and once Mr. Baker 
saw one run into by dogs, and finally polished 
off with a hunting-knife. But this is rare; and 
unless the pack is strong, woe to the dog that 
assails or ventures within reach of the spring of 
the powerful animal. 

Altogether, Ceylon is a fine place for a sports- 
man. With all the excitement of the buffalo- 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



hunts, and bear-hunts, and wolf-chases in the 
West, they must still fall short, in respect of 
thrilling sensations, of the jungle beat in Cey- 
lon. The latter has its drawbacks, of course, 
which almost counterbalance the rattlesnakes 
and mosquitoes of some of our best hunting- 
grounds. There are the centipedes, small fel- 
lows about four inches long, which creep under 
people's clothes and sting like a wasp ; not ven- 
omous, but very troublesome. On one of Mr. 
Baker's hunts, one of his friends was accom- 
panied by an Irish corporal named Phinn, who 
was new to the country. Just after dinner, 
Phinn was sitting down to commence his own 
meal, when he sprang up, capered about the 
room like a madman, and, with both hands on 
the hinder-part of his inexpressibles, howled : 
" Och ! help, Sir, help ! I've some divil up 
my breeches ! Oh ! bad luck to him, he's bit- 
in' me ! Oh ! oh ! it's a sarpent that's stingin' 
me ! Quick, Sir, or he'll be the death of me !" 
The frantic corporal's inexpressibles were low- 
ered, regardless of decency, and a fine little 
centipede liberated from a rather tight situation. 

Ticks — tiny creatures no bigger than a grain 
of sand — are almost as great a plague. Their 
bite is compared to a red-hot needle thrust into 
the flesh. They, too, seem to have a predilec- 
tion for the friendly shelter of a trowser-leg; 
and so acute is the smart, that loyal Mr. Baker 
frankly confesses that if the royal family were 
present he couldn't help tearing off the gar- 
ment the moment he felt the bite. 

In the swamps and deserted tanks leeches 
are troublesome. Men guard against them with 
proper gaiters, but dogs sometimes suffer se- 
verely from their bite. One of Mr. Baker's best 
hounds was drinking at a pool, when a leech 
crept up its nostril. The dog tried to shake it 
out, but it clung fast. The hunter tried his 
best, with injections of salt and water and the 
other prescribed methods, but the leech kept 
his hold ; and, being of that species which the 
wise man certifies will never cry Enough ! it 
actually lived for two months in the poor dog's 
nose. It might have been there still, had it 
not one day, in the exuberance of its joy at the 
comfort of its lodgings, indiscreetly taken to 
wag its tail, when a dexterous finger and thumb 
extracted it. 

Another troublesome insect is the white ant, 
which eats out the heart of the largest timber 
logs in an incredibly short space of time. The 
natives have a curious way of getting rid of 
them. When they discover an ant hole, they 
pour a little treacle near the spot. This at- 
tracts another species of ants, the black ants, 
between whom and their white brethren there 
has existed from time immemorial an almost 
human feud. The black ants will come and 
taste the treacle; but almost as soon they dis- 
cover the hole of their white enemies. In- 
stantly a detachment starts off, leaving the 
treacle and disappearing in the jungle. In the 
course of the day it returns, leading an army of 
black ants drawn out in a line many yards in 



length. The whole force enters the hole, and 
the work of extermination begins. The white 
ant is defenseless; in the course of an hour or 
so not one survives, and most of the black con- 
querors go home in triumph, each with a white 
ant in his mouth. 

Happily for the hunters, snakes are neither 
numerous nor very venomous in Ceylon. Mr. 
Baker seldom saw any, except when he sat 
down to watch the gaunt adjutant — a species 
of crane — stalk through the marshes. With 
measured tread he steps among the rushes, 
plunging his huge bill into a hole, and bringing 
up an immense writhing snake ; snap, snap, 
goes the bill, and half the snake is gone ; snap, 
snap, again, and the other half is invisible; and 
grim Sir Adjutant stalks on as though nothing 
had happened. 

Of all these vermin denizens of the jungle 
and the swamp the Cingalese fears none. He 
can even shoot an elephant, a leopard, or a bear, 
if he is not too close. But just before daybreak, 
when the devil-bird utters its long low note of 
pain on the tree-tops, and it swells and swells, 
and at last dies away upon the ear — then the 
Cingalese hides his head in his hands, and shud- 
ders in terror. For whoever sees the devil-bird 
must surely die. So implicit is the faith of the 
natives in this singular superstition, that when a 
British officer's servant — a Cingalese — happened 
one day to see one on a tree close to him, he 
went home and prepared calmly for death. He 
was so satisfied that he would die that he re- 
fused to eat, and in this way, sure enough, he 
soon put an end to his life. Fortunately for 
the Cingalese, the devil-bird is a species of owl 
which is seldom seen in the daytime. 

There is a strange air of romance about the 
Cinnamon Isle, with its mighty ruins, and silent 
jungles, and rare hunting-grounds. Some day. 
perhaps, we may know it better. A day must 
come when a great trade will spring up on the 
southern coast of Asia and among the gorgeous 
islands of that wonderful Archipelago. Austra- 
lia grows with prodigious strides. The Chinese 
oyster is slowly yielding to the knife. War is 
carrying its atonement — commerce — into the 
Persian Gulf, and up the Irawaddy. Even the 
volcanic isles are ripening to civilization, and 
liberal institutions are talked of for British In- 
dia. Whenever these regions shall produce, 
and exchange in due proportion to their un- 
paralleled natural advantages, Ceylon will be- 
come one of the great places of the earth. It 
must be the centre of their commercial world. 
Pointe des Galles was indicated long ago as the 
natural mart for Indian produce ; the indication 
was unerring. In itself Ceylon lacks nothing 
but skilled labor. Newera Ellia proves its agri- 
cultural capacity ; history the extent of its fer- 
tile plains. Gold is found there, too ; and some 
Californians who have examined the beds of its 
streams quite concur with those archaeologists 
who take it to have been the ancient Ophir. 
Does any one want a home in the Cinnamon 
Isle ? 



THE RESURRECTION FLOWER. 



619 




THE RESURRECTION FLOWER. 

AMONG the curiosities of the floral kingdom 
none is more truly extraordinary than that 
which is termed the Resurrection Flower, a 
specimen of which has been recently brought 

to this country from 
the East by Dr. I. Deck. 
From Professor Torrey 
we learn, that although 
the flower is very rare 
indeed every where, 
and has been but sel- 
dom seen in this coun- 
try, yet Bishop Wain- 
right procured two 
while he was traveling 
in Egypt, and Dr. Tor- 
rey himself possesses a 
specimen. The his- 
tory of the flower pos- 
sessed by Dr. Deck he 
states as follows : More 
than eight years ago, while on a professional 
engagement in exploring some lost emerald 
and copper mines in Upper Egypt, he was of 
medical service to an Arab, who, in return, 
presented him a stem, on which were two 
seemingly dried up seed-vessels of some plant. 
He was assured that, many years previously, the 
treasure had been taken from an Egyptian mum- 
my, a female high-priestess, and was esteemed 
a great rarity, as few had been obtained in the 
last century. The Doctor was farther inform- 
ed that, if properly cared for, the flower would 
never decay. Of the truth of its being discov- 
ered on the breast of an Egyptian priestess there 
are many doubts, for the Arabs are proverbial 
for exaggeration ; but that it will, comparative- 
ly speaking, never decay if properly cared for, 
seems to be confirmed by the extraordinary fact 
that, for more than eight years, it has accom- 
panied Dr. Deck in all his wanderings, has been 
displayed and expand- 
ed to the gaze of the 
curious more than a 
thousand times with- 
out any diminution of 
its extraordinary prop- 
erties, has been exam- 
ined by some of the 
most eminent philos- 
ophers and travelers 
of this country and of 
Europe, and as yet no 
positive position has 
been assigned to it in 
the botanical kingdom. 
Baron Humboldt, to 
whom Dr. Deck pre- 
sented the twin-flower, 
acknowledges that, in his extensive travels in 
all parts of the world, he had met with nothing 
like it in the vegetable kingdom, and nothing 
so truly wonderful. 

Its origin, its location, and the plant bearing 
it, are entirely involved in mystery. The at- 




tractive Oriental tale of its being found em- 
balmed is rejected, because no similar flower 
has been found by those who have had the most 
experience in unrolling the ancient dead, and 
also because there has never been discovered 
any thing bearing the remotest resemblance to 
it upon Egyptian sculptures. Those who are 
conversant with the wonderful features of the 
Egyptian religion and priestcraft, know how 
quickly every thing was seized upon and deified 
which could be made symbolical of their tenets, 
and were thus transmitted to posterity figured as 
hieroglyphics ; and it is but natural to presume 
that this simple flower, with its brilliant halo, so 
typical of glory and resurrection, would have 
ranked high in their mythology. 

On examining the flower in its unexpand- 
ed state, it resembles, both in shape and col- 
or, a dried poppy-head with 
the stem attached. Upon be- 
ing immersed a moment or 
two in a glass of water, and 
set upright in the neck of a 
small vial, in a few moments 
the upper petals began to 
burst open, gradually, yet vis- 
ibly to the eye ; they contin- 
ued to expand until, throwing 
themselves back in equidis- 
tant order, there was present- 
ed a beautifully radiated star- 
ry flower, somewhat resem- 
bling both the passion-flower 
and the sun-flower, and yet 
more splendid than either. The unfolding still 
continued until the petals bent backward over 
what might be termed the base of the flower, 
presenting, in bold relief, in its 
centre, its rosette of the most ex- 
quisite form and ornamentation, 
and thus assuming a new charm, 
entirely eclipsing what a moment 
before seemed its absolute perfec- 
tion. The drawings were made 
at the moment when the flower 
presented the phases illustrated ; 
but language and artistic skill 
can but feebly portray this ex- 
traordinary specimen of the flo- 
ral kingdom. After remaining 
open for an hour or more, the 
moisture gradually dissipates it- 
self, and the fibres of the flower 
contract as gradually as they ex- 
panded, and it reassumes its original appear- 
ance, ready to be unfolded again by the same 
simple process, the number of times seeming to 
be only limited by the will of the possessor. 

Dr. Deck suggests that the flower is a native 
of the Holy Land, and is a type or variety of 
the long-lost Rose of Jericho, called also the 
"Rose of Sharon," and the "Star of Bethle- 
hem," and highly venerated for its rarity and 
peculiar properties by the pilgrims and Crusad- 
ers, and eagerly sought after by them as a price- 
less emblem of their zeal and pilgrimage, and 





620 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



worn on their escutcheons in a similar manner 
as the scollop-shell and palm-branch. This idea 
is strengthened by the fact, that resemblances 
of the flower, both open and closed, are sculp- 
tured upon tombs of two of the Crusaders buried 
in the Temple Church of London, and also in 
the Cathedrals of Bayeux and Rouen in Nor- 
mandy, where some of the most illustrious Cru- 
saders are interred. 

Its botanical position is difficult to assign, as 
it presents some peculiarities of the highest and 
lowest classes. The opinion most sanctioned 
is, that the flower is the pericarp or seed-vessel 
of the plant, that it grows in desert or sandy 
places, and falls, in due course of existence, 
from the parent stem. Retaining its seed in an 
arid soil and atmosphere, it is for months and 
years wafted about by the winds, but from lack 
of moisture keeping closed. Eventually it falls 
upon some damp spot, near some well or oasis, 
when it opens, deposits its seeds, and thus, by a 
most exquisite adaptation of means to an end, 
exhibited in this beautiful phenomenon of na- 
ture, the work of reproduction is commenced 
and concluded. 



PAUPERTOWN: 

BEING SOME NOTICE OF THE PLACE, AND 

WHAT HAS HAPPENED THERE. 

TVTAMES of villages are sometimes conferred 
JLi by Act of Assembly. Sometimes ambitious 
first settlers adapt their patronymics to the tract 
they take up. Other names come by accident, 
and bear no relation to the spot or its appear- 
ance. A descriptive title is sometimes affixed 
by wit or malice, and common consent indorses 
it — albeit some persons may protest. A title 
suggestive or appropriate is not unfrequently 
put on as a rider over and above the original 
designation, and such a name clings, like the 
Old Man of the Sea to Sinbad the Sailor. The 
scene of our sketch was thus twice blessed ; for 
while the Post-office Directory called the place 
Smithville, it was known in the vernacular as 
Pafpertown. 

You need not look for the town in Geogra- 
phy or Gazetteer. We do not intend to give 
the name of State or County ; for, unfortunately, 
spots with the characteristics of Paupertown 
may be found in almost any State in the Union. 
Our readers may define the location as they 
please ; and we fear most of them can trace its 
features in some spot which they have hereto- 
fore seen and may visit again. 

The public buildings in Paupertown were — 
a tavern, a blacksmith's shop, a country store, 
and a gymnasium. The latter name is one of 
our own application — the Paupertowners never 
heard it. The gymnasium had a high roof, 
high indeed as the ethereal vault, and its dome 
required no pillars. It was bounded on one 
side by stabling, and on the other by the tavern 
walls. The rear was a paling, to which, on elec- 
tion and other holidays, turkeys were tied by 
the legs, to be peppered with shot, by large boys 
and small, at a shilling a chance. The front 



opened upon a race-course ; for such, in the 
opinion of Paupertown and vicinity, was the 
purpose of a fine level turnpike, on which were 
daily tried the speed of challenging nags. The 
area of the gymnasium was used for quoit pitch- 
ing, penny tossing, and other enlightened amuse- 
ments ; and along by the tavern-side was a plat- 
form for ten-pins. 

The sign-post of the tavern bore aloft a some- 
thing which was supposed to represent Wash- 
ington, but which would have served equally 
well for any other hero with a white wig or 
profusely powdered hair; or it might have been 
mistaken for a full-blown cauliflower. Pauper- 
town was not remarkable, as will readily be sur- 
mised, for any great devotion to the fine arts. 
The bar-room of the tavern boasted one litho- 
graph quail, looking east, and another quail, look- 
ing west. It possessed, in addition, a whole gal- 
lery of wild beasts done in red and black, the 
contribution of a traveling menagerie to its em- 
bellishment. Eor the rest, the tavern was like 
other country taverns, with a strong smell of 
something between bad vinegar and worse whis- 
ky, qualified with the heavy sweet of very brown 
sugar. 

The blacksmith's shop was like other coun- 
try smithies ; the blacksmith, like other country 
smiths, a good "shoe-er," a hard drinker, and 
no mean judge of horse-flesh. With him the 
horse was principal, the rider an incident. He 
knew men by their horses, and designated them 
thus — "The fellow that drives the sorrel mare;" 
or " Him that put the old bay on Jim Stokes ;" 
or " The bird that trots the two-forty." 

The " country store" vended dry goods and 
groceries, but more groceries than dry goods, and 
more whisky than any thing else. As a matter 
of professional courtesy, the shopkeeper did not 
serve his customers by the glass, but referred 
thirsty souls who required immediate draughts 
to the neighboring tavern. He even drank there 
himself, for the encouragement of trade. His 
public libations were poured out at the tavern. 
His secret indulgences, and they were neither 
few nor small, were imbibed at his own tap. 

Such was Paupertown. The few other build- 
ings in the cluster comprised the smart house 
of the shopkeeper, and two or three dilapidated 
tenements which were commenced for dwelling- 
houses, but never finished. One lacked a porch, 
another had boards nailed over the aperture in 
which a front door was originally contemplated 
— all were minus paint. The fences, here and 
there, were apologies, and very poor at that; 
and as to trees, they were neither here nor there; 
nobody had found time to replace the old prime- 
vals which had rotted down. A shoemaker 
domiciled in one of the tenements, the black- 
smith in another, and several vagrant-looking 
fellows, black and white, burrowed somewhere 
in the neighborhood. The top of a broken 
chimney was visible over a hill. Thitherward 
the juvenile tatterdemalions of the village were 
driven occasionally with a kick or a flying broom- 
stick. There was a legend that a school-house 



PAUPERTOWN. 



621 



lay in that direction ; but as the possible fact of 
such an institution promised nothing to drink, 
the seniors of Paupertown never went over to 
assure themselves of its existence or ascertain 
its condition. 

Pauperism was legibly written on the scene 
and its surroundings. There were farms in the 
vicinity, the tenants and owners of which were 
remarkable for their complaints of dull times, 
poor lands, and light crops. There never was 
a sturdier set of beggars than the villagers and 
their country guests. They were men of leisure, 
entire and absolute ; that is, in relation to their 
own affairs; while upon their lazy shoulders 
rested the care of the whole republic. The peo- 
ple of Paupertown were great politicians. To 
be sure it was never ascertained that any good 
to state or country resulted from the eager in- 
terest which they manifested in public matters ; 
but there was this in it, certainly, that if they 
did not do the public business, they did not do 
any thing else ! 

One might wonder, in view of such a ragged 
population, where all the money came from to 
support the store and tavern. But it requires 
a much larger society to support a church than 
a drinking-house ;. and when men give all their 
ready money to Boniface, it is surprising on 
how poor a constituency lie can live and flour- 
ish. The bar-room seldom lacked guests — 
thirsty souls who turned aside from their roads 
to go to the Washington ; men whose horses' 
shoes needed examination by the smith remark- 
ably often ; people who expected to meet some- 
body, they could not tell who. None of these 
failed to want drink; and mine host of the 
Washington walked behind his bar, as a matter 
of course, whenever a shadow fell upon his 
threshold. It was an expressive hint that trib- 
ute was expected of all who frequented his 
house ; for he was not in the " public line" for 
nothing. And when the blacksmith saw a stran- 
ger stop at the tavern, he walked over. And 
when the shopkeeper saw the blacksmith, he fol- 
lowed. As to the shoemaker, his usual abode 
was the bar-room, where he was constantly "sit- 
ting for a drink," at whose cost soever it might 
happen ; a lengthened process of sitting, which 
at length produced a countenance done in the 
highest colors — vermilion, with a dash of purple. 

Such was Paupertown by daylight. When 
night came on, the little dingy bar-room was 
usually found too small for its company. Where 
all the idlers came from it were difficult to say, 
but nightfall was sure to bring a house-full. And 
idle though the guests were, mine host was any 
thing else, for his bottles of various labels were 
in constant request. How any could allow such 
enemies as he marshaled to steal away their 
brains, passes the imagination of men with pal- 
ates. But the Paupertowners were not fas- 
tidious. 

Neither had they very critical ears, for the 
ditties which were trolled nightly at the Wash- 
ington had caused the owls to abdicate the place 
in disgust and high dudgeon. They are reputed 
Vol. XII.— No. 71.— Rr 



birds of wisdom, and are perhaps sufficiently 
aware of the nature of their own notes to know 
that any thing less musical is not tolerable. 
Happy people of Paupertown ! Not of critical 
ears, neither were they of sensitive noses. An 
uneducated savage could not have endured the 
vile aroma of strong tobacco which was nightly 
produced at the Washington, especially when 
with this were commingled the odors of closely 
packed and not very choice humanity. 

The Paupertowners were not precise in phra- 
seology. Priscian's head was constantly broken 
in their colloquies ; and worse than that, allu- 
sions neither refined nor respectful abounded in 
their conversation; and worse still than that, 
Priscian's head was not the only one that suf- 
fered ; for coarse words produced coarser re- 
plies, and the lie direct was followed by the blow 
direct. Bottles, glasses, and chairs flew about, 
moved by the spirits — and decidedly bad spirits 
too — operating through veiy gross " mediums." 
Altogether, and seriously speaking, it was a 
thing much to be admired at, that such a tavern 
and such associations could draw together night- 
ly companies and attract daily guests. Looking 
at the thing at our quiet distance, we wonder. 
So did wives, and daughters, and mothers, and 
sisters. But women have their own notions of 
matters and things, and are quite unable to ap- 
preciate men's pleasures and privileges. And 
now, having arranged the scene, let us go on 
with our story, such as it may prove — and we 
trust it may prove something. 

IT. 

One afternoon, at dusk, the shoemaker sat 
wistfully eying the rows of bottles. Four 
o'clock had passed, and by the most provoking 
accident he had missed his regular libation ; for 
he came in just after all the world of Pauper- 
town had drank and gone. At any other half 
hour in the day than that in which they came 
and went, he would have been ready and wait- 
ing. Now he was both, but there was nobody 
present to invite him to indulge. Although he 
might, by hard coaxing, have induced the land- 
lord to add another three cents to his long score, 
he did not like to attempt it. It was a blue 
afternoon, terribly blue. The winds were play- 
ing the prelude to winter, for the month was 
November. All without was desolate and drear, 
all within was desolate also ; desolate to the 
son of Crispin. The bottles looked cheerful 
enough, and a merry laugh seemed to dance 
over them when a flicker of the fire in the twi- 
light lighted up their black sides. But this was 
a mockery to the thirsty cordwainer. Like the 
vulture at the liver of Tantalus, the demon of 
drunkenness pulled and twitched at his vitals, 
and the more the bottles laughed, the more the 
demon cried for drink, drink, drink ! The 
landlord dozed at the side of the fire, and as 
the light, by flashes, magnified the shadow of 
his nose, that organ sent out surly sternutatory 
responses — too ominous of a growl of dissent 
for Crispin to dare to awaken him. Would no- 
body come ! The cobbler's lips were dry, his 



622 



HAMPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



tongue was parched, his hands trembled before 
the blaze with a tremor no hickory or anthra- 
cite could stay. Hope retired forlorn, and still 
the demon plied for drink, drink, drink ! 

A step on the door-stone — a finger on the 
latch — it is ! it is a guest ! The glands of 
Crispin's throat moistened with joyful anticipa- 
tion, and instinctively he cleared the passage 
down which many a fiery draught had gone, 
and made himself all ready for another. The 
landlord waked, and rubbed his eyes open with 
the knuckles of one hand, while with the other 
he placed two glasses on the bar. He then 
looked inquiringly at the stranger, while the 
trembling shoemaker rose to his feet, and im- 
patiently waited for the invitation which he 
trusted, after the stereotyped manner of Pau- 
pertown, he should receive. Meanwhile the 
stranger, in whose eyes a twinkle of merry 
malice might have been noted, looked steadily 
at the toes of his boots, as he stretched his feet 
to the fire, and settled himself in the chair 
which the landlord had just vacated. 

"What did you say, Sir?" asked Boniface, 
his bunch of puffy, alcohol-swelled digits still 
held in suspense at the level of the bottle-shelf. 
"Me! I said nothing," said the stranger. 
"But I do say, since you ask, that I will take 
a good stiff glass of — water !" 

The cobbler's lower jaw fell, and his knees 
smote together. The landlord brought his dis- 
appointed hand suddenly down — which threw 
a broom from its balance — which upset an emp- 
ty cigar-box — which knocked the toddy-stick 
into the rinsing bucket, fetid with a century 
of conglomerate smells — which made the start- 
led landlord jump backward, and knocked doAvn 
three bottles with a crash ! The fore-stick fell 
from the fire and rolled into the room, blazing 
and omoking — the quail looking east trembled 
in his frame, and the quail looking west shook 
with astonishment — the red and black polar 
bears gleamed monstrously from the walls, and 
the cobbler jumped through the window incon- 
tinently, with a jingle of glass and a crash of 
sash quite musical to hear. No magical form- 
ula, by wizard spoken, could have raised so dire 
a din as this unprecedented order in the little 
bar-room at Paupertown. If one glass of water 
can evoke such effects, what wonder that Nia- 
gara makes a tumult ! 

In a moment the bar-room was filled with 
people. In came, first, the sturdy blacksmith, 
dragging poor Crispin by the neck. The shop- 
keeper came next, and the miscellaneous popu- 
lation of Paupertown and vicinity, with a sprink- 
ling of slip-shod women, and a retinue of rag- 
ged children brought up the rear. The excite- 
ment was intense, as newspapers say. The 
smith had met the cobbler in mid career, and, 
determined to have all the parties present who 
could throw any light on the strange doings at 
the Washington, apparent outside by the broken 
window, he had summarily arrested the fugitive, 
and brought him forward. No questions were 
necessary to discover the canise of the shoemak- 



er's share in the confusion. The experienced 
men of Paupertown discovered at once that it 
was a case of mania a pptu, and his nerves were 
quieted upon the homeopathic principles current 
in such localities. 

So singular a catastrophe afforded abundant 
topic for talk, and the Washington was full of 
noisy discussion, enlivened by repeated draughts 
of what had made the poor shoemaker mad. 
The stranger here resumed his seat and took 
no part in the proceedings, except that, with a 
look of ill-concealed and curious disgust, he oc- 
casionally surveyed the party. The partially 
quieted shoemaker jumped several times to his 
feet, but was pressed back into his corner again, 
and, under direction of the blacksmith, who 
practiced also as a farrier, repeated draughts of 
the anodyne were from time to time administer- 
ed, until at length they produced a sedative ef- 
fect ; and the dignitaries of Paupertown, plac- 
ing the patient on a board, carried him home 
in his drunken stupor. 

It was not the first time that the wretched 
sot had been thus conveyed to his helpless fam- 
ily. But it was the first time that any one had 
taken pity upon them. As the ribald crowd 
went out with foul jests, the stranger entered 
and remained. He examined the scratches and 
gashes which the poor wretch had received, 
closed the deeper cuts with medical appliances, 
which he took from his pocket, and when signs 
of uneasiness in the patient exhibited them- 
selves, he administered soothing draughts and 
opiates. The wife moped in a corner in mute 
and sullen despair. The children hovered near 
her in drowsy astonishment and terror. One 
by one they dropped asleep on the floor, and 
when the gray of the cold dawn found its way 
into the comfortless room, the wife looked up 
and saw that the stranger had fallen asleep in 
a chair by the side of his patient. The shoe- 
maker also now slept quietly under the influ- 
ence of the medicine which had been adminis- 
tered. As the woman looked she was struck 
with the familar features of him who had ap- 
peared as her good angel. She rose and walk- 
ed to his side, and with a cry of surprise and 
terrified delight, threw herself upon his breast. 
III. 

The Paupertowners took their matutinals. 
The demon of drink is an early riser ; and 
though the idle habits of his votaries prevent 
their accomplishment of any thing after they 
have risen, burning thirst will not suffer them 
to lie long in bed. It is thirsj; that no water 
can quench ; and the landlord of the Washing- 
ton was compelled to be astir betimes, not only 
for his own morning draught, but to furnish his 
customers, who must drink before they could 
eat. The last evening's occurrences were di- 
lated and debated upon, and every one was ea- 
ger to recount the wonders he saw in the con- 
duct of the maniac, and to give amusing partic- 
ulars of similar things which had occurred in 
that village and elsewhere. The conclusion 
which was reached — the tavern-keeper propos- 



PAUPERTOWN. 



623 



ing, and the shopkeeper and blacksmith endors- 
ing it — was that poor Crispin and his family 
must be provided with winter lodgings in the 
alms-house. The landlord could hope for no 
more pennies' from an exhausted customer, and 
the others were tired of giving one drink who 
could give them nothing in return. Thus Pau- 
pertown, wherever situate, performs its mission, 
and furnishes graduates for the public estab- 
lishments, poor-houses, jails and penitentiaries, 
and insane asylums. 

In the midst of the colloquy enter the stran- 
ger. Voices were hushed when he came in ; for, 
by daylight, it was evident that he was no true 
denizen of Paupertown. The freedom of that 
delectable city was usually presented in a junk 
bottle or black jug, and the incomer had mani- 
festly never reached that high honor. His good 
qualities, if in the eye of Paupertown he could 
have any, were not apparent. There was an 
air of superiority in his manner, before which 
even the landlord and the shopkeeper were 
forced to quail. The latter muttered to him- 
self that the stranger was a- starched-up fellow. 
It was a characteristic slur. Whatever starch 
there might have been in Paupertown was in 
the linen of the obnoxious individual. When 
the general assortment in the country store was 
first purchased, there certainly was starch in 
the invoice. It was starch no more — not that 
it had been expended in laundry purposes, how- 
ever. Droppings of pepper-corns, tenpenny nails, 
dust and cobwebs, coarse sugar, salt, and pew- 
ter-sand, with a dash of treacle, had destroyed 
the identity of the article. It was literally ex- 
tinct as starch, though extant as litter. Pau- 
pertown had no call for such vanities. 

The stranger ordered breakfast. The land- 
lord would have been much better pleased if 
he had invited all present to drink ; which all 
would doubtless have been ready and willing 
to do. It would have given the house more 
profit and less trouble. However, as the terms 
of his license unreasonably required that he 
should furnish food to those who demanded it, 
Boniface, with as good a grace as he could as- 
sume, went out to give the proper intimation. 
This was rather a necessary precaution, since 
there were a few forks in the house with whole 
prongs, and a half dozen silver spoons, which 
usually made their appearance upon such emer- 
gencies. Women never forget the proprieties 
entirely, however low their husbands may sink, 
and the extraordinary occasions when a clean 
shirt came hungry to the Washington, faintly 
revived the tradition that there had been once 
in the house white table-cloths, and chairs sound 
in the back. 

We are not writing a fairy tale or a melo- 
drama, in which all the mystery is developed at 
the close with a hey! presto! So, while the 
breakfast is preparing, and a basket, moreover, 
is being sent to the shoemaker's family, it may 
be worth while to review a little the history of 
Paupertown. The wife of the shoemaker was 
once the heiress of the village. How she came 



to be the wife of the drunken cobbler might 
seem, at first, very remarkable. But there was 
no wonder in it. It is written that the sins of 
the father shall be visited upon the children, 
and every day's experience shows us that what 
shall be, is. Her father was fond of drink. Her 
husband, in the days of his bachelorhood, was 
a prosperous shoe-manufacturer. Paupertown, 
then called Smithville, rejoiced in his prosper- 
ity, for several families lived upon the wages 
which he paid with the punctuality of a thriving 
and industrious business man. His attention 
was naturally drawn to the pretty Miss Smith ; 
and his visits were frequent and acceptable to 
father as well as daughter. But, unfortunately, 
while he learned of her to love, he learned of 
him to drink. Such was the beginning. The 
end we have recorded in the transformation of 
the young husband kito a prematurely old sot. 

As to the father — our readers may perhaps 
have noticed the affinity between law and liquor. 
Careless business transactions and fiery tem- 
pers — both the result of drink — lead to litigious 
propensities. There have been lawyers who 
would not encourage a rich fool in the danger- 
ous amusement of settling at the bar of the 
court the strife engendered at the bar of the 
tavern. But it was not the good fortune of 
John Smith, of Smithville, to meet such a coun- 
selor; or, if he did, he preferred advice more 
in keeping with his inclinations. While he lived 
he was the client of a legal gentleman who threw 
no discouragements in the way of his amiable 
pugnacity ; and when he died, his estate was 
administered by the same legal functionary. 
All that was left in the family was the little 
tenement in which the opening of our sketch 
found the shoemaker. This the man of law, 
with a prudence worthy of a man of this world, 
wise in his generation, contrived to secure to 
the daughter of his ruined client. Every body 
admired him, and commended his disinterested 
benevolence and kindness to the daughter of 
his old friend and client. He might have swal- 
lowed this property with the rest; but to spare 
it, stood to him in the nature of a good invest- 
ment. It concealed his questionable operations 
in regard to the other nineteen-twentieths of the 
domain of Smithville, which, sold under decrees 
of court of his procuring, passed into various 
hands and deteriorated in value, till Smithville 
became Paupertown. 

But the stranger has finished his breakfast, 
and we must resume the thread of our story. 
The reader will have discovered that he was the 
son of the original proprietor, the brother of the 
poor woman whose recognition of him we have 
related. As nothing remained for him in the 
settlement of the estate, and he was too young 
to be left to the influence and direction of his 
sister's already sottish husband, a connection of 
his mother's took him in charge, and, under 
better auspices than the vicinity of Paupertown 
could have afforded, he had grown into a young 
man, and graduated into an M.D. lie was look- 
ing for a place to establish himself. That mo- 



C24: 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



tive, the desire to see his sister, and other pur- 
poses soon to become apparent, had brought the 
young graduate to his birth-place. Not very 
pleasant, certainly, had been his introduction. 

While he breakfasted there had been another 
arrival at the Washington. The new-comer, 
though not a customer of the house, was no 
stranger ; and, in his official character, was any 
thing but welcome. Speculations not very pleas- 
ant occurred to more than one, as he turned his 
back to the fire and surveyed the apartment with 
becoming dignity, " Good-morning, Doctor," 
he said, as our friend re-entered the bar-room, 
after he had finished his breakfast. 

So the Sheriff knew the stranger, and his 
title was " Doctor." That hint broke the ice, 
and the landlord immediately applied the new- 
ly-discovered title. "Well, Doctor, we've been 
considering, while you were at breakfast, if we 
hadn't better send that drunken shoemaker to 
the county-house. He's doing no good here, at 
any rate." 

"Who furnishes him with drink?" asked the 
Doctor, abruptly. 

"Why, if he'd only take it in moderation, 
like a gentleman" — said the landlord, evading 
the question — 

"As the rest of you gentlemen do!" inter- 
rupted the Doctor, with a feeling of disgust he 
was at no effort to conceal. Then turning to 
the Sheriff, he said, in an undertone, " What- 
ever hesitation I might have had, I feel none 
now!" — and without further words with the 
dignitaries of Paupertown, he took his way back 
to the shoemaker's hovel. 

" Humph !" said the landlord, looking after 
him, " one of these temperance men, I suppose. 
He's ready enough to talk, but when it comes 
to doing any thing, he strides off. Now, don't 
you think, Sheriff, we ought to take care of this 
poor fellow this cold winter coming?" 

"Well, I think you will all have some busi- 
ness of your own to attend to, which may excuse 
inattention to his," said the Sheriff, producing a 
packet of papers. All the people of Paupertown, 
from the landlord, shopkeeper, and blacksmith, 
•down to the nondescripts, were served with notice 
to vacate, whether they occupied their respect- 
ive premises as proprietors or tenants. Dire was 
the consternation when notes were compared, 
and the subject was discussed; and profound 
was the amazement when the claimants were 
discovered to be Dr. Smith in his own right, 
and the shoemaker in right of his wife, as the 
next of kin to John Smith, late of Smithville, 
deceased. 

The reader will willingly spare us from writ- 
ing the details of law proceedings, and gladly 
escape the reading of them. The administra- 
tor was a bad but not a bold man; and the 
pressure of Dr. Smith's lawyer, on the one hand, 
and his own sureties on the other, was too 
much for his power of resistance. He comfort- 
ed himself with the reflection that, under the 
show of a compromise, he avoided open expo- 



sure ; and his knavish heart was farther consoled 
with the possession of a portion of the orphans' 
property, which he had concealed too cunningly 
to be compelled to disgorge it. He had also 
enjoyed the whole as capital in trade for many 
years. 

The blacksmith was suffered to remain in 
the village, under a new title from the real own- 
ers ; but the landlord and the shopkeeper were 
relentlessly ordered off. No pecuniary harm 
was done them, for the administrator was com- 
pelled to refund their purchase-money. They 
had the assurance to demand of the Doctor com- 
pensation for "improvements;" whereat that 
hard-hearted gentleman smiled bitterly. Pre- 
cious improvements they had made, in initiat- 
ing one or two generations of candidates for the 
poor-house and penitentiary ! Upon a hint of 
a demand of arrears of rent, they were glad to 
vacate the premises. 

The store soon found a new occupant. The 
caricature of Washington came down, the sign- 
post was leveled, the gymnasium was closed, 
and the tavern-house was converted into a shoe 
manufactory. Crispin, himself again, after a 
severe struggle with temptation and disease, re- 
sumed business, with his brother-in-law for a si- 
lent but very watchful partner. Two or three 
faint efforts were made, "for the public good," 
to re-establish a tavern ; but as nine out of ten 
of the people remonstrated, the public good and 
necessity were shamelessly unprovided for; and 
so, we are permitted to say, they remain till 
this day. There is a dreadful air of quiet about 
the place — dreadful, we mean, to the two or 
three vagabonds of the old stock who remain 
unreclaimed, and are put to the trouble of bring- 
ing their potations from a distance in earthen 
jugs. The children's faces are clean, and their 
clothes are whole; the women look contented 
and happy ; fences are repaired, and houses 
painted ; but still the old topers say, " It's dread- 
ful dull ! Nothing is stirring ; nothing to what 
there used to be !" 

We suppose it must be a fact : there is very 
little stirring — especially stirring of spoons. But 
Dr. Smith has repaired the school-house at his 
own expense ; and he has also given the village a 
lot for a church. He is building himself a new 
house, and several other houses are in progress, 
or in contemplation. He has not, as yet, much 
medical practice ; and what he has, lies princi- 
pally in the places within riding distance, in 
in which strait-laced innovation has not de- 
stroyed good fellowship, or cheated the doctor, 
the sheriff, the jailer, the hangman, and the 
pettifogger out of their most fruitful sources of 
business. We were about to write profit ; but 
there is really no profit which a good man can 
desire out of the physical and moral diseases 
which flow from intemperance. 

The hum of industry, comfort, and peace — 
courses of lectures, religious services, pleasant 
social intercourse — such are the features of 
Smithville, late Paupertown. Who glial] say it 
has not made a good exchange ? And many 



STORY OF EMILE ROQUE. 



62* 



such have been made in our land in the last 
twenty years ; not indeed, in all cases, by such 
summary process as it was in the power of Dr. 
Smith to employ ; for such opportunities rarely 
occur. But people are opening their eyes to 
the evils of intemperance, and shutting off the 
approaches to it. When the best that can be 
said of a thing is, that, in moderation, it does 
little harm, the sensible way is, by cutting off 
the little harm, to remove the little leaven which 
may otherwise affect the whole lump. 



STORY OF EMILE ROQUE. 
I. 

IT may be very bad taste in me, but I must 
confess to a strong love for many of those 
old French painters who flourished during the 
last century, and at whom it is now quite the 
fashion to sneer. I do not allude to the Pous- 
sins, of whom the best was more Roman than 
Frenchman, and whose most striking pictures 
seem to me to wear no nationality of sentiment: 
tli ere is nothing lively and mercurial in them ; 
hardly any thing that is cheerful. But what a 
gayety there is in the Vanloos — all of them ! 
What a lively prettiness in the little girl-faces 
of Greuze! what a charming coquetry in the 
sheep and shepherdesses of Watteau ! 

To be sure the critics tell us that his country 
swains and nymphs are far more arch and charm- 
ing than ever any swains were in nature ; and 
that his goats even browse, and listen, and look 
on, more coquettishly than live goats ever did ; 
but what do I care for that ? 

Are they not well drawn ? Are they not sweet- 
ly colored ? Do not the trees seem to murmur 
summer strains? Does not the gorgeousness 
of the' very atmosphere invite the charming lan- 
guor you see in his groups ? Is it not like spend- 
ing a summer Sunday, stretched on the grass at 
St. Cloud — gazing idly on Paris and the plain 
— to look on one of the painted pastorals of 
Watteau ? 

Are not his pictures French from corner to 
corner — beguilingly French — French to the very 
rosette that sets off the slipper of his shepherd- 
ess ? If there are no such shepherdesses in na- 
ture, pray tell me, do you not wish there were — 
throngs of them, lying on the hillsides all about 
you, just as charming and as mischievous ? 

Watteau's brooks show no mud; why should 
the feet of his fountain nymphs be made for 
any thing but dancing? Watteau's sheep are 
the best-behaved sheep in the world; then why 
should his country swains look red in the face, 
or weary with their watches ? Why should they 
do any thing but sound a flageolet, or coquet 
witli pretty shepherdesses who wear blue sashes, 
and rosettes in their shoes? In short, there is 
a marvelous keeping about Watteau's pictures, 
whatever the critics may say of their untruth : 
if fictions, they are charming fictions, which, 
like all good fictions, woo you into a wish "it 
were true." 

But I did not set out to write critiques upon 
paintings; nobody reads them through when 



they are written. I have a story to tell. Poor 
Emile ! — but I must begin at the beginning. 

Liking W^atteau as I do, and loving to look 
for ten minutes together into the sweet girl- 
face of Greuze's " Broken Jug," I used to loiter 
when I was in Paris for hours together in those 
rooms of the Louvre where the more recent 
French paintings are distributed, and where the 
sunlight streams in warmly through the south 
windows, even in winter. Going there upon 
passeport days, I came to know, after a while, 
the faces of all the artists who busy themselves 
with copying those rollicking French masters 
of whom I have spoken.' Nor could I fail to 
remark that the artists who chose those sunny 
rooms for their easels, and those sunny masters 
for their subjects, were far more cheerful and 
gay in aspect than the pinched and sour-look- 
ing people in the Long Gallery, who grubbed 
away at their Da Vincis, and their Sasso Fer- 
ratos. 

Among those who wore the joyous faces, and 
who courted the sunny atmosphere which hangs 
about Vanloo and Watteau, I had 'frequent oc- 
casion to remark a tall, athletic young fellow, 
scarce four-and-twenty, who seemed to take a 
special delight in drawing the pretty shepherd- 
esses and the well-behaved goats about which 
I was just now speaking. 

I do not think he was a great artist ; I feel 
quite sure that he never imagined it himself; 
but he came to his work, and prepared his easel 
— rubbing his hands together the while — with a 
glee that made me sure he had fallen altogether 
into the spirit of that sunny nymph-world which 
Watteau has created. 

I have said that I thought him no great art- 
ist ; nor was he ; yet there was something quite 
remarkable in his copies. He did not finish well ; 
his coloring bore no approach to the noontide 
mellowness of the originals ; his figures were 
frequently out of drawing; but he never failed 
to catch the expression of the faces, and to in- 
tensify (if I may use the term) the joviality that 
belonged to them. He turned the courtly lev- 
ity of Watteau into a kind of mad mirth. You 
could have sworn to the identity of the charac- 
ters ; but on the canvas of the copyist they had 
grown riotous. 

What drew my attention the more was, what 
seemed to me the artist's thorough and joyful 
participation in the riot he made. After a 
rapid half dozen of touches with his brush, he 
would withdraw a step or two from his easel, 
and gaze at his work with a hearty satisfaction 
that was most cheering, even to a looker-on. 
His look seemed to say, "There I have you, lit- 
tle nymphs ; I have taken you out of the gen- 
teel society of Watteau, and put you on my own 
ground, where you may frisk as much as you 
please." And he would beat the measure of a 
light polka on his pallet. 

I ought to say that this artist was a fine-look- 
ing fellow withal, and his handsome face, aglow 
with enthusiasm, drew away the attention of not 
a few lady visitors from the pretty Vanloos scat- 



626 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



tcred around. I do not think he was ever dis- 
turbed by this; I do not think that he tweaked 
his mustache, or gave himself airs in conse- 
quence. Yet he saw it all ; he saw every thing 
and every body ; his face wore the same open, 
easy, companionable look which belongs to the 
frolicking swains of Watteau. His freedom of 
manner invited conversation, and on some of 
my frequent visits to the French gallery I was 
in the habit of passing a word or two with him 
myself. 

"You seem," said I to him one day, " to ad- 
mire Watteau very much ?" 

" Out, Monsieur, vms avez raison: f crime les 
choses riantes, moi." 

" We have the same liking," said I. 

"Ah, vous aussi: je vous en felicite, Monsieur. 
Tenez," drawing me forward with the most naive 
manner in the world to look at a group he had 
just completed — " Regardez ! rCest ce pas, que ces 
petites dames la rient aux Angesf 

I chanced to have in that time an artist friend 
in Paris — De Courcy, a Provincial by birth, but 
one who had spent half his life in the capital, 
and who knew by name nearly every copyist 
who made his appearance at either of the great 
galleries. He was himself busy just then at the 
Luxembourg; but I took him one day with me 
through the Louvre, and begged him to tell me 
who was the artist so enraptured ' with Wat- 
teau? 

As I had conjectured, he knew, or professed 
to know, all about him. He sneered at his 
painting, as a matter of course : his manner 
was very sketchy; his trees stiff; no action in 
his figures ; but, after all, tolerably well — passa- 
blement bien — for an amateur. 

He was a native of the South of France ; his 
name, Emile Roque ; he was possessed of an 
easy fortune, and was about to marry, rumor 
said, the daughter of a government officer of 
some distinction in the Department of Finance. 

Was there any reason why my pleasant friend 
of the sunny pictures should not be happy? 
Rumor gave to his promised bride a handsome 
dot. Watteau was always open to his pencil 
and his humor. Bad as his copies might be, 
he enjoyed them excessively. He had youth 
and health on his side ; and might, for aught 
that appeared, extend his series of laughing 
nymphs and coquettish shepherdesses to the 
end of his life. 

The thought of him, or of the cheery years 
which lay before him, came to my mind very 
often, as I went journeying shortly after, through 
the passes of the Alps. It comes to me now, 
as I sit by my crackling fireside in New En- 
gland, with the wind howling through the pine- 
tree at the corner, and the snow lying high upon 
the ground. 

II. 

I had left Paris in the month of May; I 
came back toward the end of August. It is a 
dull month for the capital ; Parisians have not 
yet returned from Baden, or the Pyrenees, or 
Dieppe. True, the Boulevard is always gay; 



but it has its seasons of exceeding gayety, and 
latter summer is by no means one of them. The 
shopmen complain of the dullness, and lounge 
idly at their doors; their only customers are 
passing strangers. Pretty suites of rooms are 
to be had at half the rates of autumn, or of 
opening spring. The bachelor can indulge 
without extravagance in apartments looking 
upon the Madelaine. The troops of children 
whom you saw in the spring-time under the lee 
of the terrace wall in the "little Provence" of 
the Tuileries are all gone to St. Germain, or to 
Trouville. You see no more the tall caps of 
the Norman nurses, or the tight little figures of 
the Breton bonnes. 

It is the season of vacation at the schools; 
and if you stroll by the Sorbonne, or the Col- 
lege of France, the streets have a deserted air; 
and the garden of the Luxembourg is filled only 
with invalids and strolling soldiers. The art- 
ists even, have mostly stolen away from their 
easels in the galleries, and are studying the live 
fish-women of Boulogne or the bare-ankled 
shepherdesses of Auvergne. 

I soon found my way to all the old haunts 
of the capital. I found it easy to revive my 
taste for the coffee of the Rotonde, in the Palais 
Royal; and easy to listen and laugh at Sain- 
ville and Grassot. I went, a few days after my 
return, to the always charming salons of the 
Louvre. The sun was hot at this season upon 
that wing of the palace where hang the pictures 
of Watteau ; and the galleries were nearly de- 
serted. In the salon where I had seen so often 
the beaming admirer of nymphs and shepherd- 
esses, there was now only a sharp-faced English 
woman, with bright erysipelas on nose and 
cheeks, working hard at a Diana of Vanloo. 

I strolled on carelessly to the cool corner 
room, serving as antechamber to the French 
galleries, and which every visitor will remem- 
ber for its great picture of the Battle of Eylau. 
There are several paintings about the walls of 
this salon, which are in constant request by the 
copyists; I need hardly mention that favorite 
picture of Gerard, U Amour et Psyche. There 
was a group about it now; and in the neighbor- 
hood of this group I saw, to my surprise, my 
old artist acquaintance of the Watteau nymphs. 
But a sad change had come over him since I 
saw him last. The gay humor that shone in 
his face on my spring visits to the gallery was 
gone. The openness of look which seemed to 
challenge regard, if not conversation, he had 
lost utterly. I was not surprised that he had 
deserted the smiling shepherdesses of Watteau, 

There was a settled and determined gloom 
upon his face, which I was sure no painted sun- 
shine could enliven. He was not busy with the 
enameled prettiness of Gerard ; far from it. 
His easel was beside him, but his eye was di- 
rected toward that fearful melo- dramatic paint- 
ing — La Meduse of Gericault. It is a horrible 
shipwreck story : a raft is floating upon an ocean 
waste ; dead bodies that may have been copied 
from the dissecting-halls, lie on it; a few sur- 



STORY OF EMILE ROQUE. 



627 



vivors, emaciated, and with rigid limbs, cluster 
around the frail spar that serves as mast, and 
that sways with the weight of a tattered sail ; 
one athletic figure rises above this dismal group, 
and with emaciated arm held to its highest 
reach, lifts a fluttering rag ; his bloodshot eye, 
lighted with a last hope, strains over the waste 
of waters whieh seethe beyond him. 

It was a picture from which I had always 
turned away with a shudder. It may have truth 
and force, but the truth is gross, and the force 
brutal. Yet upon this subject I found Emile 
Roque engaged with a fearful intensity. He 
had sketched only the principal figure of the 
dying group — the athlete who beckons madly, 
whose hope is on the waste. He had copied 
only a fragment of the raft — barely enough to 
give foothold to the figure; he had not even 
painted the sea, but had filled his little canvas 
with a cold, white monotone of color, like a 
sleeted waste in winter. 

I have already remarked the wonderful vital- 
ity which he gave to mirth in his frolicsome 
pastorals ; the same power was apparent here ; 
and he had intensified the despair of the wretch- 
ed castaway, fluttering aloft his last rag of hope, 
to a degree that was painful to look upon. 

I went near him ; but he wore no longer the 
old tokens of ready fellowship. He plainly had 
no wish to recognize, or be recognized. He 
was intent only upon wreaking some bitter 
thought, or some blasted hope, in the face of 
that shipwrecked man. The despairing look, 
and the bloodshot eye, which he had given to 
his copy of the castaway, haunted me for days. 
It made that kind of startling impression upon 
my mind which I was sure could never be for- 
gotten. I never think, even now, of that paint- 
ing in the Louvre, with the cold north light 
gleaming on it, but the ghastly expression of the 
shipwrecked man — as Emile Roque had ren- 
dered it in his copy — starts to my mind like a 
phantom. I see the rag fluttering from the 
clenched, emaciated hand ; I see the pallid, 
pinched flesh ; I see the starting eyes, bearing 
resemblance, as it seemed to me afterward, and 
seems to me now, to those of the distracted 
artist. 

There was a cloud over the man ; I felt sure 
of that ; I feared what might be the end of it. 
My eye ran over the daily journals, seeking 
in the list of suicides for the name of Emile 
Roque. I thought it would come to that. On 
every new visit to the Louvre I expected to find 
him gone. But he was there, assiduous as ever; 
refining still upon the horrors of Gericault. 

My acquaintance of the Luxembourg, De 
Courcy, who had given me all the information 
I possessed about the history and prospects of 
this artist, was out of the city ; he would not 
return until late in the autumn. I dropped a 
line into the Poste Restante to meet him on his 
return, as I was myself very shortly on the wing 
for Italy. I can recall perfectly the expres- 
sions in my letter. After intrusting him with 
one or two unimportant commissions, I said: 



"By-the-by, you remember the jolly-looking 
Emile Roque, who made such a frenzy out of 
his love forWatteau and his shepherdesses, and 
who was to come into possession of a pretty wife 
and a pretty dot ? 

"Is the dot forthcoming? Before you an- 
swer, go and look at him again — in the Louvre 
still ; but he has deserted Watteau ; he is study- 
ing and copying the horrors of La Me'duse. It 
does not look like a betrothal or a honeymoon. 
If he were not an amateur, I should charge you 
to buy for me that terrible figure he is working 
up from the raft scene. The intensity he is 
putting in it is not Gericault's — my word, for it, 
it is his own. 

"When he is booked among the suicides 
(where your Parisian forms of madness seem 
to tend), send me the journal, and tell me what 
you can of the why." 

In the galleries of Florence one forgets the 
French painters utterly, and rejoices in the for- 
getfulness. Among the Caraccis and the Gui- 
dos what room is there for the lover-like Wat- 
teau ? Even Greuze, on the walls of the Pitti 
Palace, would be Greuze no longer. It is a pic- 
ture life one leads in those old cities of art, 
growing day by day into companionship with 
the masters and the masters' subjects. 

How one hob-nobs with the weird sisters of 
Michael Angelo ! How he pants through Sny- 
der's Boar-Hunt, or lapses into a poetic sympa- 
thy with the marble flock of Niobe ! 

Who wants letters of introduction to the 
"nice people" of Florence, when he can chat 
with the Fornarina by the hour, and listen to 
Raphael's Pope Julius ? 

Yesterday — I used to say to myself — I spent 
an hour or two with old Gerard Douw and 
pretty Angelica Kauffman — nice people, both 
of them. To-morrow I will call on Titian, and 
lunch off* a plate of Carlo Dolci's. In such com- 
pany one grows into a delightful "Middle-Age" 
feeling, in which the vanities of daily journals 
and hotel bills are forgotten. 

In this mood of mind, when I was hesitating, 
one day of mid-winter, whether I would sun 
myself in a Claude Lorraine or between the 
Arno and the houses, the valet of the inn where 
I was staying, put a letter in my hand bearing a 
Paris post-mark. 

"It must be from De Courcy," said I ; and my 
fancy straightway conjured up an image of the 
dapper little man disporting among all the gay- 
eties and the grisettes of a Paris world ; but J 
had never one thought of poor Emile Roque, 
until I caught sight of his name within the 
letter. 

After acquitting himself of the sundry com- 
missions left in his keeping, De Courcy says : 

"You were half right and half wrong about 
the jolly artist of Watteau. His suicide is not 
in the journals, but for all that it may be. I 
had no chance of seeing him either at his new 
game in the corner salon, for the bird had flown 
before my return. I heard, though, very much 
of his strange copy of the crowning horror of 



628 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Gericault. Nor would you have been the only 
one in the market as purchaser of his extrava- 
ganza. A droll story is told of an English vis- 
itor who was startled one day by, I dare say, the 
same qualities which you discovered in the copy ; 
but the Briton, with none of your scruples, ad- 
dressed himself, in the best way he could, to 
the artist himself, requesting him to set a price 
upon his work. 

"The old Emile Roque whom I had known — 
in fact, whom we had known together — would 
have met such a question with the gayest and 
most gallant refusal possible. 

"But what did this bewitched admirer of 
.Gericault do ? 

" He kept at his work — doggedly, gloomily. 

" The Englishman stubbornly renewed his in- 
quiry — this time placing his hand upon the can- 
vas, to aid his observations by so much of pan- 
tomime. 

" The painter (you remember his stalwart fig- 
ure) brushed the stranger's hand aside, and, 
with a petrifying look and great energy of ex- 
pression (as if the poor Briton had been laying 
his hand on his very heart), said : * Cest a moi, 
Monsieur — a moi — a mail' beating his hand on 
his breast the while. 

" Poor Emile ! The jovial times of Watteau's 
nymphs are, I fear, gone past forever. 

" But I forget to tell you what I chiefly had 
in mind when I began this mention of him. 
Some say his love has crazed him — some say 
no. The truth is, he is not to marry the pretty 
Virginie C , one time his affianced. 

"There are objections. Rumor says they 
come from Monsieur C , sous chef in the of- 
fice of Finance, and father of Virginie ; and 
rumor adds that the objections are insurmount- 
able. What they are, Heaven only knows. 
Surely a daintier fellow never sued for favor ; 
and as for scandal, Emile Roque was what you 
call, I believe, a Puritan." [I do not think it 
necessary to correct De Courcy's strange use of 
an English term.] 

" The oddest thing of all I have yet to tell 
you. This broken hope diverted Emile from 
Watteau to the corner salon of the Louvre ; at 
least I infer as much, since the two events agree 
in time. It is evident, furthermore, that the 
poor fellow takes the matter bitterly to heart ; 
and it is perfectly certain that all the objection 
rests with the father of the Jiancee. 

" So far, nothing strange ; but notwithstand- 
ing this opposition on the part of Monsieur 

C , it is known that Emile was in constant 

and familiar, nay, friendly communication with 
him up to the time of his disappearance from 
the capital, which occurred about the date of 
my return. 

"Read me this riddle if you can! Is the 
rendering of the horrors of Gericault to restore 
Emile to favor ? Or shall I, as you prophesied 
four months ago (ample time for such consum- 
mation !), still look for his enrollment among 
the suicides ?" 

With this letter in my hand (there were oth- 



ers in my heart), I gave up for that day the 
noontides of Claude, and sunned myself instead 
along the Arno. Beyond the houses which 
hang on the further bank of the river, I could 
see the windows of the Pitti Palace and the 
cypresses of the Boboli gardens, and above both 
the blue sky which arched over the tower of 
Galileo upon the distant hills. I wished the 
distracted painter might have been there on the 
sunny side of the houses, which were full of 
memories of Angelo and Cellini, to forget his 
troubles. If an unwilling father were all, there 
might be no suicide. Still, the expression in 
his copy of the castaway haunted me. 
III. 

Why should I go on to speak of pictures 
here — except that I love them? Why should 
I recall the disgusting and wonderful old men 
and women of Denner, which hang with glass 
over them within the window bays of the Palace 
of Belvidere at Vienna? Why should my fan- 
cy go stalking through that great Rubens Mu- 
seum, with its red arms, fat bosoms, pin-cushion 
cheeks, and golden hair ? 

Why does my thought whisk away to that 
gorgeous salon of Dresden, where hangs the 
greatest of all Raphael's Madonnas ? 

The face of the Virgin is all that makes per- 
fection in female beauty ; it is modest, it is ten- 
der, it is intelligent. The eyes are living eyes, 
but with no touch of earthiness, save the shade 
of care which earth's sorrows give even to the 
holy Virgin. She wears the dignity of the 
mother of Christ, with nothing of severity to 
repulse ; she wears the youthful innocence of 
the spouse of David, with no touch of levity ; 
she wears the modest bearing of one whose 
child was nursed in a mangei - , with the pres- 
ence of one "chosen from among women." 
She is mounting on clouds to heaven ; light as 
an angel, but with no wings ; her divinity sus- 
tains her. In her arms she holds lightly but 
firmly the infant Jesus, who has the face of a 
true child, with something else beyond human- 
ity; his eye has a little of the look of a frighted 
boy in some strange situation, where he knows 
he is safe, and where yet he trembles. His 
light, silky hair is strewn by a wind (you feel it 
like a balm) over a brow beaming with soul ; 
he looks deserving the adoration the shepherds 
gave him; and there is that — in his manner, in- 
nocent as the babe he was — in his look, Divine 
as the God he was, which makes one see in the 

child 

— "the father of the man." 

Pope Sixtus is lifting his venerable face in 
adoration from below ; and opposite, St. Bar- 
bara, beautiful and modest, has dropped her 
eyes, though religious awe and love are beam- 
ing in her looks. Still lower, and lifting their 
heads and their little wings only above the edge 
of the picture, are two cherubs, who are only less 
in beauty than the Christ; they are twins — but 
they are twin angels — and Christ is God. 

The radiance in their faces is, I think, the 
most wonderful thing I have ever seen in paint- 



STORY OF EMILE ROQUE. 



629 



ing. They are listening to the celestial har- 
mony which attends the triumph of the Virgin. 
These six faces make up the picture ; the Jesus, 
a type of divinity itself; the Virgin, the purity 
of earth, as at the beginning, yet humble, be- 
cause of earth ; the cherubs, the purity of heav- 
en, conscious of its high estate ; the two saints, 
earth made pure and sanctified by Christ, half 
doubting, yet full of hope. 

I wrote thus much in my note-book, as I stood 
before the picture in that room of the Royal 
Gallery which looks down upon the market- 
place of Dresden, and with the painting linger- 
ing in my thoughts more holily than sermons of 
a Sunday noontime, I strolled over the market- 
place, crossed the long bridge w r hich spans the 
Elbe, and wandered up the banks of the river 
as far as the Findlater Gardens. The terrace 
is dotted over with tables and benches, where 
one may sit over his coffee or ice, and enjoy a 
magnificent view of Dresden, the river, the 
bridge, and the green battle-field where Moreau 
fell. It was a mild day of winter, and I sat 
there enjoying the prospect, sipping at a demi- 
tasse, and casting my eye from time to time over 
an old number of the Debats newspaper, which 
the waiter had placed upon my table. 

"When there is no political news of import- 
ance stirring, I was always in the habit of run- 
ning over the column of Faits Divers — "Differ- 
ent Things" translates it, but does not give a 
good idea of the piquancy which usually belongs 
to that column. The suicides are all there ; 
the extraordinary robberies are there ; import- 
ant discoveries are entered ; and all the bits of 
scandal, which, of course, every body reads and 
every body says should never have been pub- 
lished, are jotted down under Faits Divers. 

In the journal under my hand there was men- 
tion of two murders, one of them of that stereo- 
type class growing out of a drunken brawl, 
which the world seems to regard indifferently, 
as so many necessary punctuation-marks in the 
history of civilization. The other drew my at- 
tention very closely. 

The Count de Roquefort, an elderly gentle- 
man of wealth and distinguished family, re- 
siding in a chateau a little off the high road 
leading from Nismes to Avignon, in the South 
of France, had been brutally murdered in his 
own house. The Count was unmarried ; none 
of his family connection resided with him, and, 
aside from a considerable retinue of servants, 
he lived quite alone, devoted, as was said, to 
6cientific pursuits. 

It appeared that two days before his assassin- 
ation, he was visited by a young man, a stranger 
in that region, who was received (the servants 
testified) kindly by the Count, and who passed 
two hours closeted with him in his library. On 
the day of the murder the same young man was 
announced; his manner was excited, and he was 
ushered, by the Count's order, into the library 
as before. 

It would seem, however, that the Count had 
anticipated the possibility of some trouble, since 



lie had secured the presence of two " officers of 
the peace" in his room. It was evident that the 
visitor had come by appointment. The officers 
were concealed under the hangings of a bay- 
window at fhe end of the library, with orders 
from the Count not to act, unless they should 
see signs of violence. 

The young man, on entering, advanced to- 
ward the table beside which the Count was seat- 
ed, reading. He raised his head at the visitor's 
entrance, and beckoned to a chair. 

The stranger approached more nearly, and 
without seating himself, addressed the Count in 
a firm tone of voice to this effect : 

" I have come to ask, Monsieur le Comte, if 
yon are prepared to accept the propositions I 
made to you two days ago ?" 

The Count seemed to hesitate for a moment ; 
but only, it appeared, from hearing some noise 
in the servants' hall below. 

The visitor appeared excited by his calmness, 
and added, " I remind you, for the last time, of 
the vow I have sworn to accomplish if you re- 
fuse my demand." 

" I do refuse," said the Count, firmly. " It is 
a rash — " 

It was the last word upon his lips ; for before 
the officers could interfere, the visitor had drawn 
a pistol from his breast and discharged it at the 
head of the Count. The ball entered the brain. 
The Count lingered for two hours after, but 
showed no signs of consciousness. 

The assassin, who was promptly arrested, is a 
stalwart man of about thirty, and from the con- 
tents of his portmanteau, which he had left at 
the inn of an adjoining village, it is presumed 
that he followed the profession of an artist. 

The cause of the murder is still a mystery ; 
the Count had communicated nothing to throw 
light upon it. He was a kind master, and was 
not known to have an enemy in the world. 

I had read this account with that eager curi- 
osity with which I believe all — even the most 
sensitive and delicate — unwittingly devour nar- 
ratives of that kind ; I had finished my half-cup 
of coffee, and was conjecturing what could pos- 
sibly be the motive for such a murder, and what 
the relations between the Count and the strange 
visitor, when suddenly — like a flash — the con- 
viction fastened itself upon me, that the mur- 
derer was none other than Emile Roquc ! 

I did not even think in that moment of the 
remote similarity in the two names — Roquc and 
De Roquefort. For any thing suggestive that 
lay in it, the name might as well have been De 
Montfort or De Courcy ; I am quite sure of that. 

Indeed, no association of ideas, no deduction 
from the facts named, led me to the conclusion 
which I formed on the spur of the moment. 
Yet my conviction was as strong as my own 
consciousness. I kneiv Emile Roquc was the 
murderer; I remembered it ; for I remembered 
his copy of the head of the castaway in Geri- 
cault's Wreck of the Medusa! 

When I had hazarded the conjecture of sui- 
cide, I had reasoned loosely from the changed 



G30 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



appearance of the man, and from the suicidal 
tendency of the Paris form of madness. Now 
I reasoned, not from the appearance of the man 
at all, but from my recollection of his painting. 
There is no resignation in the face of Geri- 
cault's shipwrecked man ; there is only animal 
fear and despair, lighted with but one small 
ray of hope. The ties of humanity exist no 
longer for him ; whatever was near or dear is 
forgotten in that supreme moment when the 
animal instinct of self-preservation at once bru- 
talizes and vitalizes every faculty. 

Such is Gericault's picture ; but Roque had 
added the intensity of moral despair : he had 
foreshadowed the tempest of a soul tossed on a 
waste — not of ocean — but of doubt, hate, crime ! 
I felt sure that he had unwittingly foretokened 
his own destiny. 

Are there not moments in the lives of all of 
us — supreme moments — when we have the pow- 
er lent us to wreak in language, or on canvas, 
or in some wild burst of music (as our habit of 
expression may lie), all our capabilities, and to 
typify, by one effort of the soul, all the issues of 
our life ? 

I knew iioav that Emile Roque had unwitting- 
ly done this in his head from the Me'dusa. I 
knew that the period was to occur in his life 
when his own thought and action would illus- 
trate to the full all the wildness and the despair 
to which he had already given pictured expres- 
sion. 

I can not tell how I knew this, any more than 
I can tell how I knew that he was the mur- 
derer. 

I wrote De Courcy that very day, referring 
him to the paragraph I had read, and adding : 
"This artist is Emile Roque, but who is the 
Count de Roquefort ?" It occasioned me no 
surprise to hear from him only two days after 
(his letter having crossed mine on the way), 
that the fact of Roque's identity with the cul- 
prit was fully confirmed. And De Courcy add- 
ed : " It is not a suicide now, but, I fear, the 
guillotine. How frightful! Who could be- 
lieve it of the man we saw rioting among the 
nymphs of Watteau ?" 

IV. 

I returned to Paris by the way of Belgium. 
I think it was in the Hotel de Saxe, of Brussels, 
where I first happened upon a budget of French 
papers which contained a report of the trial of 
poor Roque. It was a hopeless case with him ; 
every one foresaw that. For a time I do not 
think there was any sympathy felt for him. The 
testimony all went to show the harmless and be- 
nevolent character of the murdered Count. The 
culprit had appeared to all who saw him within 
the year past, of a morose and harsh disposition. 

I say that for a time sympathy was with the 
murdered man ; but certain circumstances came 
to light toward the close of the trial, and indeed 
after it was over, and the poor fellow's fate was 
fixed, which gave a new turn to popular sym- 
pathy. 

These circumstances had a special interest 



for me, inasmuch as they cleared up the mys- 
tery which had belonged to his change of man- 
ner in the galleries of the Louvre, and to his 
relations with the Count de Roquefort. 

I will try and state these circumstances as they 
came to my knowledge through the newspaper 
reports of that date. 

In the first place, the Count, after the first 
visit of Emile Roque, had communicated to 
those in his confidence nothing respecting the 
nature or the objects of that visit; and this, 
notwithstanding he had such reason to appre- 
hend violence in its repetition, that he had se- 
cured the presence of two officers to arrest the 
offensive person. To these officers he had sim- 
ply communicated the fact of his expecting a 
visit from an tmknown individual, who had 
threatened him with personal violence. 

The officers were quite sure that the Count 
had spoken of the criminal as of one unknown 
to him ; indeed, he seemed eager to convey to 
them the idea that he had no previous knowl- 
edge whatever of the individual who so strange- 
ly threatened his peace. 

^ Nothing was found among the Count's papers 
to forbid the truthfulness of his assertion on this 
point; no letter could be discovered from any 
person bearing that name. 

The mother of the prisoner, upon learning 
the accusation urged against him, had become 
incapacitated, by a severe paralytic attack, from 
appearing as a witness, or from giving any in- 
telligible information whatever. She had said 
only, in the paroxysm of her distress, and before 
her faculties were withered by the shock : u Lid 
aussi ! II s'y perd /" 

Not one of the companions of Emile Roque 
(and he had many in his jovial days) had ever 
heard him speak of the Count de Roquefort. 
Up to the time of his departure for the South, 
he had communicated to no one his intentions, 
or even his destination. His old friends had, 
indeed, remarked the late change in his man- 
ner, and had attributed it solely to what they 
supposed a bitter disappointment in relation to 

his proposed marriage with Virginie C . 

I have already alluded (through a letter from 
De Courcy) to the singular fact, that Emile 
Roque continued his familiarity and intimacy 

with Monsieur C long after the date of the 

change in his appearance, an4 even up to the 
time of his departure for the South. 

It was naturally supposed that Monsieur 

C would prove an important witness in the 

case. His testimony, however, so far from 
throwing light upon the crime, only doubled the 
mystery attaching to the prisoner's fate. 

He spoke in the highest terms of the char- 
acter which the criminal had always sustained. 
He confirmed the rumors which had coupled his 
name with that of one of his own family. The 
marriage between the parties had been determ- 
ined upon with his full consent, and only waited 
the final legal forms usual in such cases for its 
accomplishment, when it was deferred in obe- 
dience to the wishes only of M. Roque himself! 



STORY OF EMILE ROQUE. 



G31 



The witness regarded this as a caprice at 
the first ; but the sudden change in the manner 
of the criminal, from that time, had satisfied 
him that some secret anxiety was weighing on 
his mind. His high regard for the character 
of M. Roque had prompted (and that alone had 
prompted) a continuance of intimacy with him, 
and a vain repetition of endeavors to win from 
him some explanation of his changed manner. 

One fact more, which seemed to have special 
significance in its bearing upon the crime, was 
this : In the pocket of the prisoner at the time 
of his seizure was found a letter, purporting to 
be from the murdered Count, and addressed to 
a certain Amede'e Brune. It was a tender letter, 
full of expressions of devotion, and promising 
that upon a day not very far distant, the writer 
would meet his fair one, and they should be 
joined together, for woe or for weal, thence- 
forth, through life. 

The letter was of an old date — thirty odd 
years ago it had been written ; and on compar- 
ison with the manuscript of the Count of that 
date, gave evidence of authenticity. Who this 
Amede'e Brune might be, or what relation she 
bore to the criminal, or how the letter came into 
his possession, none could tell. Those who had 
been early acquaintances of the Count had never 
so much as heard a mention of that name. A 
few went so far as to doubt the genuineness of 
his signature. He had been a man remarkable 
for his quiet and studious habits. So far as the 
knowledge of his friends extended, no passing 
gallantries had ever relieved the monotony of 
his life. 

The accused, in the progress of the inquiries 
which had elicited these facts, had maintained 
a dogged silence, not communicating any state- 
ment of importance even to his legal advisers. 
The sudden illness which had befallen his moth- 
er, and which threatened a fatal termination, 
seemed to have done more to prostrate his hope 
and courage than the weight of the criminal ac- 
cusation. 

" The fiancee, meantime, Mademoiselle C , 

was, it seems, least of all interested in the fate 
of the prisoner. Whether incensed by his change 
of manner, or stung by jealousy, it was certain 
that before this accusation had been urged she 
had conceived against him a strong antipathy. 

Such was the state of facts developed on the 
trial. The jury found him guilty of murder; 
there were no extenuating circumstances, and 
there was no recommendation to mercy. 

After the condemnation the criminal had 
grown more communicative. Something of the 
reckless gayety of his old days had returned for a 
time. He amused himself with sketching from 
memory some of the heads of Wattcau's nymphs 
upon his prison walls. His mother had died, 
fortunately, only a few days after the rendering 
of the verdict, without knowing, however, what 
fate was to befall her son. 

It was rumored that when this event was 
made known to him he gave way to passionate 
tears, and sending for the priest, made a full con- 



fession of his crime and its causes. This con- 
fession had occasioned that turn in popular sym- 
pathy of w r hich I have spoken. The friends of 
the Count, however, and even his own legal ad- 
visers (as I was told), regarded it only as an in- 
genious appeal for mercy. 

For myself, notwithstanding the lack of pos- 
itive evidence to sustain his statements, I have 
been always inclined to believe his story a true 
one. 

The main points in his confession were these : 

He had loved Virginia C as she had not 

deserved to be loved. He was happy ; he had 
fortune, health, every thing to insure content. 

Monsieur C welcomed him to his family. 

His mother rejoiced in the cheerfulness and sun- 
ny prospects of her only child. His father (he 
knew it only from his mother's lips) had been a 
general in the wars of Napoleon, and had died 
before his recollection. 

He had been little concerned to inquire re- 
garding the character or standing of his father, 
until, as the marriage day approached, it became 
necessary to secure legal testimonials respecting 
his patrimony and name. 

No general of the name of Roque had ever 
served in the wars of Napoleon or in the armies 
of France ! For the first time the laughing 
dream of his life was disturbed. With his heart 
full, and his brain on fire, he appealed to his 
mother for explanation. 

She had none to give. Amidst tears and 
sobs, the truth was wrung from her, that he 
— the gay-hearted Emile, whose life was full 
of promise — could claim no legal parentage. 
But the man who had so wronged both him and 
herself was still alive; and, with the weakness 
of her sex, she assured him that he was of noble 
birth, and had never shown tenderness toward 
any woman save herself. 

Who was this noble father, on whose riches 
the son was living ? No entreaties or threats 
could win this secret from the mother. 

Then it was that the change had come over 
the character of Emile ; then it was that he had 
deserted the smiling nymphs of Watteau for the 
despairing castaway of Gericault. 

Too proud to bring a tarnished escutcheon to 
his marriage rites ; doubting if that stain would 
not cause both father and daughter to relent, he 
had himself urged the postponement of the legal 
arrangements. One slight hope — slighter than 
that belonging to the castaway of the wrecked 
Medusa — sustained him. The mother(she avow- 
ed it with tears of grief) had become such only 
under solemn promise of marriage from one she 
had never doubted. 

To find this recreant father was now the aim 
of the crazed life of Emile. With this frail hope 
electrifying his despair, he pushed his inquiries 
secretly in every quarter, and solaced his thought 
with his impassioned work in the corner salon of 
the Louvre. 

In the chamber of his mother was a little es- 
critoire, kept always closed and locked. His 
suspicions, after a time, attached themselves 

t 



632 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



there. He broke the fastenings, and found with- 
in a miniature, a lock of hair, a packet of let- 
ters, signed De Roquefort. Of these last he 
kept only one ; the others he destroyed, as so 
many tokens of his shame. 

That fatal one he bore with him away from 
Paris, out from the influences of his mother. 
He pushed his inquiries with the insidious cun- 
ning of a man crazed by a single thought. He 
found at length the real address of the Count de 
Roquefort. He hurried to his presence, bearing 
always with him the letter of promise, so ruth- 
lessly broken. 

The Count was startled by his appearance, 
and startled still more by the wildness of his 
story and of his demands. The son asked the 
father to make good, at this late day, the prom- 
ise of his youth. 

The Count replied evasively; he promised 
to assist the claimant with money, and with his 
influence, and would engage to make him heir 
to the larger part of his fortune. 

All this fell coldly upon the ear of the ex- 
cited Emile. He wished restitution to his 
mother. Nothing less could be listened to. 

The Count urged the scandal which would 
grow out of such a measure ; with his years and 
reputation, he could not think of exposing him- 
self to the ribald ttfngues of the world. More- 
over, the publicity which must necessarily belong 
to the marriage would, he considered, be of se- 
rious injury to Emile himself. The fact of his 
illegitimacy was unknown ; the old relation of 
his mother to himself was a secret one ; the ob- 
stacles which might now lie in the way of his own 

marriage to Virginia C ■ were hardly worth 

consideration, when compared with the incon- 
venience which w r ould follow a public exposure 
of the circumstances. He set before Emile the 
immense advantages of the fortune which he 
would secure to him on his (the Count's) death, 
provided only he Avas content to forbear his urg- 
cnce as regarded his mother. 

Emile listened coldly, calmly. There was 
but one thought in his mind — only one hope; 
there must be restitution to his mother, or he 
would take justice in his own hands. The Count 
must make good his promise, or the consequen- 
ces would be fatal. He gave the Count two 
days for reflection. 

At the end of that time he returned, prepared 
for any emergency. The Count had utterly re- 
fused him justice: he had uttered his own death- 
warrant. 

His mother was no longer living, to feel the 
sting of the exposure. Eor himself, he had done 
all in his power to make her name good ; he had 
no ties to the world ; he was ready for the worst. 
Such was the relation of Emile ; and there 
was a coherency about it, and an agreement 
with the main facts established by evidence, 
which gave it an air of great probability. 

But, on the other hand, it was alleged by the 
friends of the Count that such a relation on 
his part never could have existed ; that not the 
slightest evidence of it could be found among 



his papers, nor did the recollection of his oldest 
friends offer the smallest confirmation. The 
reported conversations. of Emile with the Count 
were, they contended, only an ingenious fiction. 

Singularly enough, there was nothing among 
the effects of the deceased Madame Roque to 
confirm the allegation that she had ever borne 
the name of Amedee Brune. She had been 
known only to her oldest acquaintances of the 
capitol as Madame Roque : of her previous his- 
tory nothing could be ascertained. 

The solitary exclamation of that lady, "11 s'y 
perd!" was instanced as proof that Emile was 
laboring under a grievous delusion. 

Notwithstanding this, my own impression 
was that Emile had executed savage justice 
upon the betrayer of his mother. 
V. 

On the month of March — a very cold month 
in that year — I had returned to Paris, and taken 
up my old quarters in a hotel garni of the Rue 
des Beaux Arts. 

Any public interest or curiosity which had 
belonged to the trial and story of Emile Roque 
had passed away. French journalists do not 
keep alive an interest of that sort by any re- 
ports upon the condition of the prisoner. They 
barely announce the execution of his sentence 
upon "the succeeding day. I had, by accident 
only, heard of his occasional occupation in 
sketching the heads of some of Watteau's nymphs 
upon the walls of his cell. I could scarce be- 
lieve this of him. It seemed to me that his 
fancy would run rather in the direction of the 
horrors of Gericault. 

I felt an irresistible desire to see him once 
again. There was no hope of this, except I 
should be present at his execution. I had never 
witnessed an execution ; had never cared to 
witness one. But I wished to look once more 
on the face of Emile Roque. 

The executions in Paris take place without 
public announcement, and usually at daybreak, 
upon the square fronting the great prison of La 
Roquette. No order is issued until a late hour 
on the preceding evening, when the state exe- 
cutioner is directed to have the guillotine brought 
at midnight to the prison square, and a corps of 
soldiery is detailed for special service (unmen- 
tioned) in that quarter of the city. My only 
chance of witnessing the scene was in arrang- 
ing with one of the small wine-merchants, who 
keep open house in that neighborhood until after 
midnight, to dispatch a messenger to me when- 
ever he should see preparations commenced. 

This arrangement I effected ; and on the 22d 
of March I was roused from sleep at a little be- 
fore one in the morning by a bearded man, who 
had felt his way up the long flight of stairs to 
my rooms, and informed me that the guillotine 
had arrived before the prison of Roquette. 

My thought flashed on the instant to the fig- 
ure of Emile as I had seen him before the shep- 
herdesses of Watteau — as I had seen him before 
the picture of the Shipwreck. I dressed hur- 
riedly, and groped my way below. The night 



STORY OF EMILE ROQUE. 



633 



was dark and excessively cold. A little sleet 
had fallen, which crumpled under my feet as I 
made my way toward the quay. Arrived there, 
not a cab was to be found at the usual stand, so 
I pushed on across the river, and under the 
archway of the palace of the Louvre, casting my 
eye toward that wing of the great building where 
I had seen, for the first time, the face which I 
was shortly to look on for the last time on earth. 

Finding no cabs in the square before the pal- 
ace, I went on through the dark streets of St. 
Anne and Grammont, until I reached the Boule- 
vard. A few voitures de remise were opposite 
the Cafe Foy. I appealed to the drivers of two 
of them in vain, and only succeeded by a bribe 
in inducing a third to drive me to the Place de 
la Roquette. It is a long way from the centre of 
Paris, under the shadow almost of Pere la Chaise. 
I tried to keep some reckoning of the streets 
through which we passed, but I could not. 
Sometimes my eye fell upon what seemed a 
familiar corner, but in a moment all was strange 
again. The lamps appeared to me to burn dim- 
'ly ; the houses along the way grew smaller and 
smaller. From time to time, I saw a wine-shop 
still open ; but not a soul was moving on the 
streets, with the exception of, here and there, a 
brace of sergents de ville. At length we seemed 
to have passed out of the range even of the city 
patrol, and I was beginning to entertain very 
unpleasant suspicions of the cabman, and of the 
quarter into which he might be taking me at 
that dismal hour of the night, when he drew up 
his horse before a little wine-shop, which I soon 
recognized as the one where I had left my order 
for the dispatch of the night's messenger. 

I knew now that the guillotine was near. 

As I alighted I could see, away to my right, 
the dim outline of the prison walls, looming 
against the night sky, with not a single light in 
its gratings. 

The broad square before the prison was sheet- 
ed over with sleet, and the leafless trees that 
girdled it round stood ghost-like in the snow. 
Through the branches, and not far from the 
prison gates, I could see, in the gray light (for 
it was now hard upon three o'clock), a knot of 
persons collected around a frame-work of tim- 
ber, which I knew must be the guillotine. 

I made my way there, the sleeted ground 
crumpling under my steps. The workmen had 
just finished their arrangements. Two of the 
the city police were there, to preserve order, and 
to prevent too near an approach of the loiterers 
from the wine-shops; who may have been, per- 
haps, at this hour, a dozen in number. 

I could pass near enough to observe fully the 
construction of the machine. There was, first, 
a broad platform, perhaps fifteen feet square, 
supported by movable tressle-work, and elevated 
some six or seven feet from the ground. A flight 
of plank steps led up to this, broad enough for 
three to walk abreast. Immediately before the 
centre of these steps, upon the platform, was 
stretched what seemed a trough of plank; and 
from the farther ends of this trough rose two 



strong uprights of timber, perhaps ten feet in 
height. These were connected at the top by a 
slight frame-work; and immediately below this, 
by the light of a solitary street lamp which flick- 
ered near by, I could see the glistening of the 
knife. Beside the trough-like box was placed 
a long willow basket : its shape explained to me 
its purpose. At the end of the trough, and 
beyond the upright timbers, was placed a tub : 
with a shudder, I recognized its purpose also. 

The prison gates were only a few rods distant 
from the steps to the scaffold, and directly op- 
posite them. They were still closed and dark. 

The execution, I learned, was to take place at 
six. A few loiterers, mostly in blouses, came 
up from time to time to join the group about 
the scaffold. 

By four o'clock there was the sound of tramp- 
ing feet, one or two quick words of command, 
and presently a battalion of the Municipal Guard, 
without drum-beat, marched in at the lower ex- 
tremity of the square, approached the scaffold, 
and, having stacked their arms, loitered with the 
rest. 

Lights now began to appear at the windows 
of the prison. A new corps of police came up 
and cleared a wider space around the guillotine. 
A cold gray light stole, after a time, over the 
eastern sky. 

By five o'clock the battalion of the Guards 
had formed a hedge of bayonets from either 
side of the prison doors, extending beyond and 
inclosing the scaffold. A squadron of mounted 
men had also come upon the ground, and was 
drawn up in line, a short distance to one side. 
Two officials appeared noAv upon the scaffold, 
and gave trial to the knife. They let slip the 
cord or chain which held it to its place, and the 
knife fell with a quick, sharp clang, that I 
thought must have reached to ears within the 
walls of the prison. Twice more they made 
their trial, and twice more I heard the clang. 

Meantime people were gathering. Market- 
women bound for the city lingered at sight of 
the unusual spectacle, and a hundred or more 
soldiers from a neighboring barrack had now 
joined the crowd of lookers-on. A few women 
from the near houses had brought their children ; 
and a half-dozen boys had climbed into the trees 
for a better view. 

At intervals, from the position which I held, 
I could see the prison doors open for a moment, 
and the light of a lantern within, as some offi- 
cer passed in or out. 

I remember that I stamped the ground petu- 
lantly — it was so cold. Again and again I 
looked at my watch. 

Fifteen minutes to six ! 

It was fairly daylight now, though the morn- 
ing was dark and cloudy, and a fine, searching 
mist was in the air. 

A man in blouse placed a bag of saw-dust at 
the foot of the gallows. The crowd must have 
now numbered a thousand. An old market- 
woman stood next me. She saw me look at 
my watch, and asked the hour. 



634 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" Eight minutes to six !" 

" Mon Dieu; huit minutes encore!" She was 
eager for the end. 

I could have counted time now by the beat- 
ing of my heart. 

What was Emile Roque doing within those 
doors? praying? struggling? was the face of 
the castaway on him? I could not separate 
him now from that fearful picture ; I was strain- 
ing my vision to catch a glimpse — not of Emile 
Roque — but of the living counterpart of that 
terrible expression which he had wrought — 
wild, aimless despair! 

Two minutes of six ! 

I saw a hasty rush of men to the parapet that 
topped the prison wall ; they leaned there, look- 
ing over. 

I saw a stir about the prison gates, and both 
were flung wide open. 

There was a suppressed murmur around me 
— " Le void! Le void!" I saw him coming for- 
ward between two officers; he wore no coat 
or waistcoat, and his shirt was rolled far back 
from his throat,; his arms were pinioned behind 
him ; his bared neck was exposed to the frosty 
March air; his .face was pale — deathly pale, 
yet it was calm ; I recognized not the castaway, 
but the man — Emile Roque. 

There was a moment between the prison 
gates and the foot of the scaffold ; he kissed 
the crucifix, which a priest handed him, and 
mounted with a firm step. I know not how, 
but in an instant he seemed to fall, his head 
toward the knife — under the knife. 

My eyes fell. I heard the old woman beside 
me say passionately, "Mon Dieu! il ne veut 
pas!" 

I looked toward the scaffold ; at that supreme 
moment the brute instinct in him had rallied 
for a last struggle. Pinioned as he was, he had 
lifted up his brawny shoulders and withdrawn 
his neck from the fatal opening. Now, indeed, 
his face wore the terrible expression of the pic- 
ture. Hate, fear, madness, despair, were blend- 
ed in his look. 

But the men mastered him ; they thrust him 
down ; I could see him writhe vainly. My eyes 
fell again. 

I heard a clang — a thud ! 

There was a movement in the throng around 
me. When I looked next at the scaffold, a 
man in blouse was sprinkling saw-dust here and 
there. Two others were lifting the long willow- 
basket into a covered cart. I could see now 
that the guillotine was painted of a dull red 
color, so that no blood stains would show. 

I moved away with the throng, the sleet 
crumpling under my feet. 

I could eat nothing all that day. I could not 
sleep on the following night. 

The bloodshot eye and haggard look of the 
picture which had at the last — as I felt it would 
be — been made real in the man, haunted me. 

I never go now to the gallery of the Louvre 
but I shun the painting of the wrecked Me'dusa 
as I would shun a pestilence. 



THE SENSES. 

IV. — HEARING. 

IN the quaint old town of Amsterdam there 
lived in the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury a far-famed Boniface, whose low-ceiled 
house on the Prince's Wharf was often so full 
of lovers of rich wines, that many a thirsty soul 
went away in anger and dismay. He was a 
merry companion withal, and loved to see his 
guests in good-humor and joyous spirits. No 
wine of the Rhine, no sack of France, was too 
rare for his friends ; costly bulbs filled window 
and shelf with luxuriant flowers, and strange 
animals, the children of distant climes, were 
scattered over room and chamber. But the 
sight of all sights was, after all, Mynheer Petter 
himself, as wrapped up in dense, dismal clouds 
of smoke, he sat enthroned in his roomy arm- 
chair, and foretold how "the Turk would in- 
vade the Holy Empire," or sang his quaint, queer 
ditties in Dutch. Suddenly, however, his fame 
increased beyond all expectation, and strangers 
came from far-off countries, not to enjoy his 
cozy comforts, not to quaff his superlative wines, 
but to hear him sing glasses to pieces ! It was 
no joke and no quibble. He would place fair, 
costly tumblers, tall, thin-stemmed Venetian 
glasses, and heavy, broad-footed goblets on the 
bright, well-polished table, close by the square 
wooden tray full of fragrant tobacco. Then 
he would raise his voice, and ere many minutes 
had passed, the tall, slender glass broke with a 
loud shriek, and the bowl-like tumbler of the 
German fell, with dull, heavy sound, into pieces ! 
As he repeated the effort, he soon learned how 
to do it with ease to himself and all the greater 
marvel to his guests, until once he sang twenty- 
five costly goblets to pieces in a short half hour ! 
Fortunately a German scholar of great renown 
came to witness the apparent wonder, explored 
it well, and left to posterity the enigma and its 
solution in a learned and spirited work on the 
subject. 

Since those days we have learned that if we 
but ascertain the natural note of a glass and 
then strike its second sufficiently loud, the glass 
will instantly break, with a clear clarion ring; 
strings of harps and violins sound, if a kindred 
note be heard, and the energetic and violent 
ringing of bells has been known to shake and to 
break massive vaults. The skeptic has quickly 
availed himself of the well-ascertained fact, and 
used it to explain the falling of the walls of 
Jericho before the trumpets of the Israelite. 
To the faithful believer, however, it is but a 
new inducement to admire the wondrous bonds 
of love that hold all parts of creation, the life- 
less material and the living sound, in sweet 
friendship together, and to try to learn more of 
the mysterious nature of sounds, as they ap- 
proach us through the organs of hearing. 

For the ear and its powers are still deep mys- 
teries even to the learned and the scholar. 
Science has to acknowledge that she knows not 
the use and the special functions of each tiny 
part of the wondrous structure. The philoso- 



THE SENSES. 



G35 



pher can not explain to us the nature of sound, 
nor how mere motion in the air, when it strikes 
a delicate nerve in the head, of a sudden, and 
as if by magic, is changed into music. The 
sense is, in fact, still a great physiological riddle. 
No other part of our body is so little known. 
Few men who own a watch have not at times 
opened the little machine and longed to under- 
stand the purpose and meaning of its many tiny 
wheels and chains. But how few ever think 
of examining more closely the truly wondrous 
watches that tell us of the beating of time in 
the great universe around us, marvels of craft 
and cunning, which bountiful nature has given 
to the poor and the rich alike, as an ever over- 
flowing source of pure and unsullied enjoyment? 
Science itself displays this neglect in its dis- 
gusting abuses. If any body should venture to 
offer to the public an arcanum, a few drops of 
which poured into a watch would repair the 
broken wheel or the rusty chain, regulate its ac- 
curacy, and restore it to first perfection, would 
he not be received with sneers and scoffs, and 
reproached with a desire to insult our common 
sense? And yet we have seen, but of late, grave, 
honored physicians, who proclaimed aloud that 
they possessed the secret of a powder or an oil, 
a little tube to be put into the ear, or a magnet 
suspended behind it, that would cure, without 
doubt, all possible ills to which the ear is heir ? 
Nothing but a melancholy indifference to the 
wonders of our own body, "made after His 
image," could produce such errors, and make us 
endure such announcements. "We forget that 
"the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord 
hath made even both of them." 

Like other organs of sense, the ear also may 
be watched from its earliest infancy — a mere 
bubble of air — through all the slow changes of 
form, up to its highest perfection in man. All 
animals, it is true, are believed to possess some 
means of perceiving sounds, but in the lowest 
they surely are so closely united with others, 
that we at least can not distinguish where touch 
ceases and hearing commences. The primitive 
form of the ear — but lately discovered by the 
aid of the microscope — is a simple cell or blad- 
der, barely visible to the naked eye. Even in 
the lowest of animals, however, this remarkable 
organ exhibits already its two most distinctive 
features ; it lies ever deep in the very centre of 
the body, often in the midst of the nervous sys- 
tem, and it contains already, in its microscopic 
stage, those tiny crystals which are found no- 
where else in all nature. The miniature globe 
of transparent texture is always filled with a 
clear liquid, and in it swim one or more little 
bodies, kept by tiny, restless hairs (cilia) in ever 
active, swinging motion. As we approach the 
higher classes of animals, the structure becomes 
more and more complicated ; the parts increase 
in number, the arrangement grows in beauty. 
Fishes, receiving all sounds not through air but 
through water, with which their whole body is 
ever in contact, need therefore no outward ear ; 
but they have, close by, large compact masses 



of lime, shaped and arranged in a peculiar man- 
ner, to increase by resonance the force of such 
sounds. Even in birds the external parts of 
the ear- are still wanting, a few nocturnal birds 
excepted, and the tympanum lies here, as with 
reptiles and amphibia, quite near to the surface ; 
of the inner structure, also, but a few simple 
bones are, as yet, in existence. The latter in- 
crease, one by one, as we ascend to the mam- 
malia, until we gee at last the outward ear fully 
developed, and within, the whole marvelous 
structure complete. 

The ear of man is the most perfect of all, but 
most difficult of access. The mechanism of the 
eye lies as clear and open before the man of 
science as the beautiful organ itself appears in 
the face of man. It is not so with the ear. Its 
wondrous parts are deeply hidden in the secrecy 
of our head, inapproachable during lifetime, and 
dark and unknown are therefore also, as yet, their 
peculiar functions. The fleeting, intangible na- 
ture of sound escapes all observation, and means 
of comparison, also, with other organs of hear- 
ing, are utterly wanting. 

We are not even admitted at once into the 
secrets of the organ of hearing, as we are in the 
other senses. We enter at first but an outer 
apartment, in the well known form of a shell, 
which stands ever ready and open to receive 
whatever sounds may be roving about in the 
free air of heaven. Its varied forms and count- 
less angles allow not a single stray sound to 
escape, and gather and lead them all to a com- 
mon centre. Thus they are made to enter a 
wide, well-oiled canal, whose tortuous windings 
and stiff, stout hairs exclude aught else but light, 
invisible air. It is nearly an inch long, and 
carries the sounds onward, holding the waves, 
as it were, well together, and increasing their 
strength by reflection. For its delicate walls 
tremble and vibrate with the whole ear, and com- 
municate the disturbance to the inner parts of 
the structure. Hence if foreign bodies, or long 
accumulated ear-wax, obstruct the free passage, 
our hearing is seriously impaired. Through it 
the sounds reach without delay the first gate, 
that closes the inner chambers against all dan- 
gers from without. This is a delicate and elas- 
tic curtain, well fastened to the surrounding 
bones like the skin of a drum, and hence its 
technical name. As the sticks of the drummer 
strike his drum and thus produce sounds within 
the body of the instrument, so the faint waves 
of the air also strike against the tympanum ; the 
little membrane yields and presses upon a cavity 
within the so-called drum. Its delicacy is ex- 
quisite. A glass plate, covered with finest sand 
and set swinging by the touch of a bow, causes, 
we know, the tiny atoms to range themselves in 
curious, beauteous figures. So the light, little 
membrane, also, when vibrating under the in- 
fluence of certain grave or deep tones, will make 
the seed of earth-moss, or like delicate sub- 
stances that have been strewn upon it, assume 
the far-famed figures of Chladni. 

Wo enter next a round, well-stored chamber, 



636 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



filled with ever-renewed air. and deeply, snugly 
ensconced in the interior of the bones that form 
our temples. Safely protected Avithout, it has a 
door within, and a tubular passage that leads 
right into the mouth, through which a current 
of air is ever passing into the curious little 
apartment. Thus the tympanum always re- 
mains well stretched, whatever pressure may be 
brought to bear upon it by the impatient waves 
of air that constantly beat against it from with- 
out, as the stormy breakers of the sea roll up to 
the cliffs of an iron-bound shore. Through this 
passage alone access ©an be had to the middle 
chamber of the ear, and the surgeon, by insert- 
ing his delicate instrument through the nose, 
can blow and squirt water or air into the drum, 
as the occasion requires. B ut the tube serves, be- 
sides, as a sounding-board, adding new strength 
and greater distinctness to the sounds that enter 
the inner chamber. Nor is it without import- 
ance that thus an escape is afforded to an over- 
whelming volume of sound that may at times 
be gathered in the cavity of the ear. Artille- 
rists, therefore, open the mouth at the firing of 
cannon to escape deafness, and even when 
hearing less violent noises, we find instant relief 
from painful sounds by allowing them egress 
through this remarkable channel. When the 
great Humboldt drew fishes, that live only at a 
great depth of the ocean, with extreme sudden- 
ness up from their dark home, their swimming- 
bladder contained naturally an air much denser 
than that of the atmosphere above the ocean's 
surface. It had no outlet, and as all gases have 
a tendency to equalize their density, the air 
within was so forcibly expanded, that it drove 
the intestines of the poor creatures out of their 
bodies. A similar calamity might befall us 
through the expansion of the air in the inner 
chamber of the ear, when we reach a high ele- 
vation, the top of a lofty mountain, where the 
air around is essentially thinner. But such a 
misfortune is avoided by the aid of this tube — 
called the Eustachian, after a great anatomist 
of the sixteenth century — which allows the air 
of the drum to escape through the mouth. The 
distinguished physiologist, Carus, affirms that he 
felt the actual working of this remedy in every 
instance when he reached a height of 4500 feet; 
a tiny bubble of air, he says, passed each time 
from the ear through the Eustachian trumpet. 

The furniture of the little chamber consists 
of three mysterious bones of oddest shape and 
unknown purpose. Anatomists even, who love 
to deal in monstrous Latin names, have not 
been able to resist the striking resemblance of 
these tiny instruments to actual things, the work 
of man, and call them hammer, anvil, and stir- 
rup. The hammer is closely fastened to the 
tympanum, and serves, besides other purposes, 
to stretch and to relax it according to the na- 
ture of the sounds it receives. A powerful mus- 
cle, beyond the control of all but a few favored 
men, draws it back and releases it again ; thus 
varying the power of reverberation. It acts, in 
this respect, exactly like the pupil of our eyes. 



As the wonderful "opening into the soul of 
man" grows wider and narrower with the mass 
and the brightness of light that falls upon it, so 
the tiny skin, stretched out here so oddly, adapts 
itself, without our aid and. our will, to the 
strength, height, and depth of various sounds. 
A dazzling light causes the pupil visibly to con- 
tract, and a deafening sound induces the tym- 
panum to grow smaller by being strained; to 
receive more waves of a feebler light the pupil 
stretches wide open, and, in like manner, the 
tympanum also is loosened and enlarged to re- 
ceive a larger number of waves of sound. 

The hammer rests upon the anvil, and the 
latter again, by a minute little bone, the small- 
est in the whole body of man, on the stirrup, 
whose broad lower part, where the foot would 
stand in a stirrup, closes up a tiny window 
in the last and innermost chamber of the ear. 
Thus the wondrous three bones, suspended. in 
the air-filled apartment, and moving slightly 
where they are joined together, form a myste- 
rious bridge from the outer curtain to the ever- 
closed door of the holiest of holies, and over 
this bridge pass all sounds that are to fill us 
with joy or with sorrow. Their precise, indi- 
vidual use is not yet well known, nor are men 
of science quite agreed why Nature should have 
given them just such a peculiar form and no 
other. So much only is certain, that the beauty 
and symmetry of these insignificant bones de- 
termine, at least to a high degree, our power to 
enjoy the sweet charms of music. 

At last we are admitted to the secret cham- 
ber, where the outer world, in the shape of 
sounding waves, knocks at the very gates of the 
mysterious temple in which our mind is en- 
throned. It is a wonderful room, deep in the 
very heart of our head, set in the still solitude 
of hard, rock-like bone, which no ordinary knife 
can cut. Here our good mother Nature has 
hid her marvelous child, in order to protect its 
tender limbs against rude contact with the world 
without, to give a clear, ringing sound to the 
tones that enter, and perhaps to teach us, by 
example, that we also can enjoy the true bless- 
ings of music only in the quiet of a placid, peace- 
ful mind. Who can imagine the joyful aston- 
ishment, and the wondering admiration of our 
Maker's supreme wisdom, when the anatomists, 
two hundred years ago, discovered, one by one, 
the tiny bones we have mentioned ; and then, 
of a sudden, in the very heart of this bone, hard 
as stone, found a whole new system of delicate, 
beautiful organs? Well might they exclaim, 
as is reported of one of them: "I will praise 
Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made !" 

This holiest is a tiny room, filled with pure, 
limpid water, and branches off, on one side, 
through double openings, into three wonderful 
archways ; and, on the other, into the cochlea, 
which closely resembles the tortuous walks of a 
snail's peculiar house. This is, no doubt, the 
highest organ that serves the sense of hearing, 
for it is wanting in all lower animals, and does 
not appear except in the more perfect classes. 



THE SENSES. 



637 



A small, safely-closed window connects it with 
the vestibule, as through the oval opening, closed 
by the stirrup, it communicates with the middle 
chamber. Here, in the third and innermost 
part of the ear, sounds meet, in the liquid, the 
tender tips of the nerves that enter from within 
the mysterious labyrinth. Nature has here, as 
in all her merely mechanical contrivances, ob- 
tained the greatest end by the smallest means. 
In an incredibly limited space, by the aid of the 
long windings of the cochlea, she multiplies the 
points of contact, where sounds touch nerves, 
and these convey to the mind the impressions 
received. 

The precise purpose of both these inner parts 
of the ear is not fully known : the semicircular 
passages serve, it is said, to increase and to 
lengthen the effect of sounds that enter from 
without in all directions, while the snail-shell 
gives us the pitch of a note, and gathers all 
other sounds that may seek admittance, not 
through the open portals of the ear, but through 
the friendly aid of the bones of the skull ; for 
the organ of hearing is so wonderfully set in the 
innermost recesses of the head, that even the 
gentlest vibrations — mere wayward waves of in- 
tangible air that no other sense can perceive — 
will at once set it in tremulous motion, and give 
us an almost unbounded world of enjoyment. 
The nerves, however, are not here, as elsewhere, 
grown into the organ of this great sense, but 
spread over its secret chambers in a manner 
found in no other part of the body. They touch 
a fine white sand or dust, consisting of tiny, 
incredibly hard, and beautiful grains of crystal. 
This is the very wonder of wonders — the char- 
acteristic feature of the sense of hearing; for 
its essential parts are not the outward ear nor 
the middle chamber, not the mysterious chain 
of miniature hammers and anvils, not even the 
marvelously beautiful labyrinth, deep in the 
dark night of the skull. What makes it alone 
the organ of hearing, as distinct from the organs 
of all other senses, is this matchless connection 
of delicate nerves with hard, crystalline bodies, 
which are themselves again suspended in a clear, 
ever-pure liquid. 

The process of hearing is, then, simply this: 
A concussion without moves the atmosphere, 
which rises and falls, like the waters of the ocean, 
in waves that spread to all sides until they meet 
with resistance. They enter the outward ear, 
pass through the outward channel, and strike 
against the first door, the drum. This delicate 
curtain moves under the pressure, and sets the 
three tiny bones into motion. The hammer 
pushes the anvil, the anvil pushes the stirrup, 
and the stirrup, pressing with its lower end 
upon the closed door of the innermost chamber, 
communicates thus the commotion to the water 
that fills the labyrinth. The liquid rising in 
miniature waves, which still correspond, it is 
said, with amazing accuracy to the airy waves 
without, touches, as it rises and falls, the deli- 
cate ends of the nerves, and this simple mechan- 
ical contact, spiritualized at the instant in which 
Vol. XII.— No. 71.— Ss 



it passes from the nerves to the mind, is changed 
from a silent, lifeless undulation of air into a 
living, sounding impression. 

And all these marvels, that have so far baffled 
the ingenuity of the wisest of all nations, are 
hid behind a modest and unpretending ear, oft- 
en still farther concealed by long locks of hair 
and broad tresses. The ear is an organ of se- 
crecy, destined to bring to the mind the softest 
and gentlest motions of the outer world ; hence 
it is so much less apparent, so insignificant even 
among other organs of sense. The outward is 
not even, as has been long believed, indispens- 
able for the purpose of hearing; its absence tends 
only to diminish the accuracy of our perceptions. 
Animals hear very well without any visible ear; 
and the mole, that is utterly earless, surpasses 
many others in the sharpness and power of this 
sense. The large number of earless men we 
meet in the East hear as well as did the unhap- 
py victims of a barbarous custom that inflicted, 
even in England, the disgraceful punishment of 
such mutilation upon men like the friends of 
the noble Hampden ; for sounds do not reach 
the mind alone by the funnel-shaped entrance 
of the ear, as rays of light can enter the depth 
of the eye by the pupil only. A large number 
of airy waves are even thrown back again by 
the outer ear, and few only reach the narrow 
channel, and thus enter into the organ itself. 
The muscles, by which all animals and a few 
men can control the outward ear, probably aid 
in presenting its elastic walls to all sides from 
which sounds may approach it. The whole 
structure of the head, however, serves in the 
process of hearing ; the skull and its bones form, 
both in texture and form, excellent aids in con- 
ducting sounds from without to the inner nerves. 
They are ever and every where active in lead- 
ing them up to the brain. Hence the familiar 
fact, that a stick held to hard parts of the head 
and to an instrument increases the sound, as 
in Sweden deaf men and women may be seen 
sitting in church with long wooden sticks in their 
mouths which touch the pulpit, and thus enable 
them to hear the Word of God and the minis- 
ter's sermon. Hence also the equally well- 
known experience, that persons inaccessible to 
all sounds through the ear may still be acutely 
sensible to vibrations. Mrs. Tonna (Charlotte 
Elizabeth), who lost her hearing in early life, 
could thus derive great pleasure from the vibra- 
tions of an organ or from the sounding-board of 
a piano, and by merely touching the latter with 
her hand perceive, though not hear, a tune accu- 
rately enough to write it down on the instant ! 

Not even the loss of the tympanum is neces- 
sarily followed by deafness — a sad privation, in- 
deed, which is either laid upon us by our Maker 
at the moment of birth, or results from an es- 
sential injury to the inner parts of the organ 
of hearing. Innate deafness is, in fact, more 
severely felt than the want of any other sense, 
not on account of its own melancholy conse- 
quences — the perfect isolation in the midst of 
our brethren — but because of the unavoidable 



G3S 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



want of language. He who is born deaf is sen- 
tenced to be silent for life. Even persons who 
at an advanced age were deprived of hearing, 
feel a growing reluctance to speak — the result, 
no doubt, of the change in their speech from an 
utterance of articulate sounds to an inaudible, 
merely mechanical motion of the organs. A 
case is recorded of an officer whose hearing be- 
came paralyzed from the effects of a violent 
cannonade, and who, from neglecting to culti- 
vate his speech, could at last no longer be un- 
derstood even by his nearest relations. If 
such be the case with men of ripe years, how 
much more with infants ; for children learn 
language insensibly, and without effort, Nature 
herself being their teacher. The deaf mute is 
dependent upon artificial schemes of man's 
doing, by which he endeavors to supply, by hu- 
man ingenuity, what God in his wisdom has 
seen fit to withhold by the ordinary channels. 
Hence, even when all that art can achieve has 
been done, the result will still be marked with 
that imperfection which always attaches itself 
to every human performance. This it is that 
makes blindness so much more tolerable than 
deafness. The former, it has been well said, 
is, after all, but a physical darkness, and the 
sufferers still possess a ready channel through 
which the brightest beams of intellectual light 
may be freely poured. But the darkness of the 
deaf mute is a mental and moral darkness, 
which we who can hear and speak can conceive 
by no means in our power. He may gaze abroad 
upon creation, but he can not "look through 
nature up to nature's God," nor can he partici- 
pate in that high communion which, through 
the sublimity of her visible language, she holds 
with the soul of an enlightened being. 

Although the outward ear of man is so un- 
meaning at first sight, and its fixed, unchanging 
position so different from the expressive, active 
motion of the ears of animals, yet even so its 
form and position are not without great import- 
ance. Comparing the human ear with that of 
animals, we find its size to be neither very small 
nor very large. Both extremes, where they oc- 
cur, call up at once a likeness to some member 
of the animal kingdom, though not to all with- 
out choice, as even there the size of ears is a 
sign of character and temper. In animals veiy 
large ears often indicate great timidity, which 
makes their owners an easy prey of the stronger, 
and marks them as lacking the first conditions 
of superiority — strength and independence. 
This applies, however, only to the excessive 
size of the upper part, as in the rabbit, the don- 
key, and the long-eared bat, to whom it gives 
such an unfavorable expression ; for the noblest 
of animals, even the sagacious elephant, has 
the lower part of the ear very broad, and fully 
developed. Small ears, on the contrary, re- 
duced sometimes to an utter absence of the out- 
ward organ, arc found in animals endowed with 
superior energy, from the tiny mole to the co- 
lossal lion. 

In man the ear readies the happy medium 



size, which is best adapted to its purpose as an 
ornament of the crown of his noble structure, 
and being free from hair and other appendages, 
it is thus able to lead even the finest vibrations, 
straight and unbroken, to the inner sanctuary. 
Very large and very small ears are, therefore, 
here also unfavorably noticed, and justly re- 
garded as signs of a mind that is not fully and 
symmetrically well developed. If too large, it 
is feared they might produce a condition re- 
sembling the exquisite sensitiveness endured by 
patients in certain diseases; for here, as with 
the sense of smell, a too abundant power of per- 
ception might be as injurious to higher mental 
life as a total want of perception. If too small, 
they are apt to give an expression of spiritual 
dwarfishness. The proper standard for the size 
of the ear is, as painters tell us, the length of 
the well-formed nose. 

The outline of the varied curves of the out- 
ward ear is considered of more than ordinary 
importance. They repeat, in symbolical form, 
that most essential of all parts of this organ — 
the cochlea, or snail-shell, within. Their pecu- 
liar shape is undoubtedly all-important to our 
individual perception of the world of sounds, 
and thus becomes one of the most efficient 
means of spiritual development. Hence the 
striking difference between the perfect ear of 
man, in all its exquisite symmetry and beauty, 
and that of the most human-like ape ; while be- 
tween the two, considered as distant extremes, 
still lies a large number of varied forms. 

Essential as the ear thus appears to a perfect 
form of the human head, its form has as yet 
been but little attended to, even by artists. 
Porta even, who in most other points gathers 
all that the ancients knew about features, is very 
meagre on this subject. There is, in fact, little 
enough said about ears ; all we find is here and 
there a stray remark — as when the beauty of 
the ears of Augustus is dwelt upon by Suetoni- 
us; or JElian tells us, in describing the charms 
of Aspasia, that " she had short ears." Porta, 
however, remarks that, cxculptce- aiwes, that is, 
ears cut out as by the sculptor's hand, and deep- 
ly chiseled, are of high value, because their 
owners are apt to be open to sound doctrines 
and of clear perception, while vague and flat 
ears belong to dull and rude persons. Winkel- 
mann also shows us, in his History of Art, how 
well the ancients knew the higher meaning of 
the human ear. He remarks that in all the 
master-pieces of antique sculpture no part of the 
head is more carefully worked than the ears, so 
that their beauty, and especially the finish of 
their form, furnish one of the safest means by 
which what is genuine, and really antique, may 
at once be distinguished from what has been re- 
stored or added in later times. The great phys- 
iognomist, Lavater, knew their significance fully. 
When an artist brought him a portrait he had 
ordered, he instantly exclaimed that the ear 
could not have been drawn from nature, because 
it did not belong to the other features; and the 
artist, though an academician, had to confess 



THE SENSES. 



639 



that he had added the ear, having drawn it, as 
an unimportant feature, from his own imagin- 
ation. 

Even its smaller parts are important, though 
their effect only is noted, while the details are 
overlooked. Thus, for instance, a flattened, up- 
turned edge above, gives greater length to the 
ear, and a decided animal likeness ; hence the 
ancients thus represented Fauns, and with great 
success. Even the position is not insignificant. 
Ears, attached like wings to the sides of the head, 
and gently standing off, are said to belong to 
men endowed with musical talent ; but as such 
an angle is favorable to acute hearing, they in- 
dicate likewise the lover of secrets, and the 
timid or fearful. Close-lying ears perform their 
duty but indifferently, and are thus ascribed to 
the trifling man, " who will not listen," or to the 
incredulous who, "having ears, hear not," and 
to the thoughtless. Buchanan proved that the 
angle in which the ear is attached to the head is 
of greatest importance in the process of hearing; 
too large an angle interferes as much with a 
clear perception of sounds as too close an ap- 
proach to the sides. 

To pierce it and to adorn it, was an ancient 
custom, known to almost all nations on earth, 
and so to the Israelites also. The first ear-ring 
mentioned — " a golden ear-ring of half a shekel 
weight" — won the heart of Rebecca. But the 
custom seems soon to have served to no good 
purpose, for " all the people brake off the golden 
ear-rings, which were in the ears of their wives, 
of their sons and their daughters, and brought 
them unto Aaron, and he made it a golden 
calf!" The wise King, it is true, loved ear- 
rings again, together with other pretty orna- 
ments, for he said, "As an ear-ring of gold, so 
is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear." The 
slave who preferred to remain with his master 
in Israel, had his ear bored with an awl, to show 
his consent, and the permanent character of his 
bondage. Hence, probably, it became among 
the Romans also a mark of servility — a view ut- 
terly at variance with that of the Greeks, where 
the nobles alone were allowed to have their ears 
pierced. Now, thievish shop-keepers in the East 
are nailed with the ear to the door of their shop, 
and exposed to public disgrace. Among us, 
however, the custom of boring the ears is hardly 
more than a long-lingering remnant of former 
barbarous times. 

It is no small humiliation to the pride of our 
day that, when we ask, What do we hear? even 
science is not able to give us an answer. The 
eye and the ear present to us, it is true, a vast- 
ly more complicated physical apparatus than 
we find in the other senses, by whose aid the 
mere motion of the outer world is conveyed to 
the inner world of our being. Here no gross 
enjoyment is offered, as in taste; no firm, sub- 
stantial shock is received, as in touch ; no actual 
absorption of minute particles here takes place, 
as in smell. Mere gentle waves of the feeblest 
of elements around us — of light intangible air, 
strike the wondrous structure, and joy or sorrow, 



faith or fear, stir up the sea of passions and deep 
emotions that ever moves restlessly within the 
breast of man. But these so-called sounds are 
mere phantoms — a name, and nothing more. 
They form an empire of their own, whose chil- 
dren rule over our feelings and master our 
thoughts, and yet the heart can not tell what 
moves it, and the mind can not analyze whence 
come these powers. They have no substance, 
no life, except in our own unconscious mind. 
The air may vibrate from age to age ; its unseen 
waves may swell and sink, and thus pass over 
an ocean of time until they beat upon the shores 
of eternity, and no sound is heard. But let them 
touch that wondrous mystery, the tiny crystal- 
clear lake that is hid far in the secret cham- 
bers of our head, and at once sound is created, 
and as they follow each other, in rapid succes- 
sion, our soul is enraptured by the magic of 
music, or lifted heavenward by the Word that 
is thus in an instant revealed. 

When we see the vibrations of a sounding- 
chord, or the heavy motion of a ringing bell, we 
are apt to think that both bodies move, as the 
pendulum, actually to and fro. But it is not so. 
There is hidden here a deep and most beautiful 
secret. What is it that really happens when a 
metal rod is struck or a bell is set ringing? The 
eye, and still more the sense of touch, perceive 
a violent vibrating and trembling. But this is 
not a movement of the whole body ; the appar- 
ently solid mass itself is moved in its very sub- 
stance, certain points and lines excepted, which 
obey other laws, and ever remain the same ; it 
seems all of a sudden to have become liquid, so 
that it may rise and sink in wonderful waves. 
It is, in fact, a restless, quickly-repeated extend- 
ing and contracting of the substance, in a man- 
ner resembling the effect of great cold or heat. 
Thus sound may truly be said to be a mysterious 
magician who breaks the rigidity of solid bodies. 
When he seizes a dense, solid metal, he suddenly 
unloosens the bands that hold its minute atoms 
together, and the greater the rigidity the quicker 
is moved the liquified substance. Sound wields 
a power over such bodies even unto death, for 
we have seen that it can release the parts of 
their allegiance to the whole, and break the most 
beautiful structures on earth to pieces in a mo- 
ment. 

Nor is this motion confined to the body itself 
that sound has touched with its magic wand, but 
the same strange, life-like vibrations spread from 
it farther in all directions, and pass into all with 
which they come into contact. Sound, it is true, 
travels not with the same swiftness as light; still, 
its speed is respectable, and amounts, in dry air, 
to more than a thousand feet in a second ; in 
water it travels four times as quickly, in iron ten, 
and in wood eleven times. But there is a great 
conservative power that dwells in all solid sub- 
stances ; thus sound also reigns but for a time, 
and then its magic effect gives way to that force 
which restores its slaves to their original form, 
and gives them once more both peace and repose. 
Nor is the dominion thus wielded bv Found the 



640 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



same over all bodies. Some stoutly refuse to 
yield it obedience ; others, again, are ever ready 
to dance and to frolic as sound may command. 
The latter only convey to us genuine sound. 

In no case, however, can Ave dispense with air, 
little as we notice the indispensable element in 
everyday life. Suspend a bell in a vacuum, un- 
der an air-pump, and set it a-ringing ; the eye 
will see it move to and fro, the hand would be 
able to feel its motion, but as there is no air, and 
consequently no etherial waves can reach our 
ear, all the ringing of the bell produces no sound, 
and bell and hammer remain alike mute. Hence 
sound is limited also to the distant boundary- 
lines of the atmosphere ; beyond, eternal si- 
lence reigns, and the most terrible explosion — 
the breaking of the moon into atoms — would be 
a spectacle all the more awful, because the eye 
alone would witness it, in unbroken silence and 
ghastly stillness. Hence the far-famed harmony 
of the spheres must forever remain a mystery to 
us, as the great master-poet already hints in the 
words — 

" Look how the floor of heaven 
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ; 
There is not the smallest orb which thou beholdest 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims. 
Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
But while this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close us in, we can not hear it." 

All the earth is in motion, and hence all the 
earth is ever filled with sound ; for any elastic 
body will, under the influence of some concus- 
sion, assume a vibrating motion, which, when it 
reaches our ear by the aid of kind airy waves, we 
perceive as sound. The pendulum, as it swings 
slowly backward and forward to point again, in 
loyal allegiance, to the centre of the earth ; the 
ocean wave, driven by fierce winds, and chang- 
ing the mirror-like calm of the sea into mount- 
ains and valleys, in which the frail ships of man 
are engulfed ; the gentle tremor of whispering 
leaves — all these are forms of motion in matter 
which will produce sound and tone and tune, if 
but sufficiently strong and quick in their action. 
Even a glass-tube will vibrate under the repeat- 
ed strokes of a moistened hand, although, to 
produce the same effect by merely mechanical 
means, would require the power of two horses. 
For, says the naturalist Schleiden, the physical 
world as well as the moral world shows us occa- 
sionally that gentleness often effects more than 
brute force. 

Thus sounds are heard everywhere in nature, 
and Ave have only to join the chorus to share the 
happiness of the creation. We may step into 
the tearful landscape on a spring morning, and 
join in the jubilant songs of early birds; Ave 
may throw ourselves into the wares, and shout 
for joy amidst the thunder of the ocean, or Ave 
may listen on the sandy sea-shore to the throb- 
bing of his great pulse, as he rises from the vast 
deep and embraces the land with a stormy, long- 
draAvn kiss. All through the vast temple of na- 
ture sound joins sound and voice meets voice, 
until the "heaA-y ear and the hardened heart" 



alone hear not the great anthem that rises from 
everlasting to everlasting to the throne of the 
Almighty. 

Our poAver to perceiA r e sound is, however, lim- 
ited by certain bounds that apply to the human 
ear generally, Avhile every one of us indiA'idually 
differs again from his neighbor in the poAver of 
hearing also. If the vibrations of the air be 
either too fast or too sIoav, the ear of man can 
not seize them. The loAvest note AA'e can hear 
is caused by vibrations that count eight or ten 
in a second, and then AA'e only hear them as a 
Ioav and indistinct humming. The highest note 
perceptible is the result of seventy thousand vi- 
brations in a second. It can not be doubted 
that as there exists in nature a light which our 
eye can not see, so there must also be countless 
sounds still which human ears can not hear. 
The bat, for instance, has so Ioav a cry that thou- 
sands of men neA*er hear it, as it is just on the 
boundary line of the powers of human percep- 
tion, and yet Avise, bountiful Nature surely never 
gave to one of her children a voice that could 
not be clearly heard by its felloAvs. Men arc 
A r ery differently endoAA r ed in this respect, espe- 
cially as to the poAver of perceiving sounds at a 
distance. Campanella once proposed tubes that 
should aid the ear, as the telescope and the mi- 
croscope aid the eye. As all nature is ever in 
motion, Avould not, to an ear thus armed, the 
Avhole universe resound in a Avondrouslv-crand 

* o 

concert of countless A r oices ? 

Sounds, it is presumed, but rarely produce a 
simple effect upon our nerves ; other handmaids 
of the brains co-operate almost instantly, and 
hence the impressions are always more or less 
complex. A sound strikes your ear, and at once 
you knoAv that it is a knock at the door — that 
somebody asks admittance— nay, from certain 
peculiarities of the sound, you are sure that it 
is a friend AA r ho is coming. You go with him to 
a concert : there men cause, by various instru- 
ments of Avood or metal, the air around them to 
undulate in strange vibrations, Avhich they them- 
selves do not see nor perceive. These waves 
enter your ear ; they pass through the tortuous 
channels unheeded and unfelt ; but all of a sud- 
den they touch a mysterious nen'e, and you 
tremble ; your heart is moved ; tears gather, 
against your will, in your eye ; your mind rises 
from the earth, and strange, uncontrollable feel- 
ings, that Avords can not tell and thoughts can 
not analyze, seize upon your innermost life. 
Even the brute creation, that " travaileth and 
groaneth with us," is not an alien to such strange 
effects, 

" For do but note a wild and wanton herd, 
A race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, 
Which is the hot condition of their blood ; 
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, 
Or any air of music touch their ears, 
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, 
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze, 
By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet 
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods, 
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage, 
But music for the time doth change his nature." 



PAUL ALLEN'S WIFE, AND HOW HE FOUND HER. 



641 



How is this miracle brought about ? Alas ! 
we know the cause and we know the effect; but 
the bridge that connects body and soul — the 
material and the spiritual world — is not yet re- 
vealed to our eyes. Even in such lowly and 
humble matters, in the use of our own sim- 
ple senses, we must confess that " now we see 
through a glass darkly." The same mystery 
surrounds nearly all our perceptions by hear- 
ing. We speak not of the wondrous effect of 
music on sufferers ; how Timotheus roused 
Alexander to fury and calmed him by sweeter 
melodies ; how Terpander quelled even a re- 
bellion at Sparta by music ; or how David con- 
quered the evil spirit that haunted poor Saul. 
Do not shepherds even tell us, one and all, that 
their cattle feed better while they listen to mu- 
sic? But the simplest functions of the sense 
of hearing are marvelously vague and uncer- 
tain. The ear is not able to distinguish the 
direction from which sounds come ; this we can 
only make sure by other senses, and by compar- 
ing circumstances with which we are already 
acquainted. How different do not at night the 
same noises sound that we hear in daytime? 
Hence the truly amazing influence of the ear 
on the imagination. This is still strengthened 
by the fact, that no other sense stands in so in- 
timate and constant connection with the sens- 
ory nerves of the whole body. As the chord 
sounds its clear note when from afar, a kindred 
sound is wafted near on the invisible waves of 
the air, so all the countless nerves of our system 
tremble and thrill when the nerve of the ear is 
touched in a peculiar manner by the ethereal 
waves. 

This vagueness of all hearing — this strange, 
as yet unexplained sympathy with other nerves, 
furnishes a key to the wondrous power that or- 
acles ever have exercised, through this sense, 
on credulous nations, and to the close con- 
nection between it and so many forms of still 
living superstition. Do not enthusiastic lovers 
of music pretend even now that their melo- 
dies are but echoes of heavenly choirs and faint 
recollections of the language once spoken by 
man, when he dwelt in happy bliss among the 
angels of the Lord, and listened to the an- 
thems that "the morning stars sang together?" 
Hence it was that the mysterious voice of Mem- 
non and the fabulous words of Pagan deities 
were revered by the monarchs of the earth and 
obeyed by powerful nations. Can the children 
of our day boast of being free from such super- 
stition ? Even now, saints and Madonnas of 
stone or wood arc heard by the faithful believer 
to utter words of human language. The better 
ventriloquist surprises with ease even the atten- 
tive listener. Who has not heard strange voices 
in the evening breeze, or listened to sweet mel- 
odies sung by the rustling leaves or the purling 
brooks ? 

As long as the blessed light of the sun warms 
the surface of the earth, unseen currents of heat- 
ed air are ever rising heavenward, and cold air is 
descending. Here they move in playful, frol- 



icsome dance over metal or water, so that even 
the eye can perceive the quivering waves ; there 
they rise and fall in stately, invisible slowness. 
Sounds that -have to travel at such times are 
stopped and broken by each current. But night 
brings rest not to man only ; Nature also seems 
to repose for a while, and the air is either quite 
motionless, or at least rising and falling only in 
long, well-measured cadences. Then all noises 
are heard more clearly and distinctly ; but we 
are so little accustomed to such unbroken com- 
munication, that they startle and strike us as 
strange and fearful. Then the ear weaves 
countless spells for the mind. The great Eh- 
renberg, who, like Columbus, discovered a new 
world, the infinitely small, stood once on guard 
in the Libyan desert. Knowing that the life 
of dear friends and numerous companions de- 
pended upon his breathless attention, he listen- 
ed with anxiously-strained ear ; for the Arabs 
were near, and death was lurking in every shad- 
ow. Nothing was heard but the slow ruminat- 
ing of the camels, as they lay in a wide circle 
around, and the deep breathing of the slumber- 
ing pilgrims. Shooting-stars alone lighted up 
the incredibly dark desert-night for an instant. 
All his senses were absorbed in his hearing. 
Of a sudden, a strange, startling noise is gliding- 
past him over the yellow sands. He moves, 
and all is hushed. Can it be that Bedouins are 
gliding, as they are known to do, serpent-like, 
amidst the well-tethered camels ? As he thinks 
of waking his friends, he hears the same noise 
here and there, far and near. He approaches 
and perceives, by a powerful exertion of sight, 
a number of balls, three or four inches largo, 
which roll apparently by themselves past his 
watchful eye. At last he procures a lantern 
and discovers, to his amazement, under each 
sand-ball a large black beetle, who rolls the 
round mass with marvelous swiftness over the 
plain. It was the well known scarabee of the 
Egyptians, whose sacred image is found on tem- 
ple and crypt all over the land of the Nile. 
Thus the renowned naturalist learned both the 
strange effect of mysterious sounds on the mind 
of man, and at least one of the causes that led 
the fanciful people of the desert to worship the 
curious beetle. 

PAUL ALLEN'S WIFE, AND HOW HE 
FOUND HER. 

[Note. — The leading incidents in the following sketch 
will be familiar to those few who were acquainted with 
them at the time of their occurrence, although the names 
are changed that they may not be recognized by others. 
Most of them are still alive. Poor Fosliay died three years 
ago of ship fever, a victim to his philanthropy and devotion 
to his profession. Doctor W is still enjoying a. world- 
wide reputation. George is settled in a lucrative practice 
in the country. Paul Allen, a noble and enterprising 
man, with his lovely and beautiful wife, Maud, an- living 
at their country seat, my near neighbors; and talking with 
them a few evenings since, they extorted from me — not 
unwillingly — the promise to write this sketch.] 

DURING the winter of IS—, the class of Doc- 
tor W was larger than it had ever been 

before. His reputation as a surgeon, as well as 



642 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



a general practitioner, attracted to his office a 
crowd of young men who were anxious to put 
themselves under his tuition, as well for the 
name of having studied with him, as for the 
actual advantages of the position. But vain as 
the Doctor was of his well-deserved reputation, 
he did not allow this vanity to induce him to 
retain under his instruction a single student 
who, after proper trial, he did not believe would 
in his after-life do credit to him as a teacher. 
It became a matter of course, therefore, that 
his young men stood high as students. He was 
indefatigable in his efforts to instruct them, and 
they in their turn were ambitious to improve. 
But the advantages to be found in such an 

office as Doctor W 's did not consist alone 

in his private instructions. The multitude of 
cases of disease which were daily brought there 
for advice, and which were always carefully ex- 
amined and explained in the presence of his 
class, made them familiar with the practice as 
well as the theory ^of their profession. Most 
of the operations which he performed were done 
in the presence of some of his students, and 
with their assistance, and every opportunity was 
afforded them to learn all that could be learned 
of every case. 

It was near midnight one evening of the win- 
ter of which I am writing, that three of the 
students were sitting in the office in front of the 
grate, in which was still burning a glowing fire. 
The wind was howling without, and driving the 
snow, which was rapidly falling, against the 
windows, and piling it up in the area, and ev- 
ery thing, even to the footsteps of the occasional 
passer-by, seemed cold and dreary in the ex- 
treme. 

" Confound it !" said John Foshay, going to 
the window and looking out upon the pelting 
storm, "I do not feel like going out in such a 
night as this. Ugh ! it makes one shudder, 
even in this warm room, only to look out at it." 
"And yet you would go in a moment in one 
of our midnight excursions, John, if the Profes- 
sor only said the word," said Paul Allen, a tall, 
raw-boned man, but whose face was full of in- 
telligence and energy. 

" Gad, and who would not !" said Foshay. 
" The satisfaction which it gives the old Doctor 
w r ould put the mettle into the dullest of us. 
Do you remember our expedition into Jersey 
last winter, and on just about such a night as 
this, and what a time we had getting the body 
up into the city ?" 

"I was not with you then," said Allen, "but 
I remember how you thought all the lady pas- 
sengers on the ferry-boat were watching you, as 
if they suspected your business." 

"Thought !" exclaimed Foshay; "no thinking 
about it, let me tell you, Paul Allen. It was 
next thing to certain. Hudson and I are too 
old hands at the business to be frightened at 
any slight suspicions. Why, the fellows watch- 
ed us as if they thought we might have some 
of their own families boxed up in the old trunk 
for dissection. But George is a perfect trump 



at such times, and he managed the thing most 
capitally. I say, George Hudson, what are you 
dreaming about?" 

The person thus addressed raised himself up 
from the sofa, where he had been sleeping for 
more than an hour, and rubbing his eyes, made 
no reply till the question was repeated again. 

"Dreaming, do you say — was I dreaming?" 
he said. "Well, I believe I was. I thought 
we had gone out into the country on a pleasant 
moonlight evening — you, and I, and Paul — and 
had taken up the body of that young lady that 
died the day before yesterday, that the old Doc- 
tor was so anxious to examine." 

"I would sacrifice a cock to ^Esculapius," 
said Paul Allen, " if that dream of yours would 
come to pass." 

" And I another," said Foshay. 

" It could hardly be on such a night as this," 
said Hudson. " By some incongruity I thought 
it was midsummer." 

" Do they not say dreams go by contraries ?" 
asked Foshay. 

"Then the girl Avould be taking us up," said 
Allen, " or her lordly old father, which is the 
most probable under all circumstances." 

"The Professor said he refused him with the 
air of a king, when he requested the examina- 
tion," said George. 

"The very reason the thing ought to be done 
any way," said Foshay. "What do you say, 
George — can't it be done ?" 

"To-night?" asked Allen, with a shrug of 
his shoulders at the tempest without. 

"No, it is too late to start now," said Foshay, 
" but it can be done to-morrow night. We will 
say nothing to the Doctor about it till we show 
him the report. What do you say, George ?" 

At this moment the door communicating 
with the Professor's house opened, and the 
Doctor's voice called, in its usual mild tone, 
" George !" 

Hudson was out with the Doctor about a 
quarter of an hour. He was a sort of confiden- 
tial student in the office. He had been there 
from his boyhood, and was acquainted with all 
the ways of his preceptor, and was intrusted 
with all his wishes. When he returned there 
was a smile on his face, and he said : 

" Dreams do sometimes come true, boys." 

"What is it, George?" exclaimed both the 
others in a breath. 

" Just what you were proposing before I went 
out," said George. 

"And he wants it done?" inquired Allen. 

" Certainly ; that is what he called me out 
for. He had gone to bed but could not sleep. 
The curious case of the young girl, he said, was 
running in his mind, and after exhausting his 
speculations upon it, and hearing our voices be- 
low, he came down to propose the very thing 
you were talking about." 

"One of the remarkable coincidences in great 
minds, Paul. Put that down to my credit, and 
if any body asks you in future days if you think 
there is any similarity in Doctor W and 



PAUL ALLEN'S WIFE, AND HOW HE FOUND HER. 



643 



Doctor Foshay, remember this," said Foshay, 
jocularly, as he patted Allen on the back. 

"Pshaw, John, none of your nonsense," said 
Allen. "Let us make our arrangements to- 
night, and be off in time to-morrow." 

The case which had excited so much interest 

in the little world of Doctor W 's office, was 

this. Maud Mansfield, the only child of Henry 
Mansfield, a gentleman of large wealth, and 
living in great style about twenty miles from 
the city, in Westchester County, had been ill 
for many months before she came with her fa- 
ther to consult Doctor W . She was a 

young lady of rare beauty and intelligence, and 
having lost her mother at an early age, the ne- 
cessity of acting the part of lady of the mansion 
to her father's friends, had developed all the 
qualities of the mature woman at the age of 
seventeen, the period at which her illness com- 
menced. At first there was little to be observed, 
but that she was more sedate and thoughtful. 
Gradually she began to avoid company and seek 
solitude, and it was with difficulty her father 
could persuade her to see his friends when they 
called. She was often found in tears, for which 
she could not, or would not give any reason. 
The hue of health began to fade from her cheek 
— her eye lost its lustre. Medical advice was 
sought, but no symptoms of disease were mani- 
fest, and her father was advised to travel with 
her. Shortly after their return from a journey 
of several weeks, symptoms began to appear to 
the servants in the house, which led them to 
hint among themselves suspicions that all was 
not as it should be with her. Soon these sus- 
picions found their way into the neighborhood, 
and at length reached the ears of her father. 
But he did not, and would not for a moment 
admit into his mind one doubt of his child's 
honor, though, even to himself, the cause of the 
disgraceful rumor was becoming daily more man- 
ifest. Doctors were called in from the neigh- 
borhood. Some, with coarse and unhesitating 
readiness, declared the cause of the rumor 
true, and he indignantly expelled them from 
the house ; others withheld their opinion, and 
could say nothing. And thus months passed 
— months of agony to Mr. Mansfield, though 
Maud seemed unaffected. She had been told 
all that was said of her, but it might sometime 
be told her by those who love to torture even 
the innocent with such cruel accusations, and 
she heard it without a tear, while she gave only 
a calm denial of its truth. It was wonderful 
witli what indifference and apathy she sat down 
to her fate. 

At length Mr. Mansfield brought her to town, 

and placed her under the care of Doctor W . 

After a full investigation of her case, he declared 
his unhesitating conviction that there was no 
foundation for the rumors against her honor, 
while, at the same time, he could not determine 
the nature of the disease. Could he cure her? 
That was a question he could not answer. He 
could try. And with all the acuteness of his 
great mind, and with all the resources of his 



wonderful skill, he applied himself to the task. 
For a time the disease seemed to be checked. 
Indeed, her father persuaded himself that she 
was better, and was elated with hopes of her 
restoration to health. But these hopes were 
doomed to disappointment, and in a few weeks 
she took to her bed, from which she never rose. 

Of course the whole history of the case and 
its progress was known in the office. It was a 
matter of careful study and discussion ; and when 
the Doctor announced to his class that there was 
no farther hope, they began at once to look for- 
ward to a post-mortem examination to resolve 
the mystery of the disease. But when all was 
over, and it was proposed to the father, he proud- 
ly and resolutely refused, and she was removed 
to his residence in the country, to be buried by 
the side of her mother. It was a disappoint- 
ment to the Doctor, in which the whole class 
participated, and led to the determination I 
have mentioned to exhume the body. 

It was arranged that Paul Allen should go 
out in the morning and survey the country, and 
ascertain the spot where she was buried, and 
Hudson and Foshay should follow in the even- 
ing with all things necessary to accomplish their 
purpose. 

When he arrived at the place the following 
day, Allen found the funeral just entering the 
church-yard, and, mingling Avith the crowd, saw 
the coffin lowered into the grave, and the earth 
heaped up, as they supposed, forever. Nothing, 
of course, remained for him to do but to wear 
away the day till his companions should arrive. 
In the mean time he listened to the story of the 
shame of the rich man's daughter, and strolled 
up to see the lordly mansion on the hill where 
he lived. 

Night came and brought Hudson and Foshay. 
They were old hands at the work, and had no 
idle fears to harass them, so they staid till a 
late hour at the little public-house in the vil- 
lage, and then calling for their horses and in- 
quiring of the landlord the distance to the next 
village in the opposite direction from which they 
had come, they drove off. One hour from that 
time they were raising the body of the dead girl 
from its new-made grave, and the moon, just 
risen, was shining cold and clear on her hueless 
face. 

"Easy," said Allen. "Handle her gently. 
I could never bear to lift out a young and beau- 
tiful girl as roughly as I can a stalwart man." 

"Well — gently as you please, Allen," said 
Foshay, " and you may sentimentalize over it 
while we fill in the dirt." 

But they were all impressed with the calm 
and beautiful face of the corpse, and laid it down 
by the side of the grave as gently and carefully 
as if they were preparing her for her burial. 

" I can not think of putting her in that sack," 
said Allen, when they were ready to go. " Sen- 
timent, or no sentiment, I do not like it. Let 
me see — it is half past twelve now, and good 
sleighing. By four o'clock we shall be at the 
office, and all snug. Now put her on the seat 



(544 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



in my sleigh — wrap her up in the blankets from 
head to foot — and I'll follow you." 

The others laughed at the conceit, but readily 
consented. 

"A merry ride to you," said Hudson. "I 
hope she will keep you warm, Paul;" and they 
drove off. 

There were strange thoughts crowding up in 
the mind of Paul Allen before he had driven a 
mile with his novel companion. They were no 
superstitious fears — no feeling of horror at the 
close proximity of the dead. He was too much 
accustomed to such things, although he had 
never been in just the same position with them 
before. But the calm beauty of the face, as he 
had seen it in the dim light of the moon, haunt- 
ed him, and he seemed to feel the look that 
crept out from the half-open lids as he had never 
felt the gaze of woman before. And he began 
to build fairy castles in which she was the lady 
of his love, and to dream dreams of quiet home 
affections and endearments, not with just such 
an one as her, but with her very self. And 
then he would wake from his dream and smile 
at his own wild fancies, only to fall away in an 
instant into the same foundationlcss vision again. 
He was, on ordinary occasions, no imaginative 
man. On the contrary, he was noted in the 
office for his matter-of-fact habits. He Avas sur- 
prised now, himself, at the vagaries he Avas un- 
controllably indulging in, yet still they ran on 
in spite of himself. He did not drive as rapid- 
ly as his companions, so that when he crossed 
Harlem river he was surprised from his reveries 
by seeing the first faint streaks of day begin- 
ning to shoot up in the east. The next instant 
he was dashing furiously down the road to the 
city, all his dreams giving way to the urgent 
necessity of securing his contraband load in the 
Doctor's house. In a few moments he was driv- 
ing rapidly down Broadway, and before the 
moonlight had faded away in the now fast-in- 
creasing light of morning he drew up his pant- 
ing horse at the office-door, and in another min- 
ute the body Avas safely deposited in the private 
dissecting-room. 

"All right now!" said Allen, as he returned 
Avith his companions to the office. " Hoav long 
have you been in ?" 

" More than an hour," said Hudson. "What 
has kept you so long on the road? We began 
to fear you had been stopped, or met with some 
accident." 

Allen made no reply to the question, but ask- 
ing Hudson and Foshay to driA T e his horse over 
to the stable Avhile he thaAved himself out, he 
sat doAvn by the grate, and in a moment was 
lost in his reveries again. At length rising and 
laying aside his over-coat, he mounted once more 
to the room Avhere they had left the body. It 
Avas lying extended on the table, still enveloped 
in the blankets they had forgotten to remoA r c. 
Allen often says, in speaking of the events of 
this night, that he could never account for the 
strange feelings Avhieh had brought him to the 
room, and which uoav dreAV him almost uncon- 



sciously or iiiA r oluntarily to the side of the dead 
girl. With a feeling of almost tenderness he 
removed the covering from the face, and again 
met the same calm, SAveet look that by moon- 
light had stolen out from the half-open lids, 
only noAv made calmer, and SAveeter, and love- 
lier far, by the mellow light of early morning 
shining in from the skylight. The eyeball did 
not seem shrunken, and shriA-eled, and sunk in, 
as is generally the case with the dead, but the 
deep blue orb Avas full and round, and glistened 
as if a tear had just risen in it, and Avas ready to 
pour over upon the long fringes of the lid. A 
lock of glossy hair had escaped from the knot 
in Avhieh it had been bound, and he smoothed 
it back into its place Avith his hand, but started 
back from the touch of the marble coldness of 
the face. DraAving a stool to the side of the 
table, he sat doAvn, and, as if bound by a spell, 
gazed for an hour upon the still and statue-like 
features and form before him. The grave-clothes 
Avere the same dress she had worn in life, and 
through its folds Avere displayed the graceful 
limbs and the round, full bust, almost, save for 
some slight emaciation, the same as if she had 
been alive. 

For the first time in years Paul Allen shrunk 
from the idea of mutilating a human body. It 
AA r as not the mere beauty of the one before him, 
for beauty and deformity had heretofore been 
all one to him. But there Avas a strange infat- 
uation upon him, and he Avished her back in her 
grave again rather than the rude hand of even 
his favorite Professor should apply the knife to 
her, dead though she might be. He had almost 
made up his mind to beg that it might not be 
done ; but he kneAv they Avould laugh at his fool- 
ish feelings, and, with a sigh and the heaviest 
heart he ever felt in his bosom, he rose to leave 
the room. He stood a moment to look once 
again upon the face that had madesuch an impres- 
sion upon him, and took one of the small hands, 
that lay crossed upon the bosom, in his OAvn. 

The rigidity had left it, and it seemed to sink 
under the pressure of his; and he fancied it felt 
AA'armer than Avhen, an hour before, he had felt 
of it. He looked at the face — there seemed 
to him to be a slight but yet perceptible glow 
upon the forehead and about the lips. He 
touched them, and they yielded to the touch. 
He thought, all at once, he could see a gentle 
quivering of the eyelids. Was he dreaming 
again? Avas it all the Avork of OA r er\vrought fan- 
cy ? He approached his face close to her's, and 
thought he felt her breath upon his cheek. He 
felt of her Avrist to ascertain if there was any 
pulse, and could fancy there Avas a slight thrill 
beneath his finger. He Avas noAv thoroughly 
roused and excited, and tearing aside the cov- 
ering from her chest, he placed his hand over 
her heart, and found it distinctly beating, but 
Avith a slow and struggling effort. 

It Avas the work of an instant to wrap her 
again in the blankets, and rush to the door 
communicating with the house, and shout for 
the Doctor, again and again, till he heard his 



PAUL ALLEN'S WIFE, AND HOW HE FOUND HER. 



645 



bedroom-door open. Then hastily returning, 
lie raised the body as carefully and gently as if 
it had been a new-born infant, and bore it to- 
ward the house. 

The surprise and consternation of the Doctor 
can not be imagined. But all other considera- 
tions yielded at once to the efforts to foster the 
spark of returning animation. She was placed 
in bed, and slowly and gradually the heart gath- 
ered strength, and the breathing became fully 
established, and she woke to consciousness. 
During that whole day Allen never left her 
side. He could not be induced even to eat, but 
all day long he held in his the hand of the re- 
viving girl, while with the other he felt the 
slowly-increasing pulse, or fanned the air to her 
feeble breath, or administered the cordials to 
her lips. The infatuation of the night before 
had increased rather than diminished by this 
singular resuscitation. He seemed to feel and 
claim a sort of property in Maud, and repelled 
every attempt even of the Doctor's wife to take 
his place. 

Toward evening life seemed to have become 
perfectly re-established. Then only did Allen 
leave his post, when he had breathed a hearty 
thanksgiving to Heaven for the life he had been 
the instrument in sparing. But every day there- 
after he passed every spare moment by her side, 
never tiring of talking to her of her singular 
escape. And Maud repaid him with many a 
languid smile. She was deeply sensible of her 
escape from a death of the most horrid form, 
thougli at first she could hardly feel glad at 
being restored to life. 

But the state in which she had lain for three 
days seemed to have produced a favorable effect 
upon her former disease, which now rapidly gave 
way, so that in a few weeks she was restored to 
perfect health. In the mean time, her father 
had been informed of the facts ; but the knowl- 
edge of them was carefully concealed from all 
except those who, as we have already seen, were 
acquainted with them. Mr. Mansfield sold all 
his property immediately after her full recov- 
ery, and removed to more distant parts, aware 
that the restoration of his daughter's health 
would only add new causes for scandal among 
all who knew them. They might say the death 
and burial of Maud was all fictitious, and add 
new malice to their cruel scorn. 

From that day Paul Allen was changed. 
Diligent and faithful as ever in his studies and 
duties, and assiduous as ever in preparing him- 
self for the pursuit of his profession, he yet lived 
a dreamy, absent life. Every night till a late 
hour he would sit, silent and thoughtful, with 
Hudson and Foshay in the office, taking no part 
in their cheerful or jocular conversation, and 
rarely aroused to say a word unless they spoke 
of Maud Mansfield and their singular night's ex- 
cursion. Then he would tell of the calm, sweet 
look that stole out from her eyes in the dim 
moonlight into his very soul, and witched him 
with its glamour. His companions respected 
his mood, and never spoke lightly of it, or men- 



tioned the subject unless they wished to rouse 
him to converse, and then it was always the 
same almost unvaried dream of those witching- 
eyes. The -memory of Maud had become an 
idol in the innermost shrine of his heart, that 
he seemed to be worshiping day and night. 

The next spring he took his degree. In his 
examination he stood — if I may use the expres- 
sion — head and shoulders above all the class. 
He was a man of noble intellect and profound 
study and thought, so that it was often matter 
of controversy with Hudson and Foshay wheth- 
er the memory of Maud Mansfield had not pro- 
duced a general rather than a particular effect 
upon his mind, and whether, when they imag- 
ined him thinking of her, he was not in reality 
studying out some of the problems of medicine. 
The only thing worthy of remark at his gradu- 
ation was the subject of his thesis — " Death." 
When it was announced, all anticipated a fan- 
ciful or metaphysical essay. But they were dis- 
appointed. It was a profound and masterly in- 
quiry into its causes — the changes in the system 
which produce it, and the changes it produces — 
and the probable and certain signs of its having 
actually taken place. 

The last evening the three companions spent 

together in Doctor W 's office was occupied 

by Hudson and Foshay in discussing their plans 
for the future. Allen, as usual, took no part 
in the conversation. Midnight drew on and 
passed. It was near three o'clock before they 
rose to depart. 

"Well, Paul," said Foshay, "tell us, before 
you go, where we shall next hear of Doctor 
Paul Allen?" 

"I shall fill my place somewhere," he re- 
plied, "as indifferently well as here. It mat- 
ters little where." 

" But tell us, at least," said Hudson, taking 
his hand and pressing it in a warm and friend- 
ly grasp, "will you never cease dreaming of 
those eyes, Paul?" 

"Men arc not always what they seem, 
George," he answered, extending his other 
hand to Foshay. "The time will come when 
we will know each other better than we do 
even now. The events of that night were not 
without their design, and are working it out in 
my history. I shall never forget her — and, 
more than that, I am firmly persuaded I shall 
see her again. If it had not been for that be- 
lief, your friend, Paul Allen, would have been 
before this in a madhouse. 

The scene changes. Old things have passed 
away. Seven years have gone by and left their 
mark upon all the persons of our story. All 
these years has Paul Allen been waiting for 
business in a large city in the West. He might 

as well have been still in Doctor W 's office 

in New York. He made no effort to introduce 
himself to the people. He formed no acquaint- 
ances, and no one sought him. His reserved 
and taciturn disposition repelled any approach 
from strangers, and with the exception of an 



G4G 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



occasional case to a poor family, or an accident- 
al summons to one of a better class, in which 
he made no effort to install himself, he was liv- 
ing on the same dreamy life in which we left 
him years ago. The only change was in his 
personal appearance. Instead of careless in- 
difference in dress, he was almost a model of 
style in every thing he wore, and this alone 
made him an entirely different man. His of- 
fice was near the outskirts of the city, which 
were rapidly building up with large and ele- 
gant houses, but this made no difference in his 
success. 

He was standing in his office-door one after- 
noon, just dismissing a poor patient upon whom 
he had performed some trifling operation. Just 
at this moment a traveling-carriage, drawn by 
a pair of powerful horses, came dashing furious- 
ly down the street. The driver had been thrown 
off some distance back, and the animals, mad 
with fright, and with the reins tangling about 
their heels, were running wildly and kicking 
fearfully at every leap. The inmates of the 
carriage — a gentleman of mature age and a very 
beautiful lady, evidently his junior by very many 
years — seemed palsied with terror. 

As they came in front of the office a wheel 
gave way, and the carriage was thrown over and 
over and dashed in pieces, while, with a wild 
snort and one mad plunge, the horses disen- 
gaged themselves and disappeared down the 
street. The gentleman and lady were borne 
into the office, and the lady was laid upon the 
sofa. It soon appeared that the former was but 
slightly injured, and he soon revived. But the 
lady seemed dead. There was no pulse at her 
wrist, and the heart had ceased to beat. She 
did not breathe. Her hair fell loosely and un- 
confined over a neck of marble whiteness. Her 
eyes were open — her large, lustrous blue eyes — 
and they alone looked like life. 

Paul took from his pocket a small phial, and 
gently parting the lips with his finger, carefully 
let fall a single drop upon her tongue. A mo- 
ment he stood and watched its effect in silence. 
A slight and scarcely perceptible shudder seem- 
ed to pass over her, and was gone. 

" Another !" said he, as if speaking to himself, 
and with equal care as at first, he let another 
drop fall upon her lips. There was another 
shudder — more powerful than the first — almost 
a convulsion — a flash of light seemed to shoot 
from her eyes — her brow contracted — and she 
turned her eyes full upon the Doctor. 

He started, while a thrill of almost pain shot 
to his heart, and in an instant he had traveled 
back the seven past years of his life, and was 

standing in Doctor W 's dissecting-room, 

drinking into his soul the dim but strange light 
that flowed out from the eyes of Maud Mans- 
field. It would be a mistake to suppose that for 
all these years he had been thinking of nothing 
else but her. It was no such thing. The truth 
is, he had almost forgotten her, although the 
events of that night had left a sobering and 
serious influence upon his mind which he had 



never made an effort to rid himself of, thou'di 
there were times when, as if to keep her image 
from fading utterly away, the same old glamour 
would gather about him, and he would sit till 
after midnight thinking of her and her strange 
witchery upon him. But that one glance from 
the eyes of this stranger had in an instant re- 
vived the very feelings he had at that time. 
He looked again, and the expression was gone. 
It could not be the same, he told himself. 
Could he have forgotten her very face ? 

" She lives !" said he again, musingly, as he 
laid his finger on her lips. 

"You are badly injured," he then said to her. 
" The gentleman is well. You must be very 
quiet. You will be well cared for. Now, lie 
very still." 

There was a long, and apparently deep cut in 
her temple, which he dressed, and applied lo- 
tions to her injuries. She looked ten thousand 
thanks, and again that peculiar expression. 
Paul turned away to her companion. 

" She is safe," he said. 

"It was a terrible accident," said the stranger. 

"It is wonderful how much it takes to kill 
sometimes," said Allen. 

" And sometimes a very little does the work," 
replied the stranger. 

" True," said Paul ; " but then that very little 
becomes a powerful cause, as when the point of 
a foil enters by the eye, and pierces through the 
thin, wafter-like bone, into the brain." 

" And I," said the other, " have somewhere 
seen an account of a man who had the whole 
breach of a musket driven through the roof of 
his mouth into his brain, and he recover- 
ed." 

"Life is a strange phenomenon," said Paul. 
" We live our days out in spite of all accidents, 
and when the time comes we go out with a 
breath. Till that time comes we can bear muti- 
lation — injuries of the most fearful kind. The 
pestilence passes by us and leaves us unharmed. 
We may seek death in vain, like the Wander- 
ing Jew. The poison we may drink is rejected, 
aud we are uninjured. All things are harmless. 
But when the time arrives, the mote in the air 
chokes us — our food becomes the poison that 
generates disease. A single drop of the bane 
we drank before and found innocuous, is laden 
with death. We must yield, in spite of remedy 
or resistance." 

"You are a fatalist," said the stranger. 

"Who is not," he replied, "who believes in 
an infinite God? one whose knowledge is bound- 
less, and who has the supreme and sole control 
of the universe he has made? It would be 
charging him with finite weakness to suppose 
that he left his creation to follow mere chance. 
He either impressed upon the universe some de- 
terminate law that governs life and fixes the pe- 
riod of its duration, or else — what is incontro- 
vertibly true — he watches over us with his all- 
seeing eye, and measures out our days with a 
span, and when that span is passed, says 'Re- 
turn to the earth !' and we die." 



SNAKE CHARMING. 



647 



"Why, then," asked the stranger, "must we 
employ means to prolong life?" 

" Why eat to sustain it ?" inquired Paul, in 
return. "Because, if life is to be lengthened, 
the decree is that the means must be used. You 
saw me apply a single drop to this lady's lips. 
It produced an effect. But had I stopped there 
she would never have awaked. It was neces- 
sary that so much should be used. One drop 
more would have probably extinguished the 
spark. Now she lives." 

He took her hand in his, and laid his finger 
on her pulse. 

" Reaction is coming on," he said. 

Then taking from his pocket another phial, 
and letting a drop fall into a glass, and adding 
a little water, he gave it to her, saying, 

" Drink this, and go to sleep." 

A quiet seemed almost immediately to steal 
over her. Objects faded gradually, yet rapidly 
from her sight, became dim, and disappeared. 
Her eyelids closed gently over those lustrous 
orbs — and she was asleep. 

" That is not death, though so very like," said 
Paul, as he stood for a moment gazing with a 
smile upon that face, the most beautiful he had 
ever beheld. He was thinking of Maud. Now, 
as the lady lay wrapt in slumber, there came 
back to him the memory of her features and 
form as she looked that night on the table in 
the dissecting-room ; and though he could see 
much of the same look now — enough to call 
back such memories — yet, after all, it was not 
entirely the same. Could a few years of added 
age make the change? He was bewildered. The 
old gentleman, her companion, was certainly not 
Henry Mansfield, her father. He asked him his 
name, and he said it was Anderson. 

"And this is your daughter?" asked Allen. 

" No. She is my sister's child. Her mother 
has been dead many years, and her father died 
about a month since." 

"And may I ask her name?" said Allen, 
with some hesitation. 

" It is Mansfield," replied the other. 

"Maud!" exclaimed Allen, turning to look 
again at her. Here eyes were half open, and 
there streamed out from them the same calm, 
sweet look that had so long ago bound him with 
a spell he could not break. He could doubt no 
longer; and again he was lost in dreams far 
wilder than before. 

It was sunset when she woke. She was then 
carefully removed to the nearest hotel, and it 
was several days before she was able to resume 
her journey. On one of these days Paul was 
sitting by her, watching every look and motion, 
to catch one of those glances whose memory was 
now lingering about his heart with ten-fold more 
fondness than ever before, when she noticed his 
gaze, and suddenly exclaimed, 

"I have seen you before. Doctor! Where 
can it have been ? It seems as if it was in just 
such circumstances as the present." 

Paul made no reply, while she was looking 
with a half-bewildered stare in his face. 



" Can it be possible," she at length said, with 
a slight shudder, as if the light were breaking 
in upon her recollection — "can it be Mr. Al- 
len ?" 

" It is," said Paul ; " the same who took you 
from the grave, and watched your recovery so 
many years ago." 

"And now I owe you my life the second 
time," said Maud. 

Six months from that time Hudson and Fo- 
shay received each a letter from Paul Allen, 
which, upon being compared, were discovered 
to be precise copies of each other. Part of 
them ran thus : 

"Three weeks from this date I shall be in 
New York to be married, and then I will answer 
your last question when we separated, for I shall 
then cease to dream of Maud Mansfield's eyes, 
and not till then. A vision of beauty and love 
has entered into my heart, and I have no place 
for aught else there. I have lived here six years 
waiting v for business in vain. I am not discour- 
aged, for that I never was. But I shall ' throw 
physic to the dogs,' convinced that I have found 
a panacea for all diseases that will not get well 
without medicine. Let me assure you there is 
no remedy for incurable diseases so efficacious 
as twelve hour£ burial." 

The two friends were sorely puzzled with the 
contents of their letters ; but all was explained 
when, three w r eeks afterward, in the queenly 
beauty of Paul Allen's wife they recognized the 
features of the girl they had stolen from the 
grave on that Avintcr's night seven years before. 

SNAKE CHARMING. 

BY A. M. HENDERSON, M.D. 

THE recent science of Geology, in revealing 
the winders of the reptile races of the ante- 
diluvian world, has added a great and increas- 
ing interest to the study of the habits and in- 
stincts of the living specimens. Comparative 
anatomists, in establishing a connection between 
the extinct races and those which at present ex- 
ist, have done much to create an interest for 
this branch of Natural History, of which so lit- 
tle is known, and around which a superstition 
as old as the world still lingers. An interest to 
know more of the natural history of the snake 
has been awakened by an article recently pub- 
lished in your Magazine,* and I propose to add 
some facts and speculations regarding the sub- 
ject, so that from a multitude of witnesses the 
truth may be reached. 

As a general thing, most snakes we meet with 
in America are harmless, and I believe such to be 
the case everywhere. With very few exceptions, 
they all swim well in water, and are as much at 
home in the element as the musk-rat and other 
amphibious animals. All that numerous variety 
of water-snake classed under the general denom- 
ination of "Water Moccasin," seek concealment 
in the water when danger threatens, and arc not 
easily drowned. They may be called semi-am- 
phibious, if* such an expression is allowable 
* See Number for March, 1856. 



C48 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



The constrictors possess this attribute in com- 
mon with the water-snakes, and, indeed, such is 
the instinct of all snakes with which I am ac- 
quainted. 

Of all the poisonous snakes found in North 
Carolina, and I believe throughout our country, 
there is but one — the rattlesnake — the bite of 
which is fatal. That death may ensue after the 
bite of other poisonous serpents is probable, for 
I know that the sting of a bee or wasp is some- 
times fatal ; but this fatality is not due to the 
power or concentration of the poison either of 
the bee or snake, but to some peculiar organiz- 
ation of the person bitten, or to some predis- 
posing cause. It is remarkable that while many 
of our domestic animals suffer from the bite of 
poisonous serpents, our cattle seem to be exempt 
from injury from this cause. After repeated and 
careful inquiry, I have never heard of one being 
injured by the bite of the snake. 

There is a popular belief that snakes are blind 
in the month of August, and that, being at this 
time unusually irritable, they are consequently 
more dangerous. Snakes shed their skins an- 
nually, and in confinement I have known them 
to do this three times during the continuance of 
the warm months. When this process is about 
to commence, the eye assumes a milky appear- 
ance ; the cornea is then separating, or has sep- 
ated from the new one beneath it, rendering the 
snake blind until the process is completed. I 
have no doubt that the reptile is more irritable 
while shedding its skin, and more malignant 
than at other times, and, being blind, it will 
strike whenever a sound approaches. The com- 
mon black and king snakes, both belonging to 
the constrictor tribe, possess a strength truly 
astonishing. Either of these snakes, with a 
half or two-thirds of its body in a hole, leading 
into the hollow of a log sufficiently capacious to 
allow the snake to throw a portion of its body 
within the log, at right angles with that part 
without, will defy the strength of an athletic 
man to remove it from its position. I have 
actually pulled snakes asunder in my efforts to 
accomplish this feat. 

It is extremely doubtful, as a general rule, 
whether any snake takes its prey by first killing 
it by poison. Fangs were given to the serpent 
as a means of defense ; its secretion is slow, and 
the supply of poison is limited for the emer- 
gency ; an unnecessary expenditure of it would, 
therefore, be contrary to the very law that gives 
it as a means of defense. The spreading adder 
is not a constrictor, nor is it a venomous snake, 
and is nearly, if not quite as sluggish as the rat- 
tlesnake. This snake pursues and captures its 
prey without the aid of poison. Why, then, 
should the rattlesnake be compelled to resort 
to poison? for we shall presently endeavor to 
show that it has, in common with other snakes, 
the power of pursuing its prey. The theory of 
a special odor as applied to the snake, I have 
known ascribed to the alligator ; but it appears 
to infringe somewhat upon the supposed power 
of fascination, which is generally thought to be 



sufficient of itself to attract the prey within 
reach of the fatal blow. 

That the coil is not aft attitude necessary to 
most snakes when about to seize their prey, is 
certain, and I think it is equally certain that it 
is not indispensable to the rattlesnake, my opin- 
ion being founded upon personal observation. 
The coil is common to all snakes, and is their 
natural attitude of offense and defense. Out of 
the coil, however, with a half or two-thirds of 
their body retreated in curves, they are quite as 
dangerous, and can strike with equal violence. 
The rattlesnake, therefore, can seize prey as 
other snakes do, and there is nothing in its or- 
ganization, so far as I have perceived, to pre- 
vent it pursuing and capturing its prey. 

The snake is a hibernating animal, and does 
not take food during the winter months, and it 
is only in the warm weather that it eats at all, 
and then only at long intervals. The serpent 
tribe universally, and the rattlesnake in partic- 
ular, have a wonderful capability of resisting 
hunger : one or two meals are quite sufficient 
for a rattlesnake during the summer months ; 
and I think, and hazard nothing in asserting, 
that a snake of this species would not starve if 
deprived of food during the whole of that pe- 
riod. Providence has given the power of resist- 
ing the inroads of hunger in a greater or less 
degree to the carnivorous animals, in order to 
protect their lives in cases of accident depriving 
them of the means of pursuit. An eagle or a 
buzzard would die, if deprived of their wing 
feathers, unless thus provided for. We find 
the rattlesnake in situations where it must have 
gone to seek for prey, and where the attitude of 
a coil would be impossible — for instance, in the 
burrows of the prairie-dog. If the stupefying ef- 
fects of the odor of the rattlesnake is a neces- 
sary auxiliary to the power of fascination, why 
was it withheld from the spreading adder, for 
it, too, is a noted fascinator? That this snake 
does not possess a special narcotizing odor is cer- 
tain, for I have seen it soon after swallowing a 
frog, eject it from its stomach perfectly alive, 
and which latter animal, after a few rapid winks, 
to clear its eyes from slime, would hop off with 
great dispatch. 

Mr. J. H. Ennis,now a resident of Salisbury, 
North Carolina, and fours years ago the lessee 
of the Mansion House Hotel in the same town, 
had a rattlesnake confined in a large box, the 
fangs of which were extracted, and a rat was 
placed in the same box with him. Left alone, 
they exhibited no disposition to harm one anoth- 
er. Molest the snake, and he would assume an 
attitude of hostililty, and set his rattles to work. 
On such occasions the rat would invariably 
evince much alarm, and would endeavor to es- 
cape, but finding this hopeless, he would ap- 
proach the snake, receive his blow, and then in 
turn would attack and bite the snake. I wit- 
nessed this contest many times. 

Here was excitement identical with that at- 
tending upon the charming process, for the 
snake's attitude and acts were precisely similar 



SNAKE CHARMING. 



649 



to those attendant on the power of fascination, 
and the excitement on the part of the snake 
■was certainly not dependent upon the presence 
of the rat, nor was it caused by the desire for 
food, yet it operated upon the rat precisely as 
in the case just stated. Rats, as well as many 
other animals, will, when hopeless of escape, at- 
tack the enemy about to destroy them, however 
great the disparity of strength may be. 

Mankind, after investing the snake with the 
power of fascination, in turn claim to extend 
over the snake a power equally mysterious and 
wonderful. This power is called snake charm- 
ing, by which is meant a power possessed by 
some of handling with impunity poisonous 
snakes — a power acquired, in the first instance, 
by the influence which man is known to exert 
over them ; and secondly, by some mysterious 
controlling power exercised by the charmer 
over the serpent, that renders it powerless to 
inflict injury. That many persons do handle 
poisonous snakes with impunity seems to be a 
well-established fact ; but that this immunity 
from injury proceeds from, or is due to some 
peculiar organization or idiosyncrasy on the part 
of the person handling the snake, is, I think, sus- 
ceptible of very great doubt. For many years I 
have been, for the sake of examination or amuse- 
ment, in the habit of catching and handling, 
when ever I met with them, all snakes which I 
knew were not poisonous. I have always found 
that, however furious and disposed to bite before 
and after capture, they soon become thoroughly 
subdued after being handled for a short time. I 
kept three snakes in my bedroom during an en- 
tire summer, and handled them daily in every 
possible way, yet I never knew one attempt to 
bite. 

The snake-charmers, wherever found, before 
catching the snake, invariably places it under 
the soothing and attracting influence of music ; 
for, in common with some other animals, snakes 
yield themselves readily to this influence. The 
snake is then caught by the neck, being thus 
disabled from biting ; and after being handled 
for a short time, it ceases to make the attempt. 
This characteristic does not belong to the snake 
tribe alone. Washington Irving, in his Tour 
on the Prairies, gives a graphic picture of the 
taming of the wild horse. In a very short time 
the horse discovers that he is mastered, and 
powerless to inflict injury ; he then yields him- 
self to his fate, and is thoroughly subdued. 
Whether this explains and reveals the wonder- 
ful power of the snake-charmer, is for future 
experiment to determine. 

Some years ago, I met with a large rattle- 
snake in Ash County, situated in the mountain- 
ous part of North Carolina. I cut a rod, some 
ten feet in length, and commenced whipping 
him, to see whether, by tormenting, I could in- 
duce him to bite, and thus kill himself. I did 
not succeed, although I thrashed him soundly. 
Here was a fine chance for him to avenge him- 
self upon his tormentor by bringing into play 
his boasted power of fascination. Yet he 



not do so, although he was in his coil, eyes 
glistening and rattles humming at least twenty 
times during the period I permitted him to live. 
I examined him critically, exchanged glances 
with him, with his rattler humming in my ears, 
yet I felt no symptoms of being fascinated ; 
neither was I, in the slightest degree, affected 
by any odor, although most of the time I was 
within ten feet or less of him, and such, too, it 
appears to me, will be the experience with any 
and all persons who are not afraid of snakes. 

A gentleman of high standing and of estab- 
lished veracity informed me that the negroes 
belonging to his father, while at work in the 
field, killed a rattlesnake of such unusual size 
that they were induced to bring it to the house 
that the family might see it. Its head was 
chopped off and left in the field. The snake 
was laid under some shade-trees, upon the 
branches of which a pair of mocking-birds had 
built their nest. The birds soon discovered 
the snake, and at once sounded their notes of 
alarm and. distress ; they commenced approach- 
ing, and finally came in immediate contact with 
the snake. In short, they exhibited all the 
phenomena of the fascinated in perfection, with 
the exception, that they did not jump into the 
snake's mouth, which, fortunately for them, was 
a mile distant. 

I have frequently heard it asserted, that the 
snake, after fascinating the bird, opens its mouth 
and the bird jumps into it. To test the truth 
of this, I caught a black spreading adder, and 
tying an end of a piece of twine around his 
neck, I made the other end fast to some shrub- 
bery that grew in the yard, and near some oth- 
er shrubbery in which a pair of mocking-birds 
had their nests. The snake was soon discov- 
ered by the birds, and in a short time they were 
as much fascinated as birds ever become. They 
approached the reptile with feathers reversed, 
uttering their notes of alarm, and were a dozen 
times in contact with him. On the other hand, 
the snake seemed only bent on escaping, and in 
his efforts to accomplish this, had neither time 
nor inclination to exert his famed power of fas- 
cination. It was exerted, however, to its fullest 
extent, so far as the birds were concerned. At 
length the snake, in its efforts to escape, brought 
his body so far through the loop twine around 
his neck that he suffocated. This made no dif- 
ference, and the birds continued to be as much 
fascinated after as before his death. They were 
several times driven away, but would as often 
return. 

In these instances, what becomes of the won* 
drous power of the serpent's eye? Mark this, 
for we shall advert to it again — two birds were 
charmed at one and the same time by a sin- 
gle snake. If snakes have this power, may we 
not suppose it somewhat akin to, if not identi- 
cal, with mesmerism? If this bo so, it must 
be exerted through the eye or by contact. But 
it is asserted by the advocates of this science, 
that the will has control of the subject acted 
upon by it. In this case, however, the eye or 



G50 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



contact must have first brought the subject in 
a fit condition to be acted upon by the will. 
All this supposes vitality to exist. If a dead 
snake exert it, what becomes of this science as 
applied to snakes? But throwing mesmerism 
out of the question, fascination, if it exist at all, 
must be dependent upon vitality, and exercised 
by means of the eye ; yet a dead snake exerts it. 

I will state here, that fascination is only seen 
iii perfection during the season of incubation, 
and while the birds are rearing their young. 
There is a marked difference between the ac- 
tions of birds when in the presence of the snake 
during this period and at other times when not 
so engaged. I will now endeavor to account 
for all the phenomena exhibited by the birds 
while in the presence of the tempter, without 
invoking the aid of this mysterious power — fas- 
cination. 

To do this, however, it will be necessary first 
to establish the fact, that inferior animals rea- 
son, or that they possess faculties susceptible of 
improvement, and that they profit by experience, 
observation, and parental teaching. All modern 
naturalists, I believe, agree that they do possess 
this faculty. That with them instinct is the 
predominant and reason the lesser faculty, and 
the opposite of this is that in regard to man. 
The word instinct means something fixed, un- 
improvable, consequently susceptible of no ad- 
vance, and is resistless in its impulse. A rob- 
in builds her nest now as in the beginning : this 
illustrates instinct. The hut of the savage has, 
by progression, been improved into the pal- 
ace, showing what the larger development of 
reason accomplishes. Now let us see if the in- 
ferior animals do possess faculties susceptible 
of advance and improvement. An animal (man 
inclusive) which had never seen a snake, would 
have no more fear of one than it would have of 
an eel under similar circumstances. It is the 
experience of all frontiersmen, that a deer that 
has never seen a man has little or no fear of 
him. Experience is necessaiy, it would seem, 
even to make human beings afraid of serpents, 
although it is supposed the dread is instinctive. 
Mr. M. M'Cowley, a substantial citizen of this 
State, a short time after landing in this coun- 
try (he being a native of Ireland), and while 
wandering in search of a home, met with a rat- 
tlesnake lying in his path. Here was a good 
opportunity for testing the existence of discrim- 
inating fear; of this M'Cowley felt nothing, 
for placing his stick upon the snake's head, he 
seized it by the neck, utterly unconscious of his 
danger, and carried it to the next house. He 
entered, and, throwing the snake upon the floor, 
to the extreme terror of its inmates, he inquired 
what animal it was. M'Cowley had never be- 
fore seen a snake, nor had he a correct idea of 
its form. 

Birds, seals, and other animals found for the 
first time on uninhabited islands, are regardless 
of the presence of man ; so a quail or chick- 
en would evince no fear of a hawk had they 
never seen one. A distinguished writer says 



that the wild turkey is a foolish bird when found 
beyond the settlements; in the settlements no 
animal is more wary. A hen, by her peculiar 
cluck (which her brood well understand), tells 
her charge of the approach of the hawk. This 
note and its import have been told them by 
their mother, and the knowledge of it is not in- 
stinctive, for a brood of young ducks, hatched 
and reared by the same hen, understand and 
obey the same note. All this proves that the 
inferior animals do possess faculties susceptible 
of improvement, and this constitutes reason ; 
otherwise deer, birds, seals, etc., should, under 
any, and all circumstances, exhibit the same 
constant dread of man ; we know they do not. 
The turkey should be as stupid in one situation 
as another, and young ducks would not under- 
stand the note of their foster-mother. Again, 
all animals have the instinct of fear, but, as we 
have seen in the case of M'Cowley, this does 
not teach them which enemy to avoid. 

This education, whether from parental teach- 
ing, or from observation, or experience, accom- 
plishes for them ; and farther, it is a fixed law 
of nature, that each race of animals, without 
exception, either eats or is eaten by some other 
race, and that each race has its peculiar modes 
of attack, defense, and escape ; the defense and 
escape dependent upon the mode of attack. 
We will now apply all this to the question at 
issue. 

Carnivorous animals either take their prey 
by agility or stratagem ; in this case strategy is 
made use of. Experience (reason) has taught 
the snake that all animals have learned to hold 
him in great terror. Observation and experi- 
ence have also taught him that, when once seen, 
birds will come within his reach, provided he 
remains perfectly still. During the season of in- 
cubation and of rearing their young, birds will 
come within his reach whether he is at rest or 
in motion. So soon, therefore, as he sees the 
birds have seen him, he remains motionless. 
If it be in the breeding season, parental instinct 
or affection impels the bird to attack him, and 
under this impulse, the strongest known to na- 
ture, the bird frequently sacrifices its own life 
in vain efforts to save that of its offspring. The 
peculiarity in the bird's mode of attack is due 
to its particular instinct. Many other animals, 
prompted by parental instinct and solicitude, 
will suffer death before they will desert their 
young. Now add to this parental instinct the 
anxiety and distress consequent to the knowl- 
edge that their offspring are about to be de- 
stroyed, and it accounts for many, if not all of 
the phenomena in question. 

Hence, it is evident that parental affection 
and solicitude prompts the bird to preserve the 
life of its young, and completely overshadows 
the modicum of reason which it possesses. In- 
deed, the birds on these occasions seem to lose 
their senses altogether, precisely as it would be 
with a woman who has an affectionate mother 
under similar circumstances. A remarkable 
trait, frequently exhibited by birds as well as 



A NIGHTLY SCENE IN LONDON. 



051 



by other animals, is often mistaken by the care- 
less observer for fascination ; I allude to curi- 
osity, which is as strong in the inferior races as 
in man. A hunter conceals himself in the 
grass on the prairies, and by gently waving his 
hankerchief, attached to the end of his ramrod, 
attracts the deer within reach of his rifle. Ap- 
proach a squirrel feeding in the woods on the 
ground, so that he does not see you ; give him 
a sudden fright by throwing a stone at him, and 
at the same time screaming at the top of your 
voice, and he will take up the first tree within 
his reach. Remain perfectly still, and he will 
soon endeavor to find out the cause of his alarm, 
and will, in the end, descend the tree and come 
right up to you, exhibiting, however, much cau- 
tion in his approach. Trolling for ducks on 
the Potomac River, furnishes an instance where 
birds yield to this attraction. 

A snake in motion or at rest is seen by the 
bird at other than the breeding season ; if at 
rest, curiosity comes in play, for the bird is by 
no means sure of the snake's identity; hence 
he approaches cautiously and doubtingly. When 
he is satisfied he has found out his enemy, he 
will attack him, or if not, he is sure to scold 
him soundly by his chattering. It is a com- 
mon occurrence among birds for the weaker to 
attack the stronger, provided the stronger be a 
a bird of prey or an enemy to its race, as is the 
case with the snake. Now when the bird under 
these circumstances attacks the snake, it is, in 
the opinion of wonder-seekers, fascination. 

Let us now inquire if man can not himself 
fascinate as well as the snake. One warm sum- 
mer's evening I had taken off my coat, and was 
sitting in the piazza of an office built in the 
midst of a grove in which some colts were graz- 
ing. I had on a black vest and white pants ; 
my feet were resting on the railing of the piazza) 
and my body thrown back at an angle of forty- 
five degrees. The colts came around the cor- 
ner of the office in full view of me, and were 
much alarmed at my party-colored costume and 
uncouth attitude. They threw up their heads 
and tails, and galloped off some fifty yards, 
when they turned and gazed at me with great 
wonder and curiosity. They soon began cau- 
tiously to approach, until within a short dis- 
tance, when, after eying me curiously, they 
again galloped off, and a second time turned 
and gazed at me as before. This they contin- 
ued to do, advancing and retreating as long as 
I remained stationary: so soon as I moved and 
changed my position, the charm was broken. 

Here is pretty much the same condition of 
fascination as is exhibited by birds out of the 
breeding season. 

Another instance, in which, however, the ani- 
mal charmed was a bird: I was partially con- 
cealed while sitting late one evening on the 
banks of a mill-pond, awaiting the arrival of 
wild ducks that were in the habit of roosting in 
the pond. A Avren observed me, and began to 
exhibit great uneasiness, hopping from twig to 
twig, and uttering cries of distress. While I 



remained perfectly still, the wren was a dozen 
times within my reach ; in short, it was fasci- 
nated. I moved, and again the charm was 
broken. Had a snake instead of myself excited 
the bird's curiosity, it would, after being satis- 
fied of the identity of the snake, have attacked 
it — such is, at least, the usual habit of birds. 

If fascination is dependent upon some power 
emanating from the snake's eye, it must exert 
its power through the eye of the animal acted 
upon, and the gaze must be constant and mu- 
tual ; consequently but one bird should be 
brought under its influence at a time. Yet two 
or a dozen may be seen round a snake, dead 
or alive. Place a dead snake in view of a 
mocking-bird's nest, and both birds will be- 
come charmed at the same time. 



A NIGHTLY SCENE IN LONDON. 

BY CHARLES DICKENS. 

ON the fifth of last November, I, accompanied 
by a friend well known to the public, acci- 
dentally strayed into Whitechapel. It was a 
miserable evening ; very dark, very muddy, and 
raining hard. 

There are many woeful sights in that part of 
London, and it has been well known to me, in 
most of its aspects, for many years. We had 
forgotten the mud and rain in slowly Avalkirig 
along and looking about us, when we found our- 
selves, at eight o'clock, before the Workhouse. 

Crouched against the wall of the Workhouse, 
in tho dark street, on the muddy pavement- 
stones, with the rain raining upon them, were 
five bundles of rags. They were motionless, 
and had no resemblance to the human form. 
Eive great bee-hives, covered with rags — five 
dead bodies taken out of graves, tied neck-and- 
heels, and covered with rags — would have look- 
ed like those five bundles upon which the rain 
rained down in the public street. 

" What is this ?" said my companion. "What 
is this ?" 

" Some miserable people shut out of the Cas- 
ual Ward, I think," said I. 

We had stopped before the five ragged mounds, 
and were quite rooted to the spot by their hor- 
rible appearance. Five awful Sphinxes by the 
wayside, crying to every passer-by, " Stop and 
guess ! What is to be the end of a state of so- 
ciety that leaves us here !" 

As we stood looking at them, a decent work- 
ing-man, having the appearance of a stone- 
mason, touched me on the shoulder. 

" This is an awful sight, Sir," said he, " in a 
Christian country !" 

" God knows it is, my friend," said I. 

" I have often seen it much worse than this, 
as I have been going home from my work. [ 
have counted fifteen, twenty, five-and-twenty, 
many a time. It's a shocking thing to see." 

"A shocking thing, indeed," said I and my 
companion together. The man lingered near 
us a little while, wished us good-night, and 
went on. 

We should have felt it brutal in us who had 



G52 



HAKPEK'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



a Letter chance of being heard than the work- 
ing-man, to leave the thing as it was, so we 
knocked at the Workhouse gate. I undertook 
to be spokesman. The moment the gate was 
opened by an old pauper, I went in, followed 
close by my companion. I lost no time in pass- 
ing the old porter, for I saw in his watery eye a 
disposition to shut us out. 

" Be so good as to giye that card to the mas- 
ter of the Workhouse, and say I shall be glad 
to speak to him for a moment." 

We were in a kind of covered gateway, and 
the old porter went across it with the card. Be- 
fore he had got to a door on our left, a man in 
a cloak and hat bounced out of it very sharp- 
ly, as if he were in the nightly habit of being 
bullied, and of returning the compliment. 

"Now, gentlemen," said he, in a loud voice, 
"what do you want here?" 

"First," said I, "will you do me the favor to 
look at that card in your hand. Perhaps you 
may know my name." 

"Yes," says he, looking at it. " I know this 
name." 

" Good. I only want to ask you a plain ques- 
tion in a civil manner, and there is not the least 
occasion for either of us to be angry. It would 
be very foolish in me to blame you, and I don't 
blame you. I may find fault with the system 
you administer, but pray understand that I 
know you are here to do a duty pointed out to 
you, and that I have no doubt you do it. Now, 
I hope you won't object to tell me what I want 
to know." 

"No," said he, quite mollified, and very rea- 
sonable, " not at all. What is it ?" 

" Do you know that there are five wretched 
creatures outside ?" 

"I haven't seen them, but I dare say there 
are." 

" Do you doubt that there are ?" 

" No, not at all. There might be many more." 

"Are they men, or women ?" 

" Women, I suppose. Very likely one or two 
of them were there last night, and the night be- 
fore last," 

There all night, do you mean ?" 

" Very likely." 

My companion and I looked at one another, 
and the master of the Workhouse added quick- 
ly, " Why, Lord bless my soul ! what am I to 
do ? What can I do ? The place is full. The 
place is always fall — every night. I must give 
the preference to women with children, mustn't 
I? You wouldn't have me not do that?" 

" Surely not," said I. "It is a very humane 
principle, and quite right ; and I am glad to 
hear of it. Don't forget that I don't blame 
you." 

" Well !" said he. And subdued himself 
again. 

"What I want to ask you," I went on, "is 
whether you know any thing against those five 
miserable beings outside ?" 

" Don't know any thing about them," said he, 
with a wave of his arm. 



" I ask, for this reason : that we mean to give 
them a trifle to get a lodging — if they are not 
shelterless because they are thieves, for instance. 
— You don't know them to be thieves ?" 

" I don't know any thing about them," he re- 
peated emphatically. 

" That is to say, they are shut out, solely be- 
cause the Ward is full ?" 

" Because the Ward is full." 

"And if they got in, they would only have a 
roof for the night and a bit of bread in the morn- 
ing, I suppose?" 

" That's all. You'll use your own discretion 
about what you give them. Only understand 
that I don't know any thing about them beyond 
what I have told you." 

" Just so. I wanted to know no more. You 
have answered my question civilly and readily, 
and I am much obliged to you. I have no- 
thing to say against you, but quite the contrary. 
Good-night !" 

" Good-night, gentlemen !" And out we came 
again. 

We went to the ragged bundle nearest to the 
Workhouse-door, and I touched it. No move- 
ment replying, I gently shook it. The rags be- 
gan to be slowly stirred within, and by little and 
little a head was unshrouded. The head of a 
young woman of three or four-and-twenty, as I 
should judge ; gaunt with want, and foul with 
dirt, but not naturally ugly. 

"Tell us," said I, stooping down, " why are 
you lying here ?" 

" Because I can't get into the Workhouse." 

She spoke in a faint, dull way, and had no 
curiosity or interest left. She looked dreamily 
at the black sky and the falling rain, but never 
looked at me or my companion. 

" Were you here last night ?" 
• "Yes. All last night. And the night afore 
too." 

" Do you know any of these others ?" 

"I know her next bat one. She was here 
last night, and she told me she come out of 
Essex. I don't know no more of her." 

" You were here all last night, but you have 
not been here all day ?" 

"No. Not all day." 

" Where have you been all day ?" 

" About the streets." 

"What have you had to eat?" 

"Nothing." 

" Come !" said I. " Think a little. You are 
tired and have been asleep, and don't quite con- 
sider what you are saying to us. You have had 
something to eat to-day. Come ! Think of it !" 

"No I haven't. Nothing but such bits as I 
could pick up about the market. Why, look at 
me!" 

She bared her neck, and I covered it up 
again. 

"If you had a shilling to get some supper 
and a lodging, should you know where to get 
it?" 

" Yes. I could do that," 

" For God's sake get it then !" 



HOW I WAS DISCARDED. 



653 



I put the money into her hand, and she fee- 
bly rose up and went away. She never thanked 
me, never looked at me — melted away into the 
miserable night, in the strangest manner I ever 
saw. I have seen many strange things, but not 
one that has left a deeper impression on my 
memory than the dull impassive way in which 
that worn-out heap of misery took that piece of 
money, and was lost. 

One by one I spoke to all the five. In every 
one, interest and curiosity were as extinct as in 
the first. They were all dull and languid. No 
one made any sort of profession or complaint ; 
no one cared to look at me ; no one thanked 
me. When I came to the third, I suppose she 
saw that my companion and I glanced, with a 
new horror upon us, at the two last, who had 
dropped against each other in their sleep, and 
were lying like broken images. She said, she 
believed they were young sisters. These were 
the only words that were originated among the 
five. 

And now let me close this terrible account 
with a redeeming and beautiful trait of the poor- 
est of the poor. When we came out of the 
Workhouse, we had gone across the road to a 
public-house, finding ourselves without silver, 
to get change for a sovereign. I held the money 
in my hand while I was speaking to the five ap- 
paritions. Our being so engaged, attracted the 
attention of many people of the very poor sort 
usual to that place; as we leaned over the 
mounds of rags, they eagerly leaned over us to 
see and hear ; what I had in my hand, and what 
I said, and what I did, must have been plain to 
nearly all the concourse. When the last of the 
five had got up and faded away, the spectators 
opened to let us pass; and not one of them, by 
word, or look, or gesture, begged of us. Many 
of the observant faces were quick enough to 
know that it would have been a relief to us to 
have got rid of the rest of the money with any 
hope of doing good with it. But there was a 
feeling among them all that their necessities 
were not to be placed by the side of such a spec- 
tacle ; and they opened a way for us in profound 
silence, and let us go. 

My companion wrote to me, next day, that 
the five ragged bundles had been upon his bed 
all night. I debated kow to add our testimony 
to that of many other persons who from time 
to time are impelled to write to the newspapers, 
by having come upon some shameful and shock- 
ing sight of this description. I resolved to write 
an exact account of what we had seen, but to 
wait until after Christmas, in order that there 
might be no heat or haste. I know that the 
unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school, 
demented disciples who push arithmetic and 
political economy beyond all bounds of sense 
(not to speak of such a weakness as humanity), 
and hold them to be all-sufficient for every 
case, can easily prove that such things ought 
to be, and that no man has any business to 
mind them. Without disparaging those indis- 
pensable sciences in their sanity, I utterly re- 
Vol. XII.— No. 71.— Tt 



nounce and abominate them in their insanity ; 
and I address people with a respect for the 
spirit of the New Testament, who do mind 
such things, and who think them infamous in 
our streets. 

HOW I WAS DISCARDED. 

BY A MARRIED MAN. 

pOUSIN Josephine! 

VJ As I write that name my youth flows back 
upon me in a flood of purple light, and I pass 
into another sphere, almost into another being. 
In those days — beautiful days of youth — the 
sunshine seems to me to have flooded earth 
with richer glory — flushing the hills of dawn 
with purer sapphire, and suffusing the blue 
mountain ranges with such crimson sunsets as 
now never fall upon our work-a-day world. 
The oriole poured, from his swaying perch upon 
the summit of the flowering tulip-tree, a bright- 
er shower of musical trills and ecstatic warblings 
— falling like pearls, and diamonds, and all pre- 
cious jewels, shattered and sparkling in the 
azure atmosphere : as surely did the laughing 
streams of spring give utterance to a merrier 
ministrelsy, as they went dancing over silver 
sands, beneath weeping willows, and by grass- 
plats which the goddesses of old might fitly 
have selected for high revel, or delicious, dreamy 
rest ! See how my style runs into hyperbole 
and extravagance, as sitting here I lean my 
brow upon my hand, and putting from me every 
impression of the present moment, live again 
in the bright past, with all its beauty and de- 
light — its splendor and rejoicing — its gay scenes 
and sounds, which rise up clearly, and echo in 
my heart, like the fine " horns of Elfland faint- 
ly blowing," but loud enough to fill the wide 
atmosphere with all the life and glory, the act- 
ual coloring, influence, and perfume of that fair 
time now passed from me forever — dead in the 
dust, and only alive in the bright eyes of mem- 
ory ! 

But at this rate I shall never get to the events 
I wish to tell you of — in which events my Cous- 
in Josephine had her part, and a very conspicu- 
ous part, I assure you. To speak of my youth, 
and omit all mention of her beautiful face, 
would be to write the adventures of Hamlet 
with the character of the prince left out ; and, 
therefore, to convey a proper impression of the 
events which befell your unworthy correspond- 
ent, it is necessary to trace, with a rapid pen, 
the first scenes and the early figure. 

We lived in an old town whose actual gazet- 
teer "address" I need not dwell upon; one of 
those old hamlets which seem content to rest 
in provincial retirement, beside their murmur- 
ing brooks, overhung by weeping willows, and 
behind their forests shutting them out from the 
whirl and commotion of the flashing and hurry- 
ing world. I was the adopted son of my aunt, 
a lady of considerable wealth, who lived in the 
best house in the village, which, nevertheless, 
would scarcely have eclipsed the humblest city 
mansion — venerable old sleeper as it was, with 



65-t 



HARPER'S NEWMONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



its antique gables and dormer windows, and 
roof-shadowing oaks and elms. A row of these 
fine forest monarchs extended in front of the 
house, and at sunset their long shadows fell 
upon an humbler mansion farther down the 
street, where Cousin Josephine lived. I think 
our love affair had its commencement when we 
both were children. I remember very well the 
child parties we went to when we were " little 
things," the crowds of rosy-cheeked girls and 
boys, the games, and forfeits, with their accom- 
panying kisses and ridiculous, but merry ad- 
juncts ; the walks home afterward, when more 
than one " salute" upon the dimpled cheek sent 
boy and girl to bed with laughter ! All is clear 
— very clear! in memory, and again I am a 
child thinking of it all, and almost shedding 
tears, idle tears, as I sit and ponder. She was 
so beautiful then ! I think I never saw a face 
of purer and more delicate loveliness ; and 
when she laughed or sang, the room in which 
she was became a fair May forest, full of war- 
bling birds, with waters flowing, streamlets danc- 
ing, and a thousand tender leaflets whispering 
in the gentle winds of morning. I rhapsodize, 
you say ; but who could help it ? There was 
such joy and loveliness in the face, and voice, 
and motions of this child that, thinking of her 
now, and reviving once more those old clays in 
which she shone so brightly, my blood flows 
faster, almost a blush comes to my cheek, and 
like a star she shines upon me out of the past, 
scattering from her face all mists and clouds, 
and blessing me with her kind friendly eyes. I 
must have loved her even then, for I well recol- 
lect the jokes of the boys and girls when after 
school I gravitated, as it were, toward Jose- 
phine, and assuming, as my rightful burden, her 
slate and satchel, went along with her through 
the sunny street toward home. That influence 
which absorbs "all thoughts, all passions, all 
delights" in the grown man, not seldom vindi- 
cates its power upon the heart of the child ; and, 
assuredly, after seeing her that morning, in 
frosty January, trudging through the snow, I 
was no longer my own master! We had had 
a snow such as very seldom visited our latitude, 
and in places it was drifted more than knee-deep. 
It was still snowing, too, when looking idly out of 
our window after breakfast, as I was drawing 
on my mittens to go to school, I descried Jose- 
phine toiling through the drifts. In a moment 
my resolution to linger until the last moment 
possible was thawed by the sight of the maid- 
en, and I rushed forth to the rescue. 

I weary you with these hasty and scrawled 
sketches of memory, or I might descant at large 
upon the pretty sight Miss Josephine presented. 
How well I recall her rosy cheeks and dancing 
eyes, the little hand holding her satchel, and 
the stockings upon her feet. Yes ! stockings. 
My little angel (from that time forth she filled 
that capacity) actually wore stockings, white 
and huge, above her high-quartered shoes. Her 
dress, after the childish fashion, was very short, 
and disappearing, as the comfortable woolen 



"overalls" did, about the height of the young 
lady's knees. Mrs. Grundy pardon me ! it real- 
ly seemed as if Miss Josephine had forgotten 
two articles of dress considered indispensable — 
her shoes, and what are now called pantalets. 
Thus accoutred, little Josie, as we called her, 
struggled manfully through the snow-drifts, 
laughing with all the zest of childhood, and 
careless how many downy flakes fell on her 
rosy cheeks, or how the wind pierced through 
her cloak. At times, as though in defiance of 
snow and ice upon the walk, and every obstacle, 
she tripped along, and burst out into the mer- 
riest of songs, and laughed gleefully. But win- 
ter and his "picking geese" proved too much 
for little Josie at last. Just as I reached her 
she vigorously attacked an immense snow-drift, 
into which her stockings, and consequently what 
they protected, plunged ; and struggling in the 
mass of snow, she seemed to be brought to a 
stand-still. Another struggle, however, extri- 
cated her, and she dashed on. But unhappy 
chance ! She placed her incautious feet upon 
a surface of ice, thinly covered with snow : she 
slipped — another moment would have witness- 
ed a dangerous fall, when I caught her in my 
arms. Admire the tableau, my friend ! Lean- 
ing back, startled and frightened, the little maid- 
en scarcely knew who supported her, and the 
rosy face lying near my own exhibited a pair 
of wide-extended eyes, which caused her res- 
cuer to burst into laughter. Miss Josephine at 
this time was fourteen, and so you will readily 
understand how it happened that she speedily 
regained the perpendicular, and withdrew her- 
self, blushing, from my encircling arms, and al- 
most pouted at the necessary embrace. We 
went on, talking merrily — I was a gay boy of 
seventeen then — and she disappeared from me 
within the school, where now none went but 
girls, our own being different. 

From that moment there was no doubt in 
my own mind on the subject of my feelings. I 
was in love with Josie, and I gloried in the en- 
nobling thought. I revolved the propriety of 
making an instant declaration. I consulted 
aunt mysteriously upon the subject of my im- 
mediate withdrawal from school, and assump- 
tion of the law as my profession. I walked big, 
talked big, and thought big, in the full meaning 
of those somewhat vulgar expressions. My 
aunt informed me that I was a goose, though 
she smiled — admiringly, I have since thought — 
at my boyish ardor and bright hopefulness ; and 
then she bid me go and learn my Latin, and not 
" anticipate the season of life promised by Prov- 
idence." This advice was, of course, rather 
amusing : to address a man in that way was too 
irrational ! And I gently caressed a downy 
upper-lip, and that portion of my countenance 
where whiskers were rapidly sprouting, though 
as yet undiscernible upon the surface, as smooth 
as a leaf of the red dog-wood. I, however, paid 
decent respect to my good aunt's commands, and 
for the present dismissed the idea of studying 
and practicing law, and going to the United 



HOW I WAS DISCARDED. 



655 



States Senate. I employed my time in the 
more pleasing occupation of writing verses; and 
I recollect, with perfect distinctness, the admi- 
ration I experienced for these first efforts of my 
unaccustomed muse. I found, the other day, 
the discolored leaves upon which these " po- 
ems" by courtesy were inscribed, and I honestly 
confess that they were absolutely shocking. But 
why criticise and deride these first warbles of 
the unpracticed songster and author? Ah! he 
was young then — his unfeathered wings had not 
borne him beyond the parent nest, into the bit- 
ing winds of this wicked world, and he faltered 
out his early carol tremulous and untrained, and 
scarcely louder than the whisper of the forest 
leaves. I offset my expressive " Ah !" with an 
" Alas !" however, and say that those first lisp- 
ings were more heartfelt than what since I have 
uttered, as my boyhood was more full of joy 
and glory than all the days that have flushed 
my life with beauty since. I'll keep them, then, 
my leaves of the past — spring leaves: I have 
many faded autumn leaves to lay aside with 
them. 

Josephine saw the verses, and I think she 
admired them profoundly. They were exhibit- 
ed, too, by her mischievous elder sister, Anna, 
and you may be sure the young lady was teased 
considerably about her devoted lover. We didn't 
care much, however ; and now I look back on 
those evenings we spent in the fields, the woods, 
the garden, as the happiest and serenest of my 
life. As I pass on from those scenes and days, 
with their laughter and joy, and bright youthful 
hopes, illusions, and romantic dreams — as I pass 
on to the after-scenes I went through — bright, 
it may be, and beautiful, but not so wholly clear, 
and tranquil, and unclouded — I pause a moment 
to gaze back upon the vale of boyhood ; and 
with bent head, and hanging arms, and sighing 
lips, bid farewell to the queen of my childhood. 
Child Josephine ! I salute you as I go from you, 
and call you beautiful, and tender, and sincere 
as any nature ever born into this world ! You 
shine upon me now, a gracious phantom, with 
kind eyes, and rosy cheeks, and soft white hands, 
which hold out flowers toward me — withered 
flowers they are ! for as I take them from your 
hands I find them droop: they fall down brit- 
tle, and as though kept for long years! Your 
figure vanishes, and I pass on. 

At eighteen I was sent by my aunt to col- 
lege — a college so far from our little hamlet, 
that it really seemed to me that it must have its 
foundations in some sphere beyond that imagin- 
ary point, " the end of the earth." Of the utter 
'le-pair, the Stygian gloom, which wrapped my 
spirit in its black cloud when I realized the ne- 
cessity of parting with Cousin Josephine, I will 
not speak. As the heart of boyhood lives in the 
present hour, without thought of any world more 
bright, so the annihilation of his actual happi- 
ness appears to such a nature an eternal loss. 
I did not realize the fact that time would flow 
on surely and regularly — that the rolling hours 
would sweep into the past the college session — 



that I should come back in a year or two, and 
stand where then I stood. The parting with 
Josephine was thus a scene of tragic despair. I 
was firm and heroic, but plunged in night. The 
beautiful and tender girl evidently felt keenly 
for me ; and I have since known, experienced 
a regret even deeper than what she expressed 
at my departure. Tears were in her eyes, and 
when she spoke her voice faltered, and was 
broken ; and we stood thus in the garden, I 
leaning against the old elm-tree under which 
we had played together, mere babies — she with 
hanging head and quivering lip, which she did 
not care to conceal ; for at fifteen, you may have 
observed, young ladies possess warmer emotions, 
or are more willing to permit them to be seen, 
than in the after-times, when they have learned 
the lessons of " propriety." Josephine stood 
thus for some time, silent, like myself. She 
then essayed to speak — her tears choked her — 
and covering her face with her hands, she burst 
into tumultuous sobs. What would you have 
done — I mean, my friend, when you were eight- 
een, and in love ? She was my cousin, you may 
tell Mrs. Grundy, if she reads this, and that may 
have some weight with her, as a vindication of 
my action when I saw Josephine in tears. In a 
moment her head lay upon my breast, and a 
shower of tears and kisses fell upon the auburn 
hair, and the trembling form was pressed closely 
to another form scarcely less tremulous with 
emotion. A few broken words, a few boyish 
protestations of eternal devotion, promises to 
write, and faltering words of love ; then the face 
and form of the child melted away into a haze, 
which my moist eyes caused to lie upon the 
horizon — the horizon of home, from which the 
rattling stage-coach bore me on my way to col- 
lege. 

I did not come home for two years. Of these 
two years it is wholly unnecessary that I should 
say any thing, since the events of my college 
life have absolutely no connection with what I 
have set out to relate. There was one incident, 
however, so to speak, which I may mention. 
For the first few months of my collegiate career 
Josephine and myself kept up a correspondence, 
which I have now yonder in my escritoir — her 
own letters, at least — and which I often recur 
to, and read again, with a strange, wistful emo- 
tion, made up of smiles and tears, of laughter 
and sighs. The package is tied with a little 
silken ribbon of blue and gold, which, in the old 
days — a long, long time ago — served to bind up 
the waves of her bright hair. It was the fash- 
ion then, and one day I feloniously appro] >ri- 
ated it, and went away and dreamed with my 
eyes fixed on it, like an honest fellow in love; 
and now it ties up her letters — her letters re- 
ceived at college when I was eighteen ! Strange 
rustling scrolls of memory, from which exhales 
an aroma of romance and boyhood! which 
whisper as the forest leaves of youth whispered ! 
which inclose, in their frail and age-discolored 
folds, how much of love and splendor, of regret 
and sighing, of dreams which are the only reuli- 



656 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ties ! I read them a thousand times then, hang- 
ing over their pages, and weighing every expres- 
sion with the fondest and foolishest delight. I 
have read them a thousand times since, linger- 
ing upon the details of home scenes, listening 
to their far-away cadences, as to the sound of 
silent laughter, and purifying my heart with a 
tender regret as they spoke to me. As I place 
them carefully again in the hidden drawer of 
ray old secretary, neatly tied with the old blue 
and golden ribbon, I feel that I have left the 
present for a time — lived for a season in the 
beautiful and noble past again, drinking in 
azure, and sunlight, and perfume — that past of 
azure skies and golden light, even like my rib- 
bon, but not near so beautiful and noble as the 
nature which illustrated and adorned it — the 
little maiden with the deep-blue eyes and gold- 
en hair! 

Pardon me, friend ; but it is hard to look 
upon my old letters and not dream. They are 
not numerous, for soon an unaccountable re- 
serve began to invade Josephine's letters to me ; 
then they became brief and constrained ; then 
they came at longer intervals; then they ceased 
coming at all. I need not dwell upon my vary- 
ing emotions of surprise and disquiet, of sorrow 
and irritation, of gradually declining regret at 
the loss of an accustomed solace. A time came 
at last when Josephine and myself were no lon- 
ger correspondents, and about this time — Jo- 
sephine's pure and tender voice having ceased 
to speak to me, and steel me with the memory 
of her lovely and pious nature against tempta- 
tion and vice — at this time, I say, as the village 
Mrs. Grundy was fond of relating, with dread- 
ful movement of the austere eyebrows and 
shakings of the ancient head, I began to be- 
come what is popularly known as " a little 
wild." This is not the expression used at the 
time by Mrs. Grundy, for whom I don't mind 
saying I have from my earliest years expe- 
rienced much disregard, not to say contempt. 
The venerable and influential lady used, I be- 
lieve, on one occasion at a tea-drinking, the ex- 
pression, " abandoned profligate," in alluding to 
myself and my collegiate career. She uttered 
these expressive words in the presence of Jo- 
sephine, of course ; for you have met with this 
lady, and you must have observed that she 
never fails to select such occasions for her ha- 
rangues—occasions, namely, when her bitter 
words strike deepest and wound deadliest. I 
heard that Josephine, with flushed cheeks and 
eyes suffused but sparkling, defended my un- 
fortunate reputation, and extracted from Mrs. 
Grundy the expression, "Hoity! toity!" indica- 
tive of contempt and disregard of so feeble an 
adversary. I believe, however, that the dear girl 
had to throw down her work and go away crying 
at last, overwhelmed by Mrs. G.'s sarcasm and 
allusions to the origin of her defense of me ; for 
how can a tender girl, with nothing but a loving 
heart, repel and strangle the slanders of so pow- 
erful an adversary as this world-celebrated Mrs. 
Grundy ? And now do you know why the old 



lady called me an abandoned profligate, and 
spoke of ,me further as on the high road to 
the gallows? I will tell you. Old Professor 

B ■ had a horse, and Tom Randolph gave a 

supper. I'm afraid we all drank too much that 
night — I mean the guests of T. R. — and at one 
or two, ante meridian, we sallied forth, and 
chanced to see the venerable animal, nick- 
named Bucephalus, serenely browsing on the 
college-green. Where the paint came from I 
knew not ; but certainly Bucephalus, after pass- 
ing from our hands, presented the appearance 
of a new species of animal, intensely green, all 
except his legs, which were white as usual. 
With some other coloring matter the letters 

x 2 -\-px =z q 
were painted upon his side, that being the col- 
lege designation of his excellent and really re- 
spected master. The consequence of this freak, 
which I own to have been in bad taste, was a 
court-martial of the offenders, and the request 
from the faculty that I and half a dozen others 
would avail ourselves of permanent leave of ab- 
sence from Alma Mater. By exertion of friend- 
ly authorities, however, this leave was restrict- 
ed, and a rustication — at a country tavern some 
miles off — was prescribed ; after which we were 
restored to favor and the offense overlooked. I 
believe there were some rebellious scenes at the 
trial, and certainly, for some reason, our sen- 
tence, its modification, and the whole affair, got 
into the newspapers and reached our hamlet. 
You know Mrs. Grundy continues still to take 
newspapers from all parts of the world ; she read 
my name in a certain column, and the scene at 
the tea-drinking was the result. Mrs. Grundy 
thereafter made it her business to discover ev- 
ery thing relating to my unworthy self; and if I 
turned my toes too much out or in, or rode a horse 
at too rapid a pace, or erected my feet, in smok- 
ing, to a position too much above my head upon 
the mantle-piece, or snored too loud in my sleep, 
or did any other action criminal and worthy 
of reprobation, this ubiquitous or terribly-well- 
informed old lady discovered every thing, and 
duly reported it, with an ominous shake of the 
head, at the next tea-drinking Don't many of 
us, young fellows or old, know numerous Mrs. 
Grundys ? Is not Mrs. Grundy every where — 
an old hag who tears us to pieces, limb by limb ; 
and gloats over the disjecta membra of our rep- 
utations with cruel and triumphant laughter; 
and sits on our laboring breasts at night a 
horrible nightmare ; accompanying us equally 
throughout the day, and causing us to shake in 
our shoes when her bony finger points toward 
us, and her skinny lips address themselves to 
speak ? 

But whither do I wander ? I am not telling 
my story, and your patience is failing. I man- 
aged to survive the mortifying reflection that 
Mrs. Grundy did not admire me; and the 
thought of Josephine went far to keep me from 
those undignified and often impure courses 
which young men not seldom pursue at col- 
lege. If she had only written to me, and per- 



HOW I WAS DISCAKDED. 



Co 7 



mitted me, even through the cold medium of 
the mail, to hear her kind voice, and look upon 
her tender* face, alive with pure and sweet emo- 
tion of regard for me, I am sure that nothing 
could have tempted me to frequent any scenes 
which I would not have had her holy eyes to 
look upon ; and I perfectly well remember an 
actual instance of this sort, where a letter from 
her in my bosom made the reveling orgy I had 
sought a vile glare of inane lights and silly mon- 
strous vanity, from which I retired in disgust, 
to go into that purer atmosphere of home, and 
purity, and love. But young ladies will not be- 
lieve it. Tom or Dick's a wild fellow, and it is 
not proper to correspond with one who, maybe, 
will show the letters to unworthy eyes, and 
•• maybe I'd better not." Oh, cruel slander on 
the heart of youth, dreaming, and yearning, and 
trying to escape from crime and revelry to home 
and tender eyes ! 

Josephine wrote to me no more, but her in- 
fluence made me purer, and the last year at 
college saw me a hard student. I left my Alma 
Mater with a creditable degree, and went home 
to read a few months ; and then, my majority 
being attained, commence the practice of the 
law. 

The old stage-coach, with the same driver, 
the same horses, the same old lounging roll, and 
the identical habit of stopping at the roadside 
taverns to get a drink and light his pipe, bore me 
to the good old home of my aunt, and in the 
arms of that tender old dame I was soon locked, 
with half a dozen kisses, and two tears which 
rolled from beneath the spectacles, and were 
wiped away by the thin, white hand. After all, 
friend, there's nothing like home, as the song 
has long since told us ; and I felt, as I looked 
upon the familiar objects from which I had for 
two years been separated, that the wide world, 
full as it may be of excitement and adventure, 
and bright landscapes and grand edifices, is a 
very poor and inferior thing in comparison with 
the obscure and quiet nook, where the old shad- 
ow falls from the good old elms, where the old 
brook purls under the old willows of our youth, 
where — better than all — the fond eyes of love 
are strained down the road to welcome us, and 
the arms which we lay in, as little weak babies, 
are waiting to clasp the grown man to the heart 
forever true ! I had seen all and heard every 
thing before I went to Josephine's. At last she 
stood before me, and I was fairly dazzled ! I 
have traveled much since, and seen fair faces in 
many climes, but I do not think I have ever 
seen a vision of more surpassing loveliness than 
that which Cousin Josephine, as I found my- 
self thenceforward calling her, presented. I do 
not mean that I have not seen a fairer complex- 
ion, for I think the honest suns of country fes- 
tivals had made their impression ; but the lips 
were so red, the cheek of such a tender and 
delicate rose-tint, the hair so profuse, golden, 
and shifting in its shadowy silken folds, and the 
blue eyes, above all, so deep, and soft, and con- 
fiding, that I thought then, and have continued 



to think since, that but few countenances have 
ever rivaled this one in delicate loveliness. 

Well, I am prosing again ; but I have my old 
excuse. I will get on more rapidly. Of course 
I had not reached twenty, and flirted with every 
girl in a circuit of fifteen miles around college, 
and aired my knowledge of " what is proper un- 
der the circumstances," and all that — without 
coming to the conclusion that cousins had privi- 
leges — especially cousins sustaining toward each 
other such relations as existed between Jose- 
phine and myself. I modestly advanced to fold 
her in my arms, with a matter-of-course air, and 
suddenly found the young lady retreat. She 
was no longer " Josie," you observe, my dear 
friend ; she was " Cousin Josephine." The old 
school-days, snow-drifts, stockings, and verses 
wherein love invariably rhymed to dove, were 
no longer any thing but pleasant recollections, 
calculated to raise a merry laugh, or cause cu- 
rious speculation upon the length of time em- 
braced in a very few years. In a word, we were 
gentleman and lady, you see ; and as it is not 
the invariable custom of gentlemen and ladies 
to embrace and kiss when they meet, this view 
was acted upon by Cousin Josephine. There 
was not the slightest prudery in her manner of 
refusing me the proffered "salute," as our hon- 
est grandpas called it ; no affectation of being 
offended ; no stiff drawing back and " dignified" 
stateliness of demeanor. Cousin Josephine 
merely drew back laughing and blushing a lit- 
tle, and placed suddenly a rocking-chair be- 
tween us, and said she was extremely glad to 
see me, and wasn't I glad to see every body 
again ? You scoff at me in your mind, do you 
not, for relinquishing my prize in a manner 
so cowardly ? Well, I acquiesce : it was cow- 
ardly, dastardly, and I can't explain it, except 
by saying that I was so completely dazzled by 
that vision of surpassing tenderness and loveli- 
ness — so overcome by that countenance, the 
sight of which poured back my youth upon me 
in a flood of delight — so very suddenly more in 
love than ever, I might as well add, that I had 
no adventurous enterprise at my command. I 
became all at once nervous and respectful ; my 
impudence, if you will have it so, deserted me; 
and from that time forth I never attempted this 
species of amusement. Cousin Josephine soon 
came forth from her fortress — added a second 
pressure of her hand to those given by her moth- 
er and sister Anna, whom I have spoken of, a 
very handsome girl of twenty-three — and then 
I was made to answer ten thousand questions, 
and subjected them to the same necessity. I re- 
mained until a late hour, falling more and more 
deeply in love, I may as well confess at once ; 
and when I went home to my kind aunt's, the 
future presented the appearance of an uncom- 
monly brilliant landscape, over which drooped 
a delicate couleur de rose, and across whose flow- 
ery hills and grassy meadows two persons, re- 
spectively of the male and female sex, walked 
arm-in-arm, or even more affectionately, toward 
a church, in the door of which stood one of the 



G58 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



most amiable of ministers, surrounded by friends 
with bridal favors of white ribbon. I went 
home in this pleasant state of mind, with these 
rosy dreams, and met there many more friends 
gathered together to welcome me home. As 
yet I had not seen Mrs. Grundy. 

You may imagine that my love for Josephine 
did not diminish or change, having commenced 
so auspiciously, as it were, on first sight. "What 
had been the strange, wondrous, indescribable 
emotion of the boy, became very soon the pas- 
sion of the young man, whose heart had grown 
to crave some answering heart, to sigh for some 
object upon which to expend the treasures of 
its love. I saw Josephine almost daily, and 
thus thrown in contact with her constantly, I 
grew to love her with the warmest devotion — a 
devotion made up equally of the romance of 
the boy and the passion of the man. Why 
should I lengthen out my story, or expend my 
time in telling you of these first throbs of deep 
and genuine affection ? Solomon and Mr. 
Thackeray have told us that there is nothing- 
new under the sun ; that all characters march 
through all fables ; and we have both lived 
long enough to know that Corydon in love with 
Chloe exhibits much the same emotions, and 
folloAvs much the same means of conveying a 
knowledge of their existence to his mistress, as 
his neighbor in the cottage over the way, young 
Strephon, who pines for the love of Eudora. 
Some time passed thus, and every day I was 
happier and more hopeful ; for every day Jose- 
phine smiled upon me more sweetly, and a 
thousand beauties in her tender and sincere 
character riveted my affection, and made me 
believe also that my own natural amiability and 
good-humor were congenial traits to one so good 
and gentle. I had been received by my friends, 
and almost every body, with plentiful indica- 
tions of pleasure, and I believe I had shaken 
hands with every one in the village. One re- 
spectable inhabitant I had, however, chanced 
not to meet with. This was Mrs. Grundy. 
Where that most venerable and terrible old 
lady kept herself I had not been able to find, 
and I was very glad not to see her ; for I had, 
you observe, some fear of her. Still I thought 
it advisable to search for her, for the purpose 
of remonstrating with, or of defying her — and 
I looked diligently. She sometimes paid a visit 
to Miss Araminta Skoggins, at the corner near 
the post-office, I had heard, and I made a 
morning call upon Miss Araminta, for the pur- 
pose of meeting the old lady. I was disap- 
pointed — she was not there; and I saw at a 
glance that Miss Araminta was much too ami- 
able a person to give even so much as a night's 
shelter to such a fault-finding visitor as Mrs. 
Grundy. I thought the elderly Miss Araminta 
would have fallen upon my neck and wept for 
joy, she was so glad to see me ; and this you 
must confess was very forgiving, considering the 
fact that I had, in my youthful days, circulated 
numerous pleasantly-devised stories concerning 
this lady, going to show, every one of them, 



that she was a "miserable old maid," who rail- 
ed at marriage and the male sex on the very 
same ground that the fox derided the grapes as 
sour and unworthy of a refined palate. I saw 
that Miss Araminta had completely forgiven 
these boyish discourtesies; and I went away, 
smiting my breast — figuratively, of course — in 
token of remorse for my foul injustice. She 
pressed my hand tenderly as I departed, and 
requested me to call again very soon, and I went 
away with a light heart; for you will readily 
imagine I did not wish to see Mrs. Grundy. I 
gave up looking for the old lady at last, and 
yielded myself without reserve to the delightful 
idea of winning Josephine, and living quietly 
for the rest of my days in this my native town, 
surrounded by friends, and practicing honorably 
and successfully my profession. Upon the whole, 
I was glad not to have seen Mrs. Grundy. 

In the long and pleasant evenings which I 
spent with Josephine, there was but one visitor 
who called frequently — a very pleasant and 
agreeable young doctor of the place, my fast 
friend, but gifted by nature with the most re- 
markable reserve of character. Tom W 

would have sooner thought of cutting off his 
right hand, I am sure, than ©f discoursing about 
any thing connected with himself. Did you 
wish to know if he was getting on well ? You 
were met by a generality so masterly, that it 
was impossible to discover from it whether Tom 
was on the brink of starvation or laying up five 
thousand a year. This peculiarity had gained 
him the nickname of Tom Lockup ; and yet, 
on every other subject than himself and his own 
affairs, he was most pleasantly communicative. 
I thought at one time that Tom was in the fair 
way of entering the lists as my rival, but I soon 
saw reason to change my opinion. He was 
merely a pleasant and friendly visitor, who call- 
ed every evening for a week, and perhaps not 
again for three, and whose visits were depend- 
ent upon the state of his practice at the mo- 
ment. If the season was healthy, Tom lounged 
and visited ; if fevers were abroad, Tom rode 
day and night through the surrounding country 
as well as the town. I thought he knew every 
body; and one day asked him, in a confidential 
chat, if Mrs. Grundy was in town. He laughed, 
said I must not mind her; and added that, al- 
though she certainly had been there, she as cer- 
tainly was not a resident then. I breathed more 
freely. Then I was not to see Mrs. Grundy ! 

With Josephine my days were more and more 
pleasant. I had nearly finished my legal stud- 
ies, for at college I had laid a broad foundation, 
and I only waited for the attainment of my ma- 
jority to procure my license and commence the 
practice. That this practice was to be com- 
menced by me as a married man I devoutly 
hoped ; and, making every allowance for the 
vanity of youth, the strong influence of hope in 
shaping our opinions, and the absence of any 
grave obstacle of fortune, I thought my chances 
more than evenly balanced. Josephine certain- 
ly experienced for me a deep and tender afl'ee- 



HOW I WAS DISCARDED. 



659 



tioa — let me not doubt that now, above all, when 
I see clearly much that then was dark to me. 
Yes ! how plain it is now to me that she almost 
kept pace with my own feelings, which gathered 
every day new strength ; and let me be thank- 
ful for the affection of so pure a heart for one 
so unworthy. Josephine's was one of those na- 
tures which seem gifted by Heaven with a gen- 
tleness and tenderness so pervading that none 
with whom they are thrown in contact can es- 
cape their influence. She had the most ready 
and sympathetic memory, too — that rare memory 
of the heart, which revives the scenes and impres- 
sions of the past with such marvelous accuracy 
and ease. Her nature was singularly impress- 
ible to music, to beauties of nature, above all, to 
instances of moral beauty and goodness. I think 
she would have wished to have had Ethel's place 
when Colonel Newcome kissed that little maid- 
en ; and Little Dorrit would have had a sister 
in her, the poor Father of the Marshalsea a new 
daughter. She would weep like a child over a 
pathetic story, or melt into tears suddenly while 
Anna was singing "Katherine Ogie." Her 
laughter w r as as ready and as genuine ; and re- 
calling now, here in my silent apartment, the 
whole outline and detail of her character, I re- 
cognize even then in her a character of strange 
beauty, whom I think any man might be happy 
to find in his own daily walk, to cultivate and 
improve and purify him. Do you wonder that 
I fell more and more deeply in love, like an 
honest fellow? and dreamed more and more of 
her purity and beauty ? and treasured up little 
things of hers — a glove, or flower, or ribbon ? 
and even thought the day more bright, the birds' 
songs more entrancing, and the air more pure, 
when I heard and saw these sounds and natural 
sights with her — her presence giving them new 
loveliness and sweetness ? Thinking of her face 
and figure now — of the true eyes and parted 
lips — I live again in the past, and feel that she 
was worthiest of all ! 

I procured my license in due time, and then 
my attentions became more and more unmis- 
takable. I must have had, my friend, the air 
of a "courting man," which species of individ- 
ual is easily distinguishable from the herd. 
Whether the happy fellows carry the flower in 
their button-hole, with a jauntier air, as who 
should say, "I am going to see my sweetheart" 
— or whether the spring in their gait, the toss 
of the head, the twirl of the cane in the neatly- 
gloved hand, convey the assurance that they are 
on matrimonial designs intent — on these points 
I can deliver nothing with precision. But I 
know full well that your genuine lover betrays 
himself above all the man with "serious inten- 
tions." Above and beyond all I know — and 
shall never cease to remember — that Mrs. Grun- 
dy suddenly arrived in town, and declared at a 
public tea-drinking that Josephine could never, 
Avith a proper degree of self-respect, permit the 
addresses of a young gentleman who had been 
guilty of such "conduct" as my own at college. 

My friend, have you seen a brilliant day in 



summer blackened suddenly by a thunder-cloud 
— the vast wide ocean, while it heaves in calm 
and glassy rest, lashed all at once by storms — a 
noble ship, with all sails set, the wind ahead, 
struck suddenly aback by a squall — a merry 
sleighing party hurled into the snow — a horse 
reined suddenly upon his haunches while mov- 
ing at full speed ? If you have witnessed these 
sudden and surprising events, you may fancy my 
feelings, as says the respectable Mr. Yellowplush, 
when I was informed of Mrs. Grundy's public 
denunciation of my character. That I raged 
like the wild boar of Horace, and uttered un- 
seemly remarks, is scarcely a surprising circum- 
stance. I think if Mrs. Grundy had been a 
man I should have had her venerable blood. 
This was simply my feeling — I wished to find 
somebody that was responsible, and I found 
Miss Araminta Skoggins, and her three friends 
Seraphina, Angelina, and Sallianna. Do you 
comprehend the feelings of a man, my friend, 
who is mercilessly torn to pieces by such an in- 
exorable triumvirate, presided over by Miss Ara- 
minta? You can't do any thing; you can not 
resist, or remonstrate, or retaliate ; that is not 
polite, and you are guilty, in so doing, of want 
of chivalric courtesy to one of the fair sex. You 
are checkmated, my friend — laughed at, insult- 
ed, despised, maligned — received with a titter 
when you enter, and a giggle when you depart. 
Go and gnash your teeth in private, and kick 
the chair which stands in your way across the 
room, and then go make Miss Araminta, as she 
passes, the most smiling salutation, and lament 
in retirement that the murder of a young man's 
reputation and his heart is not as yet a capital 
offense. There's your recourse. 

You will perceive from the above allusion 
that I had come to mix up Miss Araminta Skog- 
gins, in some singular way, with Mrs. Grund}\ 
I will proceed to tell you how that happened. 
As I was passing on my way to my office, just 
after hearing of the dreadful peril my prospects 
were encountering, I chanced to meet the sym- 
pathizing Tom Lockup. Tom looked really 
concerned when he saw my gloom, and, of 
course, demanded the reason. I informed him 
succinctly of the state of things, and wound up 
by declaring that I would seek out Mr. Grundy, 
and visit upon his head the slanders of his 
spouse. It was then that Tom Lockup looked 
mysteriously around, went to the windows over- 
head, next to the cellars beneath, and then, 
lowering his voice, uttered the mysterious and 
remarkable declaration that Mrs. Grundy was 
no less a person than Miss Araminta herself. 
It was not until he explained himself that I 
could take into my mind the full significance 
of this astounding declaration. His explana- 
tion was briefly this: that the words "Mrs. 
Grundy" were an English paraphrase for the 
voice of lying rumor, the tattle of gossips, the 
tongue of slander, picking a hole in his or her 
neighbor's coat and rejoicing in having a whole 
garment herself. Tom Lockup ended by de- 
claring that the particular Mrs. Grundy who had 



660 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



so kindly taken my reputation and affairs gen- 
erally in charge, was no less a person than Miss 
Araniinta Skoggins and her least amiable friend 
Miss Angelina. 

You may imagine my consternation when I 
had reluctantly come to Tom's conclusion — my 
indignation and astonishment. Had not Miss 
Araniinta nearly reposed upon my bosom in 
hysterics of joy when I returned? Had not 
that young lady (by courtesy) declared to me 
that the " suggestive emotions of her heart on 
this occasion went near to strangulate her with 
felicity ?" Was it possible that the mouth which 
had bid me call in often, now could bite my un- 
resisting and unoffending self? I propounded 
these excited questions to Tom Lockup, with a 
flushed face and closely clenched hands, and 
then I uttered something like the philosophy 
laid down in the paragraph upon a previous page, 
as to the recourse one had against such adver- 
saries. Tom Lockup smiled. I looked at him. 
There was something in his countenance so 
mysterious — a light in his eye so merry and yet 
so wicked — a turning down of the corners of his 
mouth, so indicative of possessing thought, of a 
fixed scheme, that unwittingly I was silent, 
gazing at him curiously. He quietly returned 
my gaze — his smile expanded into a grin — his 
left eye slowly and mysteriously closed itself, 
then opened again — and drawing me into his 
office he closed the door, locked it, and we were 
alone. 

Of the long and animated conversation held 
on that eventful morning with Tom Lockup, I 
will not here speak : I will say nothing of it, 
further than to declare that Tom had conceived 
a brilliant idea — that this idea expanded itself 
into a harangue quite unusual with Tom Lock- 
up — and that it was frequently interrupted, upon 
my part, by laughter. When I left the office, 
it was with a promise to return again that night; 
and then I went to my own apartment, and, with 
a shaking and cowardly heart, made one of the 
most eventful toilets of my life. Do you com- 
prehend, my dear friend ? If you do not, you 
are less penetrating than I think you are. I 
had determined to follow the philosophy of the 
old verse : 

" Either his caution is too much, 
Or his desert too small, 
"Who fears to put it to the touch 
And lose or win it all !" 

In a word, I had determined to go and tell Jo- 
sephine that I loved her dearly and tenderly, 
and that her answer must make me entirely 
happy or completely miserable. For months I 
thought I had been taking every day a deeper 
hold upon her affections, and the above verse, 
which has led many a gallant fellow to precipi- 
tate declaration and consequent ruin, was about 
to be responsible for the act of another youth in 
addition to the rest. Strange that young lovers 
are so blind ! Passing strange also, that they 
build hope often upon foundations of the merest 
shifting sand. Do you see Amyntor yonder, 
walking on air, as it were, toward Daphne's cot- 



tage — his ribbon-knots fluttering, his hat, with 
sweeping feather, arranged jauntily above his 
curling hair? Do you see his golden smile, his 
heaving breast, his hands trembling with delight 
as he extends them with a graceful condescen- 
sion toward Daphne, whom he graciously per- 
mits to love and accept him ? Do you know 
what has induced honest Amyntor to think that 
he has only to ask for the young maiden, and 
receive his wish ? Simply the fact that yester- 
day her cousin, Phillida, informed him that Miss 
Daphne would use nothing but patchouli — the 
perfume he had often praised and vaunted in 
her presence — and added that she thought poor 
Daphne was wasting and pining gradually away, 
because she could not win the heart she wanted. 
So Amyntor has determined to be magnani- 
mous and permit himself to be the husband of 
the beautiful and sorrowful Miss Daphne ; and 
he goes and proposes, and is discarded with a 
promptness rather mortifying and instructive, 
and from that time forth becomes a sadder and 
a wiser man. I did not think of Amyntor's fate, 
which had occurred under my eyes a week be- 
fore, and boldly sought the presence of Jo- 
sephine. 

The best and most approved historians and 
chroniclers prefer rather to give results. We 
know that Roland wound his horn at Ronces- 
valle, and died from hemorrhage of the lungs ; 
we scarcely stop to inquire how all the conten- 
tion came about. Let me, therefore, omit a 
description of my interview with Josephine, 
who paid me the compliment to cry and blush 
with indignation when the slanders of Miss Ara- 
minta were repeated to her by a cowardly and 
tremulous voice. Of course, as my cousin and 
friend, she took my part against Miss Araminta, 
but what did I gain by that slight circum- 
stance ? 

On the next morning a young man might 
have been seen languidly dragging his feet along 
down the village street, with a face of so much 
mournful gloom, and harassing disappointment 
and grief, that every one who met him noticed 
it, and asked him the reason for his gloom. I 
replied — for you will understand this little his- 
torical romance personage was no other than 
myself — I replied to all such inquirers that no- 
thing was the matter, that I was not gloomy ; 
and then I passed languidly on, leaving my 
questioners under the very natural impression 
that some most horrible disaster had befallen 
me. At the corner I met Miss Araminta. I 
would have bowed and passed on, but she stop- 
ped me with that art for which she was so fa- 
mous. What was the matter? Any reverse of 
fortune? Was I unwell ? Was I the recipient 
of the news of any death ? Was I — was I — 
was I — ? No, I was not, with many thanks 
for such kind inquiries and so much tender so- 
licitude. I was quite well and happy, and all 
were well whom I cared for and loved ; herself 
among the rest I was glad to see, and then I 
sighed. Miss Araminta sighed too. Had I 
met, perhaps, with any disappointment — in — a 



HOW I WAS DISCAKDED. 



661 



— my affections? I replied to this languish- 
ing question with a groan. Miss Araminta 
grew bolder. Had that singular young girl, 
Josephine, discarded me? I looked at Miss 
Araminta for a moment in speechless agony, 
drew my handkerchief from my pocket, and 
covering my face to suppress all exhibition of 
my feelings, tore myself away in silence, and 
buried myself in my apartment. 

Have you seen the leaves of autumn suddenly 
caught up by a strong wind, and dashed through 
the air until the atmosphere is darkened by 
them, and the sky covered ? I make use of 
this natural simile to describe the storm of re- 
ports and rumors which immediately rose around 
me, and which finally increased into a settled 
and regular hurricane, the burden whereof was 
— " Discarded ! discarded ! discarded !" In 
twenty-four hours the whole village knew that 
Josephine had discarded me. I kept in my office 
— I hid myself — I was seen nowhere. You see 
I was discarded, and I was afraid of meeting Miss 
Araminta. Let me not dwell upon this trying 
time, however — let me tell you how I curbed 
my agony, and took a rational view of life. 
Will you believe that the first person I went to 
see after my retirement into the shades of priv- 
ate life was Miss Araminta. Why not ? She 
had asked me to call often, and in my sorrow 
her lively conversation was a diversion from 
my grief. I found Tom Lockup there, who 
seemed to have been affected by a like feeling 
with myself. I forgot to say that three days 
after my discardal he was discarded in like 
manner by Cousin Anna, and had met with a 
like storm of celebrity. Naturally he sought, 
in the pleasant society of the lively Miss An- 
gelina, the means of recovering that gayety 
which he had exhibited with such miserable 
ostentation on the day we talked of Mrs. Grun- 
dy and maligned Miss Araminta. The miser- 
able fellow no longer winked and laughed ; he 
groaned and almost shed tears. Like myself 
he required solace, and he sought it. Need I 
say that he found it in the innocent and infan- 
tile prattle of Miss Angelina, that charming 
young girl, almost that child ? She soon heal- 
ed his heart — it was said that Miss Araminta 
was rapidly healing mine. Ill-natured persons 
declared that Miss Araminta and Miss Angelina 
themselves spoke of the probability of their hav- 
ing soon, reluctantly, to change their condition. 
Miss Araminta finally was heard to say, that 
she had greatly misunderstood me — that, as she 
had sounded my character, and discovered what 
wealth of affection I possessed, she had no doubt 
that her union with me would be happy; and 
the consequence of these remarks was the as- 
tounded impression on the part of the villagers 
that Miss Araminta and myself were engaged. 
The very same was said of Tom and Miss An- 
gelina — which, I fear, was also incautiously let 
slip by that amiable young lady. Thus, at the 
end of a month, it was thought that Miss Ara- 
minta and Miss Angelina were preparing to en- 
ter the blessed state of matrimony with myself 



and Dr. Thomas W , otherwise Tom Lock- 
up, respectively. You see these ladies had ma- 
ligned and .insulted us — uttered the most un- 
worthy slanders concerning us — endeavored to 
render us miserable throughout our youth, by 
turning against us the fond and tender hearts 
which loved us. They had bitterly aspersed 
our very honesty — had magnified the thought- 
less imprudences of young manhood into degrad- 
ing and bestial vices — had, in a word, stabbed us 
cruelly and mercilessly with envenomed tongues, 
and then rose up in the morning to repeat these 
calumnies with added and more mortal poison. 
All this had they done unto us ; but we had 
concluded not to recollect it — to kiss the hands 
which stabbed — propriety forbids me to add, 
the lips which slandered. We were going to 
marry these charmers in order to monopolize 
their tender natures — the School for Scandal 
would, of course, end with a duplicate marriage. 

My friend, the story is done — the plot has 
reached its denouement — the audience is invited, 
assembled, and awaits the rising of the curtain 
on the last scene of the last act. The invita- 
tions to the performance w r ere written upon en- 
ameled cards, which were tied together by Avhite 
satin ribbon, and the whole was inclosed in an 
embossed envelope, sealed with a silver wreath 
encircling clasped hands. These cards convey- 
ed the astounding information that Mrs. , 

Josephine's mother, would be pleased to see the 
recipient on Thursday evening next, at nine 
o'clock ; and as though there might be some 
impression that Josephine, Anna, and their 

friends, Dr. Thomas W ■ and myself, were 

not glad to see the visitors, our names were 
written upon the cards. That was the Inst 
scene, my friend. You now understand what 
made Tom Lockup wink his eye and draw me 
into his office ; you know the origin of our new- 
ly-conceived admiration for Misses Aramin- 
ta and Angelina, or rather our mere friendly 
jests and frequent visits, which they chose to 
construe into love and matrimonial intentions. 
It was not our fault that the whole village be- 
lieved us really their fortunate suitors ; they re- 
ported that fact themselves, did these fair la- 
dies. You know all this now — you understand 
all, especially how I was discarded. I am glad 
that the trick of my little narrative made it ne- 
cessary to omit all description of the scene on 
that occasion. I would be loth to speak, even 
to you, of the beating of that tender heart, of 
the tears in those kind, beautiful eyes, as the 
gentle head declined upon my heart. Jose- 
phine and myself were married on the same 
evening with Tom and Anna, and all the friend- 
ly villagers came early and went away late, and 
gave us joy and wishes for our happiness. 

I am mistaken in saying that the whole vil- 
lage was present. Miss Araminta and Miss 
Angelina were indisposed, and sent regrets. 
Could it have been a miff on their part, all be- 
cause no invitation was dispatched to the dear 
friend residing with them — venerable Mrs. 
Grundy ? 



662 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



THE DOPPELGANGER. 

ALBERT LACHNER was my particular 
friend and fellow-student. We studied to- 
gether at Heidelberg ; we lived together ; we had 
no secrets from each other ; we called each other 
by the endearing name of brother. On leaving 
the university, Albert decided on following the 
profession of medicine. I was possessed of a 
moderate competence and a little estate at Ems, 
on the Lahn ; so I devoted myself to the tran- 
quil life of a proprietai?-e and a book-dreamer. 
Albert went to reside with a physician, as pupil 
and assistant, at the little town of Cassel; I 
established myself in my inheritance. 

I was delighted with my home ; with my garden, 
sloping down to the rushy margin of the river ; 
with the view of Ems, the turreted old Kurhaus, 
the suspension-bridge, and, further away, the 
bridge of boats, and the dark wooded hills, clos- 
ing in the little colony on every side. I planted 
my garden in the English style ; fitted up my li- 
brary and smoking-room ; and furnished one bed- 
chamber especially for my friend. This room 
overlooked the water, and a clematis grew up 
round the window. I placed there a book-case, 
and filled it with his favorite books; hung the 
walls with engravings which I knew he admired, 
and chose draperies of his favorite color. When all 
was complete, I wrote to him, and bade him come 
and spend his summer-holiday with me at Ems. 

He came ; but I found him greatly altered. 
He was a dark, pale man ; always somewhat 
taciturn and sickly, he was now paler, more si- 
lent, more delicate than ever. He seemed sub- 
ject to fits of melancholy abstraction, and ap- 
peared as if some all-absorbing subject weighed 
upon his mind — some haunting care, from which 
even I was excluded. 

He had never been gay, it is true ; he had 
never mingled in our Heidelberg extravagances 
— never fought a duel at the Hirschgasse — nev- 
er been one of the fellowhood of Foxes — never 
boated, and quarreled, and gambled like the rest 
of us, wild boys as we were ! But then he was 
constitutionally unfitted for such violent sports ; 
and a lameness which dated from his early child- 
hood, proved an effectual bar to the practice of 
all those athletic exercises which secure to youth 
the mens sana in corpore sano. Still, he was 
strangely altered ; and it cut me to the heart to 
see him so sad, and not to be permitted to par- 
take of his anxieties. At first I thought he had 
been studying too closely ; but this he protested 
was not the case. Sometimes I fancied that he 
was in love, but I was soon convinced of my er- 
ror : he was changed — but how or why, I found 
it impossible to discover. 

After he had been with me about a week, I 
chanced one day to allude to the rapid progress 
that was making every where in favor of mes- 
merism, and added some light words of incredul- 
ity as I spoke. To my surprise, he expressed his 
absolute faith in every department of the science, 
and defended all its phenomena, even to clair- 
voyance and mesmeric revelation, with the fervor 
of a determined believer. 



I found his views on the subject more ex- 
tended than any I had previously heard. To 
mesmeric influences he attributed all those 
spectral appearances, such as ghosts, wraiths, 
and doppelgangers ; all those noises and troub- 
led spirits ; all those banshees or family appari- 
tions ; all those hauntings and miscellaneous 
phenomena, which have from the earliest ages 
occupied the fears, the thoughts, and the in- 
quiries of the human race. 
. After about three weeks' stay, he left me, and 
returned to his medical studies at Cassel, prom- 
ising to visit me in the autumn, when the grape- 
harvest should be in progress. His parting 
words were earnest and remarkable : " Fare- 
well, Heinrich, mein Bruder ; farewell till the 
gathering-season. In thought, I shall be often 
with you." 

He was holding my hands in both his own as 
he said this, and a peculiar expression flitted 
across his countenance; the next moment, he 
had stepped into the diligence, and was gone. 
Peeling disturbed, yet without knowing why, I 
made my way slowly back to my cottage. This 
visit of Albert's had strangely unsettled me, and 
I found that, for some days after his departure, 
I could not return to the old quiet round of 
studies which had been my occupation and de- 
light before he came. Somehow, our long ar- 
guments dwelt unpleasantly upon my mind, and 
induced a nervous sensation of which I felt 
ashamed. I had no wish to believe ; I strug- 
gled against conviction, and the very struggle 
caused me to think of it the more. At last the 
effect wore away ; and when my friend had been 
gone about a fortnight, I returned almost in- 
sensibly to my former routine of thought and 
occupation. Thus the season slowly advanced. 
Ems became crowded with tourists, attracted 
thither by the fame of our medicinal springs ; 
and what with frequenting concerts, prome- 
nades, and gardens, reading, receiving a few 
friends, occasionally taking part in the music- 
meetings which are so much the fashion here, 
and entering altogether into a little more soci- 
ety than had hitherto been my habit, I succeed- 
ed in banishing entirely from my mind the 
doubts and reflections which had so much dis- 
turbed me. 

One evening, as I was returning homeward 
from the house of a friend in the town, I expe- 
rienced a delusion, which, to say the least of it, 
caused me a very disagreeable sensation. I 
have stated that my cottage was situated on the 
banks of the river, and was surrounded by a gar- 
den. The entrance lay at the other side, by the 
high road ; but I am fond of boating, and I had 
constructed, therefore, a little wicket, with a 
flight of wooden steps leading down to the wa- 
ter's edge, near which my small rowing-boat lay 
moored. This evening I came along by the 
meadows which skirt the stream ; these mead- 
ows are here and there intercepted by villas and 
private inclosures. Now, mine was the first; 
and I could walk from the town to my own gar- 
den-fence without once diverging from the river- 



THE DOPPELGANGER. 



663 



path. I was musing, and humming to myself 
some bars of a popular melody, when, all at 
once, I began thinking of Albert and his theo- 
ries. This was, I asseverate, the first time he 
had even entered my mind for at least two days. 
Thus going along, my arms folded, and my eyes 
fixed on the ground, I reached the boundaries 
of my little domain before I knew that I had 
traversed half the distance. Smiling at my own 
abstraction, I paused to go round by the en- 
trance, when suddenly, and to my great sur- 
prise, I saw my friend standing by the wicket, 
and looking over the river toward the sunset. 
Astonishment and delight deprived me at the 
first of all power of speech ; at last — "Albert !" 
I cried, " this is kind of you. When did you 
arrive ?" He seemed not to hear me, and re- 
mained in the same attitude. I repeated the 
words, and with a similar result. " Albert, 
look round, man !" Slowly he turned his head 
and looked me in the face ; and then, oh, hor- 
ror ! even as I was looking at him, he disap- 
peared. He did not fade away ; he did not fall ; 
but, in the twinkling of an eye, he was not there. 
Trembling and awe-struck, I went into the 
house and strove to compose my shattered 
nerves. Was Albert dead, and were appari- 
tions truths ? I dared not think — I dared not 
ask myself the question. I passed a wretched 
night; and the next day I was as unsettled as 
when first he left me. 

It was about four days from this time when 
a circumstance wholly inexplicable occurred in 
my house. I was sitting at breakfast in the li- 
brary, with a volume of Plato beside me, when 
my servant entered the room, and courtesied for 
permission to speak. I looked up, and suppos- 
ing that she needed money for domestic pur- 
poses, I pulled out my purse from my pocket, 
and saying, "Well, Katrine, what do you want 
now?" drew forth a florin, and held it toward 
her. 

She courtesied again, and shook her head. 
"Thank you, master; but it is not that." 

Something in the old woman's tone of voice 
caused me to look up hastily. "What is the 
matter, Katrine ? Has any thing alarmed you?" 

" If you please, master — if it is not a rude 
question, has — has any one been here lately?" 

" Here !" I repeated. " What do you mean ?" 

"In the bed up stairs, master." 

I sprang to my feet, and turned as cold as a 
statue. 

"The bed has been slept in, master, for the 
last four nights." 

I flew to the door, thrust her aside, and in a 
moment sprang up the staircase, and into Al- 
bert's bedroom ; and there, plainly, plainly, I 
beheld the impression of a heavy body left upon 
the bed ! Yes, there, on the pillow, was the 
mark where his head had been laid ; there the 
deep groove pressed by his body ! It was no de- 
ception this, but a strange, an incomprehensible 
reality. I groaned aloud, and staggered heavily 
back. 

" It has been like this for four nights, mas- 



ter," said the old woman. " Each morning I 
have made the bed, thinking, perhaps, that you 
had been in there to lie down during the day ; 
but this time I thought I would speak to you 
about it." 

"Well, Katrine, make the bed once more; let 
us give it another trial ; and then — " 

I said no more, but walked away. When all 
was in order, I returned, bringing with me a 
basin of fine sand. First of all, I closed and 
barred the shutters ; then sprinkled the floor 
all round the bed with sand ; shut and locked 
the chamber door, and left the key, under some 
trivial pretext, at the house of a friend in the 
town. Katrine was witness to all this. That 
night I lay awake and restless ; not a sound dis- 
turbed the utter silence of the autumn night ; 
not a breath stirred the leaves against my case- 
ment. 

I rose early the next morning ; and by the 
time Katrine was up and at her work, I return- 
ed from Ems with the key. " Come with me, 
Katrine," I said ; " let us see if all be right in 
the Herr Lachner's bedroom." 

At the door, we paused and looked, half-ter- 
rified, in each other's faces ; then I summoned 
courage, turned the key, and entered. The win- 
dow-shutters, which I had fastened the day be- 
fore, were wide open — unclosed by no mortal 
hand ; and the daylight streaming in, fell upon 
the disordered bed — upon foot-marks in the 
sand ! Looking attentively at these latter, I 
saw that the impressions were alternately light 
and heavy, as if the walker had rested longer 
upon one foot than the other, like a lame man. 

I will not here delay my narrative with an 
account of the mental anguish which this cir- 
cumstance caused me ; suffice it, that I left that 
room, locked the door again, and resolved never 
to re-enter it till I had learned the fate of my 
friend. •* / 

The next day I set off for Cassel. The journey 
was long and fatiguing, and only a portion could 
be achieved by train. Though I started very 
early in the morning, it was quite night before 
the diligence by which the transit was complet- 
ed entered the streets of the town. Faint and 
weary though I was, I could not delay at the inn 
to partake of any refreshment, but hired a youth 
to show me the way to Albert's lodgings, and 
proceeded at once upon my search. lie led me 
through a labyrinth of narrow, old-fashioned 
streets, and paused at length before a high, red- 
brick dwelling, with projecting stories and a cu- 
riously-carved doorway. An old man with a 
lantern answered my summons ; and, on my in- 
quiring if Herr Lachner lodged there, desired 
me to walk up stairs to the third floor. 

" Then he is living !" I cried, eagerly. 

"Living!" echoed the man, as he held the 
lantern at the foot of the staircase to light me 
on my way — "living! Mem (Jott, we want no 
dead lodgers here !" 

After the first flight, I found myself in dark- 
ness, and went on, feeling my way step by step, 
and holding by the broad balusters. As I as- 



66-4 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ecu Jed the third flight, a door on the landing 
suddenly opened, and a voice exclaimed : 

" Welcome, Heinrich ! Take care ; there is 
a loose plank on the last step but one." 

It was Albert, holding a candle in his hand — 
as well, as real, as substantial as ever. I cleared 
the remaining interval with a bound, and threw 
myself into his arms. 

"Albert, Albert, my friend and companion, 
alive — alive and well!" 

"Yes, alive," he replied, drawing me into 
the room, and closing the door. " You thought 
me dead?" 

"I did indeed," said I, half sobbing with joy. 
Then glancing round at the blazing hearth — for 
now the nights were chill — the cheerful lights, 
and the well-spread supper-table: "Why, Al- 
bert," I exclaimed, "you live here like a king." 
"Not always thus," he replied, with a mel- 
ancholy smile. " I lead in general a very spar- 
ing, bachelor-like existence. But it is not often I 
have a visitor to entertain ; and you, my brother, 
have ncvei: before partaken of my hospitality." 
" How !" I exclaimed, quite stupefied ; " you 
knew that I was coming ?" 

" Certainly. I have even prepared a bed for 
you in my own apartment." 

I gasped for breath, and dropped into a seat. 
"And this power — this spiritual knowledge — " 
" Is simply the effect of magnetic relation — 
of what is called rapport" 
"Explain yourself." 

"Not now, Heinrich. You are exhausted by 
the mental and bodily excitement which you 
have this day undergone. Eat, now ; eat and 
rest. After supper, we will talk the subject 
over." 

Wearied as I was, curiosity, and a vague sort 
of horror which I found it impossible to control, 
deprived me of appetite, and I rejoiced when, 
drawing toward the hearth with our meer- 
schaums and Rhine-wine, we resumed the for- 
mer conversation. 

"You are, of course, aware," began my friend, 
"that in those cases where a mesmeric power 
has been established by one mind over anoth- 
er, a certain rapport, or intimate spiritual re- 
lationship, becomes the mysterious link between 
those two natures. This rapport does not con- 
sist in the mere sleep-producing power; that is 
but the primary form, the simplest stage of its 
influence, and in many instances may be alto- 
gether omitted. By this, I mean that the mes- 
merist may, by a supreme act of volition, step 
at once to the highest power of control over 
the patient, without traversing the intermediate 
gradations of somnolency or even clairvoyance. 
This highest power lies in the will of the oper- 
ator, and enables him to present images to the 
mind of the other, even as they are produced in 
his own. I can not better describe my subject 
than by comparing the mind of the patient to a 
mirror, which reflects that of the operator as 
long, as often, and as fully as he may desire. 
This rapport I have long sought to establish be- 
tween us." 



" But you have not succeeded." 
"Not altogether; neither have my efforts 
been quite in vain. You have struggled to re- 
sist me, and I have felt the opposing power baf- 
fling me at every step ; yet sometimes I have 
prevailed, if but for a short time. For instance, 
during many days after leaving Ems, I left a 
strong impression upon your mind." 
" Which I tried to shake off, and did." 
" True ; but it was a contended point for 
some days. Let me recall another instance to 
your memory. About five days ago, you were 
suddenly, and for some moments, forced to suc- 
cumb to my influence, although but an instant 
previous you were completely a free agent." 

" At what time in the day was that?" I asked, 
falteringly. 

"About half past eight o'clock in the even- 
ing." 

I shuddered, grew deadly faint, and pushed 
my chair back. 

" But where were you, Albert ?" I muttered, 
in a half-audible voice. 

He looked up, surprised at my emotion ; then, 
as if catching the reflex of my agitation from 
my countenance, he turned ghastly pale, even 
to his lips, and the drops of cold dew started 
on his forehead. 

"I — was — here," he said, with a slow and 
labored articulation, that added to my dis- 
may. 

"But I saw you — I saw you standing in my 
garden, just as I was thinking of you, or, rather, 
just as the thought of you had been forced upon 
me." 

"And did you speak to — to the figure?" 
"Twice, without being heard. The third 
time I cried — " 

" ' Albert, look round, man !'" interrupted my 
friend, in a hoarse, quick tone. 

" My very words ! Then you heard me ?" 
"But when you had spoken them," he con- 
tinued, without heeding my question — " when 
you had spoken them, what then ?" 

"It vanished — where and how, I know not." 
Albert covered his face with his hands, and 
groaned aloud. 

"Great God!" lie said feebly, "then I am 
not mad !" 

I was so horror-struck that I remained silent. 
Presently he raised his head, poured out half a 
tumblerful Of brandy, drank it at a draught, and 
then turning his face partly aside, and speaking 
in a low and preternaturally even tone, related 
to me the following strange and fearful narra- 
tive : 

" Dr. K , under whom I have been study- 
ing for the last year here in Cassel, first con- 
vinced me of the reality of the mesmeric doc- 
trine ; before then, I was as hardened a skeptic 
as yourself. As is frequently the case in these 
matters, the pupil — being, perhaps, constitution- 
ally inclined more toward those influences — 
soon penetrated deeper into the paths of mes- 
meric research than the master. By a rapidity 
of conviction that seems almost miraculous, I 



THE DOPPELGANGEK. 



G65 



pierced at once to the essence of the doctrine, 
and, passing from the condition of patient to 
that of operator, became sensible of great inter- 
nal power, and of a strength of volition which 
enabled me to establish the most extraordinary 
rapports between my patients and myself, even 
when separated from them by any distance, how- 
ever considerable. Shortly after the discovery 
of this new power, I became aware of another 
and a still more singular phenomenon within my- 
self. In order to convey to you a proper idea 
of which this phenomenon is, I must beg you 
to analyze with me the ordinary process of mem- 
ory. Memory is the reproduction or summon- 
ing back of past places and events. With some, 
this mental vision is so vivid, as actually to pro- 
duce the effect of painting the place or thing 
remembered upon the retina of the eye, so as 
to present it with all its substantive form, its 
lights, its colors, and its shadows. Such is our 
so-called memory — who shall say whether it be 
memory or reality? I had always commanded 
this faculty in a high degree ; indeed, so re- 
markably, that if I but related a passage from 
any book, the very page, the printed characters, 
were spread before my mental vision, and I read 
from them as from the volume. My recollec- 
tion was therefore said to be wondrously faith- 
ful, and, as you will remember, I never erred 
in a single syllable. Since my recent investi- 
gations, this faculty has increased in a very sin- 
gular manner. I have twice felt as though my 
inner self, my spiritual self, were a distinct body 
— yet scarcely so much a body as a nervous es- 
sence or ether ; and as if this second being, in 
moments of earnest thought, went from me, and 
visited the people, the places, the objects of ex- 
ternal life. Nay," he continued, observing my 
extreme agitation, " this thing is not wholly new 
in the history of magnetic phenomena — but it 
is rare. We call it, psychologically speaking, 
the power of far-working. But there is yet an- 
other and a more appalling phase of far-work- 
ing — that of a visible appearance out of the body 
— that of being here and elsewhere at the same 
time — that of becoming, in short, a doppelgan- 
ger. The irrefragable evidence of this truth I 
have never dared to doubt, but it has always 
impressed me with an unparalleled horror. I 
believed, but I dreaded ; yet twice i have for a 
few moments trembled at the thought that I — 
I also may be — may be — Oh rather, far, far 
rather would I believe myself deluded, dream- 
ing — even mad ! Twice have I felt a conscious- 
ness of self-absence — once, a consciousness of 
self-seeing ! All knowledge, all perception was 
transferred to my spiritual self, while a sort of 
drowsy numbness and inaction weighed upon 
my bodily part. The first time was about a 
fortnight before I visited you at Ems; the sec- 
ond happened five nights since, at the period 
of which you have spoken. On that second 
evening, lleinrieh" — here his voice trembled 
audibly — ' ; I felt myself in possession of an un- 
usual mesmeric power. I thought of you, and 
impelled the influence, as it were, from my mind 



upon yours. This time, I found no resisting 
force opposed to mine ; you yielded to my do- 
minion — you believed." 

"It was so," I murmured faintly. 

"At the same time, my brother, I felt the 
most earnest desire to be once more near you, 
to hear your voice, to see your frank and friend- 
ly face, to be standing again in your pretty gar- 
den beside the running river. It was sunset, 
and I pictured to myself the scene from that 
spot. Even as I did so, a dullness came over 
my senses — the picture on my memory grew 
wider, brighter ; I felt the cool breeze from the 
water ; I saw the red sun sinking over the far 
woods ; I heard the vesper-bells ringing from 
the steeples ; in a word, I was spiritually there. 
Presently I became aware as of the approach of 
something, I knew not what — but a something 
not of the same nature as myself — something 
that filled me with a shivering, half compound- 
ed of fear and half of pleasure. Then a sound, 
smothered and strange, as if unfitted for the 
organs of my spiritual sense, seemed to fill the 
space around — a sound resembling speech, yet 
reverberating and confused, like distant thun- 
der. I felt paralyzed, and unable to turn. It 
came and died away a second time, yet more 
distinctly. I distinguished words, but not their 
sense. It came a third time, vibrating, clear, 
and loud — ' Albert, look round, man !' Making 
a terrible effort to overcome the bonds which 
seemed to hold me, I turned — I saw you ! The 
next moment a sharp pain wrung me in every 
limb ; there came a brief darkness, and I then 
found myself, without any apparent lapse of 
time or sensible motion, sitting by yonder win- 
dow, where, gazing on the sunset, I had begun 
to think of you. The sound of your voice yet 
rang in my ears ; the sight of your face was still 
before me ; I shuddered — I tried to think that 
all had been a dream. I lifted my hands to 
my brow: they were numbed and heavy. I 
strove to rise ; but a rigid torpor seemed to 
weigh upon my limbs. You say that I was vis- 
ibly present in your garden ; I know that I was 
bodily present in this room. Can it be that 
my worst fears are confirmed — that I possess a 
double being?" 

We were both silent for some moments. At 
last I told him the circumstances of the bed and 
of the footmarks on. the sand. He was shock- 
ed, but scarcely surprised. 

"I have been thinking much of you," he 
said; "and for several successive nights I have 
dreamed of you and of my stay — nay, even of 
that very bedroom. Yet I have been conscious 
of none of these symptoms of far-working. It 
is true that I have awaked each morning unrc- 
freshed and weary, as if from bodily fatigue ; 
but this I attributed to over-study and constitu- 
tional weakness." 

" Will you not tell me the particulars of your 
first experience of this spiritual absence?" 

Albert sat pale and silent, as if he heard 
not. 

I repeated the question. 



666 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" Give me some more brandy," he said, " and 
I -will tell you." 

I did so. He remained for a few moments 
looking at the fire before he spoke ; at last he 
proceeded, but in a still lower voice than before. 
"The first time was also in this room ; but how 
much more terrible than the second. I had 
been reading — reading a metaphysical work 
upon the nature of the soul — when I experi- 
enced, quite suddenly, a sensation of extreme 
lassitude. The book grew dim before my eyes ; 
the room darkened ; I appeared to find myself 
in the streets of the town. Plainly I saw the 
churches in the gray evening dusk ; plainly the 
hurrying passengers ; plainly the faces of many 
whom I knew. Now it was the market-place ; 
now the bridge; now the well-known street in 
which I live. Then I came to the door; it 
stood wide open to admit me. I passed slow- 
ly, slowly up the gloomy staircase; I entered 
my own room ; and there — " 

He paused; his voice grew husky, and his 
face assumed a stony, almost a distorted ap- 
pearance. 

"And there you saw," I urged, "you saw — " 

" Myself! Myself, sitting in this very chair. 
Yes, yes ; myself stood gazing on myself! We 
looked — we looked into each — each other's eyes 
— we — Ave — we — " 

His voice failed ; the hand holding the wine- 
glass grew stiff, and the brittle vessel fell upon 
the hearth, and was shattered into a thousand 
fragments. 

" Albert ! Albert!" I shrieked, " look up. Oh, 
heavens ! what shall I do ?" 

I hung franticly over him ; I seized his hands 
in mine ; they were cold as marble. Sudden- 
ly, as if by a last spasmodic effort, he turned 
his head in the direction of the door, and look- 
ed earnestly forward. The power of speech 
was gone, but his eyes glared with a light that 
was more vivid than that of life. Struck with 
an appalling idea, I followed the course of his 
gaze. Hark! a dull, dull sound — measured, 
distinct, and slow, as if of feet ascending. My 
blood froze ; I could not remove my eyes from 
the doorway ; I could not breathe. Nearer and 
nearer came the steps — alternately light and 
heavy, light and heavy, as the tread of a lame 
man. Nearer and nearer — across the landing 
— upon the very threshold of the chamber. A 
sudden fall beside me, a crash, a darkness ! 
Albert had slipped from his chair to the floor, 
dragging the table in his fall, and extinguishing 
the lights beneath the debris of the accident. 

Forgetting instantly every thing but the dan- 
ger of my friend, I flew to the bell and rang 
wildly for help. The vehemence of my cries, 
and the startling energy of the peal in the mid- 
night silence of the house, roused every creat- 
ure there ; and in less time than it takes to re- 
late, the room was filled with a crowd of anx- 
ious and terrified lodgers, some just roused from 
sleep, and others called from their studies, with 
their reading-lamps in their hands. 

The first thing was to rescue Albert from 



where he lay, beneath the weight of the fallen 
table — to throw cold water on his face and 
hands, to loosen his neckcloth, to open the win- 
dows for the fresh night-air. 

"It is of no use," said a young man, holding 
his head up and examining his eyes. " I am 
a surgeon : I live in this house. Your friend 
is dead." 

" Dead ! I echoed, sinking upon a chair. 
"No, no — not dead. He was — he was subject 
to this !" 

"No doubt," replied the surgeon ; "it is prob- 
ably his third attack." 

"Yes, yes — I know it is. Is there no hope ?" 

He shook his head and turned away. 

"What has been the cause of his death?" 
asked a by-stander, in an awe-struck whisper. 

" Catalepsy." 



HOW THE DESTRUCTION OF TREES 
AFFECTS THE RAIN. 

¥E Yankees are a race of dendrokopti. (The 
word is tolerably fair Greek, and sounds 
better than its English equivalent, "tree-cut- 
ters.") To cut down trees and shoot Indians 
seems our national instinct. The narrow-bladed 
Yankee ax is more destructive to the forests 
than Sharp's rifle and Colt's revolver are to their 
red-skinned denizens. We suppose this instinct 
was implanted for a good purpose. When every 
foot of land was covered by trees, and when be- 
hind every tree lurked an Indian, it was quite 
necessary to shoot and chop indiscriminately. 
Civilized men must be suffered to live, and corn 
must be permitted to grow, Indians and trees 
to the contrary notwithstanding. But our de- 
structive instincts should be brought under the 
control of reason ; and passing by for the pres- 
ent the Indian question, we hope to be able to 
show good reasons why the indiscriminate slaugh- 
ter of trees should cease. 

The old Greeks were wise men in their day, 
and with them the word dendrokopein, " to cut 
down trees," meant also to destroy, ravage, and 
utterly ruin a country. We, or those who come 
after us, shall find to our cost, some of these 
days, that the Greeks were philosophers in so 
using the word. By cutting down the trees 
upon mountain sides and ravines, we are inev- 
itably entairing two great evils upon posterity 
— a scarcity of fuel and a scarcity of water. 
The former evil is the more obvious, but the 
latter is equally certain and far more formi- 
dable. The lack of wood for fuel may be sup- 
plied from our abundant accumulations of coal ; 
but no art or labor can supply a substitute for 
water. 

The hidden fountains of all our springs and 
rivers are in the atmosphere. Every drop of 
fresh water is drawn, in the form of dew or rain, 
from these inexhaustible, ever-renewed reser- 
voirs. Trees act in many ways in regulating 
and distributing the supply of moisture. In cer- 
tain localities they even produce a sensible ef- 
fect upon the amount of moisture deposited from 
the atmosphere. Thus, in the Island of Saint 



HOW THE DESTRUCTION OF TREES AFFECTS THE RAIN. 



067 



Helena, great attention has been paid within 
the last quarter of a century to the planting of 
trees upon the steep bare hillsides ; and it has 
been found that the fall of water has almost 
doubled since the time when Napoleon was a 
prisoner there. The reason seems obvious. The 
temperature of trees, in hot climates, is always 
lower than that of the surrounding atmosphere. 
The winds, loaded with moisture exhaled from 
the ocean over which they have past, sweep over 
the island. The trees condense this, and it is 
deposited in dew or rain. Still more remarka- 
bly is this shown by the famous fountain trees 
on Ferro, one of the Canary Islands. So great 
is their condensing power that they seem to be 
always wrapped in a vapory cloud, and the 
moisture collects in drops upon the leaves, 
trickles down the branches and stems, and col- 
lecting into a reservoir at their feet, forms a 
perpetual fountain. It is a repetition on a lar- 
ger scale of the phenomenon which occurs when 
a jug of iced water is brought into a heated 
room. 

We have of late years heard much of drought 
and consequent famine in the Cape de Verd 
Islands. The soil is of a peculiarly porous na- 
ture, and therefore requires a constant supply 
of moisture as an indispensable condition of fer- 
tility. For a long time the climate has been 
constantly growing less and less humid. The 
Socorridos, the largest river in Madeira, for- 
merly had a sufficient depth of water to float 
timber down to the sea. It is now a mere 
rivulet, whose waters, except in flood time, are 
scarcely discoverable as they trickle along its 
pebbly bed. This diminution of moisture can 
be traced directly to the destruction of the for- 
ests that formerly covered the mountain sides. 
The Portuguese government were early aware 
of this, and laws were framed prohibiting the 
cutting down of trees near springs and sources 
of streams. But timber was valuable, and the 
land was wanted for vine}'ards. Portuguese 
laws were powerless against the demands of 
immediate interest. So the trees were cut 
down, the springs failed, and fountains dried 
up. Hence came drought, famine, and desti- 
tution. Present gain must sometimes be pur- 
chased by future loss. It is not good policy to 
kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. 

Trees regulate the supply of moisture in many 
ways, even where we can not suppose that they 
affect its absolute amount. The evaporation 
from their leaves is considerable, and this, dif- 
fused through the atmosphere, is wafted over 
wide tracts of country. They shelter the ground 
beneath therri, and thus prevent the water that 
falls from being carried off by evaporation, al- 
lowing it to penetrate the earth, keeping the 
springs and fountains in perpetual flow in the 
driest seasons. Their roots and interlacing 
fibres penetrate the soil, preventing it from be- 
ing washed away by sudden showers, and form- 
ing a sort of sponge that absorbs the water, and 
gives it out slowly and uniformly, thus equaliz- 
ing its flow, preventing droughts on the one 



hand, and floods on the other. When the for- 
ests on hillsides and ravine slopes are cut down, 
the rain slides off from them as from a roof. 
A sudden shower swells every rivulet into a tor- 
rent. Every 'tiny brook pours its accumulation 
at once into the rivers, whose channels are in- 
adequate to carry off the sudden accession, 
hence disastrous inundations, followed at short 
intervals by low water. The supply of water 
that should have been distributed over weeks 
is exhausted in hours. That which should have 
bubbled up in springs and flowed through rivu- 
lets, making the meadows green, is carried at 
once through the great rivers to the ocean, to 
be again taken up by evaporation only to go 
again through the same round. The volume 
of the great rivers, the Danubes, the Mississip- 
pis, the Niles, the Rhines, and the Connecti- 
cuts may undergo no change from age to age ; 
for they derive their waters from a wide extent 
of country, and droughts in one section are bal- 
anced by showers in another. But the smaller 
rivers diminish, the rivulets dry up, and the 
springs fail, except immediately after rains, 
when they are greatly swollen. Thus by the 
operation of one law, the destruction of for- 
ests causes the two opposite evils of floods and 
droughts. 

Humboldt appears to have been the first to 
call public attention to the probable consequen- 
ces of the destruction of forests. In 1800 he vis- 
ited the Lake of Valencia, in South America. By 
careful observation he found that, in the course 
of the preceding century, the level of its waters 
had fallen five or six feet, and its shores had 
receded a number of miles. The neighboring 
mountains, he says, had been formerly covered 
with dense forests, and the plains with thickets 
and trees. As cultivation increased, the trees 
were cut down, evaporation from the surface 
was accelerated, the springs and fountains dried 
up, and the shores being low and flat, the sur- 
face of the lake rapidly contracted. Some 
years after his visit, the War of Liberation 
broke out; men betook themselves to fighting 
instead of farming; the tropical vegetation, no 
longer kept in check by man, again overspread 
the hills and plains. The rain-water, no lon- 
ger taken from the surface into the atmosphere, 
sought out its ancient fountains ; the rivulets 
reappeared, 'the waters of the lake began to 
rise and overflow the plantations that had been 
formed upon its banks. 

It is a well-known fact, that the lakes in the 
valley of Mexico have lately contracted since the 
old Aztec times. The city of Mexico occupies 
its ancient site, but it is now some distance in- 
shore instead of on an island, as formerly. This 
is to be ascribed to the felling of the forests that. 
formerly clothed the adjacent hills. In the min- 
ing district of Popayan it had been observed 
that the streams which put in motion the stamp- 
ing-mills were diminishing in volume from year 
to year, although observations showed that the 
fall of rain had not diminished. Still that which 
found its way to the wheels of the stamping-mills 



6G8 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



was growing less and less, and great injury was 
apprehended to the mining interest. "What 
shall we do for water?" was the general cry. The 
evil was immediate and tangible. Somebody 
had sense enough to ascribe it to the true cause, 
and the demolition of the neighboring forests 
was prohibited. In that prolific climate Nature 
soon repairs her wastes. The naked hills were 
soon clothed again with new vegetation, and 
the streams resumed their former volume. 

In tropical climates, of course, the connection 
between the forests and the supply of water, and 
consequent fertility, is most apparent. When 
the Spice Islands fell into the hands of the 
Dutch, they were covered with a dense growth 
of spice-bearing trees. In order to increase the 
value of their monopoly, they commenced an 
almost indiscriminate destruction of these for- 
ests. In consequence, the islands were con- 
verted into barren deserts, and they have not 
yet resumed their former fertility. AtPenang, 
the Chinese settlers have been in the habit of 
raising but a single crop from the virgin soil, 
which they had bared of its forests, and then 
abandoning the fields for fresh clearings. The 
soil thus left unprotected was washed from the 
steep hillsides, which became parched and bar- 
ren, and the island was threatened with incura- 
ble sterility. The British Government has been 
obliged to interfere and prevent this short-sight- 
ed destruction of the forests. 

The British Association has collected from 
India a vast amount of information bearing 
upon this point. Among the hills of Ceylon, 
where the forests have been cut down in order 
to form coffee plantations, the loss of the springs 
and fountains has already become an evil' of 
great magnitude. Districts are pointed out 
which have been in a great measure aban- 
doned, within the memory of man, from the 
same cause ; and measures have been recom- 
mended, and partially carried into effect, to 
remedy this evil, by forming extensive planta- 
tions. But it is much easier to prevent an evil 
than to remedy it. An ounce of prevention is 
here worth quite a number of pounds of cure. 

Could the old Greeks have looked forward 
into futurity, they would have seen double rea- 
son to use tree-cutting and devastation as con- 
vertible terms. In a large portion of Greece 
the forests that once clothed the hills have dis- 
appeared. As a consequence, some of the fa- 
mous fountains of antiquity now flow only in 
song.' Rivers of historical renown have shrunk 
to scanty brooks, which a child may ford. The 
Lernean Lake is now but a stagnant pool, so 
overgrown and hidden by reeds and rushes, 
that the traveler might pass it without being 
aware of its existence. Asia Minor and Persia, 
and the country from Burmah to Afghanistan, 
are full of warnings on this subject. Italy has 
suffered less, for her lofty mountains are yet 
the parents of perpetual streams ; but she has 
not escaped. The famous Rubicon has dwin- 
dled to a little rivulet, so insignificant that it 
can not now be certainly identified ; the Pope 



and the antiquarians being at issue on this 
point. 

Palestine, in the old, times, was a land of 
rivulets and fountains, gushing from every hill, 
and was thereby distinguished from Egypt, 
which must be "watered by the foot." The 
channels of its rivulets still exist, but they are 
dry water-courses, except in the rainy season. 
Their number is sufficient proof of the ancient 
abundance of water. Such a dry water-course 
is called a Wady, and they are perhaps the 
most distinctive feature of the physical geog- 
raphy of the country. We remember, indeed, 
a distinguished traveler in Palestine, who, in 
our student days, was fond of giving his observ- 
ations on that country. So frequently was he 
obliged to mention these water-courses, always 
using the Arabic name, that he was usually 
spoken of as "Wady" by the students, and 
the appellation was even transferred to his son, 
who was called, by way of distinction, "Young 
Wady." In tropical climates water and fertili- 
ty always go together, and the abundance of 
these dry channels, which were once enlivened 
by living streams, is sufficient proof of the an- 
cient fertility of the Promised Land — a fertility 
which must needs have been great in order to 
support the dense population which Sacred 
Writ informs us once peopled its hills and val- 
leys. But with the trees the gushing fountains 
have passed away, and ages must elapse before 
the best government can restore the country to 
its old state. 

Our own country is yet too new, and our 
forests are yet, in spite of woodmen and axes, 
too numerous for the scarcity of water to have 
become a serious evil. But like causes produce 
like effects ; and unless we change our procedure, 
our children will suffer from our wanton care- 
lessness. We have no right for our own tem- 
porary advantage to desolate the country. No 
generation has more than a life-interest in the 
earth, of which it is but the trustee for posterity. 
Every man who has revisited his early home in 
the older States, after an absence of a few years, 
can not have failed to notice the diminution of 
the streams and springs. There is probably no 
water in the brook that turned his water-wheel. 
The springs in the pasture, which he remem- 
bers as ever-flowing, are dry; and if a season 
of unusual drought happens, the cattle must be 
driven long distances to water — a necessity 
which never was known in his early years. 
More especially will this be the case if a rail- 
road or an iron establishment has occasioned a 
rapid demand for fuel. The trees have gone, 
and with them the water ; and the tneadows and 
fields are dry and parched. In their haste to 
be rich, the farmers have killed the goose that 
laid the golden eggs for them. 

Among the most pleasant remembrances of 
our own New England home were some half- 
dozen beautiful ponds, with waters as clear as 
crystal, lying among the woods. One, in par- 
ticular, known as Spring Pond, was a perfect 
gem. It lay in a deep hollow, with steep slop- 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



COD 



ing sides, clothed with a magnificent growth 
of maples, beeches, and birches. At the foot 
of a sandy bluff the clear cold water welled up 
in two beautiful jets, almost as large as a man's 
body, as though it poured from the orifice of a 
subterranean pipe. We did not then know 
that the Hebrews designated an eye and a 
fountain by the same word ; but we had often 
likened that fountain, with its ever-changing 
play, to an eye rolling in its orbit. From the 
fountain the water spread out into a pond of 
some two score of acres, and then flowed off in a 
trout-peopled brook. A year ago we visited the 
old homestead, and took our way across the fields 
to find Spring Pond. Some well-remembered 
landmarks remained, but the tall maples and 
spreading beeches were gone. We reached the 
edge of the bluff beneath which the fountain 
had welled. The sides were bare and sandy, 
channeled with rain-courses, now dry and dusty. 
A few water-worn stones denoted the former 
site of the spring, but it was dry now. It was 
like the sockets in a bleached skull, in which 
the eye had once played. The pond was but a 
miry marsh, overgrown with tufts of reeds and 
coarse grass, and marked here and there with 
paths trodden by the cattle in search of water. 
The trees had been cut down to supply fuel for 
the neighboring railway — which, we were al- 
most glad to learn, had never paid a cent to its 
stockholders — and with them had gone spark- 
ling fountain, clear pond, and dancing brook. 

This is but a type of what is going on all 
through our older States. Unless men grow 
wiser, and exercise more forethought, they or 
their children will have abundant reason to de- 
j>lore their folly when the great cry of drought, 
with which we are growing familiar, shall be 
heard all over the land. 

Let us be careful of our trees. Preserve 
those that grow upon mountain sides and ra- 
vine slopes, by fountain heads and springs. A 
keen ax in a stout woodman's hand will in an 
hour destroy what it has taken a century to pro- 
duce, and what a century can not replace. A 
few cords of wood are worth something; but 
they are of less value than a perpetual fountain. 
A few acres added to our cornfields will be 
dearly purchased by cursing the land for gen- 
erations with drought and barrenness. In our 
Eastern States, even now, there is more need 
of planting forests than of felling them. "Put 
in a tree, it will be growing while you are 
sleeping," is good advice here as well as in 
Scotland, and posterity will have good cause to 
be grateful to those who follow it. In our 
newer States there may be no need of this ; but 
there is need that in making clearings there 
shall be no wanton waste of forests. Spare the 
trees, then : not merely that one particular tree, 
about which your daughter's piano so constant- 
ly discourses; that tree which sheltered you in 
childhood, and which you have so solemnly 
vowed to protect ; but a great many other trees; 
every tree, in fact, for the destruction of which 
you can show no good and sufficient reason. 
Vol. XII.— No. 71.— Uu 




BY CHARLES DICKENS. 



CHAPTER XII— BLEEDING HEART YARD. 

IN London itself, though in the old rustic road 
toward a suburb of note, where, in the days 
of William Shakspeare, author and stage-play- 
er, there were royal hunting-seats, howbeit, no 
sport is left there now but for hunters of men. 
Bleeding Heart Yard was to be found. A place 
much changed in feature and in fortune, yet 
with some relish of ancient greatness about it. 
Two or three mighty stacks of chimneys, and a 
few large dark rooms which had escaped being 
walled and subdivided out of the recognition of 
their old proportions, gave the Yard a character. 
It was inhabited by poor people, who set up their 
rest among its faded glories, as Arabs of the 
desert pitch their tents among the fallen stone> 
of the Pyramids ; but there was a family senti- 
mental feeling prevalent in the Yard that it had 
a character. 

As if the aspiring city had become puffed up 
in the very ground on which it stood, the ground 
had so risen about Bleeding Heart Yard that 
you got into it down a flight of steps which form- 
ed no part of the original approach, and got out 
of it by a low gateway into a maze of shabby 
streets which went about and about, tortuously 
ascending to the level again. At this end of the 
Yard, and over the gateway, was the factory of 
Daniel Doyce, often heavily beating like a bleed 
ing heart of iron, with the clink of metal upon 
metal. 

The opinion of the Yard was divided respect- 
ing the derivation of its name. The more prac- 
tical of its inmates abided by the tradition of u 
murder; the gentler and more imaginative in- 
habitants, including the whole of the tender sex, 
were loyal to the legend of a young lady of for- 
mer times closely imprisoned in her chamber by 
a cruel father for remaining true to her own 
true love, and refusing to marry the sailor he 
chose for her. The legend related how tha; 
the young lady used to be seen up at her win- 
dow behind the bars, murmuring a love-lorn 
song, of which the burden was, "Bleeding 
Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away," until 
she died. It was objected by the murderous 



(570 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



party that this Refrain was notoriously the in- 
vention of a tambour-worker, a spinster and ro- 
mantic, still lodging in the Yard. But, foras- 
much as all favorite legends must be associated 
with the affections, and as many more people 
fall in love than commit murder — which it may 
be hoped, howsoever bad we are, will continue 
unto the end of the world to be the dispensa- 
tion under which we shall live — the Bleeding 
Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away story, 
carried the day by a great majority. Neither 
party would listen to the antiquaries who deliv- 
ered learned lectures in the neighborhood, show- 
ing the Bleeding Heart to have been the herald- 
ic cognizance of the old family to whom the 
property had once belonged. And considering 
that the hour-glass they turned from year to year 
was filled with the earthiest and coarsest sand, 
the Bleeding Heart Yarders had reason enough 
for objecting to be despoiled of the one little 
golden grain of poetry that sparkled in it. 

Down into the Yard by way of the steps came 
Daniel Doyce, Mr. Meagles, and Clennam. 
Passing along the Yard and between the open 
doors on either hand, all abundantly garnished 
with light children nursing heavy ones, they ar- 
rived at its opposite boundary, the gateway. Here 
Arthur Clennam stopped to look about him for 
the domicile of Plornish, plasterer: whose name, 
according to the custom of Londoners, Daniel 
Doyce had never seen or heard of to that hour. 

It was plain enough, nevertheless, as Little 
Dorrit had said, over a lime-splashed gateway 
in the corner, within which Plornish kept a lad- 
der and a barrel or two. The last house in 
Bleeding Heart Yard which she had described 
as his place of habitation, was a large house, let 
off to various tenants ; but Plornish ingeniously 
hinted that he lived in the parlor, by means of 
a painted hand under his name, the forefinger 
of which hand (on which the artist had depict- 
ed a ring and a most elaborate nail of the gen- 
teelest form), referred all inquirers to that apart- 
ment. 

Parting from his companions, after arranging 
another meeting with Mr. Meagles, Clennam 
went alone into the entry, and knocked with his 
knuckles at the parlor-door. It was opened 
presently by a woman with a child in her arms, 
whose unoccupied hand was hastily rearranging 
the upper part of her dress. This was Mrs. 
Plornish, and this maternal action was the ac- 
tion of Mrs. Plornish during a large part of her 
waking existence. 

Was Mr. Plornish at home? "Well, Sir," 
said Mrs. Plornish, a civil woman, "not to de- 
ceive you, he's gone to look for a job." 

Not to deceive you, was a method of speech 
with Mrs. Plornish. She would deceive you un- 
der any circumstances as little as might be ; 
but she had a trick of answering in this provis- 
ional form. 

" Do you think he will be back soon, if I wait 
for him?" 

" I have been expecting him," said Mrs. Plor- 



nish, " this half an hour, at any minute of time. 
Walk in, Sir." 

Arthur entered the rather dark and close 
parlor (though it was lofty too), and sat down in 
the chair she placed for him. 

"Not to deceive you, Sir, I notice it," said 
Mrs. Plornish, " and I take it kind of you." 

He was at a loss to understand what she 
meant, and by expressing as much in his looks, 
elicited her explanation. 

" It an't many that comes into a poor place, 
that deems it worth their while to move their 
hats," said Mrs. Plornish. " But people think 
more of it than people think." 

Clennam returned, with an uncomfortable 
feeling in so very slight a courtesy being unusu- 
al, Was that all! And stooping down to pinch 
the cheek of another young child who was sit- 
ting on the floor, staring at him, asked Mrs. 
Plornish how old that fine boy was? 

"Four year just turned, Sir," said Mrs. 
Plornish. "He is a fine little fellow, an't he, 
Sir? But this one is rather sickly." She ten- 
derly hushed the baby in her arms as she said 
it. "You wouldn't mind my asking if it hap- 
pened to be a job as you Avas come about, Sir, 
would you ?" added Mrs. Plornish, wistfully. 

She asked it so anxiously, that if he had been 
in possession of any kind of tenement he would 
have had it plastered a foot deep rather than 
answer No. But he was obliged to answer No, 
and he saw a shade of disappointment on her 
face as she checked a sigh and looked, at the 
low fire. Then he saw, also, that Mrs. Plornish 
was a young woman, made somewhat slatternly 
in herself and her belongings by poverty, and so 
dragged at by poverty and the children togeth- 
er, that their united forces had already dragged 
her face into wrinkles. 

" All such things as jobs," said Mrs. Plornish, 
"seems to me to have gone under ground ; they 
do indeed." (Herein Mrs. Plornish limited her 
remark to the plastering trade, and spoke with- 
out reference to the Circumlocution Office and 
the Barnacle Family.) 

"Is it so difficult to get work?" asked Arthur 
Clennam. 

"Plornish finds it so," she returned. "He is 
quite unfortunate. Really he is." 

Really he was. He was one of those many 
wayfarers on the road of life, who seem to be 
afflicted with supernatural corns, rendering it 
impossible for them to keep up even with their 
lame competitors. A willing, working, soft- 
hearted, not hard-headed fellow, Plornish took 
his fortune as smoothly as could be expected, 
but it was a rough one. It so rarely happened 
that any body seemed to want him, it was such 
an exceptional case when his powers were in 
any request, that his misty mind could not make 
out how it happened. He took it as it came, 
therefore ; he tumbled into all kinds of difficul- 
ties, and tumbled out of them ; and, by tumbling 
through life, got himself considerably bruised. 

"It's not for want of looking after jobs, I am 



JTTLE DORRIT. 



C71 



sure," said Mrs. Plornish, lifting up her eye- 
brows, and searching for a solution of the prob- 
lem between the bars of the grate ; " nor yet for 
want of working at them when they are to be got. 
No one ever heard my husband complain of 
work." 

Somehow or other it was the misfortune of 
Bleeding Heart Yard that no one seemed to 
want its population. From time to time there 
were public complaints, pathetically going about, 
of labor being scarce — which people seemed to 
take extraordinarily ill, as though they had an 
absolute right to it on their own terms — but 
Bleeding Heart Yard, though as willing a Yard 
as any in Britain, was never the better for the 
demand. That high old family, the Barnacles, 
had long been too busy with their great princi- 
ple to look into the matter; and indeed the 
matter had nothing to do with their watchful- 
ness in outgeneraling all other high old families 
except the Stiltstalkings. 

While Mrs. Plornish spoke in these words of 
her absent lord, her lord returned. A smooth- 
cheeked, fresh-cclored, sandy-whisked man of 
thirty. Long in the legs, yielding at the knees, 
foolish in the face, flannel-jacketed, lime-whit- 
ened. "This is Plornish, Sir." 

"I came," said Clennam, rising, "to beg the 
favor of a little conversation with you on the 
subject of the Dorrit family." 

Plornish became suspicious. Seemed to scent 
a creditor. Said " Ah, yes. Well. He didn't 
know what satisfaction he could give any gentle- 
man respecting that family. What might it be 
about, now?" 

"I know you better," said Clennam, smiling, 
" than you suppose." 

Plornish observed, not smiling in return, and 
vet he hadn't the pleasure of being acquainted 
with the gentleman, neither. 

"No," said Arthur, "I know of your kind 
offices at second hand, but on the best author- 
ity. Through Little Dorrit — I mean," he ex- 
plained, "Miss Dorrit." 

" Mr. Clennam, is it ? Oh ! I've heard of you, 
Sir." 

"And I of you," said Arthur. 

"Please to sit down again, Sir, and consider 
yourself welcome. Why, yes," said Plornish, 
taking a chair, and lifting the elder child upon 
his knee, that he might have the moral support 
of speaking to a stranger over his head, "I have 
been on the wrong side of the Lock myself, and 
in that way we come to know Miss Dorrit. Me 
and my wife, we are well acquainted with Miss 
Dorrit." 

"Intimate!" cried Mrs. Plornish. Indeed, 
she was so proud of the acquaintance, that she 
had awakened some bitterness of spirit in the 
Yard by magnifying to ;m enormous amount the 
sum for which Miss Don-it's father had become 
insolvent. The Bleeding Hearts resented her 
claiming to know people of such distinction. 

'• It was her father that 1 got acquainted with 
first. And through getting acquainted with him, 



you see, why — I got acquainted with her," said 
Plornish, tautologically. 

" I see." 

"Ah ! And there's manners ! There's polish ! 
There's a gentleman to have run to seed in the 
Marshalsea Jail! Why, perhaps you are not 
aware," said Plornish, lowering his voice, and 
speaking with a perverse admiration of what he 
ought to have pitied or despised, "not aware 
that Miss Dorrit and her sister durstn't let him 
know that they work for a living. No !" said 
Plornish, looking with a ridiculous triumph firs* 
at his wife, and then all round the room. 
" Durstn't let him know it, they durstn't !" 

"Without admiring him for that," Clennam 
quietly observed, "I am very sorry for him." 
The remark appeared to suggest to Plornish for 
the first time that it might not be a very fine 
trait of character after all. He pondered about 
it for a moment, and gave it up. 

"As to me," he resumed, "certainly Mr. 
Dorrit is as affable with me, I am sure, as I can 
possible expect. Considering the differences 
and distances betwixt us, more so. But it's 
Miss Dorrit that we were speaking of." 

" True. Pray how did you introduce her at 
my mother's ?" 

Mr. Plornish picked a bit of lime out of his 
whisker, put it between his lips, turned it with 
his tongue like a sugar-plum, considered, found 
himself unequal to the task of lucid explana- 
tion, and, appealing to his wife, said, "Sally, 
you may as well mention how it was, old wo- 
man." 

"Miss Dorrit," said Sally, hushing the baby 
from side to side, and laying her chin upon the 
little hand as it tried to disarrange the gown 
again, "came here one afternoon with a bit of 
writing, telling that how she wished for needle- 
work, and asked if it would be considered any 
ill-conwenience in case she was to give her ad- 
dress here. (Plornish repeated, her address 
here, in a low voice, as if he were making re- 
sponses at church.) Me and Plornish says, No, 
Miss Dorrit, no ill-conwenience (Plornish re- 
peated no ill-conwenience), and she wrote it in, 
according. Which then me and Plornish says, 
Ho, Miss Dorrit. (Plornish repeated Ho, Miss 
Dorrit). Have you thought of copying it three 
or four times, as the way to make it known in 
more places than one? No, says Miss Dorrit, 
I have not, but I will. She copied it out ac- 
cording on this table, in a sweet writing, and 
Plornish, he took it where he worked, having a 
job just then (Plornish repeated job just then), 
and likeways to the landlord of the Yard; 
through which it was that Mrs. Clennam first 
happened to employ Miss Dorrit." Plornish re- 
peated, employ Miss Dorrit; and Mrs. Plornish 
having come to an end, feigned to bite the fin- 
gers of the little hand as she, kissed it. 

"The landlord of the Yard," said Arthur 
Clennam, "is — " 

" He's Mr. Casby, by name, lie is," said Plor- 
nish ; " and Pancks, he collects the rents. That,"' 



672 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



added Mr. Plornish, dwelling on the subject with 
a slow thoughtfulness that appeared to have no 
connection with any specific object, and to lead 
him nowhere, " that is about what they are, you 
may believe me or not, as you think proper." 

"Ay?" returned Clennam, thoughtful in his 
turn. "Mr. Casby, too! An acquaintance of 
mine, long ago!" 

Mr. Plornish did not see his road to any com- 
ment on this fact, and made none. As there 
truly was no reason why he should have the 
least interest in it, Arthur Clennam went on to 
the present purport of his visit ; namely, to make 
Plornish the instrument of effecting Tip's release, 
with as little detriment as possible to the self- 
reliance and self-helpfulness of the young man, 
supposing him to possess any remnant of those 
qualities — without doubt a very wide stretch of 
supposition. Plornish, having been made ac- 
quainted with the cause of action from the De- 
fendant's own mouth, gave Arthur to understand 
that the Plaintiff was "aChaunter" — meaning, 
not a singer of anthems, but a seller of horses — 
and that he (Plornish) considered that ten shil- 
lings in the pound "would settle handsome," 
and that more would be a waste of money. The 
Principal and instrument soon drove off together 
to a stable-yard in High Holborn, where a re- 
markably fine gray gelding, worth, at the lowest 
figure, seventy-five guineas (not taking into ac- 
count the value of the shot he had been made 
to swallow, for the improvement of his form), 
was to be parted with for a twenty-pound note, 
in consequence of his having run away last week 
with Mrs. Captain Barbary of Cheltenham, who 
wasn't up to a horse of his courage, and who, in 
mere spite, insisted on selling him for that ridic- 
ulous sum : or, in other words, on giving him 
away. Plornish, going up this yard alone and 
leaving his Principal outside, found a gentleman 
with tight drab legs, a rather old hat, a little 
hooked stick, and a blue neckerchief (Captain 
Maroon, of Gloucestershire, a private friend of 
Captain Barbary), who happened to be there in 
a friendly way to mention these little circum- 
stances concerning the remarkably fine gray geld- 
ing to any real judge of a horse and quick snap- 
per-up of a good thing who might look in at 
that address as per advertisement. This gentle- 
man, happening also to be the Plaintiff in the 
Tip case, referred Mr. Plornish to his solicitor, 
and declined to treat with Mr. Plornish, or even 
to endure his presence in the yard, unless he 
appeared there with a twenty-pound note; in 
which case only, the gentleman would augur 
from appearances that he meant business and 
might be induced to talk to him. On this hint 
Mr. Plornish retired to communicate with his 
Principal, and presently came back with the re- 
quired credentials. Then said Captain Maroon, 
"Now, how much time do you want to make 
up the other twenty in? Now I'll give you a 
month." Then said Captain Maroon, when that 
wouldn't suit, "Now, I'll tell what I'll do with 
vou. You shall get me a good bill' at four months, 



made payable at a banking-house, for the other 
twenty !" Then said Captain Maroon, when that 
wouldn't suit, " Now come ! Here's the last I've 
got to say to you. You shall give me another 
ten down, and I'll run my pen clean through it." 
Then said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't 
suit, " Now, I'll tell you what it is, and this shuts 
it up ; he has used me bad, but I'll let him off for 
another five down and a bottle of wine; and if 
you mean done, say done, and if you don't like 
it, leave it." Finally, said Captain Maroon, 
when that wouldn't suit either, "Hand over, 
then !" And in consideration of the first offer, 
gave a receipt in full and discharged the pris- 
oner. 

"Mr. Plornish," said Arthur, "I trust to you. 
if you please, to keep my secret. If you will 
undertake to let the young man know that he is 
free, and to tell him that you were employed to 
compound for the debt by some one whom you 
are not at liberty to name, you will not only do 
me a service, but may do him one, and his sis- 
ter also." 

"The last reason, Sir," said Plornish, "would 
be quite sufficient. Your wishes shall be at- 
tended to." 

"A Friend has obtained his discharge, you 
can say if you please. A Friend who hopes 
that, for his sister's sake, if for no one else's, he 
will make good use of his liberty." 

"Your wishes, Sir, shall be attended to." v 

"And if you will be so good, in your better 
knowledge of the family, as to communicate 
freely with me, and to point out to me any 
means by which you think I may be delicately 
and really useful to Little Dorrit, I shall feel 
under an obligation to you." 

" Don't name it, Sir," returned Plornish ; " it'll 
be ekally a pleasure and a — it'll be ekally a 
pleasure and a — " Finding himself unable to 
balance his sentence after two efforts, Plornish 
wisely dropped it. He took Mr. Clennam's card 
and appropriate pecuniary compliment. 

He was earnest to finish his commission at 
once, and his Principal was in the same mind. 
So his Principal offered to set him down at the 
Marshalsea gate, and they drove in that direc- 
tion over Blackfriars Bridge. On the way, Ar- 
thur elicited from his new friend a confused 
summary of the interior life of Bleeding Heart 
Yard. They were all hard up there, Mr. Plor- 
nish said ; uncommon hard up, to-be-sure. Well, 
he couldn't say hoAV it was ; he didn't know as 
any body could say how it was ; all he know'd 
was that so it was. When a man felt on his 
own back and in his own belly that he was poor, 
that man (Mr. Plornish gave it as his decided 
belief) know'd well that poor he was somehow 
or another, and you couldn't talk it out of him, 
no more than you could talk Beef into him. 
Then you see, some people as was better off said, 
and a good many such people lived pretty close 
up to the mark thomselves if not beyond it so 
he'd heerd, that they was " improvident" (thai 
was the favorite word) down the Yard. For in- 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



76 



stance, if they see a man with his wife and chil- 
dren a-going to Hampton Court in a Wan, per- 
haps onoe in a year, they says, " Hallo ! I thought 
you was poor, my improvident friend!" Why, 
Lord, how hard it was upon a man ! What was 
a man to do ? He couldn't go mollancholly mad, 
and even if he did, you wouldn't be the better 
for it. In Mr. Plornish's judgment, you would 
be the worse for it. Yet you seemed to want 
to make a man mollancholly mad. You was 
always at it — if not with your right hand, with 
your left. What was they a-doing in the Yard? 
Why, take a look at 'em and see. There was 
the girls and their mothers a- working at their 
sewing, or their shoe-binding, or their trimming, 
or their waistcoat making, day and night and 
night and day, and not more than able to keep 
body and soul together after all — often not so 
much. There was people of pretty well all sorts 
of trades you could name, all wanting to work 
and yet not able to get it. There was old peo- 
ple, after working all their lives, going and being 
shut up in the Workhouse, much worse fed and 
lodged and treated altogether, than — Mr. Plor- 
nish said manufacturers, but appeared to mean 
malefactors. Why a man didn't know where to 
turn himself for a crumb of comfort. As to 
who was to blame for it, Mr. Plornish didn't 
know who was to blame for it. He could tell 
you who suffered — but he couldn't tell you whose 
fault it was. It wasn't his place to find out, and 
who'd mind what he said, if he did find out? 
He only know'd that it wasn't put right by them 
what undertook that line of business, and that 
it didn't come right of itself. And in brief his 
illogical opinion was, that if you couldn't do no- 
thing for him you had better take nothing from 
him for doing of it ; so far as he could make 
out, that was about what it come to. Thus, in 
a prolix, gently -growling, foolish way did Plor- 
nish turn the tangled skein of his estate about 
and about, like a blind man who was trying to 
find some beginning or end to it, until they 
reached the prison gate. There, he left his 
Principal alone, to wonder as he rode away 
how many thousand Plornishes there might be 
within a day or two's journey of the Circumlo- 
cution Office, playing sundry curious variations 
on the same tune, which were not known by 
ear in that glorious Institution. 



CHAPTER Xm.— PATRIARCHAL. 

The mention of Mr. Casby again revived in 
Clennam's memory the smouldering embers of 
curiosity and interest which Mrs. Flintwinch had 
fanned on the night of his arrival. Flora Casby 
had been the beloved of his boyhood, and Flora 
was the daughter and only child of wooden- 
headed old Christopher (so he was still occasion- 
ally spoken of by some irreverent spirits who had 
had dealings with him, and in whom familiarity 
had bred its proverbial result perhaps), who was 
reputed to be rich in weekly tenants, and to get 
a good quantity of blood out of the stones of 
several unpromising courts and alleys. 



After some days of inquiry and research, Ar- 
thur Clennam became convinced that the case 
of the Father of the Marsh alsea was indeed a 
hopeless one, and sorrowfully resigned the idea 
of helping him to freedom again. He had no 
hopeful inquiry to make at present concerning 
Little Dorrit either, but he argued with himself 
that it might, for any thing he knew, it might, 
be serviceable to the poor child, if he renewed 
this acquaintance. It is hardly necessary to 
add that beyond all doubt he would have pre- 
sented himself at Mr. Casby's door if there had 
been no Little Dorrit in existence ; for we all 
know how we all deceive ourselves — that is to 
say, how people in general, our profounder selves 
excepted, deceive themselves — as to motives of 
action. 

With a comfortable impression upon him, and 
quite an honest one in its way, that he was still 
patronizing Little Dorrit in doing what had no 
reference to her, he found himself one afternoon 
at the corner of Mr. Casby's street. Mr. Casby 
lived in a street in the Gray's Inn Road, which 
had set off from that thoroughfare with the in- 
tention of running at one heat down into the val- 
ley, and up again to the top of Pentonville Hill; 
but which had run itself out of breath in twenty 
yards, and had stood still ever since. There is 
no such place in that part now, but it remained 
there for many years, looking with a baulked 
countenance at the wilderness patched with un- 
fruitful gardens, and pimpled with eruptive sum- 
mer-houses, that it had meant to run over in no 
time. 

"The house," thought Clennam, as he cross- 
ed to the door, " is as little changed as my moth- 
er's, and looks almost as gloomy. But the like- 
ness ends outside. I know its staid repose within. 
The smell of its jars of old rose-leaves and lav- 
ender seems to come upon me even here." 

When his knock at the bright brass knocker 
of obsolete shape brought a woman-servant to 
the door, those faded scents in truth saluted 
him like wintry breath that had a faint re- 
membrance in it of the by-gone spring. He 
stepped into the sober, silent, air-tight house — 
one might have fancied it to have been stifled 
by Mutes in the Eastern manner — and the 
door, closing again, seemed to shut out sound 
and motion. The furniture was formal, grave, 
and Quaker-like, but well-kept; and had as 
prepossessing an aspect as any thing from a 
human creature to a wooden stool that is meant 
for much use and is preserved for little, can 
ever wear. There was a grave clock ticking 
somewhere up the staircase, and there was a 
songless bird in the same direction pecking at 
his cage as if he were ticking too. The parlor- 
fire ticked in the grate. There was only one 
person on the parlor-hearth, and the loud watch 
in his pocket ticked audibly. 

The servant-maid had ticked the two words 
"Mr. Clennam" so softly, that she had not been 
heard, and he consequently stood, within the, 
door she had closed, unnoticed. The figure of 



•'! 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



a man advanced in life, whose smooth gray eye- 
brows seemed to move to the ticking as the fire- 
light flickered on them, sat in an arm-chair with 
his list-shoes on the rug and his thumbs slowly 
revolving over one another. This was old Chris- 
topher Casby — recognizable at a glance — as un- 
changed in twenty years and upward as his own 
solid furniture — as little touched by the influence 
of the varying seasons as the old rose-leaves and 
old lavender in his porcelain jars. 

Perhaps there never was a man in this trouble- 
some world so troublesome for the imagination 
to picture as a boy. And yet he had changed 
very little in his progress through life. Con- 
fronting him in the room in which he sat was a 
boy's portrait, which any body seeing him would 
have identified as Master Christopher Casby, 
aged ten: though disguised with a hay-making 
rake, for which he had had, at any time, as much 
taste or use as for a diving-bell ; and sitting (on 
one of his own legs) upon a bank of violets, 
moved to precocious contemplation by the spire 
of a village church. There was the same smooth 
face and forehead, the same calm blue eye, the 
same placid air. The shining bald head, which 
looked so very large because it shone so much ; 
and the long gray hair at its sides and back, like 
floss-silk or spun-glass, which looked so very be- 
nevolent because it was never cut ; were not, of 
course, to be seen in the boy as in the old man. 
Nevertheless, in the Seraphic creature with the 
hay-making rake were clearly to be discerned the 
rudiments of the Patriarch with the list-shoes. 

Patriarch was the name w'.ich many people 
delighted to give him. Varion ; old ladies in the 
neighborhood spoke of him m The Last of the 
Patriarchs. So gray, so slow, so quiet, so im- 
passionate, so very bumpy in the head, Patriarch 
was the word for him. He had been accosted 
in the streets, and respectfully solicited to be- 
come a Patriarch for painters and for sculptors : 
with so much importunity, in sooth, that it would 
appear to be beyond the Fine Arts to remem- 
ber the points of a Patriarch, or to invent one. 
Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he 
was, and on being informed, '"Old Christopher 
Casby, formerly Town-agent to Lord Decimus 
Tite Barnacle," had cried in a rapture of disap- 
pointment, " Oh ! why, with that head, is he not 
a benefactor to his species ! Oh ! why, with that 
head, is he not a father to the orphan and a 
friend to the friendless !" With that head, how- 
ever, he remained old Christopher Casby, pro- 
claimed by common report rich in house prop- 
erty, and with that head he now sat in his silent 
parlor. Indeed it would be the height of un- 
reason to expect him to be sitting there without 
that head. 

Arthur Clennam moved to attract his atten- 
tion, and the gray eyebrows turned toward him. 

"I beg your pardon," said Clennam, "I fear 
you did not hear me announced ?" 

" No, Sir, I did not. Did you wish to see me, 
Sir?" 

"I wished to pay my respects." 



Mr. Casby seemed a feather's weight disap- 
pointed by the last words, having perhaps pre- 
pared himself for the visitor's wishing to pay 
something else " Have I the pleasure, Sir," he 
proceeded — " take a chair, if you please — have I 
the pleasure of knowing — ? Ah! truly, yes, I 
think I have ! I believe I am not mistaken in 
supposing that I am acquainted with those feat- 
ures ? I think I address a gentleman of whose 
return to this country I was informed by Mr. 
Flintwinch ?'• 

" That is your present visitor,," 

"Really! Mr. Clennam?" 

" No other, Mr. Casby." 

"Mr. Clennam, I am very glad to see you. 
How have you been since we met ?" 

Without thinking it worth while to explain 
that in the course of some quarter of a centurv 
he had experienced occasional slight fluctua- 
tions in his health and spirits, Clennam answered 
generally that he had never been better, or some- 
thing equally to the purpose, and shook hands 
with the possessor of "that head," as it shed its 
patriarchal light upon him, 

"We are older, Mr. Clennam," said Christo- 
pher Casby. 

"We are — not younger," said Clennam, After 
this wise remark he felt that he was not shining 
with any particular brilliancy, and became aware 
that he was nervous. 

" And your respected father," said Mr. Casby. 
" is no more. I was grieved to hear it, Mr, 
Clennam, I was grieved." 

Arthur implied in the usual way that he fell 
infinitely obliged to him. 

"There was a time," said Mr. Casby, "when 
your parents and myself were not on friendh 
terms. There was some little family misunder- 
standing among us. Your respected mother was 
rather jealous of her son, maybe ; when I say hei 
son, I mean your worthy self, your worthy self." 

His smooth face had a bloom upon it, like ripe 
wall-fruit. What with his blooming face, and 
that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be 
delivering sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. 
In like manner his physiognomical expression- 
seemed to teem with benignity. Nobody could 
have said where the wisdom was, or where the 
virtue was, or where the benignity was, but they 
all seemed to be somewhere about him, 

"Thos* times, however," pursued Mr. Casby, 
" are past and gone, past and gone. I do my- 
self the pleasure of making a visit to your re- 
spected mother occasionally, and of admiring 
the fortitude and strength of mind with which 
she bears her trials, bears her trials." 

When he made one of these little repetitions, 
sitting with his hands crossed before him, he did 
it with his head on one side and a gentle smile, 
as if he had something in his thoughts too sweet 
and profound to be put into words* As if he 
denied himself the pleasure of uttering it lest he 
should soar too high, and his meekness there- 
fore preferred to be unmeaning. 

" I have heard that you were kind enough on 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



675 



one of those occasions," said Arthur, catching 
at the opportunity as it drifted past him, " to 
mention Little Dorrit to my mother." 

"Little — ? Dorrit? That's the seamstress 
who was mentioned to me by a small tenant of 
mine? Yes, yes. Dorrit? That's the name. 
Ah, yes, yes ! You call her Little Dorrit?" 

No road in that direction. Nothing came of 
the cross-cut. It led no further. 

"My daughter Flora," said Mr. Casby, "as 
you may have heard, probably, Mr. Clennam, 
was married and established in life several years 
ago. She had the misfortune to lose her hus- 
band when she had been married a few months. 
She resides with me again. She will be glad to 
see you if you will permit me to let her know 
that you are here." 

"By all means," returned Clennam. "I should 
have preferred the request, if your kindness had 
not anticipated me." 

Upon this, Mr. Casby rose up in his list-shoes, 
and with a slow, heavy step (he was of an ele- 
phantine build), made for the door. He had a 
long, wide-skirted bottle-green coat on, and a 
bottle-green pair of trowsers, and a bottle-green 
waistcoat. The Patriarchs were not dressed in 
bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes 
looked patriarchal. 

He had scarcely left the room and allowed the 
ticking to become audible again, when a quick 
hand turned a latch-key in the house-door, opened 
it, and shut it. Immediately afterward, a quick 
and eager short dark man came into the room 
with so much way upon him, that he was with- 
in a foot of Clennam before he could stop. 

" Halloa !" he said. 

Clennam saw no reason why he should not 
say "Halloa!" too. 

"What's the matter?" said the short dark 
man. 

"I have not heard that any thing is the mat- 
ter," returned Clennam. 

""Where's Mr. Casby?" asked the short dark 
man, looking about. 

"He will be here directly, if you want him." 

"J want him?" said the short dark man. 
"Don't you?" 

This elicited a word or two of explanation 
from Clennam, during the delivery of which the 
short dark man held his breath and looked at 
him. He was dressed in black and rusty iron- 
gray, had jet-black beads of eyes, a scrubby lit- 
tle black chin, wiry black hair striking out from 
his head in prongs, like forks or hair-pins, and 
a complexion that was very dingy by nature, or 
very dirty by art, or a compound of nature and 
art. He had dirty hands and dirty broken nails, 
and looked as if he had been in the coals; he 
was in a perspiration, and snorted and sniffed 
and puffed and blew like a little laboring steam- 
engine. 

"Oh!" said he, when Arthur had told him 
how he came to be there. " Very well. That's 
right. If he should ask for Pancks, will you be 
so good as to say that Pancks is come in?" And 



so, with a snort and a puff, he worked out by an- 
other door. 

Now, in the old days at home, certain auda- 
cious doubts respecting the last of the Patri- 
archs, which were afloat in the air, had, by 
some forgotten means, come in contact with Ar- 
thur's sensorium. He was aware of motes and 
specks of suspicion in the atmosphere of that 
time, seen through which medium, Christopher 
Casby was a mere Inn sign-post without any Inn 
— an invitation to rest and to be thankful where 
there was no place to put up at, and nothing 
whatever to be thankful for. He knew that 
some of these specks even represented Christo- 
pher as capable of harboring designs in "that 
head," and as being a crafty impostor. Other 
motes there were which showed him as a heavy, 
selfish, drifting Booby, who having stumbled in 
the course of his unwieldy jostlings against oth- 
er men, on the discovery that to get through life 
with ease and credit, he had but to hold his 
tongue, keep the bald part of his head well pol- 
ished, and leave his hair alone, had had just 
cunning enough to seize the idea and stick to 
it. It was said that his being town-agent to 
Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not 
to his having the least business capacity, but to 
his looking so supremely benignant that nobody 
could suppose the property screwed or jobbed 
under such a man; also, that for similar rea- 
sons he now got more money out of his own 
wretched lettings, unquestioned, than any body 
with a less knobby and less shining crown could 
possibly have done. In a word, it was repre- 
sented (Clennam called to mind, alone in the 
ticking parlor) that many people select their 
models much as the painters, just now men- 
tioned, select theirs ; and that, whereas in the 
Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a Dog- 
stealerwill annually be found embodying all the 
cardinal virtues, on account of his eyelashes, or 
his chin, or his legs (thereby planting thorns of 
confusion in the breasts of the more observam 
students of nature) ; so in the great social Ex- 
hibition, accessories are often accepted in lieu 
of the internal character. 

Calling these things to mind, and ranging Mr. 
Pancks in a row with them, Arthur Clennam 
leaned this day to the opinion, without quite de- 
ciding on it, that the last of the Patriarchs was 
the drifting Booby aforesaid, with the one idea 
of keeping the bald part of his head highly pol- 
ished ; and that, much as an unwieldy ship in 
the Thames River may sometimes be seen heav- 
ily driving with the tide, broadside on, stern first, 
in its own way and in the way of every thing 
else, though making a great show of navigation, 
when all of a sudden, a little coaly steam-tug 
will bear down upon it, take it in tow, and bustle 
off with it; similarly, the cumbrous Patriarch 
had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks 
and was now following in the wake of that dingy 
little craft. 

The return of Mr. Casby with his daughter 
Flora put an end to these meditations. Clen- 



G76 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



nam's eyes no sooner fell upon the object of his 
old passion than it shivered and broke to pieces. 

Most men will be found sufficiently true to 
themselves to be true to an old idea. It is no 
proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the op- 
posite, when the idea will not bear close com- 
parison with the reality, and the contrast is a 
fatal shock to it. Such was Clennam's case. In 
his youth he had ardently loved this woman, and 
had heaped upon her all the locked-up wealth 
of his affection and imagination. That wealth 
had been, in his desert home, like Robinson 
Crusoe's money: exchangeable with no one, ly- 
ing idle in the dark to rust, until he poured it 
out for her. Ever since that memorable time, 
though he had until the night of his arrival as 
completely dismissed her from any association 
with his Present or Future as if she had been 
dead (which she might easily have been for any 
thing he knew), he had kept the old fancy of the 
Past unchanged, in its old sacred place. And 
now, after all, the last of the Patriarchs coolly 
walked into the parlor, saying in effect, "Be 
good enough to throw it down and dance upon 
it. This is Flora." 

Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad 
too and short of breath ; but that was not much. 
Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a 
peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had 
seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, 
was diffuse and silly. That was a good deal. 
Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long 
•igo, was determined to be spoiled and artless 
now. That was a fatal blow. 

This is Flora ! 

"I am sure," giggled Flora, tossing her head 
with a caricature of her girlish manner, such 
its a mummer might have presented at her own 
funeral if she had lived and died in classical an- 
tiquity, " I am ashamed to see Mr. Clennam, I 
am a mere fright, I know he'll find me fearfully 
changed, I am actually an old woman, it's shock- 
ing to be so found out, it's really shocking !" 

He assured her that she was just what he had 
expected, and that time had not stood still with 
himself. 

"Oh ! But with a gentleman it's so different, 
and really you look so amazingly well that you 
have no right to say any thing of the kind, while, 
as to me you know — oh !" cried Flora, with a lit- 
tle scream, "I am dreadful!" 

The Patriarch, apparently not yet understand- 
ing his own part in the drama under represent- 
ation, glowed with vacant serenity. 

"But if we talk of not having changed," said 
Flora, who, whatever she said, never once came 
to a full stop, " look at papa, is not papa precise- 
ly what he was when you went away, isn't it 
rruel and unnatural of papa to be such a reproach 
to his own child, if we go on in this way much 
longer people who don't know us will begin to 
suppose that I am papa's mamma !" 

That must be a long time hence, Arthur con- 
sidered. 

" Oh, Mr. Clennam, you insincerest of creat- 



ures," said Flora, always tossing her head very 
much, "I perceive already you have not lost 
your old way of paying, compliments, your old 
way when you used to pretend to be so senti- 
mentally struck you know — at least I don't mean 
that, I — oh I don't know what I mean !" Here 
Flora tittered confusedly, and gave him one of 
her old glances. 

The Patriarch, as if he now began to perceive 
that his part in the piece was to get off the stage 
as soon as might be, rose, and went to the door 
by which Pancks had worked out, hailing that 
Tug by name. He received an answer from 
some little Dock beyond, and was towed out of 
sight directly. 

" You mustn't think of going yet," said Flora 
— Arthur had looked at his hat, being in a lu- 
dicrous dismay, and not knowing what to do ; 
"you could never be so unkind as to think of 
going, Arthur — I mean Mr. Arthur — or I sup- 
pose Mr. Clennam would be far more proper — 
but I am sure I don't know what I am saying — 
without a word about the dear old days gone for- 
ever, however when I come to think of it I dare 
say it would be much better not to speak of them 
and it's highly probable that you have some much 
more agreeable engagement and pray let Me be 
the last person in the world to interfere with it 
though there was a time, but I am running into 
nonsense again." 

Was it possible that Flora could have been 
such a chatterer in the days she referred to? 
Could there have been any thing like her pres- 
ent disjointed volubility in the fascinations that 
had captivated him ? 

" Indeed I have little doubt," said Flora, run- 
ning on with astonishing speed, and pointing her 
conversation with nothing but commas, " that 
you are married to some Chinese lady, being in 
China so long and being in business and natu- 
rally desirous to settle and extend your connec- 
tion nothing was more likely than that you should 
propose to a Chinese lady, and nothing was more 
natural I am sure than that the Chinese lady 
should accept you and think herself very well off 
too, I only hope she's not a Pagodian dissenter." 

"I am not," returned Arthur, smiling in spite 
of himself, " married to any lady, Flora." 

" Oh good gracious me I hope you never kept 
yourself a bachelor so long on my account !" tit- 
tered Flora ; " but of course you never did why 
should you, pray don't answer, I don't know 
where I'm running to, oh do tell me something 
about the Chinese ladies whether their eyes are 
really so long and narrow always putting me in 
mind of mother-of-pearl fish at cards and do 
they really wear tails down their back and plait- 
ed too or is it only the men, and when they pull 
their hair so very tight off their foreheads don't 
they hurt themselves, and why do they stick little 
bells all over their bridges and temples and hats 
and things, or don't they really do it!" Flora 
gave him another of her old glances. Instantly 
she went on again, as if he had spoken in reply 
for some time. 



LITTLE DOKRIT. 



677 



"Then it's all true and they really do! good 
gracious Arthur ! — pray excuse me — old habit — 
Mr. Clennam — far more proper — what a country 
to live in for so long a time, and with so many 
lanterns and umbrellas too how very dark and 
wet the climate ought to be and no doubt actu- 
ally is, and the sums of money that must be 
made by those two trades where every body car- 
ries them and hangs them every where, the little 
shoes too and the feet screwed back in infancy 
is quite surprising, what a traveler you are !" 

In his ridiculous distress, Clennam received 
another of the old glances without in the least 
knowing what to do with it. 

"Dear dear," said Flora, "only to think of the 
changes at home Arthur — can not overcome it, 
seems so natural, Mr. Clennam far more proper 
— since you became familiar with the Chinese 
customs and language, which I am persuaded 
you speak like a Native if not better for you 
were always quick and clever though immense- 
ly difficult no doubt, I am sure the tea-chests 
alone would kill me if I tried, such changes Ar- 
thur — I am doing it again, seems so natural, most 
improper — as no one could have believed, who 
could have ever imagined Mrs. Finching, when 
I can't imagine it myself!" 

"Is that your married name?" asked Arthur, 
struck, in the midst of all this, by a certain 
warmth of heart that expressed itself in her tone 
when she referred, however oddly, to the youth- 
ful relation in which they had stood to one an- 
other. "Finching?" 

" Finching oh yes isn't it a dreadful name, but 
as Mr. P. said when he proposed to me which 
he did seven times and handsomely consented I 
must say to be what he used to call on liking 
twelve months after all, he wasn't answerable 
for it and couldn't help it could he, Excellent 
man, not at all like you but excellent man !" 

Flora had at last talked herself out of breath 
for one moment. One moment, for she recov- 
ered breath in the act of raising a minute corner 
of her pocket-handkerchief to her eye as a trib- 
ute to the ghost of the departed Mr. F., and be- 
gan again. 

" No one could dispute, Arthur — Mr. Clennam 
— that it's quite right that you should be formal- 
ly friendly to me under the altered circumstances, 
and indeed you couldn't be any thing else, at 
least I suppose not. you ought to know, but I 
can't help recalling that there icas a time when 
things were very different." 

"My dear Mrs. Finching," Arthur began, 
struck by the good tone again. 

"Oh not that na^ty ugly name, say Flora." 

"Flora. I assure you, Flora, I am happy in 
seeing you once more, and in finding that, like 
me, you have not forgotten tbe old foolish dreams 
when we saw all before us in the light of our 
youth and hope." 

"You don't seem so," pouted Flora, "you take 
it very coolly, but however I know you are dis- 
appointed in me, I suppose the Chinese ladies — 
Mandarine^ses if vou call them so — are the cause 



or perhaps I am the cause myself, it's just as 
likely." 

"No, no," Clennam entreated, "don't say 
that." 

"Oh I must you know," said Flora, in a pos- 
itive tone, "what nonsense not to, I know I am 
not what you expected, I know that very well." 

In the midst of her frivolity and rapidity she 
had found that out with the quick perception of 
a cleverer woman. The inconsistent and pro- 
foundly unreasonable way in which she instant- 
ly went on, nevertheless, to interweave their long- 
abandoned boy and girl relations with their pres- 
ent interview, made Clennam feel as if he were 
light-headed. 

"One remark," said Flora, giving their con- 
versation, without the slightest notice and to the 
great terror of Clennam, the tone of a love-quar- 
rel, "I wish to make, one explanation I wish to 
offer, when your mamma came and made a scene 
of it with my papa, andAvhen I was called down 
into the little breakfast-room where they were 
looking at one another with your mamma's par- 
asol between them seated on two chairs like mad 
bulls what was I to do !" 

"My dear Mrs. Finching," urged Clennam — 
"all so long ago and so long concluded, is it 
worth while seriously to — " 

"I can't, Arthur," returned Flora, "be de- 
nounced as heartless by the whole society of 
China without setting myself right when I have 
the opportunity of doing so, and you must be 
very well aware that there was Paul and Vir- 
ginia which had to be returned and which was 
returned without note or comment, not that I 
mean to say you could have written to me watch- 
ed as I was but if it had only come back with a 
red wafer on the cover I should have known that 
it meant Come to Pekin, Nankeen, and What's 
the third place, barefoot." 

"My dear Mrs. Finching you were not to 
blame, and I never blamed you. We Avere both 
too young, too dependent and helpless, to do any 
thing but accept our separation. Pray think Iioav 
long ago," gently remonstrated Arthur. 

"One more remark," proceeded Flora, with 
unslackened volubility, "I Avish to make, one 
more explanation I wish to offer, for five days I 
had a cold in the head from crying Avhich I 
passed entirely in the back draAving-room — there 
is the back draAving-room still on the first floor, 
and still at the back of the house to confirm my 
words — Avhen that dreary period had passed a 
lull succeeded, years rolled on, and Mr. F. be- 
came acquainted with us at a mutual friend's, 
he Avas all attention he called next day he soon 
began to call three evenings a Avcek and to send 
in little things for supper, it avhs not love on Mr. 
F.'s part it Avas adoration, Mr. F. proposed Avith 
the full approval of papa and what could I do?" 

"Nothing Avhatever," said Arthur, with the 
cheerfulest readiness, "but what you did. Let 
an old friend assure you of his full conviction 
that you did quite right." 

" One last remark," proceeded Flora, reject- 



GTS 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



ing commonplace life with a wave of her hand, 
" I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to 
offer, there was a time ere Mr. F. first paid at- 
tentions incapable of being mistaken, but that is 
past and was not to be, dear Mr. Clennam you 
no longer wear a golden chain you are free I 
trust you may be happy, here is papa who is al- 
ways tiresome and putting in his nose every where 
where he is not wanted." 

With these words and with a hasty gesture 
fraught with timid caution — such a gesture had 
Clennam's eyes been familiar with in the old 
time — poor Flora left herself at eighteen years 
of age a long, long way behind again, and came 
to a full stop at last. 

Or rather, she left about half of herself at 
eighteen years of age behind and grafted the 
rest on to the relict of the late Mr. F. ; thus 
making a moral mermaid of herself, which her 
once boy-lover contemplated with feelings where- 
in his sense of the sorroAvful and his sense of 
the comical were curiously blended. 

For example. As if there were a secret un- 
derstanding between herself and Clennam of 
the most thrilling nature ; as if the first of a 
train of post-chaises and four, extending all the 
way to Scotland, were at that moment round 
the corner ; and as if she couldn't (and wouldn't) 
have walked into the Parish Church with him, 
under the shade of the family umbrella, with 
the Patriarchal blessing on her head, and the 
perfect concurrence of all mankind ; Flora com- 
forted her soul with agonies of mysterious sig- 
naling, expressing dread of discovery. With 
the sensation of becoming more and more light- 
headed every minute, Clennam saw the relict 
of the late Mr. F. enjoying herself in the most 
wonderful manner by putting herself and him 
in their old places and going through all the old 
performances — now, when the stage was dusty, 
when the scenery was faded, when the youthful 
actors were dead, when the orchestra was emp- 
ty, when the lights were out. And still, through 
all this grotesque revival of what he remembered 
as having once been prettily natural to her, he 
could not but feel that it revived at sight of him, 
and that there was a tender memory in it. 

The Patriarch insisted on his staying to din- 
ner, and Flora signaled "Yes." Clennam so 
wished he could have done more than stay to 
dinner — so heartily wished he could have found 
the Flora that had been or that never had been 
— that he thought the least atonement he could 
make for the disappointment he almost felt 
ashamed of, was to give himself up to the fam- 
ily desire. Therefore, he staid to dinner. 

Pancks dined with them. Pancks steamed 
out of his little dock at a quarter before six, and 
bore straight down for the Patriarch, who hap- 
pened to be then drifting in an inane manner 
through a stagnant account of Bleeding Heart 
Yard. Pancks instantly made fast to him and 
hauled him out. 

"Bleeding Heart Yard?" said Pancks, with a 
puff and a snort. " It's a troublesome property. 



Don't pay you badly, but rents are very hard to 
get there. You have more trouble with that 
one place than with all the places belonging to 
you." 

Just as the big ship in tow gets the credit 
with most spectators of being the powerful ob- 
ject, so the Patriarch usually seemed to have 
said himself whatever Pancks said for him. 

"Indeed?" returned Clennam, upon whom 
this impression was so efficiently made by a 
mere gleam of the polished head, that he spoke 
the ship instead of the Tug. "The people are 
so poor there ?" 

" You can't say, you know," snorted Pancks, 
taking one of his dirty hands out of his rusty 
iron-gray pockets to bite his nails, if he could 
find any, and turning his beads of eyes upon his 
employer, "whether they're poor or not. They 
say they are, but they all say that. When a 
man says lie's rich, you're generally sure he 
isn't. Besides, if they are poor, you can't help 
it. You'd be poor yourself if you didn't get 
your rents." 

" True enough," said Arthur. 

"You're not going to keep open house for all 
the poor of London," pursued Pancks. " You're 
not going to lodge 'em for nothing. You're not 
going to open your gates wide and let 'em come 
free. Not if you know it, you an't." 

Mr. Casby shook his head in placid and be- 
nignant generality. 

"If a man takes a room of you at half-a- 
crown a week, and when the week comes round 
hasn't got the half-a-crown, you say to that man, 
'Why have you got the room then? If you 
haven't got the one thing why have you got the 
other? What have you been and done with 
your money? What do you mean by it? What 
are you up to ?' That's what you say to a man 
of that sort; and if you didn't say it, more 
shame for you !" Mr. Pancks here made a sin- 
gular and startling noise produced by a strong 
blowing effort in the region of the nose, unat- 
tended by any result but that acoustic one. 

"You have some extent of such property 
about the east and northeast here, I believe ?" 
said Clennam, doubtful which of the two to ad- 
dress. 

" Oh, pretty well," said Pancks. "You're not 
particular to east or northeast ; any point of the 
compass will do for you. What you want is a 
good investment and a quick return. You take 
it where you can find it. You an't nice as to 
situation — not you." 

There was a fourth and most original figure 
in the Patriarchal tent, who also appeared be- 
fore dinner. This was an amazing little old 
woman, with a face like a staring wooden doll 
too cheap for expression, and a stiff yellow wig 
perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if 
the child who owned the doll had driven a tack 
through it any where, so that it only got fasten- 
ed on. Another remarkable thing in this little 
old woman was, that the same child seemed to 
have damaged her face in two or three places 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



679 



with some blunt instrument in the nature of a 
spooi ; her countenance, and particularly the tip 
of her nose, presenting the phenomena of sev- 
eral dints, generally answering to the bowl of 
that article. A further remarkable thing in this 
little old woman was, that she had no name but 
Mr. F.'s Aunt. 

She broke upon the visitors' view under the 
following circumstances : Flora said, when the 
first dish was being put on table, perhaps Mr. 
Clennam might not have heard that Mr. F. had 
left her a legacy ? Clennam, in return, implied 
his hope that Mr. F. had endowed the wife 
whom he adored with the greater part of his 
worldly substance, if not all. Flora said, Oh, 
yes, she didn't mean that ; Mr. F. had made a 
beautiful will, but he had left her as a sepa- 
rate legacy, his Aunt. She then went out of the 
room to fetch the legacy, and, on her return, 
rather triumphantly presented "Mr. F.'s Aunt." 

The major characteristics discoverable by the 
stranger in Mr. F.'s Aunt were extreme severity 
and grim taciturnity, sometimes interrupted by 
a propensity to offer remarks, in a warning voice, 
which, being totally uncalled for by any thing 
said by any body, and traceable to no associa- 
tion of ideas, confounded and terrified the mind. 
Mr. F.'s Aunt may have thrown in these observa- 
tions on some system of her own, and it may 
have been ingenious or even subtle; but the key 
to it was wanted. 

The neatly-served and well-cooked dinner (for 
every thing about the Patriarch's household pro- 
moted quiet digestion) began with some soup, 
some fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp-sauce, 
and a dish of potatoes. The conversation still 
turned on the receipt of rents. Mr. F.'s Aunt, 
after regarding the company for ten minutes 
with a malevolent gaze, delivered the following 
fearful remark : 

"When we lived at Henley, Barnes's gander 
was stole by tinkers." 

Mr. Pancks courageously nodded his head and 
said, "All right, ma'am." But the effect of this 
mysterious communication upon Clennam was 
absolutely to frighten him. And another cir- 
cumstance invested this old lady with peculiar 
terrors. Though she was always staring, she 
never acknowledged that she saw any individu- 
al. The polite and attentive stranger would de- 
sire, say, to consult her inclinations on the sub- 
ject of potatoes. His expressive action would 
be hopelessly lost upon her, and what could he 
do? No man could say, "Mr. F.'s Aunt, will 
you permit me?" Every man retired from the 
,>poon as Clennam did, cowed and baffled. 

There was mutton, a steak, and an apple-pie 
— nothing in the remotest way connected with 
ganders — and the dinner went on like a disen- 
chanted feast, as it truly was. Once upon a 
time Clennam had sat at that table taking no 
heed of any thing but Flora ; now the principal 
heed he took of Flora was, to observe, against 
his will, that she was very fond of porter, that 
she combined a great deal of sherrv with senti- 



ment, and that if she were a little overgrown, it 
was upon substantial grounds. The last of the 
Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and 
he disposed of an immense quantity of solid 
food with the benignity of a good soul who was 
feeding some one else. Mr. Pancks, who was 
always in a hurry, and who referred at intervals 
to a little dirty note-book which he kept beside 
him (perhaps containing the names of the de- 
faulters he meant to look up by way of dessert), 
took in his victuals much as if he were coaling; 
with a good deal of noise, a good deal of drop- 
ping about, and a puff and a snort occasionally, 
as if he were nearly ready to steam away. 

All through dinner Flora combined her pres- 
ent appetite for eating and drinking, with her 
past appetite for romantic love, in a way that 
made Clennam afraid to lift his eyes from his 
plate ; since he could not look toward her with- 
out receiving some glance of mysterious mean- 
ing or warning, as if they were engaged in a 
deep plot. Mr. F.'s Aunt sat silently defying 
him with an aspect of the greatest bitterness, 
until the removal of the cloth and the appear- 
ance of the decanters, when she originated an- 
other observation — struck into the conversation 
like a clock, without consulting any body. 

Flora had just said, "Mr. Clennam, will you 
give me a glass of port for Mr. F.'s Aunt?" 

"The Monument near London Bridge," that 
lady instantly proclaimed, "was put up arter the 
Great Fire of London ; and the Great Fire of 
London was not the fire in which your uncle 
George's workshops was burnt down." 

Mr. Pancks, with his former courage, said, 
" Indeed, ma'am ? All right !" But appearing 
to be incensed by imaginary contradiction or 
other ill usage, Mr. F.'s Aunt, instead of relaps- 
ing into silence, made the following additional 
proclamation : 

"I hate a fool!" 

She imparted to this sentiment, in itself al- 
most Solomonic, so extremely injurious and per- 
sonal a character, by leveling it straight at the 
visitor's head, that it became necessary to lead 
Mr. F.'s Aunt from the room. This was quietly 
done by Flora ; Mr. F.'s Aunt offering no resist- 
ance, but inquiring on her way out "What he 
came there for, then?" with implacable ani- 
mosity. 

When Flora returned, she explained that her 
legacy was a clever old lady, but was sometimes 
a little singular, and "took dislikes" — peculiar- 
ities of which Flora seemed to be proud rather 
than otherwise. As Flora's good-nature shone 
in the case, Clennam had no fault to find with 
the old lady for eliciting it, now that he was re- 
lieved from the terrors of her presence, and the} 
took a glass or two of wine in peace. Foresee- 
ing then that the Pancks would shortly get nn 
der weigh, and that the Patriarch would go t<> 
| sleep, he pleaded the necessity of visiting his 
i mother, and asked Mr. Pancks in which direc- 
I tion he was going ? 

"Citywards, Sir," said Pancks. 



680 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




" Shall we walk together ?" said Arthur. 

"Quite agreeable," said Pancks. 

Meanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid 
snatches for his ear, that there was a time, and 
that the past was a yawning gulf however, and 
rhat a golden chain no longer bound him, and 
that she revered the memory of the late Mr. 
F., and that she should be at home to-morrow 
at half-past one, and that the decrees of Fate 
were beyond recall, and that she considered no- 
thing so improbable as that he ever walked on 
the northwest side of Gray's-Inn Gardens at ex- 
actly four o'clock in the afternoon. He tried at 
parting to give his hand in frankness to the ex- 
isting Flora — not the vanished Flora, or the 
Mermaid — but Flora wouldn't have it, couldn't 
have it, was wholly destitute of the power of 
separating herself and him from their by-gone 



characters. He left the house miserably enough, 
and so much more light-headed than ever, that 
if it had not been his good fortune to be towed 
away, he might, for the first quarter of an hour, 
have drifted any where. 

When he began to come to himself in the 
cooler air and the absence of Flora, he found 
Pancks at full speed, cropping such scanty pas- 
turage of nails as he could find, and snorting at 
intervals. These, in conjunction with one hand 
in his pocket, and his roughened hat hind side 
before, were evidently the conditions under 
which he reflected. 

"A fresh night!" said Arthur. 

"Yes, it's pretty fresh," assented Pancks. 
" As a stranger, you feel the climate more than 
I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven't got time to 
feel it," 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



681 



"You lead such a busy life?" 

" Yes, I have always some of 'em to look up, 
or something to look after. But I like business," 
said Pancks, getting on a little faster. " "What's 
a man made for?" 

"For nothing else?" said Clennam. 

Pancks put the counter-question. "What 
else?" It packed up, in the smallest compass, 
the weight that had rested on Clennam's life, 
and he made no answer. 

"That's what I ask our weekly tenants," 
said Pancks. Some of 'em will pull long faces 
to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, 
we're always grinding, drudging, toiling, every 
minute we're awake. I say to them, What else 
are you made for? It shuts them up. They 
haven't a word to answer. What else are you 
made for? That clenches it." 

" Ah dear, dear, dear !" sighed Clennam. 

" Here am I," said Pancks, pursuing his ar- 
gument with the weekly tenant. " What else 
do you suppose I think I am made for ? No- 
thing. Kattle me out of bed early, set me go- 
ing, give me as short a time as you like to bolt 
my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me al- 
ways at it, I'll keep you always at it, you keep 
somebody else always at it. There you are, with 
the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial coun- 
try." 

When they had walked a little further in si- 
lence, Clennam said : " Have you no taste for 
any thing, Mr. Pancks?" 

"What's taste?" dryly retorted Pancks. 

"Let us say, inclination." 

"I have an inclination to get money, Sir," 
said Pancks, " if you'll show me how." He blew 
off that sound again, and it occurred to his com- 
panion for the first time that it was his way of 
laughing. He was a singular man in all re- 
spects ; he might not have been quite in earn- 
est, but that the short, hard, rapid manner in 
which he shot out these cinders of principles, 
as if it were done by mechanical revolvency, 
seemed irreconcilable with banter. 

"You are no great reader, I suppose?" said 
Clennam. 

"Never read any thing but letters and ac- 
counts. Never collect any thing but advertise- 
ments relative to next of kin. If that's a taste, 
I have got that. You're not of the Clennams 
of C'mii. Mill. Mr. Clennam." 

ot that I ever heard of." 

" I know you're not. I asked your mother, 
Sir. She has too much character to let a chance 
escape her." 

"Supposing I had been of the Clennams of 
Cornwall?" 

" You'd have heard of something to your ad- 
van tS 

"Indeed! I have heard of little enough to 
my advantage for some time." 

"There's a Cornish property going a-beg- 
ging, Sir, and not a Cornish Clennam to have 
it for the asking," said Pancks taking his note- 
book from his breast-pocket and patting it in 



again. "I turn off here. I wish you good- 
night." 

"Good-night," said Clennam. But the Tug 
suddenly lightened, and untrammeled by having 
any weight in tow, was already puffing away into 
the distance. 

They had crossed Smith field together, and 
Clennam was left alone at the corner of Barbi- 
can. He had no intention of presenting him- 
self in his mother's dismal room that night, and 
could not have felt more depressed and cast 
away if he had been in a wilderness. He turn- 
ed slowly down Aldersgate Street, and was pon- 
dering his way along toward Saint Paul's, pur- 
posing to come into one of the great thorough- 
fares for the sake of their light and life, when 
a crowd of people flocked toward him on the 
same pavement, and he stood aside against a 
shop to let them pass. As they came up, he 
made out that they were gathered round a some- 
thing that was carried on men's shoulders. He 
soon saw that it was a litter, hastily made up of 
a shutter or some such thing ; and a recumbent 
figure upon it, and the scraps of conversation in 
the crowd, and a muddy bundle carried by one 
man, and a muddy hat carried by another, in- 
formed him that an accident had occurred. The 
litter stopped under a lamp before it had passed 
him half a dozen paces, for some readjustment 
of the burden ; and the crowd stopping too, he 
found himself in the midst of the array. 

" An accident going to the Hospital ?" he asked 
an old man beside him, who stood shaking his 
head, inviting conversation. 

"Yes," said the man, " along of them Mails. 
They ought to be prosecuted and fined, them 
Mails. They come a-racing out of Lad Lane 
and Wood Street at twelve or fourteen mile a 
hour, them Mails do. The only wonder is, that 
people an't killed oftener by them Mails." 

"This person is not killed, I hope?" 

" I don't know !" said the man, " it an't for 
the want of a will in them Mails, if he an't." 
The speaker Inning folded his arms, and set in 
comfortably to address his depreciation of them 
Mails to any of the by-standers who would listen, 
several voices, out of pure sympathy with the 
sufferer, confirmed him; one voice saying to 
Clennam, "They're a public nuisance, them 
Mails, Sir; another, "/ see one on 'em pull up 
within half a inch of a boy, last night ;" another, 
" / see one on 'em go over a cat, Sir — and it 
might have been your own mother;" and all 
representing by implication that if he happened 
to possess any public influence he could not use 
it better than against them Mails. 

"Why a native Englishman is put to it ever 
night of his life, to save his life from them Mails," 
argued the first old man; "and he knows when 
they're coming round the corner t<> tear him limb 
from limb. What can you expect from a poor 
foreigner who don't know nothing about 'em !*' 

i: - U this a foreigner?" said Clennam, leaning 
forward to look. 
In the midst of such replies as "Frenchman, 



G82 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Sir." "Porteghee, Sir," "Dutchman, Sir," 
"Prooshan, Sir," and other conflicting testi- 
mony, he now heard a feeble voice asking, both 
in Italian and in French, for water. A general 
remark going round in reply of "Ah, poor fel- 
low! he says he'll never get over it; and no 
wonder!" Clennam begged to be allowed to 
pass, as he understood the poor creature. He 
was immediately handed to the front, to speak 
to him. 

" First, he wants some water," said he, looking 
round. (A dozen good fellows dispersed to get 
it.) " Are you badly hurt, my friend ?" he asked 
the man on the litter in Italian. 

" Yes, Sir ; yes, yes, yes. It's my leg, it's my 
leg. But it pleases me to hear the old music, 
though I am very bad." 

"You are a traveler? Stay! See the water! 
Let me give you some." 

They had rested the litter on a pile of paving- 
stones. It was at a convenient height from the 
ground, and by stooping he could lightly raise 
die head with one hand, and hold the glass to 
the lips with the other. A little, muscular, 
brown man, with black hair and white teeth. 
A lively face, apparently. Ear-rings in his 
ears. 

"That's well. You are a traveler?" 

"Surely, Sir." 

"A stranger in this city?" 

" Surely, surely, altogether. I am arrived 
this unhappy evening." 

"From what country?" 

"Marseilles." 

"Why, see there! I also! Almost as much 
a stranger here as you, thou -h born here, I 
came from Marseilles a little while ago. Don't 
be cast down." The face looked up at him im- 
ploringly, as he rose from wiping it, and gently 
replaced the coat that covered the writhing fig- 
ure ; "I won't leave you till you shall be well 
taken care of. Courage ! You will be very much 
better half an hour hence." 

"Ah! Altro. Altro!" cried the poor little 
man, in a faintly incredulous tone ; and as they 
took him up, hung out his right hand to give 
the forefinger a backhanded shake in the air. 

Arthur Clennam turned ; and walking beside 
the litter, and saying an encouraging word now 
and then, accompanied it to the neighboring 
hospital of Saint Bartholomew. None of the 
crowd but the bearers and he being admitted, 
the disabled man Avas soon laid on a table in a 
cool, methodical way, and carefully examined 
by a surgeon : who was as near at hand and as 
ready to appear as Calamity herself. " He hard- 
ly knows an English word," said Clennam; "is 
he badly hurt?" "Let us know all about it 
first," said the surgeon, continuing his examin- 
ation with a business-like delight in it, "before 
we pronounce." 

After trying the leg with a finger and two fin- 
gers, and one hand and two hands, and over and 
under, and up and down, and in this direction 
and in that, and approvingly remarking on the 



points of interest to another gentleman who 
joined him, the surgeon at last clapped the pa- 
tient on the shoulder, and said, "He won't hurt. 
He'll do very well. It's difficult enough, but we 
shall not want him to part with his leg this 
time." Which Clennam interpreted to the pa- 
tient, who was full of gratitude and, in his de- 
monstrative way, kissed both the interpreter's 
hand and the surgeon's several times. 

"It's a serious injury, I suppose?" said Clen- 
nam. 

' ' Ye-es," replied the surgeon, with the thought- 
ful pleasure of an artist contemplating the work 
upon his easel. " Yes, it's enough. There's a 
compound fracture above the knee, and a dislo- 
cation below. They are both of a beautiful 
kind." He gave the patient a friendly clap on 
the shoulder again, as if he really felt that he 
was a very good fellow indeed, and worthy of 
all commendation for having broken his leg in 
a manner interesting to science. 

" He speaks French ?" said the surgeon. 

"Oh yes, he speaks French." 

" He'll be at no loss here, then. You have 
only to bear a little pain like a brave fellow, my 
friend, and to be thankful that all goes as well 
as it does," he added, in that tongue, "and 
you'll walk again to a marvel. Now let us see 
whether there's any thing else the matter, and 
how our ribs are." 

There was nothing else the matter, and our 
ribs were sound. Clennam remained until ev- 
ery thing possible to be done had been skillfully 
and promptly done — the poor belated wanderer 
in a strange land movingly besought that favor 
of him — and lingered by the bed to which he 
was in due time removed until he had fallen 
into a doze. Even then he wrote a few words 
for him on his card, with a promise to return 
to-morrow, and left it to be given to him when 
he should awake. 

All these proceedings occupied so long, that 
it struck eleven o'clock at night as he came out 
at the Hospital gate. He had hired a lodging 
for the present in Covent Garden, and he took 
the nearest way to that quarter, by Snow Hill 
and Holborn. 

Left to himself again, after the solicitude ana 
compassion of his last adventure, he was natu- 
rally in a thoughtful mood. As naturally he 
could not walk on, thinking, for ten minutes 
without recalling Flora. She necessarily re- 
called to him his life, with all its misdirection 
and little happiness. 

When he got to his lodging he sat down be- 
fore the dying fire, as he had stood at the win- 
dow of his old room looking out upon the black- 
ened forest of chimneys, and turned his gaze 
back upon the gloomy vista by which he had 
come to that stage in his existence. So long, so 
bare, so blank. No childhood; no youth, ex- 
cept for one remembrance ; the one remem- 
brance proved, only that day, to be a piece of 
folly. m 

It was a misfortune to him, trifle as it might 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



csrj 



have been to another. For while all that was 
hard and stern in his recollection remained Re- 
ality on being proved — was obdurate to the sight 
and touch, and relaxed nothing of its old in- 
domitable grimness ; the one tender recollection 
of his experience would not bear the same test, 
and melted away. He had foreseen this on the 
former night when he had dreamed with waking 
eyes ; but he had not felt it then ; and he had 
now. 

He was a dreamer in such wise, because he 
was a man who had, deep-rooted in his nature, 
a belief in all the gentle and good things his life 
had been without. Bred in meanness and hard 
dealing, this had rescued him to be a man of 
honorable mind and open-hand. Bred in cold- 
ness and severity, this had rescued him to have 
a warm and sympathetic heart. Bred in a creed 
too darkly audacious to pursue through its pro- 
cess of reversing, the making of man in the im- 
a£re of his Creator to the making of his Creator 
in the image of an erring man, this had rescued 
him to judge not, and in humility to be merci- 
ful, and have hope and charity. 

And this saved him still from the miserable 
folly, from the whimpering weakness, the cruel 
selfishness, of holding that because such a hap- 
piness or such a virtue had not come into his 
little path or worked well for him, therefore it 
was not in the great scheme, but was reducible, 
when found in appearance, t > the basest ele- 
ments. A disappointed mind he had, but a 
mind too firm and healthy for such unwhole- 
some air. Leaving himself in the dark, it could 
rise into the light, seeing it shine on others and 
hailing it. 

Therefore, he sat before his dying fire, sor- 
rowful to think upon the way by which he had 
come to that night, yet not strewing poison on 
the way by which other men had come to it. 
That he should have missed so much, and at 
bis time of life should look so far about him for 
any staff to bear him company upon his down- 
ward journey and cheer it, was a just regret. 
He looked at the fire from which the blaze de- 
parted, from which the after-glow subsided, in 
which the ashes turned gray, from which they 
dropped to dust, and thought, "How soon I 
too shall pass through such changes, and be 
gone !" 

To review his life was like descending a jxreen 
tree in fruit and flower, and seeing all the 
branches wither and drop off one by one, as he 
came down toward them. 

" From the unhappy suppression of my young- 
est days, through the rigid and unloving home 
that followed them, through my departure, my 
long exile, my return, my mother's welcome, 
my intercourse with her since, down to the aft- 
ernoon of this day with poor Flora," said Arthur 
Clennam, "what have I found!" 

His door was softly opened, and these spoken 
words startled him, and came as if they were an 
answer : 

"Little Dorrit." 



CHAPTER XIV.— LITTLE DORRIT'S PARTY. 

Arthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her 
standing at the door. This history must some- 
times see with Little Dorrit's eyes, and shall 
begin that course by seeing him. 

Little Dorrit looked into a dim room which 
seemed a spacious one to her, and grandly fur- 
nished. Courtly ideas of Covent Garden, as a 
place with famous coffee-houses, where gentle- 
men wearing gold-laced coats and swords had 
quarreled and fought duels; costly ideas of 
Covent Garden, as a place where there were 
flowers in winter at guineas a-piece, pine-apples 
at guineas a pound, and peas at guineas a pint ; 
picturesque ideas of Covent Garden, as a place 
where there was a mighty theatre, showing won- 
derful and beautiful sights to richly-dressed la- 
dies and gentlemen, and which was forever far 
beyond the reach of poor Fanny or poor Uncle ; 
desolate ideas of Covent Garden, as having all 
those arches in it, where the miserable children 
in rags among whom she had just now passed, 
like young rats slunk and hid, fed on offal, hud- 
dled together for warmth, and were hunted 
about (look to the rats young and old, all ye 
Barnacles, for before God they are eating away 
our foundations, and will bring the roofs upon 
our heads !) ; teeming ideas of Covent Garden, 
as a place of past and present mystery, romance, 
abundance, want, beauty, ugliness, fair country 
gardens, and foul street-gutters, all confused 
together, made the room dimmer than it was, 
in Little Dorrit's eyes, as they timidly saw it 
from the door. 

At first in the chair before the gone-out fire, 
and then turned round wondering to see her, 
was the gentleman whom she sought. The 
brown, grave gentleman, who smiled so pleas- 
antly, who was so frank and considerate in his 
manner, and yet in whose earnestness there was 
something that reminded her of his mother, with 
the great difference that she was earnest in as- 
perity and he in gentleness. Now, he regarded 
her with that attentive and inquiring look before 
which Little Dorrit's eyes had always fallen, 
and before which they fell still. 

"My poor child! Here at midnight?" 

"I said Little Dorrit, Sir, on purpose to pre- 
pare you. I knew you must be very much sur- 
prised." 

"Arc you alone ?" 

"No, Sir; I have got Maggy with me." 

Considering her entrance sufficiently prepared 
for by this mention of her name, Maggy appeared 
from the landing outside, on the broad grin. 
She instantly suppressed that manifestation, 
however, and became fixedly solemn. 

"And I have no fire," said Clennam. "And 
you are — " He was going to say so lightly clad, 
but stopped himself in what would have been a 
reference to her poverty, saying instead, "And 
it is so cold." 

Putting the chair from which ho had risen 
nearer to the grate, he made her sit down in it, 
and hurriedly bringing wood and coal, heaped 



684 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




LITTLE DORRIT S PARTY. 



them together and got <a blaze. " Your foot is 
like marble, my cbild." He had happened to 
touch it, while stooping on one knee at his work 
of kindling the fire ; " put it nearer the warmth." 
Little Dorrit thanked him hastily. It was quite 
warm, it was very warm ! It smote upon his 
heart to feel that she hid her thin, worn shoe. 

Little Dorrit was not ashamed of her poor 
shoes. He knew her story, and it was not that. 
Little Dorrit had a misgiving that he might 



blame her father if he saw them ; that he might 
think, "Why did he dine to-day, and leave this 
little creature to the mercy of the cold stones!" 
She had no belief that it would have been a just 
reflection ; she simply knew by experience that 
such delusions did sometimes present themselves 
to people. It was a part of her father's misfor- 
tunes that they did. 

"Before I say any thing else," Little Dorrit 
began, sitting before the pale fire, and raising 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



6& 



her eyes again to the face which in its harmo- 
nious look of interest, and pity, and protection, 
she felt to be a mystery far above her in degree, 
and almost removed beyond her guessing at; 
"may I tell you something, Sir?" 

"Yes, my child." 

A slight shade of distress fell upon her at his 
so often calling her a child. She was surprised 
that he should see it, or think of such a slight 
thing ; but he said directly : 

" I wanted a tender word, and could think of 
no other. As you just now gave yourself the 
name they gave you at my mother's, and as that 
is the name by which I always think of you, let 
me call you Little Dorrit." 

"Thank you, Sir, I should like it better than 
any name." 

"Little Dorrit." 

"Little Mother," Maggy (who had been fall- 
ing asleep) put in, as a correction. 

"It's all the same, Maggy," returned Dorrit, 
"all the same." 

" Is it all the same, Mother ?" 

"Just the same." 

Maggy laughed, and immediately snored. In 
Little Dorrit's eyes and ears the uncouth figure 
and the uncouth sound were as pleasant as could 
be. There was a glow of pride in her big child 
overspreading her face, when it again met the 
eyes of the grave brown gentleman. She won- 
dered what he was thinking of as he looked at 
Maggy and her. She thought what a good fa- 
ther he would be. How, with some such look 
he would counsel and cherish his daughter. 

" What I was going to tell you, Sir," said Lit- 
tle Dorrit, "is, that my brother is at large." 

Arthur was rejoiced to hear it, and hoped he 
would do well. 

" And what I was going to tell you, Sir," said 
Little Dorrit, trembling in all her little figure 
and in her voice, "is, that I am not to know 
whose generosity released him — am never to ask, 
and am never to be told, and am never to thank 
that gentleman with all my grateful heart !" 

lie would probably need no thanks, Clennam 
said. Very likely be would be thankful himself 
(and with reason) that he had had the means 
and chance of doing a little service to her who 
well deserved a great one. 

"And what I was going to say, Sir, is," said 
Little Dorrit, trembling more and more, "that 
if I knew him, and I might, I would tell him 
that lie can never, never know how I feel his 
goodness, and how my good father would feel it. 
And what I was going to say, Sir, is, that if I 
knew him and I might — but I don't know him 
and I must not — I know that ! — I would tell him 
that I shall never any more lie down to sleep 
without having prayed to Heaven to bless him 
and reward him. And if I knew him and I might, 
I would go down on my knees to him, and take 
his hand and kiss it, and ask him not to draw it 
away, but to leave it — oh, to leave it for a moment 
— and let my thankful tears fall on it, for I laave 
no other thanks to give him !" 
Vol. XII.— No. 71.— X x 



Little Dorrit had put his hand to her lips, and 
would have kneeled to him ; but he gently pre- 
vented her, and replaced her in her chair. Her 
eyes and the tones of her voice had thanked him 
far better than she thought. He was not able 
to say, quite as firmly as usual, " There, Little 
Dorrit ; there, there, there ! We will suppose 
that you did know this person, and that you 
might do all this, and that it was all done. And 
now tell me, who am quite another person — who 
am nothing more than the friend who begged 
you to trust him — why you are out at midnight, 
and what it is that brings you so far through 
the streets at this late hour, my slight, deli- 
cate," child was on his lips again, "Little Dor- 
rit!" 

"Maggy and I have been to night," she an- 
swered, subduing herself with the quiet effort 
that had long been natural to her, "to the thea- 
tre where my sister is engaged." 

"And oh, ain't it a 'ev'nly place," suddenly 
interrupted Maggy, who seemed to have the 
power of going to sleep and waking up when- 
ever she chose. " Almost as good as an hospital. 
Only there ain't no Chicking in it." 

Here she shook herself, and fell asleep again. 

"We went there," said Little Dorrit, glanc- 
ing at her charge, "because I like sometimes to 
know of my own knowledge that my sister is 
doing well, and like to see her there with my 
own eyes when neither she nor Uncle is aware. 
It is very seldom indeed that I can do that, be- 
cause when I am not out at work I am with my 
father, and even when I am out at work I hurry 
home to him. But I pretend to-night that I am 
at a party." 

As she made the confession, timidly hesita- 
ting, she raised her eyes to the face, and read 
its expression so plainly that she answered it. 

" Oh no, certainly ! I never was at a party in 
my life." 

She paused a little under his attentive look, 
and then said, "I hope there is no harm in it? 
I could never have been of any use, if I had not 
pretended a little." 

She feared that he was blaming her in his 
mind, for so devising to contrive for them, think 
for them, and watch over them without their 
knowledge or gratitude; perhaps even with 
th^eir reproaches for supposed neglect. But 
what was really in his mind was the weak fig- 
ure with its strong purpose, the thin worn shoes, 
the insufficient dress, and the pretense of re- 
creation and enjoyment. He asked where this 
suppositious party was? At a place where she 
worked, answered Little Dorrit, blushing. She 
had said very little about it; only a few words, 
to make her father easy. Her father did not be- 
lieve it to be a grand party — indeed, he might 
suppose that. And she glanced for an instant 
at the shawl she wore. 

"It is the first night," said Little Dorrit, 
"that I have ever been away from home. And 
London looks so large, so barren, and bo wild." 
In Little Dorrit's eyes, its vastness under the 



G8G 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



black sky was awful ; a terror passed over her as 
she said the words. 

"But this is not," she added, with the quiet 
effort again, "what I have come to trouble you 
with, Sir. My sister's having found a friend, a 
lady she has told me of, and made me rather 
anxious about, was the first cause of my coming 
away from home. And being away, and com- 
ing (on purpose) round by where you lived, and 
seeing a light in the window — " 

Not for the first time. Not for the first time. 
In Little Dorrit's eyes the outside of that win- 
dow had been a distant star on other nights than 
this. She had toiled out of her way, through 
the wet, tired and troubled, to look up at it and 
wonder about the grave brown gentleman from 
so far off, who had spoken to her as a friend 
and protector. 

" There were three things," said Little Dorrit, 
" that I thought I would like to say, if you were 
alone and I might come up stairs. First, what I 
have tried to say, but never can — never shall — " 
"Hush, hush! That is done with and dis- 
posed of. Let hs pass to the second," said Clen- 
nam, smiling her agitation away, making the 
blaze shine upon her, and putting wine and cake 
and fruit toward her on the table. 

"I think," said Little Dorrit — "this is the 
second thing, Sir — I think Mrs. Clennam must 
have found out my secret, and must know where 
I come from and where I go to. Where I live, 
I mean." 

"Indeed?" returned Clennam, quickly. He 
asked her, after a short consideration, why she 
supposed so. 

"I think," replied Little Dorrit, "that Mr. 
Flintwinch must have watched me." 

And why, Clennam asked, as he turned his 
eyes upon the fire, bent his brows, and consid- 
ered again ; why did she suppose that ? 

"I have met him twice. Both times near 
home. Both times at night, when I was going 
back. Both times I thought (though that may 
easily be my mistake) that he hardly looked as 
if he had met me by accident." 
"Did he say any thing?" 
"No; he only nodded, and put his head on 
one side." 

" The devil take his head !" mused Clennam, 
still looking at the fire; "it's always on one 
side." 

He roused himself to persuade her to put 
some wine to her lips, and to touch something 
to eat — it was very difficult, she was so timid 
and shy — and then said, musing again : 
"Is my mother at all changed to you?" 
" Oh, not at all. She is just the same. I won- 
dered whether I had better tell her my history. 
I wondered whether I might — I mean, whether 
you would like me to tell her. I wondered," 
said Little Dorrit, looking at him in a suppliant 
way, and gradually withdrawing her eyes as he 
looked at her, "whether you would advise me 
what I ought to do." 

''Little Dorrit," said Clennam ; and the phrase 



had already begun between those two to stand 
for a hundred gentle phrases, according to the 
varying tone and connection in which it was 
used ; " do nothing. Twill have some talk with 
my old friend, Mrs. Affery. Do nothing, Little 
Dorrit — except refresh yourself with such means 
as there are here. I entreat you to do that." 

"Thank you, Sir, I am not hungry. Nor," 
said Little Dorrit, as he softly put her glass to- 
ward her, "nor thirsty. I think Maggy might 
like something, perhaps." 

" We will make her find pockets presently for 
all there is here," said Clennam; "but before 
we make her, there was a third thing to say." 
"Yes. You will nc»; be offended, Sir?" 
" I promise that, unreservedly." 
" It will sound strange. I hardly know how to 
say it. Don't think it unreasonable or ungrate- 
ful in me," said Little Dorrit, with returning 
and increasing agitation. 

"No, no, no. I am sure it will be natural 
and right. I am not afraid that I shall put a 
wrong construction on it, whatever it is," 

"Thank you. You are coming back to see 
my father again ?" 
"Yes." 

"You have been so good and thoughtful as to 
write him a note, saying that you are coming to- 
morrow ?" 

" Oh, that was nothing. Yes." 
"Can you guess," said Little Dorrit, folding 
her small hands tight in one another, and look- 
ins; at him with all the earnestness of her soul 
looking steadily out of her eyes, "what I am 
going to ask you not to do ?" 

" I think I can. But I may be wrong." 
"No, you are not wrong," said Little Dorrit, 
shaking her head. "If we should want it so 
very, very badly that we can not do without it, 
let me ask you for it." 

"I will, Little Dorrit— I will." 
"Don't encourage him to ask. Don't under- 
stand him, if he does ask. Don't give it to him. 
Save him and spare him that, and you will be 
able to think better of him !" 

Clennam said — not very plainly, seeing those 
tears glistening in her anxious eyes — that her 
wish should be sacred with him. 

"You don't know what he is," she said ; "you 
don't know what he really is. How can you, 
seeing him there all at once, dear love, and not 
gradually, as I have done ! You have been so 
good to us, so delicately and truly good, that I 
want him to be better in your eyes than in any 
body's. And I can not bear to think," cried 
Little Dorrit, covering her tears with her hands, 
"I can not bear to think, that you of all the 
world should see him in his only moments of 
degradation !" 

"Pray," said Clennam, "do not be so dis- 
tressed. Pray, pray, Little Dorrit! This is 
quite understood now." 

"Thank you, Sir. Thank you ! I have tried 
very much to keep myself from saying this ; I 
have thought about it days and nights ; but when 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



G87 



[ knew for certain yon were coming again, I 
made up my mind to speak to you. Not be- 
cause I am ashamed of him," she dried her 
tears quickly, "but because I know him better 
than any one does, and love him, and am proud 
of him I" 

Relieved of this weight, Little Dorrit was 
nervously anxious to be gone. Maggy being 
broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloat- 
ing over the fruit and cakes with chuckles of 
anticipation, Clennam made the best diversion 
in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, 
which she drank in a series of loud smacks ; put- 
ting her hand upon her windpipe after every 
one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a 
very prominent state, "Oh, ain't it d'licious! 
Ain't it hospitally!" When she had finished 
the wine and these encomiums, he charged her 
to load her basket (she was never without her 
basket) with every eatable thing upon the table, 
and to take especial care to leave no scrap be- 
hind: Maggy's pleasure in doing which, and 
her Little Mother's pleasure in seeing Maggy 
pleased, was as good a turn as circumstances 
could have given to the late conversation. 

"But the gates will have been locked," said 
Clennam, suddenly remembering it, "long ago. 
Where are you going?" 

"I am going to Maggy's lodging," answered 
Little Dorrit. " I shall be quite safe, quite well 
taken care of." 

"I must accompany you there," said Clen- 
nam. "I can not let you go alone." 

" Yes, pray leave us to go there by ourselves. 
Pray do !" begged Little Dorrit. 

She was so earnest in the petition, that Clen- 
nam felt a delicacy in obtruding himself upon 
her: the rather, because he could well under- 
stand that Maggy's lodging was of the obscurest 
sort : " Come, Maggy," said Little Dorrit, cheer- 
ily, "we shall do very well; we know the way. 
by this time, Maggy?" 

" Yes, yes, Little Mother; we know the way," 
chuckled Maggy. And away they went. Little 
Dorrit turned at the door to say, "God bless 
you!" And though she said it very softly, per- 
haps she may have been as audible above — who 
knows ! — as a whole cathedral choir. 

Arthur Clennam suffered them to pass the 
corner of the street before he followed at a dis- 
tance ; not with any idea of encroaching a sec- 
ond time on Little Dorrit's privacy, but to sat- 
isfy his mind by seeing her secure in the neigh- 
borhood to which she was accustomed. So di- 
minutive she looked, so fragile and defenseless 
against the bleak, damp weather, flitting along 
in the shuffling shadow of her charge, that he 
felt in his <■< n and in his habit of con- 

sidering her a i hild apart from the rest of the 
rough worl I, as if he would have been glad to 
take her up in his anus and carry her to her 
journey's end. 

In course of time she came into the leading 
thoroughfare where the Marshalsea was, and 
then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon 



turn down a by-street. He stopped, felt that 
that he had no right to go further,- and slowly 
left them. He had no suspicion that they ran 
any risk of being houseless until morning ; had 
no idea of the* truth until long, long afterward. 

"But," said Little Dorrit, when they stopped 
at a poor dwelling all in darkness, and heard no 
sound on listening at the door, "now, this is a 
good lodging for you, Maggy, and we must not 
give offense. Consequently, we will only knock 
twice, and not very loud ; and if we can not 
wake them so, we must walk about till day." 

Once, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful 
hand, and listened. Twice, Little Dorrit knocked 
with a careful hand, and listened. All was close 
and still. " Maggy, we must do the best we can, 
my dear. We must be patient, and wait for day. " 

It was a chill dark night, with a damp wind 
blowing, when they came out into the leading 
street again, and heard the clocks strike half 
past one. " In only five hours and a half," said 
Little Dorrit, " we shall be able to go home." 
To speak of home, and to go and look at it, it 
being so near, was a natural sequence. They 
Avent to the closed gate, and peeped through into 
the court-yard. "I hope he is sound asleep," 
said Little Dorrit, kissing one of the bars, " and 
does not miss me !" 

The gate was so familiar, and so like a com- 
panion, that they put down Maggy's basket in a 
corner to serve for a seat, and keeping close to- 
gether, rested there for some time. While the 
street was empty and silent, Little Dorrit was 
not afraid ; but when she heard a footstep at a 
distance, or saw a moving shadow among the 
street-lamps, she was startled, and whispered, 
"Maggy, I see some one, come away !" Maggy 
would then wake up more or less fretfully, and 
they would wander about a little, and come back 
again. 

As long as eating was a novelty and an amuse- 
ment, Maggy kept up pretty well. But, that pe- 
riod going by, she became querulous about the 
cold, and shivered and whimpered. "It will 
soon be over, dear," said Little Dorrit, patient- 
ly. " Oh, it's all very fine for you, Little Moth- 
er," returned Maggy, "but I'm a poor thing, 
only ten years old." At last, in the dead of the 
night, when the street was very still indeed, Lit- 
tle Dorrit laid the heavy head upon her bosom, 
and soothed her to sleep. And thus she sat at 
the gate, as it were alone ; looking up at the 
stars, and seeing the clouds pass over them in 
their wild flight — which was the dance at Little 
Dorrit's party. 

"If it really was a party!" she thought once, 
as she sat there. " If it was light, and warm, 
and beautiful, and it was our house, and my 
poor dear was its master and had never been 
inside these walls. And if Mr. Clennam was 
one of our visitors, and we were dancing to de« 
lightful music, and were all as gay and light- 
hearted as ever we could be ! I wonder — " 
Such a vista of wonder opened out before her 
I that she sat looking up at the stars, quite lost, 



688 



HAMPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



until Maggy was querulous again, and wanted 
to get up and walk. 

Three o'clock, and half-past three, and they 
had come over London Bridge. They had heard 
the rush of the tide against obstacles ; had look- 
ed down awed through the dark vapor on the 
river ; had seen little spots of lighted water 
where the bridge lamps were reflected, shining 
like demon eyes, with a terrible temptation in 
them for guilt and misery. They had shrunk 
past homeless people lying coiled up in nooks. 
They had run from drunkards, they had started 
from slinking men, whistling and signing to one 
another at by-corners, or running away at full 
speed. Though every where the leader and the 
guide, Little Dorrit, happy for once in her youth- 
ful appearance, feigned to cling to and rely upon 
Maggy. And more than once some voice from 
among a knot of brawling or prowling figures in 
their path had called out to the rest to "'let the 
woman and the child go by!" 

So, the woman and the child had gone by, and 
gone on ; and five had sounded from the steeples. 
They were walking slowly toward the east, al- 
ready looking for the first pale streak of day, 
when a woman came after them. 

"What are you doing with the child?" she 
said to Maggy. 

She was young — far too young to be there, 
Heaven knows ! — and neither ugly nor wicked- 
looking. She spoke coarsely, but with no natu- 
rally coarse voice ; there was even something 
musical in its sound. 

"What are you doing with yourself ?" return- 
ed Maggy, for want of a better answer. 

" Can't you see without my telling you ?" 

"I don't know as I can," said Maggy. 

"Killing myself. Now I have answered you, 
answer me. What are you doing with the child ?" 

The supposed child kept her head drooped 
down, and kept her form close at Maggy's side. 

"Poor thing!" said the woman. "Have you 
no feeling, that you bring her out into the cruel 
streets at such a time as this ? Have ycu no 
eyes, that you don't see how delicate and slen- 
der she is ? Have you no sense (you don't look 
as if you had much), that you don't take more 
pity on this cold and trembling little hand ?" 

She had stepped across to that side, and held 
the hand between her own two, chafing it. " Kiss 
a poor lost creature, dear," she said, lending her 
face, " and tell me where she's taking you." 

Little Dorrit turned toward her. 

"Why, my God!" she said, recoiling; "you're 
a woman !" 

"Don't mind that!" said Little Dorrit, clasp- 
ing one of the hands that had suddenly released 
he<rs. "I am not afraid of you." 

"Then you had better be," she answered. 
" Have you no mother ?" 

"No." 

"No father?" 

" Yes, a very dear one." 

" Go home to him, and be afraid of me. Let 
me go. Good-night !" 



"I must thank you first ; let me speak to you 
as if I really was a child." 

"You can't do it," said the woman. "You 
are kind and innocent; - but you can't look at 
me out of a child's eyes. I never should have 
touched you but that I thought you were a child." 
And with a strange, wild cry, she went away. 

No day yet in the sky, but there was day in 
the resounding stones of the streets ; in the wag- 
ons, carts, and coaches ; in the workers going to 
various occupations ; in the opening of early 
shops ; in the traffic at markets ; in the stir at 
the river-side. There was coming day in the 
flaring lights, with a feebler color in them than 
they would have had at another time; coming 
day in the increased sharpness of the air, and 
the ghastly dying of the night. 

They went back again to the gate, intending 
to wait there now until it should be opened ; but 
the air was so raw and cold that Little Dorrit, 
leading Maggy about in her sleep, kept in mo- 
tion. Going round by the church, she saw lights 
there, and the door open, and went up the steps 
and looked in. 

"Who's that?" cried a stout old man, who 
was putting on a night-cap as if he were going 
to bed in a vault. 

" It's no one particular, Sir," said Little Dorrit. 

"Stop!" cried the man. "Let's have a look 
at you !" 

This caused her to turn back again in the act 
of going out, and to present herself and her 
charge before him. 

" I thought so !" said he. " I know your 

"We have often seen each other," said Little 
Dorrit, recognizing the sexton, or the beadle, or 
the verger, or whatever he was, "when I have 
been at church here." 

" More than that ; we've got your birth in our 
Register, you know ; you're one of our curiosi- 
ties." 

" Indeed?" said Little Dorrit. 

" To be sure. As the child of the — By-the- 
by, how did you get out so early ?" 

"We were shut out last night, and are wait- 
ing to get in." 

"You don't mean it? And there's another 
hour good, yet! Come into the Vestry. You'll 
find a fire in the Vestry, on account of the paint- 
ers. I'm waiting for the painters, or I shouldn't 
be here, you may depend upon it. One of our 
curiosities mustn't be cold when we have it in 
our power to warm her up comfortable. Come 
along." 

He was a very good old fellow in his familiar 
way, and 'having stirred the Vestry fire, he 
looked round the shelves of registers for a par- 
ticular volume. "Here you are, you see," he 
said, taking it down and turning the leaves. 
"Here you'll find yourself, as large as life. Amy, 
daughter of William and Fanny Dorrit. Born, 
Marshals ea Prison, Parish of Saint George. 
And we tell people that you've lived there, with- 
out so much as a day's or a night's absence, ever 
since. Is it true ?" 



MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 



680 



"Quite true till last night." 

"Lord !" But his surveying her with an ad- 
miring gaze suggested something else to him, to 
wit, " I say, though, I am sorry to see that you 
are very faint and tired. Stay a bit. I'll get some 
cushions out of the church, and you and your 
friend shall lie down before the fire. Don't be 
afraid of not going in to join your father when 
the gate opens. Fll call you." 

He soon brought in the cushions, and strewed 
them on the ground. 

"There you are, you see ! Again as large as 
life. Oh, never mind thanking. I've daughters 
of my own. And though they weren't born in 
the Marshalsea Prison, they might have been, 
if I had been any ways of your father's breed. 
Stop a bit. I must put something under the 
cushion for your head. Here's a Burial volume. 



Ah ! just the thing ! We have got Mrs. Bang- 
ham in this book. But what makes these books 
interesting to most people is — not who's in 'em, 
but who isn't — who's coining, you know, and 
when. That's 'the interesting question," 

Commendingly looking back at the pillow he 
had improvised, he left them to their hour's re- 
pose. Maggy was snoring already, and Little 
Dorrit was soon fast asleep, with her head rest- 
ing on that sealed book of Fate, untroubled by 
its mysterious blank leaves. 

This was Little Dorrit's party. The shame, 
desertion, wretchedness, and exposure of the 
great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, 
and the swift clouds of the dismal night. This 
was the party from which Little Dorrit went 
home jaded, in the first gray mist of a rainy 
morning. 



y$M\\)\\\ %tm\ nf Current dfafo 



THE UNITED STATES. 

THE complete organization of the House of Re- 
presentatives was effected very speedily after 
the election of Speaker. Mr. Whitfield took his 
place as delegate from Kansas, under protest from 
Mr. Reeder, who contests the seat. In the ap- 
pointment of Committees, the Speaker adopted the 
general principle of giving the chairman and a 
majority of the members to his own party, the Re- 
publican, dividing the remaining members among 
the Democrats and the Americans. The principal 
exception to this rule was the appointment of Gen- 
eral Quitman, of Mississippi, Democrat, to the chair 
of the Committee on Military Affairs. Up to the 
date of the closing of this Record (March 5), the 
proceedings in Congress have been wholly delib- 
erative, no definite action having been reached on 
any of the leading measures under consideration. 
Of these, the principal have been those growing 
out of our present critical relations with Great 
Britain, the disturbed condition of affairs in Kan- 
sas, and the action of the late Naval Board. The 
President has recommended the appropriation of 
§3,000,000 for increasing our naval and military: ef- 
ficiency ; and a Bill has been reported authorizing 
the immediate construction of ten additional steam 
sloops of war. In answer to a call for information 
on the part of the Senate, the diplomatic corre- 
spondence between our Government and that of 
Great Britain, in relation to the enlistment of sol- 
diers for the Crimea, has been published. It con- 
clusively establishes the fact that the conduct of 
Mr. Crampton, the British Minister, was such as 
to justify the demand for his recall ; and that no 
adequate amends have yet been offered by the 
British Government. From a subsequent part of 
this Record it will appear tbat the Government of 
Great Britain takes a wholly different view of the 

matter. A flairs in Kansas continue to present 

a very critical aspect. Many isolated acts of vio- 
lence have occurred, though no general and open 
struggle has taken place. The Executive Com- 
mittee of the Free Soil party have transmitted 
communications to the General Government, and 
to the Executives of several States, stating that 
an armed invasion of the Territory is meditated 



from Missouri, and asking for aid and protection. 
In consequence of this communication resolutions 
were adopted by the Legislature of Ohio instruct- 
ing their delegation in Congress to use their best 
endeavors to secure the admission of Kansas into 
the Union as a State, and to vote, in the mean 
while, for the admission of Mr. Reeder as delegate 
from the Territory. On the 11th of February the 
President issued a proclamation stating combina- 
tions have been formed within the Territory to re- 
sist the execution of the laws, and to subvert by 
violence all present constitutional and legal au- 
thority ; that persons residing without the Terri- 
tory, but on its borders, contemplate armed inter- 
vention in the affairs thereof; that the inhabitants 
of more remote States are collecting money, en- 
gaging men, and providing arms for the same pur- 
pose ; and also, that combinations within the Ter- 
ritory are endeavoring to induce individual States 
to intervene in the affairs thereof, in violation of 
the Constitution of the United States. The Presi- 
dent declares that the execution of such plans from 
within will constitute insurrection, and from with- 
out invasion, which will demand the intervention 
of the General Government. He therefore orders 
all persons engaged in such combinations within 
the Territory to disperse, and warns those without 
that any aggressive intrusion will be resisted by 
the local militia and the forces of the United States. 
Orders have also been given to the officers com- 
manding the United States troops at Forts Riley 
and Leavenworth to hold themselves in readiness 
to obey the requisitions of the Governor of the 
Territory, in maintaining the peace and repelling 

invasion. The Legislature of Kentucky have 

adopted a series of resolutions declaring an unal- 
terable attachment to the Union, and hostility to 
every effort to subvert it; deprecating the agita- 
tion of the slavery question ; declaring that Con- 
gress has no right to make cither the allowance or 
the prohibition of slavery a condition of the admis- 
sion of a State into the Union; opposing the re- 
peal of the Nebraska Bill, on the ground that it 
has definitely settled the policy of the Government 
in reference to slavery in the Territories ; urging 
the maintenance and enforcement of the Fugitive 



600 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Slave Law; recommending an alteration in the 
the Naturalization Laws ; deprecating the appoint- 
ment to office of any person who acknowledges 
civil allegiance to any foreign power, civil or ec- 
clesiastical, but disclaiming any intention to pre- 
scribe a religious test for office ; urging obedience 
to the Constitution and all laws passed in pursu- 
ance thereof; and repudiating the " higher law 
doctrines of the North, as well as the seceding and 
nullifying doctrines of the South and North."- 



Governor Wicklift'e, of Louisiana, in his inaugural 
address, affirms that the "steady encroachments 
made by Congress upon the reserved rights of the 
South have not only sanctioned but encouraged 
outrage, that, if not checked, will undoubtedly re- 
sult in a dissolution of the Union." The South, 
he says, is "satisfied with the principles of the 
Kansas and Nebraska bill, and it is to be hoped 
that they will be adopted by the returning good 
sense of our Northern brethren." The demand 
that no Slave States shall be admitted into the 
Union, he affirms to be an insult to the Slave 
States and a violation of the Constitution, and he 
holds it to be "certain that if the time shall ever 
come when the South shall be in a clear minority 
in the Senate, as it is in the House and the Elec- 
toral College, the aggressive spirit of the North 
will direct the legislation of Congress, so that the 
South will be obliged to abandon the Union." 



The Southern and Southwestern Commercial Con- 
vention, at its recent session at Richmond, passed 
resolutions advocating the establishment of lines of 
steamers between Southern and European ports ; 
requesting Southern Representatives in Congress 
to vote for no appropriation in aid of mail lines 
terminating at any Northern port, unless a clause 
be inserted in the bill pledging like aid to lines 
established, or to be established, from Southern 
ports ; advocating a repeal, or great reduction of 
duties upon railroad iron ; and asking the South- 
ern States to aid in the construction of a railway 
from the Valley of the Mississippi to the Pacific 
coast. Other resolutions advocate the release from 
license tax by Southern States of all direct import- 
ations from foreign countries ; recommend the cit- 
izens of the South to give a preference to South- 
ern manufactures, literary institutions, books, and 
places of resort for pleasure, over those of the 

North. A special session of the "Council of the 

American Order" was held at Philadelphia, com- 
mencing on the 18th of February, for the purpose 
of considering a national platform. The 12th sec- 
tion of the platform of June, 1855, deprecated all 
further action on the subject of slavery. After a 
spirited preliminary debate, a resolution was taken 
up for consideration, declaring, as the 12th sec- 
tion was "neither proposed by the South nor ac- 
cepted by the North," that it should be stricken 
out, and that the party should "stand upon the 
principles and provisions of the Constitution of the 
United States, yielding nothing more, and claiming 
nothing less." Strong opposition was made to 
this by Southern members, and it was finally de- 
cided that the whole platform should be abandon- 
ed, and a new one adopted. This consists of six- 
teen articles, of which, besides those embodying 
the well-known principles of the order in regard 
to foreigners and natives, the most important are 
the 6th and 12th sections, which are as follows : 
" Sixth. The unqualified recognition and mainten- 
ance of the reserved rights of the several States, 
and the cultivation of harmony and fraternal good- 



will between the citizens of the several States, and, 
to this end, non-interference by Congress with ques- 
tions appertaining solelyto the individual States, 
and non-intervention by each State with the affairs 

of any other State Twelfth. The maintenance 

and enforcement of all laws until said laws shall 
be repealed, or shall be declared null and void by 
competent judicial authority." This platform was 
adopted by a vote of 108 to 77. A number of del- 
egates protested against it, and refused to be 
bound to vote for any Presidential candidate nom- 
inated upon it. On the 22d of February, imme- 
diately after the adjournment of the Grand Coun- 
cil, the National Nominating Convention of the 
same party assembled. After an ineffectual at- 
tempt to postpone immediate action, it was re- 
solved to proceed to the nomination of candidates 
for President and Vice-President. An informal 
ballot was taken to ascertain the preferences of 
members, when, out of 143 votes, 71 were east for 
Millard Fillmore, Mr. George Law, of New York, 
receiving 27, the remainder being divided among a 
number of candidates. The Convention then pro- 
ceeded to a formal ballot, the votes being cast by 
States, according to their Federal representation. 
Mr. Fillmore receiving 170 votes out of 243, Mr. 
Law receiving 24. For Vice-President, Andrew 
J. Donelson, of Tennessee, received 181 votes. 
Forty delegates, principally from Ohio, Connecti- 
cut, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, with- 
drew from the Convention, and proposed that 
another Convention for nominations should be 
called, to meet in New York on the 12th of June. 
A Convention of delegates representing the 



Republican party convened at Pittsburg on the 22d 
of February. Francis P. Blair, of Maryland, for- 
merly editor of the Washington Globe, was ap- 
pointed Chairman. He presented a paper purport- 
ing to embody the views of many persons in the 
Southern States, who deplored the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. Multitudes in these States 
were in favor of restoring the Compromises of 1820 
and 1850, being sensible of the fatal effect which a 
dissolution of the Union would have upon the 
peace of the country, and the destruction in which 
it would involve all the securities of the Slave 
institution. He had been sent by a body of busi- 
ness men in Baltimore to submit to this Conven- 
tion a proposition to restore concord to the coun- 
try. It was simply a repeal of the repealing clause 
of the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, which could be 
effected in spite of the opposition of the Senate and 
President, if the Northern majority would determ- 
ine to hold every thing in abeyance until the voice 
of the nation had pronounced its irresistible decis- 
ion to that effect. The "Convention put forth a 
long and elaborate statement of the principles and 
purposes of the Republican party. It commenced 
by declaring a fixed and unalterable devotion to 
the Constitution of the United States, and to the 
Union. It then proceeded to argue at length that 
for many years the powers of the Government had 
been "systematically wielded for the promotion 
and extension of the interests of slavery, in direct 
hostility to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, 
in flagrant disregard of other great interests of the 
country, and in open contempt of the public senti- 
ment of the American people and of the Christian 
world." The next Presidential election, it was 
affirmed, would decide whether slavery was to be 
the "paramount and controlling interest in the 
Federal administration, or whether other rights and 



MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 



691 



interests shall resume the degree of consideration 
to which they are entitled." The declaration con- 
cluded by " disclaiming any intention to interfere 
with slavery in the States where it exists, or to in- 
validate those portions of the Constitution by 
which it is removed from the national control." 
Another Convention of the party, to nominate can- 
didates for President and Vice-President, is to be 

held in Philadelphia on the 17th of June. The 

passage to Europe has been obstructed by much 
larger accumulations of ice and icebergs than have 
ever before been known. The steamers have in 
some cases been beset for many hours in immense 
packs. The Collins steamer Pacific, which left 
Liverpool on January 23d, has not yet arrived in 
port, and as nothing has been heard from her by 
subsequent arrivals, it is still a matter of doubt 
whether she has been disabled and put back, or 
has been totally lost. A fugitive slave case pre- 
senting some remarkable features has been decided 
at Cincinnati. A party of fugitives, adults and 
children, from Kentucky, had concealed themselves 
in a house in Cincinnati. In attempting to arrest 
them one of the United States Marshal's deputies 
was wounded. Upon entering the house it was 
found that one of the children had been killed by 
the mother, presumably to prevent its return to 
slavery, and the two others were slightly wound- 
ed. It was alleged, on trial, that their owner had 
frequently permitted them to enter the State of 
Ohio, and that, by the laws of the State, they were 
entitled to their freedom. The Commissioner de- 
cided that as they had in those cases voluntarily 
returned to Kentucky, they had waived whatever 
right they might have acquired to freedom, and 
were now slaves by the laws of Kentucky, and, as 
fugitives, must be given up. In the mean time a 
bill of indictment kad been found against the moth- 
er for the killing of her child, and an effort was 
made to take her from the custody of the United 
States Marshal, and place her in the hands of the 
State authorities, to be kept for trial for murder. 
Judge Leavitt, before whom the case came, de- 
cided that as she was in the legal custody of the 
officer of the United States when the bill was found, 
the State authorities had no power to claim her 
from him ; and that the only way in which the 
State courts could gain possession of her was by a 
requisition upon the Governor of Kentucky as a 
fugitive from justice. All the fugitives arrested 
were thereupon returned to their owners in Ken- 
tucky. Hon. George M. Dallas has been sent to 

Great Britain as Minister, in place of Mr. Buchan- 
an, who has been recalled at his own urgent re- 
quest. The Seminole Indians have recently 

committed outrages and depredations in Florida, 
and a detachment of United States troops has been 
dispatched to bring them into subjection. From 
the Pacific COMt we have intelligence of continued 
Indian hostilities. In Washington Territory an at- 
tempt was made upon the town of Seattle by seven 
hundred Indians. The town was defended by the 
inhabitants and a detachment of men from the 
sloop-of-war Decatur. The guns of the vessel were 
finally brought to bear upon the assailants, who 
■.vere defeated, with a lo>s of thirty-live killed and 
thirty-six wounded. Two of the whites were kill- 
ed. Further hostilities were anticipated. The 

United State, aloop-o&waf John Adams, during 
her late cruise, bombarded ami burned live of the 
principal towns in the I'eej.e [glands, an a punish- 
ment for numerous outrages committed upon Amer- 



icans by the cannibals. A treaty was subsequently 
entered into between the commander of the vessel 
and Thakombau, the principal Feejee chief. 
SOUTHERN AMERICA. 
Mexico presents its usual revolutionary aspect. 
There are a half-score or more revolutionary chiefs 
acting apparently without any concert. The city 
of Puebla was taken by Haro y Tamariz, after a 
very feeble defense. A Government was forthwith 
named, which began to raise funds by means of a 
forced loan, and collecting the consumption duty 
on goods from Vera Cruz, which is by law payable 
only in the capital on the arrival of the goods. On 
February 12, the garrison of the Castle of San Juan 
de Ulua rose against their officers, liberated the po- 
litical prisoners confined there, and " pronounced" 
in favor of Haro. They then demanded that the 
city of Vera Cruz should be surrendered to them 
on peril of bombardment. This being refused, fire 
was opened on the city, doing some damage. On 
the 14th, the French frigate Penelope anchored be- 
tween the Castle and the city, the captain threat- 
ening to fire upon the Castle if the bombardment 
continued. On the 19th, the Castle opened fire 
upon the national steamer Guerrero, killing and 
wounding a dozen men. An ammunition chest 
in the Castle was blown up by a bomb from Fort 
Santiago, and sixteen men were killed and wound- 
ed. On the 20th, the Castle surrendered to the 
city, and Salcedo, the leader of the insurrection, 

with other officers, was sentenced to be shot. In 

Nicaragua, the Rivas and Walker Government 
appears to gather strength. The United States 
having refused to receive Colonel Parker H. 
French, who had been sent as Ministei*, the Gov- 
ernment of Nicaragua has broken off diplomatic 
intercourse with Mr. Wheeler, the Minister of the 
United States. The British Consul at Realejo 
has recognized the present Government, assuring 
it of the sympathy of the English Cabinet while it 
conducts affairs according to the usages of nations. 
Nicaragua has announced its claim to the Mosquito 
territory, refusing to recognize the validity of the 
land claims of Colonel Kinney. That gentleman 
visited Granada, with the intention of entering into 
negotiations with the Government, but was arrest- 
ed on charge of treasonable practices, sent under 
escort to the coast, and ordered to leave, the coun- 
try. Apprehensions are entertained of a confed- 
eracy of the States of Central America against 

Nicaragua. From Hayti we have intelligence 

of an expedition, led by the Emperor Soulouque, 
against the Dominican Government, in the eastern 
part of the island. lie was defeated in an engage- 
ment, which is described as very sanguinary, and 
forced to retreat to his own dominions. 
EUROPE. 
Negotiations have now assumed such a shape 
as to render the conclusion of a peace at no distant 
day highly probable. We gave in our last Record 
the textof the propositions submitted to Russia by 
Austria, with the consent of England and France, 
as a basis for negotiations. These propositions 
were to be either categorically accepted or declined. 
After some hesitation on the pari of the Finperor, 
he definitively announced his acceptance, and a 
protocol was signed at Vienna reciting that in con- 
sequence of this acceptance Plenipotentiaries fur- 
nished with full powers tn sign the formal prelim- 
inaries should lie appointed, who should proceed to 
the work of concluding an armistice and a definite 
treaty of peace. It was decided that the negotia- 



C92 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



tions should he carried on at Paris ; and the first 
meeting of the Plenipotentiaries was fixed to take 
place on Fehruary 23. The appointments of the 
several Powers are as follows : For France, Count 
Walewski, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Baron 
de Bourquenoy, Embassador at Vienna. For En- 
gland, Lord Clarendon, Principal Secretary of 
State, and Lord Cowley, Embassador at Paris. 
For Austria, Count Buol-Schauenstein, Minister 
of Foreign Affairs, and Baron de Hubner, Embas- 
sador at Paris. For Russia, Count Orloff, Mem- 
ber of the Council, and Baron de Brunow, Embas- 
sador to the Germanic Confederation. For Sar- 
dinia, Count Cavour and Marquis Villamarina. 
For Turkey, Aali Pasha, Grand Vizier, and Me- 
hemed Djemil Bey, Embassador at Paris. There 
seems to be a settled determination on the part of 
the Allies to exclude Prussia from all share in the 
negotiations. The Empei-or of Austria has ad- 
dressed a statement to the Diet of the Germanic 
Confederation, narrating the measures he had taken 
to bring about the opening of negotiations, adding 
that the King of Prussia had employed all his in- 
fluence to bring Russia to conciliatory decisions, 
and that the language of the other German Courts, 
expressed at St. Petersburg, had contributed to the 
same end. The conditions of the negotiations, 
he says, are essentially the same as those which the 
Confederation had already approved, especially the 
two first, in which Germany is deeply interested, 
which relate to securing the freedom of the mouths 
of the Danube by the rectification of the Russian 
boundary, and the neutralization of the Black Sea. 
He expressed his perfect confidence that the right 
reserved to the belligerents by the fifth article, of 
proposing new conditions, in the interest of Europe, 
will not be so used as to compromise the work of 
peace so auspiciously commenced. He concludes 
by expressing the hope that the Confederation will 
unite with Austria in the determination to accept 
and maintain the basis upon which the approach- 
ing conferences are to build up and consolidate a 

general peace.' The condition of the allied troops 

in the Crimea is declared to be excellent. The 
demolition of the docks and forts on the south side 
of Sebastopol has been completed ; the Russians 
keeping up a heavy fire from the north side, which, 
however, produced few casualties. No military 
operations of importance had taken place since our 
last notices ; and it was understood that pending 
the negotiations a suspension of active hostilities 
would take place ; neither party in the mean while 
relaxing their warlike preparations. 

The British Parliament was opened January 31. 
The Queen's speech referred to the capture of Se- 
bastopol, and stated that while determined to omit 
no effort which could give vigor to the prosecution 
of the war, Her Majesty considered it her duty not 
to decline any overtures which might reasonably 
afford a prospect of a safe and honorable peace. 
She had, therefore, accepted the good offices of the 
Emperor of Austria for the opening of negotiations. 
Exception was taken by the Opposition to the 
omission from the speech of any reference to the 
relations !>etween Great Britain and the United 
States. There was no country, said the Earl of 
Derby, in the Peers, with which Great Britain was 
so closely bound, and none with which a. war would 
be so mutually suicidal. In relation to the Central 
American treaty, he concurred with the construc- 
tion put upora it by Government; but admitted 



that in the affair of enlistment the United States 
had strong grounds of complaint. If the letter of 
the laws of the United States had not been in- 
fringed, their spirit had certainly been violated. 
But he hoped that the United States would accept 
the ample apology that had been offered, and that 
more friendly relations between the countries would 
ensue. Lord Clarendon replied that although in 
his opinion the true construction of the Clayton 
and Bulwer treaty was perfectly clear, yet a differ- 
ence of opinion between the parties certainly did 
exist, and as in such a case correspondence was 
perfectly useless, an offer had been made and re- 
peated for leaving it to the arbitration of a third 
power, to which he hoped the Government of the 
United States would agree. The Government had 
thought it unadvisable to refer in the speech from 
the throne to the enlistment difficulty. He then 
gave his version of the affair, and said that the 
Government was perfectly satisfied with the con- 
duct of Mr. Crampton, being fully convinced that 
he had neither intentionally nor by accident vio- 
lated any law of the United States. A corre- 
spondence, of no very amicable nature had in- 
deed taken place between the two Governments, 
and this correspondence not being yet concluded, 
he was not in a condition to lay it before Parlia- 
ment. He then entered at large into the reasons 
which had induced the Government to accept the 
intervention of Austria. Though there were in 
many minds grave doubts as to the motives of 
Russia, he was firmly persuaded that she was de- 
sirous of peace. The Emperor had shown great 
moral courage in accepting terms tbat were dis- 
pleasing to the war party, and should he continue 
to manifest the same courage in abiding by the 
spirit of the basis, there was every hope that a 
peace would be concluded, honorable to all parties, 
and safe ; and no peace that would degrade Russia 
could be a safe one. In these views the Emperor 
of France fully concurred. Meanwhile prepara- 
tions for war would not be intermitted, and both 
France and England would be fully prepared for 
hostilities on the very day on which it was under- 
stood that the negotiations had failed. In the 
Commons the debates took the same general turn. 

. The regiments on home service have received 

an intimation that they may be required to pro- 
ceed to Canada, it being the intention of the Gov- 
ernment materially to strengthen the forces in the 
North American Provinces. A new military or- 
der of merit has been established as a means of re- 
warding officers of the lower grades and privates 
for distinguished services. The decoration consists 
of a bronze Maltese cross, to be suspended upon 
the breast by a ribbon. An additional bar is to be 
placed upon the ribbon for every new act of emi- 
nent merit. With the cross is bestowed a pension 
of £10 a year, and an addition of £5 for each bar 

borne upon the ribbon. The kingdom of Oude, 

having some five or six millions of inhabitants, of 
which we recently gave some account, has been 
formally "sequestrated," and annexed to the Brit- 
ish Empire in India. This kingdom was origin- 
ally constituted by the British East India Com- 
pany, by whom the sovereign was appointed. It 
is claimed that he has forfeited his right to the 
throne by gross oppression and treacher}- ; and that 
his dominions revert by right to the crown. A 
pension of £100,000 has been granted to the de- 
posed king. 



t\\nm\ JMtrt; 



The Rise of the Dutch Republic. A History. By 
John Lothrop Motley. (Harper and Brothers.) 
The author of tliis great historical work has already 
attained an honorable position among American 
scholars by his successful productions in the litera- 
ture of fiction. Distinguished for fervor of imag- 
ination and brilliancy of style, they gave an early 
promise of intellectual distinction, which is amply 
redeemed in the present admirable contribution to 
European history. The fruit of the assiduous and 
profound study of many years, betraying a ripe 
and generous scholarship in its thorough elabora- 
tion, pervaded by an enlightened love of freedom 
and a noble spirit of humanity, abounding in pas- 
sages of vigorous picturesque description, equally 
felicitous in its expositions of political affairs, and 
its portraitures of personal character,- it at once 
places the author on the list of American historians 
which has been so signally illustrated by the names 
of Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, and Ilildreth. 

The history of the establishment of the Dutch 
Republic is a record of the struggle between the 
feudal institutions of the Middle Ages and the 
dawning light of modern liberty, between the most 
malignant form of religious bigotry and the infant 
genius of toleration, between the arrogant claims 
of monarchical prescription and the timid aspira- 
tions of universal justice. Mr. Motley exhibits a 
clear insight into the comprehensiveness and im- 
portance of his subject. In his investigation of 
facts he never forgets the principle which they em- 
body. Like all historians of the highest order, he 
regards the events which he describes as the prod- 
ucts and symbols of a spiritual movement, Avhose 
significance in the history of the world is of more 
vital consequence than any external changes. To 
use his own words, " from the hand-breadth of ter- 
ritory called the province of Holland, rises a power 
which wages eighty years' warfare with the most 
potent empire upon earth, and which during the 
progress of the struggle, becoming itself a mighty 
state, and binding about its own slender form a 
zone of the richest possessions of earth, from pole 
to tropic, finally dictates its decrees to the empire 
of Charles. So much is each individual state but 
a member of one great international commonwealth, 
and so close is the relationship between the whole 
human family, that it is impossible for a nation, 
even while struggling for itself, not to acquire 
something for all mankind. The maintenance of 
the right by the little provinces of Holland and 
Zealand in the sixteenth, by Holland and England 
united in the seventeenth, and by the United States 
of America in the eighteenth centuries, forms but 
a single chapter in the great volume of human fate 
— for the so-Called revolutions of Holland, England, 
and America, are all links of one chain." 

Such is the lofty point of view from which Mr. 
Motley contemplates the panoramic scene which 
spreads itself before him, with its rapid BUCeession 
of incidents, its multiform relations with the age and 

with humanity, and its numerous tragic episodes, 
which so often give a lurid coloring to the narra- 
tive. The history embraces the period from the 
abdication of ( harli - V., in 1666, to the death of 
William the Silent, Prinee of Orange, in L684, at 
which epoch the heroic age of the Netherlands may 
be said to terminate. Prominent upon the canvas 



are the figures of Philip the Second, and of his 
ministers, the Duke of Alva and Cardinal Gran- 
velle, with whom the character of William is pre- 
sented in striking contrast, affording abundant op- 
portunity to the author for the display of light and 
shade in the construction of his narrative. The 
interest of the history, to a great degree, revolves 
around the person of William, who is no less a 
favorite with Mr. Motley than is his illustrious de- 
scendant with Mr. Macaulay in his History of En- 
gland. There is, however, a marked difference 
between the grounds of admiration on which the 
two authors attempt to elevate their respective 
heroes. With Mr. Macaulay, William is the cen- 
tre of a political party, exciting little interest in 
his personal character, and honored as the exponent 
of the principles of the Revolution. The earlier 
William is portrayed as a splendid specimen of 
manly worth, regardless of his own interests in his 
devotion to his country, and seeking the realization 
of justice rather than party triumphs. Macaulay 
follows the career of his hero with conscious pride ; 
but is never aroused to a glow of sympathy ; while 
the champion of freedom in Holland awakens the 
personal love of his historian, and at times can 
scarcely be named but with a gush of enthusiasm. 
Upon the departure of Philip II. from the 
Netherlands in 1559, William of Orange was in 
his twenty-seventh year. From an early age he 
had been a favorite with the Emperor Charles V. 
While quite a boy, he Avas admitted as a page into 
his family. Before he was sixteen, he became his 
intimate and almost confidential friend. Even at 
the interviews of Charles with the highest person- 
ages and on the gravest affairs, his presence was 
never deemed intrusive, and there seemed to be no 
secrets which the Emperor regarded as too weigh- 
ty for the comprehension or discretion of the page 
The faculties of his mind, which were naturally 
acute, thus acquired a precocious and remarkable 
development. He was fully initiated into the ma- 
chinery of public affairs, and attained a rare in- 
sight into the motives and characters of the prin- 
cipal actors then on the stage where the world's 
great dramas were enacted. As he advanced in 
experience, he was selected by the Empi ror for 
the highest duties. Before he Avas twenty-one; he 
Avas appointed gencral-in-chief of the army on the 
French frontier in the absence of the Duke of Sa- 
vo}', and acquitted himself of his command in a 
manner which justified his appointment. It was 
his shoulder on which the Emperor leaned at the 
abdication, and his hand which bore the imperial 
insignia of the discrowned monarch to Ferdinand 
at Augsburg. He continued tin; same intimate 
relations with Philip. He was with the army 
during the hostilities in Picardy, and was the se- 
cret negotiator of the arrangement with Franca, 
which was afterward confirmed by the treaty of 
April, 1569. He was one of the hostages selected 
by Henry for the due execution of the treaty, and 
while in France made the discovery which was to 
exert so great an influence on his future life, While 
hunting with the king in the foresl of Yi;:cennes, 
lie was informed of flic plot which had been secret- 
ly formed between France and Spain ;<> extirpate 
Protestantism by a general extirpation of Protest- 
ants. He received the disclosure without com- 



694 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



raent. Though horror-struck and indignant at 
the royal revelations, he held his peace. Hence 
his surname of "the Silent." Henry was not aware 
of the blunder he had committed in giving such a 
warning to the man who was born to resist the 
machinations of Philip and of Alva. From that 
hour the purpose of William was fixed. Though 
as yet he had no sympathy with the Reformers, he 
resolved to oppose the persecutions with which 
they were threatened. In outward observance he 
was a Catholic. In religious dogmas he took lit- 
tle interest. Few persons of his rank had at that 
time embraced the Protestant faith. Its con- 
verts in the Netherlands ivere chiefly tanners, dy- 
ers, and apostate priests. His determination to 
save his inferiors from a horrible death did not 
proceed from sympathy with their sentiments, but 
from a detestation of murder. Flis mind was in 
other pursuits. He was inclined to a festive and 
luxurious life. He was fond of banquets, masquer- 
ades, tournaments, and the chase. His hospitali- 
ty was on a scale of regal splendor. In his liberal 
mansion the feasting was kept up night and day. 
From early morning till noon, a luxurious break- 
fast was spread for all comers. The dinner and 
supper were daily banquets for troops of guests. 
Not only the highest nobles, but men of low de- 
gree were welcomed with hearty hospitality. The 
gentle manner and winning address of the prince 
were praised by all parties. " Never," says a bit- 
ter Catholic historian, "did an arrogant or indis- 
creet word fall from his lips. He upon no occa- 
sion manifested anger to his servants, however 
much they might be in fault, but contented him- 
self with admonishing them graciously, without 
menace or insult. He had a gentle and agreeable 
tongue, with which he could turn all the gentle- 
men at court any way he liked. He was beloved 
and honored by the whole community." 

With regard to his talents, there was a similar 
unanimity of opinion. The subtlety and breadth 
of his intellect, his skill in the conduct of affairs, 
his knowledge of human nature, and the profound- 
ness of his views, were never questioned. His sur- 
name of "the Silent" was a palpable misnomer. 
In private, he was a singularly affable and de- 
lightful companion ; and on many public occasions 
he proved himself, both by pen and by speech, the 
most eloquent man of his age. His mental ac- 
complishments were in accordance with his rank 
and position. He was well versed in history, and 
could both speak and write Latin, French, Ger- 
man, Flemish, and Spanish, with the facility of an 
expert. 

Such was the Prince of Orange at the com- 
mencement of the career throughout which he ex- 
hibited so admirable an example of courage, forti- 
tude, exalted principle, and fidelity to the cause of 
freedom. He is so completely identified with the 
terrible conflict by which the independence of the 
Dutch people was achieved, that the work of Mr. 
Motley has no small degree of the charm of biogra- 
phy, combined with the dignity of history. Our 
space forbids us to follow the author in the de- 
scription of the thrilling scenes of his eventful life, 
but we will take leave of him with the account of 
two attempts at assassination, to the last of which 
he fell a victim. 

On the 18th of March, 1582, the prince narrow- 
ly escaped with his life from the pistol of an as- 
sassin. While passing from the dining-room of 
the palace at Antwerp, ho was met at the ante- 



chamber of his own apartments by a young man, 
who offered him a petition. The prince took the 
paper, and as he received it,-the stranger suddenly 
drew a pistol and discharged it at his head. The 
ball entered the neck under the right ear, and 
passing through the roof of the mouth, came out 
under the left jaw. His hair and beard were set 
on fire by the discharge. He was believed to be 
mortally wounded by all who stood by. After re- 
covering from the shock, his first words were, " Do 
not kill him, I forgive him my death." But his 
message of mercy was too late. Two of the gen- 
tlemen present had run the assassin through with 
their rapiers. The halberdiers rushed upon him 
in a moment, and he fell covered with mortal 
wounds. The prince was supported to his cham- 
ber by his friends, and, upon a surgical examina- 
tion, the wound was found less dangerous than had 
been supposed. This was owing to a singular cir- 
cumstance. The flame from the pistol had been 
so close that it had cauterized the wound inflicted 
by the ball. .The flow of blood, which would other- 
wise have proved fatal, was thus prevented. The 
papers found upon the person of the assassin were 
all in the Spanish language, showing the Spanish 
origin of the plot, if any plot had existed. The 
pistol with which he had done the deed was lying 
upon the floor — a naked poniard was concealed in 
his clothes — in his pocket were various Catholic 
emblems and charms, a Jesuit catechism, a prayer- 
book, Spanish bills of exchange to a considerable 
amount, and a set of writing-tablets. These last 
were covered with inscriptions, relating to his 
murderous project, and showing the depth of su- 
perstition in which his mind was sunk. It was 
discovered that the assassin Avas in the employ of 
a Spanish merchant of Antwerp, who had been 
bribed by Philip to procure the death of the 
prince. Before the exposure of the plot, the mer- 
chant had made his escape, but two of his confed- 
erates were arrested, and, after a full confession, 
perished on the scaffold. 

But the destined moment was not far off. On 
the 8th of July, 1584, a messenger from the French 
court arrived with important dispatches. He was 
admitted to the bedchamber of the prince. He 
proved to be one Francis Guion, as he called him- 
self, who a short time before had claimed the pro- 
tection of William, on the ground of being the son 
of a Protestant who had suffered death for his re- 
ligion. He had the air of a pious, psalm-singing, 
Calvinistic youth, having a Bible or a hymn-book 
under his arm whenever he walked the street, and 
constant in his attendance on sermon and lecture. 
Low of stature, meagre in person, with an inex- 
pressive countenance, his appearance was so insig- 
nificant as to excite contempt. But under this ex- 
ternal inoffensiveness he concealed a daring and 
desperate character. He was in reality living 
under a feigned name, and the son of the martyred 
Calvinist was Balthazar Gerard, a fanatical Catho- 
lic, whose father and mother were still living in 
Burgundy. Before arriving at the age of man- 
hood he had resolved to murder the Prince of 
Orange, "who, so long as he lived, seemed likely 
to remain a rebel against the Catholic king, and to 
make every effort to disturb the repose of the Ro- 
man Catholic apostolic religion." He was encour- 
aged in his purpose by the approval of the priests. 
The political enemies of William had long been 
desirous of his assassination. Money had been 
paid for the purpose to various individuals who 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



695 



pocketed the reward without performing the job. 
Hirsute military ruffians were daily offering their 
services, but hitherto without effect. The time 
had now come. Gerard had watched, with fanat- 
ical impatience, for a favorable opportunity, and 
he was now received in the chamber of the prince. 
He was in the presence of the man for whose blood 
he had thirsted during the space of more than seven 
years. He could scarcely control his emotions 
sufficiently to speak to the prince concerning the 
contents of the dispatches of which he had been the 
bearer. He had made no preparation for the inter- 
view, had come unarmed, and had formed no plan 
for escape. He was thus obliged to relinquish his 
prey when most within his reach, and left the 
chamber without accomplishing his object. But 
the delay was not of long duration. Two days 
after, as the prince was going to the dining-room, 
accompanied by his family, he was met by the 
assassin, who presented himself at the door-way 
and demanded a passport. His appearance excited 
suspicion, especially in the mind of the princess, 
who observed to her husband that " she had never 
seen such a villainous countenance." Upon leaving 
tho dining-room, and ascending the stairs, the party 
was stopped by a man who emerged from a sunken 
arch in the wall, and, standing within one or two 
feet from the prince, discharged a pistol full at his 
heart. Three balls entered his body, one of which, 
passing quite through him, struck with violence 
against the wall beyond. The prince fell, exclaim- 
ing in French, " Oh, my God, have mercy upon my 
soul ! Oh, my God, have mercy upon this poor 
people !" These were the last words he ever spoke, 
except a faint ejaculation, when his sister asked 
him if he commended his soul to Jesus Christ. His 
master of the horse had caught him in his arms as 
the fatal shot was fired. He was then placed upon 
the stairs for an instant, when he immediately be- 
gan to swoon. He was afterwards laid upon a 
couch in the dining-room, and in a few minutes 
breathed his last in the arms of his wife and sister. 
The murderer made his escape through the side 
door, and sped swiftly up the narrow lane. But 
he had not reached the ramparts when he was 
seized by several halberdiers and pages who had 
pursued him from the house. He did not attempt 
to conceal his identity, but boldly avowed himself 
and his deed. He was soon sentenced by the mag- 
istrates, and after being subjected to inconceivable 
tortures, was put to death on the scaffold, under 
every circumstance of horror and ignominy. 

The character of Wiili un the Silent, according 
to Mr. Motley, presented a rare combination of the 
purest virtues that adorn humanity. In person 
he was above the middle height, well made and 
sinewy, but rather spare than stout. His eyes, 
hair, beard, and complexion were brown. His 
head was small and symmetrical. His physical 
organization, as a whole, was of antique model. 
Of his moral qualities the most prominent was his 
piety. But though emphatically a religious man, 
he possessed a large tolerance for diversities of opin- 
ion. A sincere convert to the Reformed Church, he 
was equally ready to extend freedom of worship to 
the Catholics on the one bund and to the Anabap- 
tists on the other, keenly sensible that the Reformer 
as ho became a bigot in his turn was doubly odious. 
His firmness grew out of his piety. His constancy 
under trouble was the theme of admiration even to 
his enomies. His benevolence was as prominent 
as his fortitude. He stripped himself of station, 



wealth, and, at times, almost of the necessaries of 
life, and became, in the cause of his country, near- 
ly a beggar as well as an outlaw. His intellectual 
faculties were various and commanding. In mil- 
itary genius his friends claimed that no captain in 
Europe was his superior. Although this was an 
exaggerated estimate, he certainby possessed the 
highest qualities of the soldier in no ordinary de- 
gree. But the supremacy of his political genius 
made him, beyond question, the first statesman of 
the age. He possessed a profound knowledge of 
human nature, and was unrivaled in his power of 
dealing with men. He controlled the passions of 
a great nation as if they had been the keys of a 
musical instrument, and was always able to pro- 
duce harmony even out of the wildest storms. His 
rare capacity for intellectual labor was combined 
with a ready and fervid eloquence. " He went 
through life bearing the load of a people's sorrows 
upon his shoulders with a smiling face. Their name 
was the last word upon his lips, save the simple 
affirmative, with which the soldier who had been 
battling for the right all his lifetime, commended 
his soul in dying ' to his great captain, Christ.' 
The people were grateful and affectionate, for they 
trusted the character of their ' Father William,' and 
not all the clouds which calumny could collect ever 
dimmed to their eyes the radiance of that lofty mind 
to which they were accustomed, in their darkest 
calamities, to look for light. As long as he lived, 
he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, 
and when he died the little children cried in the 
streets." 

The revolt of the Netherlands occupies so large 
a space in the history of Philip II. that the labors 
of the present author necessarily challenge com- 
parison with those of Mr. Prescott. Writing at a 
later period, Mr. Motley has enjoyed the benefit of 
the admirable example of historical composition in 
the earlier productions of his friend. He has evi- 
dently regarded those great master-pieces with 
generous rivalry. Inferior to his predecessor in 
classic elegance of style, and in the smooth and 
graceful flow of his narrative, he has successfully 
eniulate-d his diligence of research, and the con- 
scientious fidelity with which he has sought his 
materials in original sources. With a more ardent 
temperament than Mr. Prescott, he oftener betrays 
the influence of personal sympathy, and is more 
easily aroused to expressions of enthusiasm or of 
indignation. He describes, more as an actor in the 
scenes which pass under his review, and less as a 
cool and impartial spectator. With a greater tend- 
ency to comprehensive philosophical generaliza- 
tions, he makes no pretensions to philosophical in- 
difference. Hence a deeper tone of feeling pervades 
his pages, a certain solemn unction animates his 
reflections, and his descriptions mantle with a 
blood-red vitality. The influence of bis work is 
eminently favorable to the more generous senti- 
ments of our nature, and will surely win the ad- 
miration of all who cherish a faiib in ideal virtue 
and human progress. 

A History of Philosophy, translated from tho Ger- 
man of Schwegler, by Julius II. Seelye. (D. 
Appleton and Co.) Commeneiiu;- with tho earliest 
development of philosophy in Greece, t his vol- 
ume presents a suci sinct narrative <>f the pro- 
gress of speculative inquiry down to the system 
of Hegel. The author is a disciple of that school, 
though not a blind partisan. Still the principles 
of the Hegelian philosophy form his standard of 



69G 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



comparison, and modify his nomenclature to so 
great a degree, that some familiarity with Hegel 
is essential to an enlightened comprehension of the 
work. In its perusal, accordingly, it would be well 
to begin at the end of the volume, and master the 
exposition of Hegel, before plunging into its pro- 
found analyses of other philosophical systems. 
Without such a preparation, the uninitiated read- 
er would probably find less clearness than confu- 
sion in its details. This is owing to the intrinsic 
obscurity of the subject, rather than to any want 
of skill in the writer. His own views are singu- 
larly lucid ; he possesses the happy talent of seiz- 
ing the heart of a system, divested of its extrane- 
ous appendages ; and presents the results of his in- 
quiries in terse and expressive language. As a 
brief compend of philosophical opinions, set forth 
with scientific precision and force, his work has no 
superior in modern literature. The author com- 
mands a more popular style than is usual with his 
speculative countrymen, and the translator has per- 
formed his task, for the most part, with fidelity 
and success. He sometimes indulges in colloquial 
phrases which are hardly compatible with the dig- 
nity of the subject — as, for instance, when he al- 
ludes to Hegel's appearing as a philosopher "on 
his own hook" — but in general his language is re- 
markable for its elegance and propriety. 

Elements of Logic, by Henry P. Tappan. (D. 
Appleton and Co.) Mr. Tappan includes a more 
comprehensive range of thought in his idea of logic 
than is usual with the followers of the Aristotelian 
school. Instead of limiting the science to an ex- 
planation of the laws and processes of deductive 
reasoning, he extends its domain to the primitive 
intuitions and conceptions which are at the basis 
of all legitimate ratiocination. This is in accord- 
ance with the methods of the most celebrated Con- 
tinental systems of philosophy, but Ave think it an 
experiment of doubtful utility to enlarge the appli- 
cation of a familiar scientific term, which, since the 
profound investigations of Dr. Whately, was be- 
ginning, in our language, to resume its precise 
original signiiicance. The most valuable portion 
of this treatise, in our opinion, is its analysis of 
the functions of Reason, and the Ideas, which are 
its natural outgrowth. On this subject the author 
shows a discriminating knowledge of the higher 
philosophy, and strikes out a course of thought in 
direct antagonism with the superficial, materialistic 
systems of the day. The obvious fault of the work 
is its want of unity both in exposition and style. 
It consists rather of a series of fragmentary essays 
than an orderly, consecutive development of sci- 
entific principles. Many of its suggestions are of 
indisputable importance, but they lack the coher- 
ence and mutual relation demanded in a work of 
such imposing pretensions. The style, also, al- 
ternates unpleasantly between a popular and sci- 
entific character, and often becomes the mere ex- 
pression of vague personal feeling. 

Harper and Brothers have issued a new series 
of Parisian Sights and French Principles, by James 
Jackson Jarves, devoted, like the previous vol- 
ume, to a lively characterization of the popular 
manners and customs in the capital of France, with 
an occasional glance at current political move- 
ments. Mr. Jarvis is a shrewd observer of passing 
events and scenes — he preserves a good-natured 
hilarity amidst all changes of position — and records 
his impressions with a free and easy audacity that 
always piques the attention of the reader. Some 



of the illustrations of this volume run into broad 
caricature, but are no less amusing than the hu- 
morous sketches of the author. 

A new volume of Maginn's Miscellanies, edited 
by Dr. Shelton Mackenzie, is issued by Red- 
field, containing The Skakspeare Papers contributed 
by the author to Bentlefs Miscellany and Frazer's 
Magazine. Mr. Maginn's criticisms evince a cer- 
tain tendency to paradox, but they are usually 
sustained with acuteness and ingenuity. Thus he 
endeavors to represent Falstaff in a more favorable 
light than that in which he is placed by popular 
tradition. The "jolly fat knight," according to 
Maginn, is not the ribald jester of the stage or the 
gross sensualist and coward of the Boar's Head, 
but a man of intellect and courage, retaining a pen- 
sive remembrance of better days amidst the riotous 
living into which he had fallen. Lady Macbeth, 
also, finds a Warm champion in Maginn, who tries 
to make her out to be a victim of her husband's 
ambition, and inspired by her conjugal affection to 
share in his deeds of blood. One of the essays is 
devoted to the " Learning of Shakspeare," in which 
the theories of Dr. Farmer on that subject receive 
a severe castigation at the hands of the critic. The 
editor, Dr. Mackenzie, exhibits his usual diligence 
of annotation, and enriches the volume with a great 
store of critical and explanatory remarks, original 
and selected. 

The Wonders of Science, by Henry Mayhew 
(Harper and Brothers), is a popular account of the 
chemical discoveries of Sir Humphry Davy, in the 
form of a juvenile biography of that eminent phi- 
losopher. Embodying the principal facts of mod- 
ern science in an attractive narrative, it is well 
suited to initiate the youthful reader, for whom it 
is especially designed, into a knowledge of the most 
interesting natural phenomena and laws. 

Among the novels of the month is an Ameri- 
can story by G. P. R. James, called The Old Do- 
minion (Harper and Brothers), founded on inci- 
dents in the Southampton massacre, and abound- 
ing in life-like portraitures of domestic society in 
Virginia. As a record of the author's experience 
of Southern life and manners, this work will be 
more interesting to American readers in general 
than many of his previous writings. The plot 
is well conceived, and, in its progress, suggests 
numerous passages of effective description. In 
point of style, the work shows a certain homely 
simplicity, which bas a refreshing influence in com- 
parison with the glare and finery of many popular 
fictions, though a little more attention to accuracy 
of detail would have been an improvement. 

Shoepac Recollections, by Walter March, is a 
series of desultory sketches illustrative of the stir- 
ring and romantic life on the Western frontier. The 
scene is laid in Detroit, commencing with the early 
historical recollections of that ancient town, and 
coming down with the march of affairs to compara- 
tively recent times. With considerable descriptive 
talent, the author has hit off a variety of local 
features in a manner that leaves no doubt of their 
naturalness. (Bunce and Brother.) 

Julius and other Tales from the German, by W. 
H. Furness (Parry and M'Millan), is a collection 
of stories by Topper and Zschokke, most of which 
have already won the favor of the public, as they 
appeared in a favorite annual. The translator is 
deeply imbued Avith the spirit of the originals, and 
having undertaken his work from inward sympa- 
thy, has performed it Avith admirable success. 



€ Mtnr'3 €Mt 



SOCRATES IN PRISON— discoursing on the 
duty of personal submission to law, even when 
it takes the form of an unjust sentence, offers one 
of the most suggestive pictures ever limned by the 
graphic hand of his loving disciple. The leading- 
ideas it presents have so many features of resem- 
blance to certain modern questions, that we thought 
we could not do a better service to the cause of 
truth and sound thinking than to make this gem 
of the ancient literature a prominent topic of our 
Editor's Table. The dialogue Crito is one with 
which most scholars are familiar. It has some- 
times formed a part of the classical reading in the 
usual academic and college course ; and yet there 
are in it ideas which we have never yet seen brought 
out in their striking application to our own times. 
Without farther introduction, then, may it be said, 
that nowhere can we find the inestimable value of 
law, and of the State as an organic existence, set 
forth with stronger force of argument, or great- 
er beauty and simplicity of language. The very 
imperfection that necessarily attends the human 
manifestation of both these ideas is made the 
ground of the reasoning, and that, too, in a manner 
which should put to the blush the pretentious ora- 
tory that is now so often employed for an opposite 
purpose. 

The Crito of Plato is one of those choice pieces 
that the scholar may read over and over again 
with ever heightened interest, and ever growing 
delight — ever finding some new power of thought, 
or charm of style, which the noble writers of an- 
tiquity seek rather to conceal than obtrude; as 
though they wished for none but thoughtful read- 
ers who would search them as for hid treasures, 
while the unreflecting and the superficial go emp- 
ty away. Its dramatic excellence, too, is unri- 
valed. He who gives it the deepest study will 
find it difficult to decide which is most to be ad- 
mired, the depth and strength of the argument, or 
the artistic skill with which it is so arranged be- 
tween the different speakers as to give the conclu- 
sion its utmost force— r-a force, in fact, against which 
all sophistry, ancient or modern, is broken like the 
frothy wave against the immovable rock. It is 
this artistic excellence which gives it its charm of 
truthfulness. It is difficult to resist the impres- 
sion, that it is the life-like painting of a real scene. 
And why should we resist that impression ? Ev- 
ery thing is iu harmony with the character of 
Socrates. Every word and act are in perfect 
keeping with that splendid ideal that shone upon 
the night of philosophy, and was to Greece a fore- 
runner of the brighter coming of Christianity it- 
self. 

To young scholars, especially, would we recom- 
mend the Crito. Read it as one of the most pre- 
cious remains of antiquity — read it as containing 
a wisdom for all ages, a mine of thought in which 
our own age, of all others, might find the deepest 
profit. To those who have read it, we would say, 
read it again and again. Every perusal, such as 
it ought to have, will but increase our admiration 
of its heauty, while it reveals in every sentence, 
and in almost every word, a richness of conception 
which the closest study will fail to exhaust. 

Socrates is in prison coademned to die. His 



sentence is most cruel and unjust. Ardent friends 
— and no other man but one ever had such friends 
— gather around him. The wealthiest among them 
offers any amount of money that may be required 
to effect his escape from prison. The measures are 
all prepared with every prospect of success. On 
the following day he is to drink the bitter cup, but 
before that time he may be far away in Thessaly, 
out of the reach of the sophist's hate, the politician's 
grudge, the life-taking satire of the reckless come- 
dian, or the still more detestable cruelty of the 
fickle populace. His friends have the strongest 
confidence in their success. In pursuance of their 
plan the noble Crito repairs at earliest dawn to the 
lonely cell of the condemned, awakes him from his 
placid slumbers, and urges him by every argument 
that could be addressed to the reason, the feelings, 
or the conscience, to avail himself of the offer of 
their self-sacrificing love. And here the immortal 
reporter of that memorable conversation shows his 
chief skill — skill, we mean, in the artistic manner 
of presentation ; for it is hard to doubt of its being, 
in the main, and even in some of its minutest 
touches, a truthful record of an actual scene. The 
argument of Crito is given in the strongest form 
that any reasoning on that side could ever take. 
The dying martyr is appealed to for his children's 
sake, the children, it should be remembered, of his 
old age, his late-born Joseph and Benjamin who 
yet needed the father's nurture and the father's 
guiding counsel. He is besought to remember his 
friends, those ardent friends who for years had 
hung upon his lips, and were ready to give their 
all, to make any personal sacrifice, for the preser- 
vation of one so valued. He is appealed to for 
Athens' sake, his ingrate country's sake. All 
Greece would suffer by his d-eath ; humanity would 
endure an irreparable loss at the closing of that 
voice of wisdom. The conscience, too, is addressed. 
He is told that he has no right to throw away his 
life, and that submission to an unjust sentence, 
when he has the means of escape, would be, in his 
circumstances, the most inexcusable of suicides. 
All throughout this touching appeal, there runs as 
its pervading thought, or key-note we may call it, 
the argument from the manifest injustice of his 
sentence. Right as well as feeling demand that he 
should save a life so precious. 

There can be but one sentiment in the mind of 
every careful reader at the pathetic close of Crito's 
most moving expostulation. The thought comes 
up — how is this to be answered ? And yet Socra- 
tes does answer it — clearly — triumphantly — with 
a power of argument, and loftiness of view, and 
dignity of style, Iioav immeasurably superior to 
the pompous vaporing we so frequently hear on 
the modern kindred theme! How much higher 
the plane from which this heathen moralist sets 
forth his conception of "the higher law." The 
great idea which he ever presents with such vigor 
of reasoning, with such richness of illustration, is 
the incalculable value of the State, the priceless 
price of civil government. No arithmetic can es- 
timate it. Even in its most imperfect forms, and 
most imperfect administration, it is beyond all nu- 
merical computation of value as compared with its 
want or the toleration of any act which would be 



G98 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



virtually a subverter of its idea, and thus in the 
end the destroyer of its existence. 

Government, he maintains against Crito, is not 
a mere protecting power but the educating medium 
of our highest earthly life. Through it we rise 
above our poor savage individualism into that or- 
ganic life of man with man, without which the hu- 
man might be regarded as only the highest among 
the animal races. To the law, to the State, we 
owe not only the defense of property — though this 
poor ground is enough to demand our entire alle- 
giance as long as we retain our possessions under 
it — but, in one sense, our very being. By this he 
means, not only that higher life alluded to, and 
which we live as members of a civil organism, but 
our very personal existence. The human race 
would long since have been extinct, had it not 
been for government. The State is thus our parent 
— generically, as well as locally, our Father-land. 
Through the State, says Socrates, with equal sim- 
plicity and force of language, have Ave been begot- 
ten. From our hands, say the Laws, in the bold 
yet beautiful pcrsonilication he employs — from our 
hands did your father receive your mother. We 
gave her aAvay to him as his affianced law-protect- 
ed wife. From us came the laws of marriage. We 
set up the household altar. We kindled the sacred 
fire of Vesta. The family is our creation. It can 
not exist without the State. Yes, the State has 
begotten us, and, therefore, treason against it is 
not merely a metaphorical but a real and most un- 
natural parricide. 

The laws of marriage, he continues, are the 
ground and support of the laws of property. From 
the law, too, comes our education, not the mere 
learning of the schools, or the training of the gym- 
nasia, but the constant civic culture that distin- 
guishes us above the wild beasts of the forest, or 
the equally ferocious savage of the desert or the 
wilderness. Let us think then, O Crito, what we 
do when we wound it by any act of disobedience. 
Every blow reaches the heart. We can not stab 
it in one part without touching the whole vital- 

ity. 

The reasoning is pursued at too great length for 
us to dwell upon it. According to Socrates's ar- 
gument, not only do we hold what we hold from 
this civil parentage constituting a ground of in- 
heritance, and originating rights and relations that 
could not otherwise exist ; but we are what we are 
in consequence of its ceaseless guardianship, its 
generative and nurturing care. Never was there 
set forth in language a more striking picture of 
those common benefits we owe to law, and of whose 
value, in consequence of their commonness, we be- 
come so insensible — attributing them to nature, or 
our own individual action, or not thinking about 
them at all, instead of tracing them to their real 
origin. Never was there more simply yet power- 
fully presented that great idea involved in the 
"tenui-e of citizenship," or the duty of obedience 
even to a manifestly unjust decree, unless the resist- 
er of law in any of its linked provisions show his 
consistency by giving back all he has ever derived 
from the law, and stripping himself at once of all 
its immunities and protection, of all claim of prop- 
erty it assures to him ; in short, of all rights, per- 
sonal and relative, he may hold under it. Never 
was there proved more conclusively the utter ab- 
surdity of the man who would assert the right of 
breaking law whenever his "inner light" prompt- 
ed it, and yet of holding under it his broad acres, 



his title to exclude all other men from the space in 
which, by permission of law, he exercises so lordly 
a domain — yea, the very office he might have said, 
had he lived in modern times — the very office he 
may have reached, perhaps through many a base 
intrigue, and in accepting which he lifts his hand 
to heaven and swears, truly and faithfully, and ac- 
cording to its fair and honest understanding, to 
obey, uphold, enforce, and keep, in all its require- 
ments, the system of government under which he 
thus holds it. A distinguished speaker of mod- 
ern times has had the temerity to say that the an- 
cients had no political philosophy ; they did not 
understand the rights and dignity of man. We 
need not go to Polvbius or Thucydides, or Aristo- 
tle, or Tacitus, in refutation of such an assertion. 
The Crito is enough for such a purpose. Volumes 
of the Congressional Globe could not enlighten us 
so much on these points as the brief argument this 
short dialogue presents from the imprisoned Athe- 
nian preacher. 

To dwell a short time longer on the Crito — there 
is something in its peroration rising above all mere 
argument and becoming truly sublime. We have 
already alluded to Socrates's personification of the 
Laws. They are represented as living beings com- 
ing, while he sleeps, into that lonely cell. In the 
"night visions," when the soul is weak, and rea- 
son, say some psychologists, is suspended, the in- 
stinctive love of life may have aroused itself, and 
given unwonted force to the temptation of escape. 
Hut his guardian angels, the ol vojuoi, stand by 
his prison bed. "The Laws" of Athens visit him 
in his dreams. They expostulate with him if he 
ever had such a slumbering or waking thought. 
They remind him of what he owes to them — his 
birth, his nurture, his long and useful citizenship. 
They hold up clearly the distinction between the 
pure nature and ground of law and its abuses. 
Admitting the injustice of their administrators, 
and the cruelty of his sentence, they point to the 
immense balance that lies on the other side of the 
account. They show him that he can not resist 
even this unjust blow, without inflicting a wound 
which goes far back of the immediate administra- 
tion, or the immediate legislation, reaching to the 
vitality of all law, not only that which makes the 
organic life of the Athenian State, high in value 
as that might be, but the very living idea of law 
throughout the universe. And then comes in that 
most thrilling thought which we may well wonder 
at in a heathen, when it is so ignored by professed 
theologians in modern times, although lying so 
clearly on the sacred page. It is the unbroken 
connection between divine and human government. 
Imperfect as the latter is, and as all things human 
are, yet is it linked to the administration of the 
other world, forming a lower department of one 
grand system, and in this idea alone furnishing the 
only sure ground for a true doctrine of higher law. 
" Socrates," say these mysterious personalities, 
" do not go hence as a law-breaker, lest our elder 
brethren, the Laws in Hades, be displeased with 
you, and instead of receiving you kindly, frown 
upon you as a parricide, as an ingrate wretch who 
has wronged his greatest benefactors." " Know, 
my friend Crito, resumes the sage, " that the voice 
of these words is ever humming in mine ears. I 
am like those who seem to hear the mysterious 
music of the Corybantes. It is a voice I can not 
disobey. Have you any answer to make ?" The 
faithful friend was silent. Reason had triumphed 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



699 



over feeling, and painful as must have been the 
giving up a hope so fondly cherished, the manly 
love of the friend yielded to the instructions of the 
revered teacher. The beseeching love of the friend, 
not lost, not diminished, "was silenced yet consoled 
in admiration of the martyr — the martyr not to phi- 
losophy, but to the great and glorious idea of law. 
Sancte Socrates ora pro nobis — "Saint Socrates 
pray for us," exclaimed a devout monk, on read- 
ing the account of his martyr-like departure, as so 
touchingly given in the Phaedon. He could not 
wait for his proper canonization by the Pope, but 
in his enthusiasm addressed him as he would one 
of the old saints and confessors of the Church — 
Sancte Socrates ora pro nolis. We could not say 
that. Neither could we pray for the repose of his 
soul, according to the notion of the modern Ro- 
manist, but our Protestantism does permit us to 
say — May he be in heaven. He ever solemnly 
declai'ed himself under the guidance and guardian- 
ship of a divine, invisible monitor. It was this, he 
said, that ever urged him on "to talk to men about 
their souls," and to set before them the follies and 
irrationalities of their common animal life. We 
would shrink from comparing him, as some have 
done, with Jesus. In one sense, " the least in the 
kingdom of Christ is greater than he ;" and yet it 
is no heresy to hope for him, even with the hope 
of the Christian. The evidence of his faith, it is 
true, is more of a negative than a positive kind. 
The soul's internal discord, its subjective war, or 
want of harmony with itself, is more the subject of 
his thinking and his preaching than its alienation 
from the Divine life. The will and appetites had 
rebelled against the reason. It was this civil war 
he sought to quell, while of the whole soul's deeper 
apostasy from Heaven he took but little or no ac- 
count. He sought to reconcile man to himself, but 
failed because he did not recognize the ancient out- 
ward rebellion — the unhealed fountain of the in- 
ward strife. Hence of the higher reconciliation he 
had but dim and groping apprehensions, although 
from his words there sometimes gleams a light un- 
known to all other philosophy. There are mo- 
ments when he seems to have felt that he had ex- 
hausted his dialectics without finding the true 
yvudt aeavrov. At such moments there may have 
been dropped upon his soul — his ever open, manly, 
truth-seeking, truth-loving soul — the thought of an 
atoning Redeemer. We would not compromise, 
even to gain such a precious conviction, one arti- 
cle of the Christian creed; but may we not hope 
that that faith, the least grain of which justifies, 
that faith which saved Enoch, and Noah, and 
Abraham, and Job, and, it may be, Cyrus — that 
such a faith in some unknown righteousness — a 
faith obscure, perhaps, in its direct object, but pure 
in the essential feeling of the need of some expia- 
tory sacrifice, may have carried up to Heaven, or 
away to Paradise, the spirit of the Athenian mar- 
tyr? 

Socrates is sometimes claimed by the radicals of 
the modern school. Let any one study the Crito 
if he would know with what justice such claim is 
made. It would be, indeed, a wonder if this were 
true of the founder of that philosophy which has 
ever been the fountain of conservatism. Socrates 
a radical ! Let any man read the Crito, we say 
again, and he has all the answer that need be given 
to those who would derive a sanction to their law- 
destroying doctrines from the life or teachings of 
the Athenian reformer. 



THERE is one great excellenee in an Easy 
Chair; it always stays at home. Although 
it has four legs, it does not move with as much 
facility as many things that have only two. It 
is the embarrassment of riches, perhaps. It is the 
whim of not doing a thing which you can easily 
do, perhaps. It is old habit, perhaps. Whatever 
it is, who would not be an Easy Chair in such a 
winter as this has been and stay at home ? It is 
April now, but we are scarcely out of the grasp of 
Zero. What has there been to tempt an Easy 
Chair to stir a single one of its four legs ? Even 
the Crimea has not seemed romantic. 

" Oh ! who would fight, and march, and countermarch, 
Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, 
And shovel'd up into a bloody trench, 
"Where no one knows? but let me live my life." 

Every day during the rigors of December, and 
January, and February, it Avas pleasant to hear 
the morning greeting of old Slubs, the stationer, 
whose face has a dry bloom like a winter apple. 
He stopped in to lean upon our arm a moment, 
and while shivering men and women ran along the 
street, he cried, with his penetrating voice, 

" Ha ! ha ! old Easy Chair, good-morning ! Come 
now, this is weather as is weather !" 

The Easy Chair, which believes in June and the 
Tropics, and loves the South, could only declare 
that, in that case, it preferred weather as was not 
weather. 

"Not summer?" 

" Dog days." 

Slubs, the stationer, retired with an incredulous 
whistle. 

Of course, there was plenty of sleighing this 
year ; but we have remarked, with savage satisfac- 
tion, that the enthusiasm about sleighing is always 
warmest in the warmest winters. When there is 
what is called "a good permanent winter," plenty 
of snow, and months of sleighing, the ardor of 
youths and belles is singularly damped. They 
get tired. They like sleighing, to be sure. But 
only sleighing? We must have a change, you 
know. Tovjours perdrix ? They excuse their dis- 
inclination in a hundred ways. It is useless. The 
reason is simple; it is too dreadfully cold. The 
human being was not made to thrive in an atmos- 
phere of Zero. Are we Esquimaux? Did Dr. 
Kane bring home the arctic climate in his kit? 
It would be a terrible thing if the Northwest Pas- 
sage should prove to be not only a way for us to 
get in, but for the boreal rigors to get out. 

Yet while we have been calmly sitting hearing 
the ice gride and crunch the shores of the con- 
tinent, and reading all the books of torrid adven- 
ture we could find, we have not failed to receive 
all kinds of letters from our traveling correspond- 
ents ; forlorn lecturers caught out upon prairies, 
and blockaded with snow upon western railroads; 
energetic young lawyers, going to Court in the 
next town, and passing a very "heated" and un- 
easy term in the belated cars ; punctual parents 
returning to their suburban felicity, and wearing 
away the night upon the pitiless track ; and dozens 
more. The manners and morals of railroad travel- 
ing have yet to be written. Genuine notes upon 
a railway, reporting the actual events and conver- 
sations, would be too incredibly good. 

Here, for instance, is I'clah Tidwidgeon, whose 
life is a long search for a joke, as that of Paracel- 



700 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



sus was for the Philospher's stone. Belah never 
thinks of inconvenience or danger. He travels by 
car, steamer, and stage, as sedulously as sports- 
men climb over hedge, ditch, and hill; and he 
bags his game with the same glee, and counts the 
cost nothing. Belah writes us from Mackery, 
that lovely inland town upon the banks of the Sal- 
sify: 

" Dear Easy Chair — I have found at last the 
man I have been so long pursuing. It is more 
than eighteen months since I have been upon the 
scent, but have been often dreadfully thrown off. 
You know I was persuaded there must be some- 
where in America the man who would take the 
bold position, that a woman is not always, and 
under every circumstance, to do and have just 
what she pleases. Like the fearless and untiring 
believer in the doctrine of chances, who followed 
the man who put his head in the lion's mouth be- 
cause, he said, there must come a time when the 
lion would bite it off; so I have traveled in omni- 
buses, and coaches, and cars, to find the bold as- 
sertor of men's rights, and I have found him — / 
have found the man who declined to give his seat to 

A LADY ! 

" The excitement of my nerves was so great, in 
consequence of this discovery, that I have resolved 
to repose for a few days in this quiet town, most 
of which has been buried in a snow-drift since 
Christmas, and which enjoys an equable tempera- 
ature of only five below zero — a fact which my 
hearty host has a cheerful way of stating every 
day at breakfast, in this way : ' Good-morning, Mr. 
Tidwidgeon; good-morning, Sir! "We are still 
only five minus, Sir. Dr. Kane reports the freez- 
ing of the mercury, Sir, at this time last year in 
the place, I have forgotten the name, Sir, where 
he was !' So by making the North Pole the stand- 
ard, we theorize ourselves into summer. 

" Of course, you want to know the circumstan- 
ces. Well, at Bat's End we took in a pair of gen- 
tlemen ; one was perfectly smug, with slightly gray 
whiskers, and so cleanly shaved, and his hair so 
snugly cut, that there seemed to be nothing else 
clean and snug in the car. He looked perfectly 
conversant with stocks, and I think must be the 
President of ten banks, at least. The other gen- 
tleman was his friend, the individual to whom he 
talked, and who seemed to fulfill no other office. 
Presently the train stopped, and the gentlemen 
alighted to ' refresh' themselves. The moment they 
left the car a strapping fellow and his ' gal' seated 
themselves in the very places yet warm with the 
sitting of the President and his friend. They re- 
turned in a moment, the President, of course, on 
the lead. When he reached his seat, he said, 

" ' This is my place.' 

" ' Wa'al, I dunno 'bout it," drawled the strap- 
ping intruder. 

"'No matter, Sir; I know, and so does the 
conductor," returned the President. ' I've had 
the seat all the way from Bat's End.' 

" 'Wa'al, I dunno the rule,' answered the buc- 
caneer, without offering to move. 

"The President of ten banks did not care to 
undertake to remove him, and was waiting for the 
conductor, when the fellow turned his great stupid 
face up to him, and, as if he were half ashamed of 
using an argument which he knew would settle 
the dispute in his favor, drawled out, 

'"Yer wouldn't turn a lady out of the seat, 
would yer?' 



"'Most Certainly,' replied the President, 
with the liveliest enthusiasm, as if he were only 
too glad to give vent in one burst of expression to 
the protest of his long-suffering sex. 

" So direct an answer entirely dismayed the in- 
truder, and with the meekest submission he arose, 
twitched his 'gal,' and they retired toward the 
door of the car. 

" Thus you see, dear Easy Chair, the great step 
has been taken. I have been sure of it ; I have 
been patiently expecting it ; and when it came I 
was so overwhelmed and exhausted with excite- 
ment that I was only too glad to recruit in this 
town, which I have no doubt when you can find 
it, and when the hills and trees are grown in its 
neighborhood, will be perfectly charming. 

" I must stop here, as I am engaged to write a 
few letters from Kansas and the Crimea to some 
of the great neAvspapers. But do you not already 
sit more comfortably ? Do you not already feel 
glued to your seat, as it were ? Can you not now, 
without shuddering, see a woman enter a car? 
You see the troops were in position ; the enemy 
had planted their battery — Good gracious ! excuse 
me ! here I am running into my Crimean letter. 
In great haste. Yours for the cause, 

"Belah Tidwidgeon.' 7 

Our next letter has still reference to car man- 
ners ; and we are very much mistaken if we have 
not all of us often encountered this same Mr. and 
Mrs. Acrid Jones. Our correspondent dates from 
the Tunnel station, Boothby, a branch of the 
Tiptaurus line : 

" Dear Easy Chair — I took the train at Shad- 
ville, to go on to Smith City, and found the cars 
full. There were several gentlemen and three 
ladies standing in the aisle. I did not attempt to 
push forward, finding there were so many stand- 
ing ; but as we rattled along, I chanced to look a 
little before me, and then I saw a gentleman (?) 
and lady (? ?) sitting together upon a seat. They 
had turned over the back of the seat in front, and 
laid their shawls and things upon the seat, and put 
their feet up on the cushion. The gentleman (?) 
was leaning forward to shelter it as much as possi- 
ble, and nervously looking to see whether any body 
had observed that it was unoccupied. He and the 
woman with him occupied four places, and there 
were at least eight persons, three of them women, 
standing. It was the most meanly-selfish thing I 
have seen in the whole winter's travel. I thought 
the man's name was Hog; but I learned, upon 
careful inquiry, that it was Acrid Jones. Please 
to publish this letter, and ask your readers to mark 
the name, and invite Mr. and Mrs. Acrid Jones to 
remember that the next time they occupy two seats 
while other passengers are standing, their selfish- 
ness will be publicly commented upon in the cars, 
by their's and the public's obedient servant, 

" Phosphorus Z. Snubs." 

Do the Acrid Joneses ever reflect that a gen- 
tleman is a man who is gentle, and noble, and 
generous — not a hog, who puts not only his 
snout, but both his legs into the trough ; and that 
lady, in the old English tongue, as Charles Kings- 
ley tells us in one of his sermons, is a giver away 
of bread to the poor, or of a seat to those who 
stand ? 

There seems to be no end to this Railway Corre- 
spondence. Here is another letter quite in the 
same strain : 

" Dear Mr. Easy Chair (if you will pardon 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



701 



the affectionateness of the address*) — I am very 
delicate, and subject to colds in my head. My 
husband says, to colds in my heart also ; but that 
is neither here nor there. I adore the -winter 
landscape. I doat upon snow. But then it is 
snow seen at a distance, and from a comfortable 
environment. I like to sit in a warm room. Oh ! 
dear Mr. Easy Chair, to sit in a warm room, and 
survey the wonders of winter through a window ! 
That," indeed, is a little heaven here below. Now 
a car is a warm room upon wheels. Like a winter 
bird comfortable in his feathers, the human being 
may skim the surface of the earth, and enjoy the 
snow. 

" Struck with this idea, I stepped into the cars 
at Tillson's Corner, north, to go as far as Constan- 
tinople station. Now, Mr. Easy Chair, there was, 
in one word, A woman (I blush for my sex) sitting 
by the stove. She was closely wrapped in furs, 
and there was no one else in the car. It was not 
very warm, and not at all close in the car, and 
finding herself (I hope) stewing in her furs, from 
sitting 'jam up' to the stove, she opened the win- 
dow and made the car as cold as a barn. What I 
want to know is, why, if she felt warm, she didn't 
go to a back seat ? 

" But that is not all. The car gradually filled 
up, and she maintained her place by the stove, 
keeping the window open. Gentlemen shrugged 
their shoulders — ladies shivered. It was all to no 
purpose. She clung closely to her window and her 
stove, and didn't loosen her furs, until the passen- 
gers would not submit to it longer, and a gentle- 
man spoke to the conductor, who quietly closed the 
window, although the woman was very cross, and 
said she didn't want to suffocate. 

" 'Certainly not, madam; and the other ladies 
and gentlemen do not wish to freeze,' replied the 
conductor, a darling man! as, indeed — I may as 
well confess — most conductors are that I have seen. 
Such whiskers ! and such breast-pins ! Oh, my ! 

" What do you think Of this, dear Mr. Easy 
Chair ? Please to tell me. I wonder if you are a 
dear Easy Chair. Have you whiskers and breast- 
pins ? Yours, dear Mr. Easy Chair, very properly, 
"Jane Maria Blather." 

Dear Jane Maria! — tut, tut! we mean, amiable 
Mrs. Blather — how could you suppose that an old 
Easy Chair should be any thing but a kind of old 
uncle, and consequently with none of the charms 
of those gay young dogs, the conductors. Happy 
beings! who pass life in an endless round of help- 
ing ladies in and out, and wearing beautiful whis- 
kers and splendid breast-pins ! Ah ! no, dear Mrs. 
Blather, in the year 17 — , long, and long ago, we 
wore a great diamond brooch in a great bulging 
ruffle, short-clothes, dear madam, stockings and 
buckles. 

But all this, as you neatly say, is neither here 
nor there. The question you propose is very grave. 

It seems to this Easy Chair that a gentleman or 
lady will think twice before they open a window 
in a car for their own private gratification. For, 
although fresh air be a good thing, to open a win- 
dow, under such circumstances, is not the best way 
of getting at it; and although the laws of health, 
common sense, the doctors, and you, may agree 
that there should be plenty of fresh air always at 



* Femate correspondents of the Easy Chair are request- 
ed always to commence in that manner, with the prefix 
of my — that there may be no doubt what Easy Chair is 
meant. — En. 

Vol. XII.— No. 71.— Yi 



hand, the gentleman on the seat behind you may 
not agree, and as he gets most of the air from your 
window, we do not see who has appointed you to 
regulate his atmospheric supplies. Suppose, also, 
there be sensitive and delicate persons near by. 
Suppose there be those who are just as firmly per- 
suaded that the window should be kept closed as 
you are that it should be opened. Suppose it only 
makes some one else uncomfortable, will you sacri- 
fice yourself for that person ? Granting that you 
are abstractly right about your fresh air, will you 
persist in opening the window ? 

Hear our old friend Mumm, the eminent lec- 
turer, who writes most apropos of this subject: 

" Dear Easy Chair — I wish to state something 
to the public which I can not do in my usual way. 
You know I am a public speaker,* and that I am 
obliged at this season to live in the cars. You 
know what a season it has been, and how careful 
every man has been compelled to be. Well, I took 
a violent cold in Upper Bombay, and was engaged 
to lecture in Pinecut Square the next evening. 
Before light (oh, the agony of lecturing !) I took 
the train at Lower Bombay, east, having driven 
over in an open sleigh the same morning. I was 
very hoarse when I arrived, so that I could scarce- 
ly speak, and you may imagine how glad I was to 
get into a comfortable car. Of course, I was dis- 
turbed about having no voice for the Pinecut Square 
lecture, but I hoped the best. Mumm, I trust, is 
a hopeful man. The cars slipped on, until, at Talk, 
we took in two ladies and a child. One lady was 
very large, in a black velvet cloak, with blue trim- 
mings, and a beaver bonnet — evidently an aunt. 
The younger had pale blue eyes and a sharp nose 
— alas ! and voice. 

" Away we went again. The ladies were of the 
most cheerful frame of mind. They talked with- 
out ceasing. ' Here, Debby Ann, have some seed 
cakes,' called out Aunt Miranda, or Mi, as Debby 
Ann called her. They had seated themselves upon 
opposite sides of the car, Aunt Mi upon one seat 
and Debby Ann, with the child, across the passage. 
Debby Ann declined seed cakes. ' Why, Debby 
Ann, don't you love seed cakes ? I love 'cm dear- 
ly. Ha! ha!' laughed Aunt Mi, in the loudest 
way and not with the most musical voice. ' Debby 
Ann ! what did you say was the next stopping- 
place? Elatbottom? No? not Flatbottom? It 
can't be. Why, how long have we been coming ? 
Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Aunt Mi. ' How dreadful 
hot, Debby Ann; don't you think it's dreadful 
hot? Oh, dear! how horrid hot they always do 
have these cars ! Here, now, I'm going to open 
this window, and you'd better open yours, too. 
There, that's something like — ha, ha, ha!' and 
Aunt Mi resolutely opened her window, and Deb- 
by Ann opened her's, and a keen, cutting draught 
immediately played upon my back. Mindful of 
my voice, and of the Pinecut Square lecture, I 
leaned forward to avoid as much as possible the 
effect of the sudden battery of cold air. Aunt Mi 
saw it, and the next moment I heard, ' It's so sur- 
prising some folks never can bear fresh air. Deb- 
by Ann, why some folks should always want to be 
stived up in a horrid hot, close car, I never could 
see. They're dreadful weakly people, I suppose — 
ha, ha, ha! I like fresh air. It's good for the 
lungs — it's good every way, and people ought to 
be made to have it, whether they like it or not.' 

" So the windows were kept open, and the com- 
* Do we know that Shakspearo is a poet? — Ed. 



702 



HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



fort and pleasure were like sitting on your door 
step on a very cold day in a high wind, excepting 
that here there was a cutting draught. 

" I did not protest. I never do protest. I sat 
and 'took it.' Aunt Mi, with her shrill parrot 
tongue, and Dehby Ann, with her pale blue eyes, 
kept their windows and their mouths open, and 
chattered away as if there were no one else in the 
neighborhood. I did not protest, but I wished 
that I had the courageous bad manners to turn 
round and say, ' Aunt Mi, what a perfectly horrid 
old woman you are!' I could have said it quite 
calmly — but I did not ; I sat and shivered, and felt 
my cold tep. times worse every moment. 

" But every man is not a lamb, and the gentle- 
man who sat behind Debby Ann, and of course 
took all the wind from her window, would not take 
it in peace, and presently asked her to close the 
window. She did so, under protest from Aunt Mi, 
but presently opened it again, upon which the gen- 
tleman retreated, and Aunt Mi called audibly and 
sarcastically across to Debby Ann, with her voice 
directed to the gentleman, ' There, little dear — go 
now and put on your shawl, and don't take cold.' 
The gentleman paid no attention to this pleasing 
assault. But I can not help feeling that the court- 
esy of the American gentleman is ten times as ad- 
mirable as that of the gentleman of any other coun- 
try, for it has the slightest possible recognition. 

" I reached Pinecut Square without a voice, and 
could not lecture, nor for Jive days afterward, where- 
by I lost three hundred dollars. Now, Easy Chair, 
I like fresh air as well as any body, but I do not 
believe that, in every possible way in which fresh 
air can be introduced into cars in rapid motion, is 
it agreeable or healthful, and I want to make this 
mild protest against Aunt Miranda and Debby 
Ann opening the windoAvs of a car which are di- 
rectly opposite, without ascertaining Avhether it be 
safe for their neighbors. Every lady and gentle- 
man will prefer suffering some inconvenience, rath- 
er than expose their neighbors. At least so thinks 
your very devoted Mumm." 

Perhaps, as the learned advocates at the bar 
say, we had better rest the case here. Let every 
passenger in cars remember that he is not to sup- 
ply himself with fresh air at the risk of the comfort 
of any body else. Ask your neighbors if it is 
agreeable to have windows opened. It is not a 
very difficult thing to do. Had you rather give 
yourself a headache or your fellow-passenger a 
cold? That is the question. Yfhat say Aunt Mi 
and Debby Ann ? 

It is pleasing to observe how religious we Amer- 
icans are becoming. Whenever we read despair- 
ing leaders in the morning papers, or see old Solo- 
mon Beelzebub jingle his change and shake his 
head over the corruption of the age, we have only 
to take a little turn up the Fifth Avenue, for in- 
stance, or into almost any quarter of the city, and 
remark the evidence of increasing religion. 

New York is certainly a very religious city. If 
any Tease Rural disbelieves it, let him be taken 
the round of the new churches just built, now build- 
ing, or to be built. It is the most gratifying evi- 
dence of the growth of civic piety. Even on week 
days when, by the arrangements of Protestantism, 
the churches are inaccessible and inviolable, as be- 
comes sacred places, if you only take a long enough 
walk, you may pass so many churches of every 
kind of architecture, that you shall seem to have 



heard a series of sermons, in every kind of style. 
But it is no longer possible to discriminate the sect 
by the style of church building. The Gothic elab- 
oration of pinnacle and point, which was for so long 
a time conceded to our English Episcopal friends, 
as being nearest to the Bomanists,whose cathedrals 
were in that style, is no longer peculiar to any one 
denomination. The plain Methodist, the rigorous 
Baptist, the genial Unitarian, the severe Presby- 
terian, all now gather for worship in little cathe- 
drals of every fashion of grotesqueness. A kind 
of American wooden or semi-stone Gothic pre- 
vails — a simple, spacious house of religious wor- 
ship is rare — both gingerbread and ecclesiastical 
stucco abound on every hand. 

But while the captious may quarrel with de- 
tails, and have their little joke over the facile flim- 
siness of the pine spires and plaster arches, the 
judicious observer will only rejoice at the signs of 
increasing religious interest which such buildings 
betray. With what exultation, for instance, the 
good Dr. Primrose sees opposite the very head of 
Wall Street the majestic spire of Trinity Church, 
and how his benevolent heart Avarms, as he looks 
doAvn that busy thoroughfare, to know that the 
neighborhood and sight of that edifice modifies and 
melloAvs the life of the street, eA-en as its shadoAV 
lies along its pavement. " How touching and Iioav 
beautiful in this earnest people," muses the good 
Doctor, " to put this symbol of their faith at the 
opening of their busiest Avay of trade, that they 
may constantly see and acknoAvledge that faith in 
all their transactions." 

And the good Dr. Primrose moA r es up town, so 
Avrapt in his reflections upon the virtue of this loA T e- 
ly people, that he has not perceived his pocket has 
been picked while he stood in the shadoAV of Trin- 
ity. 

He does not go far before he is struck by the 
dark spire of St. Paul's laying its shadoAV like a 
finger of blessing upon that amiable arena of inno- 
cent and honest recreation, the Museum of Bar- 
numbo. " Here," reflects the Doctor, " the unfor- 
tunates of the human family and of the loAver ani- 
mals are gathered together in kindly shelter. The 
mermaid, outcast from natural history, and almost 
from natural affection ; the Avoolly horse, that 
equine anomaly ; the SAviss Avife and mother, who 
not only Avears the breeches but the beard ; the 
girl upon Avhom a too partial nature has lavished 
superfluous adiposity ; and the mothers Avhose 
fondest hopes haA^e been doubly, trebly, and even 
quadruply croAvned ; all find a home in the shadoAV 
of St. Paul's. Here, also, by the mild magic of a 
name, the gross immorality of the play-house is re- 
moved, and the 'Hot Corn' which is baneful in 
the Chatham ' theatre' is beautiful in the Barnumbo 
'lecture-room.' It all comes of St. Paul's," says 
the Doctor, gratefully, as he gazes at the tall spire 
that seems stretching upAvard to bury itself in the 
clouds, modestly to escape the praise of its good 
works. 

It is but a step to the Park, where the " Old 
Brick" takes the City Flail under its protection. 
" I do not wonder," says Father Primrose, " that 
this city is a model for moral goA T ernment. I see 
it all now. The self-sacrifice and honesty of the 
civic fathers is plain enough, they sit in the shadow 
of the Old Brick. Animosities and petty ambi- 
tions naturally perish. Every man is anxious to 
serA r e his neighbor, and Avhy not ? Is this not a 
Christian land; do these laAvgivers not take a 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



703 



Christian oath, and do they not sit making laws 
in the presence of a Christian temple, and is it not 
the chief of Christian maxims to love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself? It is not surprising to me that 
the city is Christian Avhen I see that its fathers 
meet with the Old Brick to watch them. Happy 
the city that is blest with many churches, for its 
corporation shall serve the Lord!" 

Then along the streets of that city, in which 
prevail good order and perfect safety, all owing 
to the neighborhood of the Old Brick to the City 
Hall, the worthy Primrose proceeds to the "West 
End," to the avenues of wealth and fashion. As 
he moves along the Fifth Avenue he finds a church 
upon every corner, and he can ill repress his joy. 
" Lest their hearts should be turned to this world 
they have builded these buildings, that they may 
not be hardened by folly and fashion. Here they 
meet as brethren, and bow lowly together. Here 
the rich man forgets his riches, and the proud man 
his pride, and the lovely women their vanity — all 
kneel in repentance, and arise with hearts sweeter 
toward each other and the world. They have 
built these churches on the corners of the streets 
among their houses that, as they look from their 
windows, they may be reminded that the fashion 
of this world passeth away, and that the poor and 
friendless may be tempted hither to see that in the 
Lord's house all the children of men are brethren. 
How amiable are thy tabernacles !" devoutly ex- 
claims the good pastor, as he surveys the street of 
palaces and churches. " The houses of men and 
of God are close together, even as their hearts are. 
Oh ! that Sodom and Gomorrah had survived to 
this day, to see a city that serves the Lord." 

So, beholding the many churches that are rising 
and are risen, the Reverend Doctor Primrose pur- 
sues his walk through the city. We all feel the 
force of his reflections — the justice of his observa- 
tions. We can none of us look around at the in- 
creasing multitude of churches Avithout being de- 
voutly grateful for the spread of religion and the 
growth of this great city in evangelical piety. 



The tea-tables are all in a flutter again. One 
of the gossips, who drank freely the greenest tea, 
has been tattling. The Honorable Miss Tantivy 
Murray has ridden OA r er our tea-cups rough shod. 
We have been entertaining a critic unaAvares. We 
thought Ave Avere sitting doAA r n AA'ith a lady — and 
lo ! an authoress. Here is a new Avitness to the 
color of our curtains, and the number of blankets 
upon the best bed. Here is a person who tells 
tales, and sarcastically calls herself a "Lady of 
Honor." And here Ave are all up in arms again. 
The ghost of Dr. Fiedler Avill never be laid. That 
naughty man began in the flesh to abuse us, and 
now, by a melancholy persistency of metempsy- 
chosis, constantly reappears in the shape of Trol- 
lope, Basil Hall, Martineau, and the amiable 
Misses Bremer and Murray, to have his say. 
There are innumerable other names under which 
the Fiedler spirit manifests itself, and it always 
put us into a dreadful perturbation. But why 
should not the ladies and gentlemen be suffered 
to say Avhat they think of us, in peace? 

They come and gallop through the land, and 
stay a few Aveeks or a few months, and go home to 
give elaborate opinions upon our manners, morals, 
and general civilization. If they find pleasure in 
it, why should we complain ? The amiable un- 
married ladies, Avho have passed the age at which 



ladies may securely travel, Avho require no de- 
fender, why should they not be permitted to go at 
large and take the world into the confidence of 
their small observation and innocuous criticism ? 

Does not Jonathan go every year or tAvo to 
Europe and tell us what he thinks about it ? And 
does Europe complain ? Does he not say that the 
big, burly John Bull has too thick a neck and too 
callous a conscience, and does John drop down in 
an apoplexy thereupon ? Does he not sneer that 
Monsieur Johnny Crapeau eats the hind legs of 
frogs, the nasty Frenchman ! and does Johnny 
haA r e less delight in his exquisite cuisine ? Does 
not Jonathan croAv his elaborate Yankee-doodle- 
doo from the rising of the sun to the setting of the 
same, and does any indignant Press hang out the 
banners and bloAV off a great broadside of indigna- 
tion? 

Really, Miss Murray ought not to be so A-ery 
hard to take. The little brisk lady who is " up" in 
botany, and conchology, and natural history, has 
her little vieAvs about little things, and delivers 
them as if they Avere large. But we all do the 
same thing. She is not the only gossip Avho makes 
the mistake of calling herself or himself a lady or 
gentleman of honor. The unpardonable offense 
of her book is its dullness. It says nothing amus- 
ing, except as considered from her point of vieAv. 

After all our fun, there is a good deal of shrewd 
observation in Miss Murray's book, and she says a 
great many kind things of us. The only difficulty 
is that Miss Murray's opinion, as such, is worth 
nothing except about the Crustacea and in various 
scientific directions, in which she smatters, and 
then that Miss Murray does not put that opinion, 
to which her name gives no importance, in a way 
Avhich will attract attention or command respect. 
Of course, we shall all read the book; that is a hom- 
age Avhich any personality in literature is sure to 
recei\ r e. But beyond that, let us not push any in- 
quiries. We shall read and be sorry for a woman, 
who, Ave sincerely hope, Avill be A r ery sorry for her- 
self and never do so again, and then Miss Murray 
and her book will drop into oblivion. 



The cannon are scarcely yet silent, and Broad- 
Avay freshly remembers its last pageant — the birth- 
day of Washington. We had only within a A _ ery 
feAV numbers of our Magazine indulged in some 
proper reflections upon American holidays, when 
the old one of Washington's birth-day, Avhich has 
for so long- a time occupied an uncertain position, 
seemed suddenly elevated to the first rank of na- 
tional festivals. As a patriotic Easy Chair and a 
poetic Easy Chair, we are doubly glad. The birth 
days of great citizens are the proper festivals of a 
republic. And Washington was not only a great 
citizen of the republic, but, in a certain sense, its 
founder. Therefore Ave heard the cannon, and the 
bells, and the bursts of music with pleasure. 
Therefore avc pleased our fancies with the specta- 
cle of the great Academy of Music crowded in New 
York, and the great Music Hall in Boston, and 
other great rooms in other great cities, crowded 
Avith enthusiastic masses of people, drawn together 
by the name of Washington. 

That a great deal of all this Avas buncomb and 
bogus patriotism is an opinion very possibly en- 
tertained by many of the judicious and grave of 
our readers. We Avill not deny it; but have to 
suggest that a great deal of church-going and Sab- 
bath honoring is not, strictly speaking, pure re- 



704 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ligion and undefined. But we shall not, therefore, 
lose the significance of church-going and religion, 
nor believe the worst of mankind because there are 
bad men. 

Do you (stout gentleman or otherwise, for in- 
stance) believe that all the orators were not singly 
devoted to their subject? Do you suppose sin- 
cerely that in a republic, especially in the greatest 
and best of republics,* any free and independent 
citizen, conscious of his prerogatives as a partici- 
pant in the suffrage and naming his own rulers, 
has ever any ax to grind, any sharpening upon the 
national grindstone for his own private and pecu- 
liar cutting ? 

Forbid it Buncomb ! Forbid it Bogus ! 

However, it is not as a personal homage to a 
great man, nor as, in any way, a partisan proceed- 
ing, that we were glad to see the day so honored. 
It is truly an honorable day, but it was grateful to 
find another festival in the American calendar, of 
which all the saints are such terrible workies. Who 
is the God of good times ? Let us hope not Mer- 
cury nor Momus. But whoever he be, and what- 
ever his name, he has deserved new worship by his 
happy inspiration this year. It only remains to 
hold fast the god, nor let him go. Squeeze him. 
We may yet get another holiday ; and if we could 
get it pure, and unmixed with strict politics ! But 
that is so hard. The politics do ooze in. In pure- 
ly literary societies, as we learn, national politics 
have come to decide the elections. If it be a young 
men's association for mutual mental improvement, 
the question is not the Jeffersonian one, Is he fit 
for the office ? but, Does he wear bottle-green or 
pea-green — are his eyes dark or light — is it true, 
what Ave heard, that he parts his hair behind ? 

Not precisely these questions, but others just as 
sensible and cognate to the subject in hand, are de- 
manded of the candidates for literary presidencies, 
etc. Next it may perhaps infect the scientific 
bodies. Dr. Kane can not be named on any Arctic 
commission, for instance, because his whiskers are 
not of the right shade of brown. Mr. Bancroft 
must be excluded from the Historical Society be- 
cause he wears spectacles. 

It must be, therefore, that politics will greatly 
affect our festivals of every kind. In these grave 
days it can hardly be otherwise. But let us still 
have them. Can politics ever invade the domain 
of St. Valentine, whose anniversary is just past ? 

No, but morality can, and morality has; and 
morality, in the shape of its favorites, the news- 
papers, has assaulted the day and the valentines, 
and. summoned every honest woman to reflect be- 
fore she opens a valentine ! Will they please ask 
the rain to reflect before it falls, the sun before it 
shines ? Shades of Charles Lamb and John Gay, 
surely you sigh as you read the morning papers 
and bethink you of romance ! Every body slyly 
loves Bishop Valentine, but no one has dared to 
raise a cudgel for him. 

Is there any need ? Will the naughty valen- 
tines not perish presently, and the feeling survive, 
and Romeo still sing his poor but ardent lay to 
Juliet ? There are some festivals that spring out 
of feelings not to be eradicated. The foundations 
of the Bishop of Valentine are laid in the heart. 
Gradgrind junior does not understand it. Ah! 
Gradgrind junior, hopeless the task to tell you. 
Do you remember what the Hon. Voltaire M. 
Steady said to his constituents, after he had heard 



* And of countries. — En. 



a speech from his rival more ambitious than suc- 
cessful ? You do not remember ? Well, the Hon. 
Holofernes J. Wymby, having perorated with 
great splendor, and seated liimself in the midst of 
applause from his own party, the Hon. Voltaire M. 
Steady commenced with withering sarcasm : " It 
is hard to convey to others ideas whieh we our- 
selves are not possessed of, for in so doing we are 
very apt to communicate notions which it is very 
difficult to eradicate them." 

Lay the moral to heart, Gradgrind junior ; and 
if next year you want to send a neat copy of verses 
to you know who, don't be put down by any talk 
about the immorality of St. Valentine's Day. 

OUR FOREIGN GOSSIP. 
We neither make news nor mend it. We only 
catch it on our editorial trident (a yellow goose- 
quill) as it comes floating Westward — give it a 
turn upon our editorial gridiron (blue-lined bath 
post), and, presto — a paragraph! 

It is none of our fault that news grows old ; it 
is no fault of ours that the war-pictures we furbish 
up this month may be mere reminiscences the next. 
One hundred and fifty thousand of these sheets are 
not worked off so easily, even by the iron monster 
of Franklin Square, that we can chronicle yester- 
day's arrival to-day, and give you the record to- 
morrow. Our news has one ripening of fifteen 
days on ocean, and another ripening of twenty days 
under the labj^rinthian vaults of Franklin Square. 

We make this note, in the recollection of our last 
month's mention of guns and batteries, at which 
all the hammers of England were busy when we 
wrote ; but which now, and long ago, have been 
buried under leaders of pica and peace. 

If we could turn prophet, indeed — like Kossuth 
and Cobden — and, by pleasant anticipation, give a 
prose ode to the Imperial baby of France (to be 
born, they tell us, in Lent), or relate, even now, 
the terms of the great Easter peace, which is to 
give the Czar breathing and building time, and 
which is to free the British Crimean army for a 
bold cut through Persia to India, there would be a 
crisp timeliness to our periods, which now only la- 
bor under the burden of old story. 

There was a time, indeed, when "last month's 
Magazine" (so few were magazines, and post-roads 
so toilsome) carried a fresh lift to the thought of 
far-away country people even about occurrences of 
the day. But in our fast age, and in our fast 
American world, where is it that telegraph lines 
and daily journals do not cheat us of our office of 
informer, and leave us only the thankless task of 
patching old shreds of news, worn threadbare (by 
close, quilting stitches), into pages of gay counter- 
pane. • 

England has given us a sad story to tell these 
months past — a story whose thread runs deeper 
than any in the war-banners, and which makes a 
dark line in the moral woof of the nation. If 
Dickens had given us any tale of English provin- 
cial life, or racing life, with such a character as 
William Palmer in it, how we should have made 
outcry at the extravagance ! 

We take out from the overflowing paragraphs of 
the British papers a few of the strong points in the 
story of this William Palmer, Esquire : 

In the valley of the Trent, on the line of the 
Northwestern Railway of England, lies the quiet, 
pretty town of Rugely. It is about midway be- 
tween the great sporting grounds of Derby and of 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



705 



Chester, and is well known for its jockeys and its 
horse-fairs. 

Among the fields and the trees which make the 
town — like almost every English country town — 
enchantingly beautiful, is an old square house of 
brick, standing on the shores of the river, with 
gardens sloping to the margin. With the genera- 
tions to come it will very likely be called a haunt- 
ed house, and the yews which darken the door-step 
will nourish murderous memories in their shadow. 

A -wood-merchant lived years ago in this square 
brick house, who made the building what it is, 
only after acquiring very suddenly and very mys- 
teriously a large fortune. His business was not 
extensive ; he was known to be a betting man ; 
yet he lived extravagantly, reared a family of five 
sons and two daughters, and one day suddenly and 
mysteriously died. 

The widow still lives, with her only surviving 
daughter, in the brick house by the bank of the 
river. Of the five sons, one became a clergyman, 
one a grain-merchant, another an advocate, a fourth 
a lumber-merchant, and the fifth, Avhose name was 
William Palmer, studied chemistry in Liverpool, 
and became a surgeon (or, as we should say — a 
doctor). 

He is now but tLirt} r -five years of age ; he is 
represented to be a large man, of rather winning 
manners ; has played, in his youth, the country 
roue; and married, some years since, the natural 
daughter of a Colonel Brooks, of the East India 
service. 

Colonel Brooks was a man of fortune. He was 
mysteriously assassinated not long after the mar- 
riage of his daughter. By his will, he had bestow- 
ed upon the mother of his child a life-lease of his 
estate. The daughter (Mrs. William Palmer) was 
remarkable for her beauty as well as for her kind- 
ness of heart, and the poor people of Rugely have 
always a good word for the memory of Mrs. Palmer. 

William Palmer, aside from his propensities as 
a rake (which he indulged as well after as befbre 
marriage), seemed to give himself up to two fan- 
cies of a very opposite nature, to wit: horse-racing 
and chemical experiments in his private laboratory. 

The first involved a full purse ; his private re- 
sources became speedily exhausted; he appealed 
to his mother-in-law, who, anxious in regard to 
her daughter's happiness, and suspicious of the dis- 
solute habits of her son-in-law, left her own home, 
and came to establish herself with her daughter at 
Rugely. Four days after her entrance in Palmer's 
house she died, suddenly. The property of which 
she wa.s in possession passed into the hands of Mrs. 
Palmer, and under the control of the husband. 

New stables were built at Rugely, new horses 
purchased, new bets entered, new acquaintances 
made, and new debts contracted. The Jewish 
money-lenders of London were appealed to, and 
money loaned at enormous rates. 

Meantime four of his children die suddenly, at in- 
tervals of one or two years. Only one remained as 
heir to the fortune of the mother, which at her 
death was to pass to the child. 

Mr. William Palmer, as a measure of precaution, 
secures an insurance upon the life of Mrs. Palmer 
of $75,000. The physicians testify to her perfect 
good health, and the premium paid is not exorbi- 
tantly high. 

A troublesome claim of £700 (a debt of honor) 
is held against Palmer by one of his sporting 
friends named Bladen. This gentleman visits 



Rugely to collect the sum, is a guest of Palmer, 
falls sick at his house, is visited by an old physi- 
cian (the family adviser of Palmer), is drugged, 
and dies. The debt is cancelled, and the old phy- 
sician reports the case as one of cerebral fever. 

In a little time, perhaps after a year, Mrs. Palm- 
er, whose kindness was proverbial toward the poor 
people of Rugely, took a slight cold upon a pleas- 
ure-excursion to Liverpool ; the old family physi- 
cian and a deaf nurse attended her ; the husband 
insisted upon active treatment ; the poor lady lin- 
gered for a month, and died. 

The pleasant old physician made out his certifi- 
cate of the cause, and time of her decease ; which 
was signed by the nurse, and accepted by the au- 
thorities of Rugely, who all admired and flattered 
that "game" fellow, William Palmer, Esquire! 

The London Company of Life Assurance paid 
promptly their losses, and the surgeon Palmer was 
again afoot for new enterprise on " the Derby." 
But he finds occasion shortly to negotiate, through 
his Jew friends of London, for insurance upon the 
life of a brother, Walter Palmer, who had been ad- 
dicted to drinking ; who had been threatened with 
delirium tremens ; but who, subject to the special 
guardianship of his brother William, and of the 
"old physician" of the family, will, it is hoped, 
and affirmed by competent examiners, live for 
many years to come. 

The insurance is effected for a large sum. The 
surgeon Palmer employs a man to attend upon his 
brother, and to supply regularly all his wants. 
Even his old inclination for the bottle is not for- 
gotten by the new guardian ; Walter Palmer re- 
sists, however, the influences of gin ; until a visit 
from the brother — in the autumn of 1855 — supplies 
some stronger stimulant, and the wretched drunk- 
ard dies. 

Application is made to the London office for the 
payment of the amount insured, but is refused. 
The application is not renewed. 

There were those who had seen Palmer on the 
turf who spoke suspiciously of this circumstance ; 
but who should venture to accuse William Palmer, 
Esquire, of foul dealing ? Did he not own one of 
the best studs in the country ? Had he not been 
on terms of familiarity with Lord Bentinck ? Was 
he not regular and prompt in his contributions to 
the parish church of Rugely ? Did not the rector 
dine with him from time to time, and admire his 
great horses Strychnine and Chicken ? Was he 
not become altogether an English country gentle- 
man ? 

Late in November last Palmer set off in com- 
pany with a sporting friend of the name of Cook 
for a steeple-chase which was to come off near 
Shrewsbury. Both gentlemen bet heavily, and 
Cook was a winner in the sum of some £700. In 
celebration of his success he gave a grand dinner 
at the Shrewsbury tavern. The wines Avere fol- 
lowed up with a stiff bowl of punch, which Cook 
at once declared to be drugged. Palmer ridiculed 
his fears, and exploded them by drinking freely 
himself. 

Notwithstanding Cook was made ill, and in his 
chamber that night declared to the innkeeper that 
he believed Palmer had attempted to poison him, for 
the sake of getting possession of his money and wip- 
ing oll'his score of indebtedness. The landlord, how- 
ever, regarded this only as the vagary of a drunk- 
en man, and so far disabused Cook of the notion 
that, on the next day, the two friends joined com- 



706 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



pany for Rugely. Here Cook fell sick again. Phy- 
sicians were summoned ; opiates were given, under 
the advice of the old physician of the Palmer pat- 
ronage ; but every thing was vain. The man died, 
declaring that he had been poisoned. 

A post-mortem examination was ordered by the 
friends of the deceased. The active old physician 
of Rugely declared it to be a case of cerebral in- 
flammation ; and all the people of Rugely accept- 
ed the belief, and said, of course, it was cerebral 
inflammation. But the father of the victim, not 
satisfied with this report, demanded a new exam- 
ination of a distinguished chemist of London. It 
is a remarkable fact that the first communication 
in reply to this demand passed — by connivance of 
the Eugely postmaster — under the eye of Palmer 
before it had been communicated to the jury of 
inquest. 

This first communication was not, hoAvever, final ; 
the examining chemist had made an error, by vir- 
tue of which he had reported, " No trace of poison :" 
a second, from the same source, declared that there 
existed full evidence of the effects of strychnine. 
Had this report preceded the other, it is probable 
that Palmer, through the kindly sympathy of the 
Rugely postmaster, and of the officiating coroner 
(to whom the surgeon Palmer had presented a fifty- 
pound note), might have devised means of escape. 

He is now in a jail of Staffordshire awaiting his 
trial for the murder of at least four intimate friends, 
including his wife and his brother Walter. 

The people of Rugely persist in saying that he 
is a " fine gentleman ;" and " it is a great pity that 
the ' likes o' him' should go to jail !" 

His stud was brought to the hammer not long 
ago, and we observe that his Highness Prince Al- 
bert has become the purchaser of the fast mare 
Trickstress, at the price of two hundred and fifty 
guineas. 

A strange comment upon the civilization of our 
day was brought to light in the course of the ex- 
amination of Dr. Taylor (the chemist to whom had 
been committed the poison search). 

He affirmed before the jury that not a year 
passed in which he did not receive from one hun- 
dred to a hundred and fifty confidential inquiries 
and demands for analyses, with regard to suspect- 
ed cases of poisoning in families ! 

We have detailed at length the more important 
aspects of this case, since it has enlisted an unusual 
share of English attention. The journals, both 
provincial and metropolitan, have been filled to sa- 
tiety with the great poisoning case of William Pal- 
mer, of Eugely. The brick house by the river, in 
the green valley of the Trent, has been sketched 
and photographed in such multiple, that every 
town of England may have its portraiture of the 
spot where the poisoner lived, and where his wid- 
owed mother even now lingers out her blasted 
life. 

The crime has recalled to memory a curious ex- 
perience of a friend of ours, which happened not 
long after the introduction of the Life Insurance 
Companies. We give an account of it, so far as 
we can recollect, in his own words : 

" I was passing the latter part of the summer 
of 18 — in the city of Boulogne, where I had gone 
to escape the heats of the Boulevards of Paris. 
It was my habit to dine while here at a little cafe 
on the quay, nearly opposite to the usual landing- 
place of the London steamer. 

" I soon-came to know all the habitues of this cafe, 



and was particularly attracted toward one quiet 
gentleman, who dressed in black, whose manners 
were subdued, and with whom I soon grew into 
terms of intimacy. I think I have never met with 
a person, before or since, whose information upon 
all the current topics of the day was so precise, so 
extensive, and so entirely at command. I am 
quite sure that I gained more knowledge of the 
government, social condition, and commerce of 
France from this gentleman's remarks, than from 
all other sources combined ; nor has subsequent 
familiarity with life in that country shown that 
there was any falsity in his statements. He talk- 
ed very freely and knowingly of all the new scien- 
tific inquiries of the day. In respect to some, his 
information may doubtless have been superficial : 
but in the matter of chemical science (to which I 
had myself paid considerable attention) I was sure 
that he had read and experimented understand- 
ingly. 

" Our talk turned one day upon poisons ; he de- 
tailed to me with surprising particularity the in- 
fluence of certain active poisons upon brutes. He 
told me that at one period of his life (he could 
hardly have been at that time more than five-and- 
thirty) he had a peculiar passion for experiments 
of that kind. 

" I remarked that it was well that the secrets 
of chemical science were generally out of the reach 
of those whose temptations of want or suffering 
led to crime. 

"'And yet,' said I, 'it is a blessed thing that 
there is no poison, after all, so subtle but that 
chemical tests will find some trace of it, and reveal 
the cause of death.' 

" ' I am not so sure of that,' said he. 

"I fixed my regard upon him attentively, in ex- 
pectation that he would go on to justify the re- 
mark. But he said nothing. I fancied that he 
seemed embarrassed for a moment ; but presently 
in a laughing tone added : ' If there were such a 
subtle poison as to take away life without leaving 
a trace, the knowledge of it would make a very 
dangerous secret — too dangerous to be talked of.' 

"He then diverted conversation to the journals 
of the morning. I respected his scruples, and did 
not allude to the subject again. 

" In the course of our intimacy he had on one or 
two occasions borrowed small sums of money from 
me, which he had repaid promptly. At an early 
stage of our acquaintance he had given me his 
card, and I had known him merely as Mr. White. 

" On repaying me one day a small sum for 
which he was in my debt, he asked pardon for 
a deceit which he had practiced : ' My name,' 
said he, ' is not White ; it is Wainwright. I was 
once in the possession of a considerable fortune, 
but was tempted to enter into a foolish speculation 
which ruined me. I am living here to be out of 
the reach of my creditors; and to avoid the notice 
of any old friends who might be passing this way, 
I have adopted the name of White.' 

" I had often heard the story of the English ex- 
iles of Boulogne, and knew that nothing was more 
common than a run thither to escape the close courts 
of the Marshalsea. I can not say that the ex- 
planation affected at all the terms of our chance 
intimacy, 

" Some two months had elapsed after this when 
one morning I received at my lodgings a hurried 
note from Wainwright, saying, 

" ' For Heaven's sake come and give me a word 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



70? 



or two. I am in the city prison : n,sk for White ; 
explanations when you come.' 

" I went to see him. He was in a gay humor; 
a little excited, it seemed to me. by the novelty of 
his position. 

" ' They have got up a trumpery criminal charge 
against me,' said he, ' in the hope of getting me 
across the channel ; and once there, why I am at 
the mercy of my creditors.' 

" I asked him what the charge was. 

" ' Murder !' said he, with a strange smile, ' and 
ingenious — very ingenious.' 

" Of course I was intensely curious to know the 
particulars. 

" ' Oh, never mind now,' said he, ' you'll know 
them all soon enough. I dare say they will have it 
in the papers. I must beg you now to see these peo- 
ple, and to see the British Consul. They are quite 
wrong; their action is altogether illegal.' 

"I gave him what aid I could in bearing mes- 
sages and in visiting the British official in his be- 
half. 

" The result showed that he was correct. The 
charge was not properly sustained, and the claim 
upon the Government for Wainwright was not 
made good. He was discharged, after only two 
days of confinement, and was once more a habitue 
of the little cafe upon the Quay. 

" ' Wainwright,' said I, one morning, ' what was 
all that affair of the murder accusation?' 

" ' For God's sake, don't ask me ; I dare say you 
will see it all some day in the papers.' 

'• I did not refer to the subject again. "When I 
left Boulogne, which I did shortly afterward, he 
bade me adieu with a good deal of feeling. 

" ' I owe you more than you know of,' said he ; 
'but I think I shall go to England the coming 
month, and they may do their worst. Of course, 
you will read all about it in the reports. I was 
once a reporter myself,' continued he. ' I know 
what a godsend it will be for them.' 

" And to be sure I did read all about it in the 
Times newspaper the same winter. David "Wain- 
wright was put upon his trial for murder. It ap- 
peared that he had secured a heavy insurance, to 
the amount, I think, of £18,000, upon the life of a 
young girL who was living under his guardian- 
ship. Of the history of this girl, or of her family, 
nothing was definitely known. He had perhaps 
(it was intimated) taken her out of the streets of 
London, selecting her for her ruddy face and gen- 
eral air of health. She had been well clothed and 
cared for by Wainwright. It could not be shown 
that any improper intimacy had existed between 
them. 

" On one occasion he had taken her to the theatre 
in the Haymarket, and on their return they had 
supped together at his lodgings. Directly after 
supper she was taken violently 111. A physician 
was immediately sent for. Wainwright met the 
physician at the door, and said to him, in sub- 
stance : 

" ' The girl is very sick ; I fear she may die. I 
must beg you to give especial attention to all the 
symptoms, and, if you please, note them down. 
I have n heavy insurance upon her life, and if lnr 
death b3 sudden, there will, of course, be full in- 
quiry about the cause. You will please take every 
measure you think fit to insure a full knowle ige 
of all the facts in the case.' 

"The girl died. 
., "A post-mortem examination brought to light no 



facts which would tend to criminate Wainwright. 
The death was such an cue as might have been 
produced by a violent atta :k of cholera ; no known 
poison would produce the effects observed. 

" The insurance companies, however, deferred 
the payment of the demands upon them. They 
pushed investigations in regard to the previous 
history of Wainwright. It was found that he had 
already recovered large sums from various offices 
upon lives which had been insured at his in- 
stance, and which had ended suddenly. 

" Suspicions were aroused by these circum- 
stances, and to escape them Wainwright had fled 
to Boulogne, although his attorney was still en- 
gaged in the prosecution of his insurance claims. 

"An attempt to arrest. him at Boulogne had 
failed. His attorney had subsequently advised his 
return to England, at a time when it was thought 
that all suspicions had been lulled to sleep. The 
fact proved otherwise. Wainwright was arrested 
just one week after his arrival in London. 

"The report of his trial, I remember, filled sev- 
eral columns of the London Times ; but a decision 
was deferred, either by the arts of his attorney or 
for some cause of which I am not aware, to so late 
a period that it never came to my knowledge. 

" I expected never to hear of Wainwright again ; 
when, one evening last winter, I chanced, in San 
Francisco, to be in the company of a young engin- 
eer who had just returned from a trip to Australia. 
Among other things, he was shoAving a few rude 
sketches of scenery in the vicinity of Melbourne 
and of groups of miners. Our attention was par- 
ticularly attracted by a sepia drawing of a hut, 
most picturesquely placed upon the edge of a 
brawling stream. 

" ' Ah, yes,' said the traveler, ' nothing could be 
more picturesque ; and what is more remarkable, 
the man who lived in that hut — Wainwright — was 
one of the most remarkable men I think I ever met 
with.' 

" ' Wainwright?' said I. 

" ' Waimvright — David Wainwright,' said he, 
'a misanthrope — a perfect victim to the blue- 
devils; and ) r et the most greedy man for gold I 
ever happened to meet with. The miners all con- 
sulted him ; I am sure he was a man of education. 
I passed a night with him when I was in his quar- 
ter. He died afterward very suddenly. There 
were suspicions of foul play, but no positive evi- 
dence that I ever heard of. A wonderfully fine tree 
that, overhanging the hut — peculiar to that re- 
gion.'" 

Mr. Dickens (of course, every body now has 
become acquainted with Little Dorrit, and Tito 
Barnacle, and Arthur Clennam) is making a tilt 
at the red-tape formalism of British officials, which, 
in the two years last gone, has killed more Crim- 
ean soldiers than the Russian sharp-shooters havo 
made an end of. The Circumlocution Office is tho 
bugbear; and Arthur Clennam's despairing per- 
sistence in pushing inquiries about " the precise na- 
ture of the claim of the Crown against a prisoner 
for debt, named Dorrit," has reminded an old trav- 
eling friend of ours of a kindred experience of his 
own : 

" I will not say how many years ago it was," he 
commenced, " that I arrived one day in London by 
the Portsmouth train, with only enough silver in 
my pocket to pay my hack hiro to one of those 
very good bachelor hotels which flank upon Cov- 



708 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



cnt Garden Square. I bad ordered remittances to 
be sent me there from the Continent, and counted 
on finding my banker's letter at my arrival. I 
paid and dismissed the cabman, and with six half- 
pence left, sat down in a cozy room overlooking 
the Coven t Garden Market, and sent down my card 
with an inquiry for letters. 

" No letters had come. 

"I ate my dinner nervously; kept my room 
during the evening (although Jenny Lind was fig- 
uring in the Somnambula on the next block), and 
in the morning, after mail-time, sent the servant 
down again with my card — for letters. 

"He returned very promptly with the reply, 
' No letters this morning, Sir.' 

" It is an awkward thing to be moneyless, let a 
man be where he will ; but if I were to name a city 
in which that condition is most intolerable, I think 
I should mention London. 

" As I sat ruminating over the grate, the thought 
struck me that I had made an error in the matter 
of the address left with my banker. I can hardly 
tell why, but there seemed to me a sudden confu- 
sion in my own mind between the names of Cov- 
ent Garden and Cornhill. Possibly, I had ordered 
my letters addressed to Cornhill. I had no mem- 
oranda to guide me ; to one of those two places I 
was sure that I had ordered my remittances ad- 
dressed. They had not come to my quarters at 
Covent Garden ; possibly they might have gone to 
No. 9 Cornhill. 

" Every body who has been to London knows 
that it is a long, long walk from Covent Garden to 
Cornhill ; but I had no pennies to spare for omni- 
bus rides ; I had secured stamps from the office of 
the hotel for the dispatch of a letter of inquiry to 
the Continent ; and in an hour and a half there- 
after found myself, utterly fagged, pacing up and 
down the side-walk of Cornhill. I found a No. 9 ; 
I made appeal after my missing letter at a huck- 
ster's shop on the street. 

"They knew nothing of it. 

" I next made application in a dark court in the 
rear. 

" 'There was niver a gintleman of that name 
lived here.' 

" I asked, in my innocence, if the postman were 
in possession of such a letter, would he leave it ? 

" 'Not being a boording-house — in coorse not.' 

"My next aim was to intercept the Cornhill 
postman himself. Fortunately, the British post- 
men are all designated by red cuffs and collars ; I 
made an eager rush at some three or four, whom I 
espied in the course of an hour or more of watch. 
They were all bound to other parts of the city. 

" By this time I had an annoying sense of being 
constantly under the eye of a tall policeman in the 
neighborhood. I thought I observed him pointing 
me out, with an air of apprehension, to a comrade, 
whose beat joined his upon the corner of the next 
street. 

" I had often heard of the willingness to com- 
municate information on the part of the London 
police, and determined to divert his suspicions (if 
he entertained any) by explaining my position. I 
thought he listened incredulously. However, he 
assured me very positively that if I should see the 
Cornhill postman on his beat (which I might not 
for three hours to come), he would deliver to me no 
letter, unless at the door to which it might be ad- 
dressed, and then only unless I was an acknowl- 
edged inmate. 



" He advised me to make inquiries at the Gen- 
eral Post-office. 

" Under his directions I walked, wearily, to the 
General Post-office. One may form some idea of 
the General Post-office of London by imagining 
three or four of our up-town reservoirs placed side 
by side, flanked with columns, topped with Co- 
rinthian attics, and pierced through by an immense 
hall, on either side of which are doors and traps 
innumerable. 

" I entered this hall, in which hundreds were mov- 
ing about like bees — one to this door, and one to 
another — and all of them with a most enviable ra- 
pidity and precision of movement (myself, appar- 
ently, being the only lost or doubtful one), and 
read, with a vain bewilderment, the numerous 
notices of ' Ship for India' — 'Mails here close at 
3.15' — ' Packages over a pound at the next win- 
dow, left' — 'All newspapers mailed at this win- 
dow must be in wrappers' — ' Charge on Sydney 
letters raised twopence' — ' Bombay mail closes at 
two, this day' — ' Stamps only.' 

" Fluttering about for a while in a sad state of 
trepidation, I made a bold push for an open win- 
dow, where an active gentleman had just mailed 
six letters for Bombay, and began — ' Please, Sir, 
can you tell me about the Cornhill postman ?' 

" ' Know nothing about him !' and slap went the 
window. 

" I next made an advance to the newspaper trap 
— rapped — open flew the door : ' I wish to in- 
quire,' said I, ' about a letter—' 

" ' Next window to left !' and click went the trap. 

" I marched with some assurance to the window 
on the left: the same pantomime was gone through. 
' I want to know,' I began, more boldly, 'about a 
letter directed to Cornhill.' 

'"Know nothing about it, Sir; this isn't the 
place, you know.' 

" 'And pray where is the place, if you please?' 
(This seemed a very kindly man.) 

" ' Oh, dear ! well, I should say, now, the place 
was — let me see — over the way somewhere. It's 
City, you know.' 

" I thanked him ; indeed I had no time to do 
more, for the window was closed. 

" I marched over the way — that is, on the op- 
posite side of the hall. I rapped at a new trap : 
click ! it flew open. ' I wish to inquire,' said I, 
' about a letter which the Cornhill postman may 
have taken by accident — ' 

" ' Oh, may have taken : better find out if he 
really did, you know ; for if he didn't, you see, it's 
no use, you know, t' inquire.' And click ! the trap 
closed. 

" How to find out now if he really did ! If I could 
only see the Cornhill postman, who, from the na- 
ture of his trust, could hardly be very officious, I 
might hope at least for some information. My eyes 
fell now upon a well-fed porter, in royal livery, who 
was loitering about the great entrance-gates of 
the establishment, and seemed to be a kind of civic 
beadle. 

" I ventured an appeal to him about the prob- 
able whereabouts of the Cornhill postman. 

" ' Oh, Corn'ill postm'n ; dear me ! I should 
say, now, p'r'aps he might be down to the pay- 
office. That's to the right, out o' the yard, down a 
halley — second flight o' 'igh steps, like.' 

" I went out of the yard, and down the alley, and 
applied, as directed, at the second flight of steps. 
Right for once ; it was the pay-office. 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



709 



" ' Was the Cornhill postman there ?' 

" ' He was not.' 

" ' Where would I be liable to find him ?' 

" ' He was paid off, with the rest, every Satur- 
day morning at nine o'clock — precisely.' 

" It was now Tuesday : I had allowed myself a 
week for London. My anticipations of an enjoy- 
able visit were not high. 

" I returned once more to the communicative por- 
ter. I think I touched my hat in preface of my 
second application (you will remember that I was 
fresh from the Continent) : ' You sec,' said he, 
' they goes to the 'stributing office, and all about, 
and it's 'ard to say ajust where he might be ; might 
be to Corn'ill — poss'bly ; might not be, you know ; 
might be 'twixt here and there ; 'stributing office 
is to the left — third court, first flight, door to 
right.' 

" I made my way to the distributing office ; it 
seemed a ' likely place' to find the man I was in 
search of. I found the door described by my stout 
friend, the porter, and entered very boldly. It was 
an immense hall, resembling a huge church, with 
three tiers of galleries running around the walls, 
along which I saw scores of postmen, passing and 
repassing, in what seemed interminable confusion. 

" I had scarce crossed the threshold when I was 
encountered by an official of some sort, who very 
brusquely demanded my business. 

" I explained that I was is search of the Cornhill 
postman. 

'"This is no place, Sir; he comes here for his 
letters, and is off directly. No strangers are al- 
lowed here, Sir.' 

" The man seemed civil, though peremptory. 

" ' For Heaven's sake,' said I, appealingly, ' can 
you tell me how, or where, I can see the man who 
distributes the Cornhill letters?' 

" ' I really can't, Sir.' 

" ' Could you tell me possibly where the man 
lives?' 

M ' Really couldn't, Sir ; don't know at all ; de'say 
it wouldn't be far.' 

" I think he saw my look of despair, for he con- 
tinued in a kinder tone: 'Dear me, eh — did you, 
p'raps, eh — might I ask, eh — what your business 
might be with the, eh — Cornhill postman?' 

" I caught at what seemed my last hope. ' I 
wanted,' said I, ' to make an inquiry — ' 

"He interrupted,' Oh, dear me — bless me — an in- 
quiry ! Why, you see, there's an office for inquiry. 
It's here about, round the corner; you'll see the 
window as you turn ; closes at three (looking at 
his watch); you've, eh — six minutes just.' 

" I went round the corner ; I found the window — 
' Office for Inquiry,' posted above. There was a 
man who stuttered, asking about a letter which he 
had mailed for Calcutta two months before to the 
address of Mr. T-t-t-th-thet-Theodore T-t-tr-tret- 
Trenham. 

" I never heard a stutterer with less charity be- 
fore. A clock was to be seen over the head of the 
office clerk within. I watched it with nervous 
anxiety. The Calcutta applicant at length made 
an end of his story. The clerk turned to the clock. 
Two minute3 were allowed me. 

" I had arranged a short story. The clerk took 
my name, residence, address — promised that the 
matter should be looked after. 

"I walked back to Covent Garden, weary, but 
satisfied. 

" The next morning the waiter handed mo a let- 



ter addressed properly enough, ' Mark Handiside, 
No. ( J Covent Garden.' 

" The banker's letter had been delayed. My 
search through the London office had been entire- 
ly unnecessary. 

"Three days after, and when I was engrossed with 
Madame Toussaud's wax-work and the Vauxhall 
wonders, and had forgotten my trials of Cornhill, 
I received a huge envelope, under the seal of the 
General Post-office of London, informing me that 
no letter bearing my address had been distributed 
to the Cornhill carrier during the last seven days ; 
and advising me that, should such an one be re- 
ceived at the London Post-office, it would, in obe- 
dience to my wishes, be promptly delivered at No. 
9 Covent Garden Square. 

" For aught I know, the officials of the London 
office may be looking for that letter still. 

" I hope not." 



dfttitor's SrnroL 



THE DRAWER, thanks to the thousand con- 
tributors who furnish the good things with 
which it is filled, was never richer than at this 
present, and the Editor is more perplexed to de- 
cide which of the many he shall choose, than where 
to find the material for the entertainment of his 
April readers. 

" To } T our distinguished consideration," writes a 
friend in Ohio, " I submit the following, which is 
a true fact, poetry and all : 

"Billie and Lillie were in love, Lillie having 
just entered her teens, and Lillie having been in 
them three years. Duty called Billie to a far- 
away land, where he was compelled to remain in 
the disagreeable employment of completing his 
education. On returning, after an absence of two 
or three tedious years, which seemed a young eter- 
nity to his faithful heart, he found, to his dismay 
and distress, that she whom he had loved and 
trusted had proved, like too many of her sex, to 
be fickle and faithless. Again he renewed his suit, 
and sought with diligence and devotion to win 
her back to his love, but all in vain. On the last 
Valentine day she determined to put an end to all 
his hopes; and so the young flirt sent him the 
following lines, which she stole from Byron, and 
copied neatly under the picture of a disconsolated 
lovyer : 

u ' When I loved you, I can't but allow 
I had many an exquisite minute, 
But the scorn that I feel for you now, 
Hath even more luxury in it. 

" "Thus whether we're on or we're off, 
Some witchery seems to await you; 
To love you was pleasant enough, 
But oh! 'tis delicious to hate you. 
" « St. Valentine's-dav, 1856.' " ' LlLLIB. 

"This was enough for Billie. In a moment his 
eyes were opened to sec that, in securing the hate 
of such a girl, he had made a blessed escape, and 
in a few minutes he dispatched a Valentine in these 
words : 

" • Your plagiarized scorn meets seven-fold scorn, 
\<>ur acquaintance and note I contemptuously spurn; 
The unprincipled pride of your heart I despise, 
Arid my thoughts far above you in pleasure SI 
Your hate is a trifle, your love is a jest, 
Your sneers are your soul, and become y<>u the host; 
The contempt that's showered on you by folly was won, 
And hereafter, forever, with you I am done. 

"T.iu.ik."' 



710 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Axy man Avho has been at Albany during the 
session of the present Legislature will believe, with- 
out any great amount of extra evidence, that the 
story we are about to tell is true, and too good to 
be kept in the Drawer. One of the new members 
of Assembly from one of the Northern Counties 
was on his way to the old Dutch city a few days 
before the opening of the session. In his verdancy 
and self-conceit, as he sat in the rail-car, he was 
sure that every man must recognize his claim to 
special consideration as a legislator on his way to 
the capital for the purpose of making laws for the 
Empire State, and as the other passengers were 
quite as good-looking as himself, he came to the 
conclusion that he had fallen into the company of 
a number of members bound to the same exalted 
halls. Now it chanced that Mr. William Russell, 
the newly-elected State Prison Inspector, was sit- 
ting in the seat adjoining our pompous friend, the 
new member, and on his way to Sing Sing. As 
the train paused at one of the stations, the rural 
legislator looked Mr. Russell in the face, and said, 

"I believe you are a member of the Legislature 
that meets next week ?" 

The Inspector had been observing the member's 
motions, and read him readily ; so fixing upon him 
a piercing look, and slowly removing his hat from 
his head, he demanded, in a stern and indignant 
tone, 

" Do you mean to insult me, Sir ? Do I look 
like a villain ? Have you seen me pick any man's 
pocket in this car?" 

The attention of every one was turned to the 
two men, and their curiosity rose as each succes- 
sive question was propounded, with a rising tone 
of voice, till Mr. Russell demanded, 

" I say, Sir, do you see any thing like a vaga- 
bond in my looks ?" 

" No — I — no — no I don't know as I do," stam- 
mered out the confounded rural member. 

"No," rejoined the Inspector, "I am bound for 
the State Prison; but, thank fortune, I am not 
going to the Legislature." 

Our wind\* representative collapsed of a sud- 
den, and wondered in silence why any man should 
prefer going to State Prison rather than to the 
Legislature. Perhaps he has found out before this 
time. 



" In our County Court," writes an Eastern friend, 
" one of our smart young lawyers was well come 
up with the other day. A witness, in a case of 
assault, was asked by the junior Counsel, ' How 
far was you, Sir, from the parties when the alleged 
assault took place ?' 

" 'Four feet five inches and a half,' was the an- 
swer promptly given. 

"'Ah!' fiercely demanded the lawyer, 'how 
came you to be so very exact as all this ?' 

" ' Because,' said the witness, very coolly, ' I 
expected that some confounded fool would likely 
as not ask me, and so I went and measured it.' " 



A clerical contributor (we are always happy 
to receive their contributions, for they abound in 
good things) sends us the following admirable il- 
lustration of poor " human nature :" 

" The Rev. Dr. B , a half century ago, was 

a distinguished minister in Connecticut. He had 
a negro, Cato by name ; yet so little of the phi- 
losopher was Cato, that it was doubtful whether 
to call him a wag or a fool. It came to pass one 



day that a grocer had been emptying some casks 
of the settlings of cherry-rum, and a number of 
hogs in the street had eaten of the cherries till 
some were staggering about, some were drunk in 
the gutter, and all of them were showing them- 
selves the worse for liquor. Cato saw their dread- 
ful state, and called to his master at the foot of the 
stairs : 

" 'Master — Doctor, do please come here !' 
" The Doctor came at the call, and looked out 
where Cato pointed at the drunken quadrupeds, 
and asked, ' Well, what ?' Cato lifted up both his 
hands, and with much emotion cried out, 

'"Master, master, only look; 2 )00r hitman na- 
turP" 



The same gentleman writes that an eccentric 
clergyman, lately alluding in his pulpit to the sub- 
ject of family-government, remarked that it is 
often said " that nowadays there is no such thing 
as family-government. But it's false, all false ! 
There is just as much family-government now as 
there ever was — just as much as in the days of our 
fathers and grandfathers. The only difference is, 
that then the old folks did the governing, now it is 
done by the young ones!" 



Oun readers who do not read Latin and Greek 
may skip the following ; but there are many who 
will agree with us that better classical puns are 
not abroad. 

The lion. Charles Chapman, of Hartford, Con- 
necticut, was traveling from that city to Litchfield 
to attend Court. A violent storm of snow was 
beating in the faces of the party as they were rid- 
ing in an open sleigh. One of the company, for 
the sake of amusement, asked Mr. Chapman how 
he enjoyed the storm ? To which the lawyer in- 
stantly answered, in strictly legal terms, that he 
would much rather " facit per alium," than " facit 
per se." 

On another occasion, Mr. Chapman was dining 
at a New Haven hotel, when it fell to his lot to 
help his neighbors at the table to clam soup. As 
often occurs on such occasions, the clams gave out, 
and he continued with great diligence to pursue 
his explorations into the depths of the tureen. A 
lady opposite observing the thoughtful air with 
which he plied the ladle, and being herself some- 
what under the power of a clam-orous appetite, 
asked him what he was thinking of. At that mo- 
ment he raised the ladle with a solitary clam in it, 
and cried, 

" De profundis clam-av-i." 

Porson, the famous Greek Professor of Cam- 
bridge, was asked whether he was fond of the so- 
cial cup which " cheers but not inebriates ?" He 
replied without hesitation, 

" Nee possit vivere tecum, nee sine te" 

And again, Avhen asked to take a toddy before 
going to bed, he answered, 

" Ovd£ rods, ovdt raAAa:" 
showing the Professor more of a teetotaller than 
he has the credit of being. 



But to return to Connecticut. In Litchfield 
lived and died good Deacon Seely, who built his 
own stone fence as well as his own reputation for 
that of an honest and God-fearing man. Once, 
when clearing his farm of stone, he made his wall 
uncommonly thick and strong, and a waggish neigh- 
bor said to him, 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



711 



" "Well, Deacon Seely, that's a noble stone wall 
you are building. It will last, I should say, long 
after you are in Beelzebub's bosom !" 

"Ah !" said the Deacon, not noticing the strange 
interpolation, " I fear we shall never reach that 
blessed place." 

Thomas Jefferson's opinions on the subject 
of religion have been the occasion of no little dis- 
cussion, and every thing that throws light on the 
subject will be read with interest. The following 
letters are forwarded to the Drawer by a Virginia 
correspondent, who says they have never been pub- 
lished : 

" Monticello, Dec. 8, '21. 

" Dear Sir — In the antient feudal times of our 
good old forefathers, when the Seigneur married 
his daughter or knighted his son, it was the usage 
for his vassals to give him a year's rent extra, in 
the name of an aid. I think it as reasonable, when 
our pastor builds a house, that each of his flock 
should give him an aid of a year's contribution. I 
enclose mine, as a tribute of justice, which of itself, 
indeed, is nothing, but as an example, if followed, 
may become something. In any event, be pleased 
to accept it as an offering of duty, and a testimony 
of my friendly attachment and high respect. 
"Rev. Mr. Hatch." "Th. Jefferson. 

" Monticello, May 12, '22. 

"Dear Sir — The case seems again to occur 
when, as in that of the feudal lord formerly quot- 
ed, an aid was deemed reasonably due on the ex- 
traordinary occasions of marrying his daughter or 
knighting his son. The approaching Convention 
must bring considerable extra expense on you. I 
beg leave, therefore, to offer my contribution to- 
wards it, on a principle of duty. Altho my affairs 
in Bedford require my presence there necessarily at 
this season, yet I would have varied the time of 
my visit to that place so as to have been here at 
the meeting of the Convention. I should gladly 
have profited of that occasion of manifesting my re- 
spect for that body, with some of whose members I 
may probably be acquainted ; but it seems to be 
expected that there will be a concourse of one or 
two thousand others attending it from all parts of 
the country, and experience has proved to me that 
my place is considered as among the curiosities of 
the neighborhood, and that it will probably be vis- 
ited, as such, by most of the attendants. I have 
neither strength nor spirits to encounter such a 
stream of strangers from day to day, and must 
therefore avoid it, by obeying the necessary call of 
my concerns in Bedford, to which place I shall set 
out to-morrow morning. Accept my friendly and 
respectful salutations. 

" Th. Jefferson." 

The Convention referred to was of the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church of Virginia, held in Char- 
lottesville in May, 1822. 



"Now, look here, my friend, don't you believe 
what is to be, will be ?" 

" No, I don't at all. I believe what is to be, 
won't be /" 

And there was an end of the argument. 



Sitting in the Pulaski House, Savannah, this 
last winter, the editor hereof heard Judge Lump- 
kin, of Georgia, telling an anecdote that shows up 
very neatly the resort of a man when hard pushed 
in an argument. 

An old Baptist preacher, so straight a Calvinist 
that ho leaned over backward, Avas defending his 
doctrines against a man as ignorant as he was ob- 
stinate : at length the preacher said to his oppo- 
nent : 



MUSIC. 

In the cosiest of chambers, 
Gazing on the fading embers, 

Fading, dropping, dust to dust ; 
While their evanescent gleam, 

With its fickle rise and fall, 
Lighted up a marble bust 
Of Saint Jerome, good and just, 

Looking at me from the wall, 
From beneath his dusky cowl, 
With alternate smile and scowl ; 

By my fireside, all alone, 
I was sitting, lapsing to a quiet dream, 

When a tiny music-tone, 
Sounding distant, faint, and sweet, 

Suddenly I heard ; and started, 
Started listening to my feet, 

Eager, wistful, and uncertain 
If the sound were of my sleep 

Or my waking ; and the curtain 
Hastily I parted, 
And looked out upon the night, 

Which with lavish hand had strown 
Through the heavens dark and deep, 
Like a regal largess, jewels rare and bright 
" Is your symphony, ye crystal spheres, 
Flowing downward to my ravished ears ? 

Where are words," I cried, "to fit the strain 
Which ye pour, so lofty yet so sweet, 
Through the fathomless spaces while ye roll, 
And your choral tide now floods my thirsting soul?" 

Nearer seemed the sounds ; again 

I looked. Ah, Fancy, pert and vain ! 
A hibernating fly, thawed by the heat, 
Was buzzing in a corner of the pane — 
So Fancy buzzes in a drowsy brain. 



So many stories are now told of the Hard-Shell 
Baptists, that we publish none but those which are 
vouched for by responsible names — like the fol- 
lowing : 

One of the preachers was holding forth on the 
end of time, and as there had been a great number 
of shooting-stars not long before, he drew a bold 
illustration from that striking phenomenon. 

" My bretheren, you have often wondered what 
was the meaning of them shooting-sfrm\s\ It was 
this, my bretheren : AVhen the Lord he saw the 
stairs was too thick and close together like, he took 
the magnesia of attraction, or the traction of grat- 
ification, if you please to call it by the vulgar name, 
and he shook the stairs, and shook 'em, and shook 
'em — ah, and thinned 'em out — ah, and left only 
the sound ones — ah." Then leaning over the desk, 
and lowering his voice to a confidential tone, he 
continued : " Thus, my friends, will it be in the end 
of the world. The Lord will apply the magnesia 
of attraction to the meetin' folks, and shake 'cm 
about, and thin 'em out, and the only stairs left in 
the fundamental galaxy of his glory Avill be tho 
good old Baptist stairs!" 



But here is a good one from quite another quar- 
ter, the land of steady habits, and the old town of 
Wolcott, where the pulpit had been vacant for 
several years, and was only semi-occasionally sup- 
plied by the pastors of the neighboring churches. 
They became tired of the duty after a while ; and 
when they found that the Wolcott people wero 
sponging on them for the means of grace, they de- 



712 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



puted the pastor of the Northjield parish to go and 
preach to them on the subject, and inform them 
that they could have no supply hereafter from their 
neighbors. He went, and at the opening of the 
service gave out the hymn commencing with the 
lines, 

" Lord, -what a wretched land is this, 
That yields us no supply." 

After reading the whole hymn he repeated the first 
two lines, Avhen the chorister, according to custom, 
cried out the tune, Northjidd, which seemed to be 
a fitting answer to the parson's demand, and an 
assurance that the people need look for no further 
aid from that quarter. 



And in Litchfield (Connecticut) cemetery, the 
writer who sends us the above says that the follow- 
ing epitaph is to be read in stone : 

"Here lies two twins, all side by side, 
Of the small-pox both of them died." 



We were complaining, a short time since, to a 
friend, of the tedious prolixity of counsel in a case 
we happened to be interested in, and queried wheth- 
er it would not save time and ansAver the ends of 
justice equally well to do away with all argument 
to the jury. 

"That might do sometimes," said my legal 
friend; "but I'll give you an instance to show 
that it is not always safe. I once had a case 
against a man in the country, which was as clear 
as daylight in my favor — the fellow had not even 
a shadow of defense for refusing to pay his debt — 
but, by the cunning of his lawyer, he had contrived 
to avoid coming to trial for about two years, in 
hopes that he might Avorry me into a compromise. 
At last the case Avas called, late in the term and 
late in a hot day, the court and jury tired and im- 
patient. I stated the facts, produced the eAddence, 
Avhich Avas all on my side ; the judge asked the 
counsel Avhcther they wished to argue the case, 
stating that he thought it hardly necessary in so 
plain a matter. The laAvyers agreed to submit it 
Avithout argument ; the jury went out, and imme- 
diately returned with a verdict for the defendant ! 
I prayed the judge to oA'errule the verdict as con- 
trary to laAV and eA-idence, and after some time this 
Avas done, and I got judgment. But as soon as the 
court adjourned I sought the foreman of the jury, 
a worthy but not very brilliant man, and asked 
him Iioav, in the name of common sense, they came 
to render such a A'erdict. 

" ' Why, you see,' said he, ' Ave didn't think much 
of the lawyer agin A'ou, and it A\"an't strange he 
didn't haA-e nothing to say ; but Squire, the fact 
is, Ave thought you Avas about one of the smartest 
lawyers in this county, and if you couldn't find any- 
thing to say on your side, it must be a purty hard 
case, and so Ave had to go agin you !'" 



When has a man enough ? Never till he gets 
a little more. A very good story of old embargo 
times and the Avar of 1812 Avas told us the other 
day. Under the impulse of the removal of the 
embargo, there Avas a sudden rise in the A T alue of 
property, and such a demand for it that merchan- 
dise was sometimes carried off from A^essels befoT*e 
the OAvners arrived at their places of business, and 
the parties taking it came in afterward to say that 
they were at the owners' mercy, and must pay what 
they chose to ask. A brig Avas lying in Boston 
harbor, Avhich had come up new from Plymouth 



just before the embargo was laid, and Avas now in 
good condition, fit for sea. The Plymouth OAvner 
thought it was a good time to sell the brig, and 
sent up his son for the purpose, telling him to de- 
mand eight thousand dollars for her, and not to 
take less than six. John Avent to Boston, found 
hoAv things Avere going, sold the brig in a moment, 
and hurried home, elated with his bargain. As he 
neared the house, he saAV the old gentleman march- 
ing up and doAvn the piazza, and presently rushing 
out to meet his son and hear the result of the sale. 

"Have you sold the brig, John?" 

" Yes, father, you may be sure of that." 

" For hoAv much, John ?" 

" For ten thousand dollars'!" 

" Ten thousand dollars !" cried the old man, 
Avith staring eyes, at hearing a price more than 
double Avhat the vessel cost. " Ten thousand dol- 
lars! I'll bet you've sold her to some sAvindler 
Avho don't care Avhat the price is, and neA-er means 
to pay his notes." 

" Notes, did you say, father ? Why, there's no 
note in the case. I got the money and put it in 
the bank ; draw, and you'll get it." 

The old man's excitement suddenly cooled, and 
as the ruling passion rose in its place, he said, 

"I say, John, couldn't you have got a Icetle 
more?" 



Ax ex-postmaster of Georgia gaA*e us also the 
folloAving superscription of a letter which he copied 
with his OAvn hand, and then sent the letter accord- 
ing to the direction. Except the names, which 
are altered, the copy is given verbatim et literatim 
et punctuatim : 

" slait off gorgy, jeffison poast offes, jaxsun kounty to 
Mr Jones Avho liA-es about seven or ate mile from Mr ard, 
or did about foar of fn-e year ago — as i doant noe your 
given naim the poastmaster at franklin please forrerd the 
saim and mediuntly if not suner an the poastmaster at 
jiffison kounty the saim to mr Jones as sune as the male 
gits thar." 



A sailor is said to be not a sailor Avhen he is 
a.-shore, and the fool he makes of himself Avhen he 
tries to steer a horse or navigate a carriage, is 
proof that he is not himself Avh en out of his "na- 
tiA-e" element. 

Jack Dimon left the seas, and resolved to have 
a good time on shore for a year or tAvo, to see Iioav 
he liked it, and perhaps he AA-ould neA r er ploAv the 
briny deep again. Not long had he been on land 
before he had occasion to go a short distance into 
the country on business, and he required the aid 
of a horse and Avagon. As he Avas returning from 
his excursion, an acquaintance met him driving on 
at a furious rate, and stopping him for a little con- 
A-ersation, Avas surprised to observe that Jack's 
horse had a large stone suspended from his tail, to 
which it Avas tied by a red bandana. 

" What on earth, Jack, haA*e you got on that 
horse's tail ?" Avas the A r ery natural inquiry of his 
friend. 

" Why, you see," said Jack, Avith as much se- 
riousness as became the occasion, "Avhen I left 
port this morning, we got off at a pretty smart 
lick — say fi\ T e or six knots — and got on so till Ave 
began to scud before the Avind, making all sail; 
Avhen all at once, as I'm a live man, Sir, she dip- 
ped, and went right under, pitching me over her 
boAvs, and, Jonah- like, I fetched up on dry land. I 
picked myself up as well as I could ; the ship right- 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



713 



ed ; I thought as how she might have too heavy a 
figure-head for such a light stern, and so I just put 
on this hig stone, by way of a settler behind, to 
keep her steady, like. Now she goes like a clip- 
per, as she is. Let go !" and on he went. 

A new correspondent sends us the following 
spirited lines : 

You may have heard some man confess — 
This is an age when things progress I 
But 'mid the means of good that bless 

The present hour, 
The first and foremost is the Peess — 

Hail to its power ! 
What wondrous skill in type and quill I 
What wondrous art to soothe or thrill ! 
They move a nation when they will 

To sword and field ! 
What influence for good or ill ! 

What power to wield ! 
Yet oft the Press, with crooked sight, 
May see the black, and call it white ; 
And sometimes, too, that wrong is right ; 

To say the least, 
It oft makes Beauty such a fright, 

She scares the Beast ! 
Perhaps 'tis lucky for mankind, 
Old Archimedes ne'er shall find 
That fulcrum in the human mind, 

Of which the Press is lever; 
For he — should Terra be unkind — 

Might from her axis heave her I 
But, after all, the Press's arm 
(Raised, while it may be, to our harm), 
To fill intriguers with alarm 

Strikes its hard blow, 
And generously to disarm 

The public foe 1 
'Tis careful, too, to recommend 
What best will suit the general end, 
And with its mighty power defend 

The public good ; 
And so the Press, the people's friend 

Has always stood ! 



A responsible friend is the voucher for the 
truth of the following capital story: 

Half a century ago or less, the pious, but some- 
times facetious Dr. Pond, dwelt in the quiet and 

out-of-the-way village of A , in the State of 

" Steady Habits." The Doctor's ideas were lib- 
eral — much more so than many of his congregation 
approved ; nevertheless he kept on the even tenor 
of his way, and disregarded the prejudices of some 
of his people. He had a son named Enoch, who 
at an early age manifested a remarkable talent for 
music, which the father cherished and cultivated 
with care. In the same village resided an anti- 
quated maiden lady, who, having no cares of her 
own to occupy her time and attention, magnani- 
mously devoted herself to those of her neighbors. 
One morning she called at the Doctor's, and re- 
quested to see him. When he entered the room 
where she was seated, he perceived at a glance that 
something was amiss, and before he had time to ex- 
tend to her the usual " How-d'ye-do," she began : 

" I think, Doctor Pond, that a man of your age 
and profession might have had something better to 
do, when you were in New London last week, than 
to buy Enoch a, fiddle; all the people are ashamed 
that our minister should buy his son a fiddle. A 
fiddle! Oh, dear! what is the world coming to 
when ministers will do such things !" 

" Who told you I had bought Enoch a fiddle ?" 
inquired the Doctor. 



" Who told me ! Why, every body says so, and 
some people have heard him play on it as they 
passed the door. But ain't it true, Doctor?" 

" I bought Enoch a violin when I went to New 
London." 

" A violin t what's that ?" 

" Did you never see one ?" 

" Never." 

" Enoch," said the Doctor, stepping to the door, 
"bring your violin here." 

Enoch obeyed the command, but no sooner had 
he entered with his instrument, than the lady ex- 
claimed, 

" La ! now, there ; why it is a fiddle !" 

" Do not judge rashly," said the Doctor, giving 
his son a wink ; " wait until you hear it." 

Taking the hint, Enoch played Old Hundred. 
The lady was completely mystified ; it looked like 
a fiddle, but then who had ever heard Old Hun- 
dred played on a fiddle i It could not be. So, 
rising to depart, she exclaimed, " I am glad I came 
in to satisfy myself. La ! me ; just to think how 
people will lie !" 



"In your January Number," writes a frequent 
correspondent, "you give several reasons that in- 
duce people to go to church : 

' Some go to church just for a walk, 
Some go there to laugh and talk,' etc., 

but you omitted two very common reasons : 
Some go there to close their eyes, 
And some to eye their clothes." 



What a difference there is, even in kingly coun- 
tries, between the customs, styles of living, etc., in 
The Old Times and the New I If Queen Victoria 
gives a " drawing-room" or a dinner, the London 
and provincial papers are full to repletion with ac- 
counts of the affair ; the noble and " royal" person- 
ages who were present ; the splendor of the apart- 
ments ; the richness of the gold and silver service, 
and the like. 

Observe, from the following single historic verse, 
how all this was — or rather was not — in the "good 
olden time :" 

" The king and queen sat down to dine, 
And many more beside, 
And what they didn't eat that night, 
Next "morning it was fried /" 

Now here was true economy, even in a monarch's 
household ; and if this course had been pursued up 
to the present time, does any body suppose that 
the English National Debt would be what it is now ? 
for be it understood, that it costs something for 
reigning monarchs (and their families, pretty nu- 
merous, generally) to live, as well as to make war. 

By-the-by, speaking of the National Debt of Great 
Britain, the late honored and lamented statesman, 
Henry Clay, used to tell a capital story of an op- 
ponent of his, who, in a stump-speech in the midst 
of the most unsettled parts of the then " Far West" 
Western States, gave his "sentiments" and "pro- 
found views" of matters and things. He was a 
small pettifogger — " wordy, windy, and wander- 
ing" in all that he said, and with the utmost con- 
fusion as to what he was talking about ; only he 
knew that he was accusing Mr. Clay of wanting 
to introduce the "cussed" Feudal System into this 
country. Some demagogue had told him that that 
was the nature of Mr. Clay's Protective System. 

" Look o' here, now, my friends," said he, "jest 
look at it. I want to know if any of you who hear 



714 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



my voice wants this Feudal System ? What has it 
done for England, and Europe, and France, and 
Scotland, and other foreign countries ? Look at 
'em! Half of 'em are no better than slaves, and 
some of 'em not half as well off. What has done 
this ? The blasted Feudal System that they want 
to fasten onto this country, same as they did onto 
Greece ! 

"And then just look at the expense. What do 
you think England owes this minute for wars and 
high living under this Feudal System? Why, 
more than nine thousand dollars, and the interest 
runnin' on all the while! Do we want any system 
like that h'isted onto this county ? Do you want 
it, my fellow-citizens ?" 

Well — they didn't, and so made manifest at the 
polls. In a sparse settlement in the wilderness, 
where, as the orator said, " the sile am rich, but 
money are scurse" — where a silver dollar is sup- 
posed to be of the size of a cart-wheel — nine thou- 
sand dollars, as the national debt of Great Britain, 
seemed an uncountable and a " most numerous 
amount" of money. 

Mr. Clay used to tell this story with great good- 
humor and effect, and many a laugh had his 
friends over the idea how glad the English gov- 
ernment would be to strike a bargain with some 
Yankee financier who would pay their national 
debt with the terrific nine thousand dollars! 



Do you remember, reader, the first pair of boots 
that ever encased your boyish legs ? Is there any 
acquisition of after-life that quite comes up to it ? 

" How many boots," asked a little boy of his fa- 
ther (who had a friend with him at the time, who 
had just called upon him), " do three folks' wear ?" 

" Why, six, my son." 

"Then," said the little fellow, with conscious 
pride, " there are six boots in this room!" 

Simple arithmetic, surely ; but it was the only 
way in which he could adroitly call the stranger's 
attention to the fact — with him a great fact — that 
for the first time in his life he had on a pair of lit- 
tle boots. 

After all, men are not of much account without 
boots. " Boots are self-reliant — they stand alone. 
What a wretched creature, slip-shod and discord- 
ant, is a human being without boots ! In that for- 
lorn condition he can undertake nothing. All en- 
terprise is impossible. He is without motion — a 
thing fit only to have his toes trodden on. But if 
the thought flashes through his brain that he must 
be up and doing, what are the first words that rush 
to his lips ? 

Ui My boots!!"' 

" Nothing else could express the fixedness of his 
new-born purpose. Suppose he called for his horse, 
or his arms, what sort of figure, having them only, 
would he cut without his boots ? He could not ride 
a rod, nor hold his ground against a foe for a single 
inch. But give him time enough to draw on his 
boots, and a new man starts at once into existence, 
ready for any thing ! 

" You have only to say that an effort is ' bootless,' 
and the folly of attempting any thing without boots 
becomes at once apparent." 



swain, " with some little assistance from your fa- 
ther !" 

" There was some confusion," says the Philadel- 
phia Dispatch, " and a profound silence when this 
lovers' colloquy had ended." 



How it should dwarf the aspirations, the pom- 
posity, abate the arrogance, and diminish the pride 
of the " Big Bugs" of the world only to think, for 
a single moment, of the truth of the following : 
true of kings and queens, the powerful of the earth, 
as of swelling individual ostentation — all of whom 
and of which must so soon pass away and be utter- 
ly forgotten : 

" The History of the Past is a mere puppet-show. 
A little man comes out and blows a little trumpet, 
and goes in again. You look for something new, 
and lo! another little man comes out and blows 
another little trumpet, and goes in again. And 
it is all over !" 

Not exactly ! Here we are, with oar little tin- 
trumpet, preserving, like a court-crier, this very 
record in our Drawer; and, "which is more, go 
to," illustrating it by these forcible thoughts : 
"Look back who list unto the former ages, 

And call to count what has of them become ; 
Where be those high-born men, those antique sages, 
Which of all wisdom knew the perfect sum ? 
Where those great warriors, which did overcome 
The world with conquest of their might and main, 
And made one sea of the earth and of their reign?" 
All lost, "in the deep backward and abysm of Time !" 



" I hope you will be able to support me," said a 
young lady, while walking out one evening with 
her intended, during a slippery state of the side- 
walks. 

" Why — ah — yes," said the somewhat hesitating 



We have somewhere seen a very laughable de- 
scription of what is called a Street- Broker, that 
is, a kind of Wall Street commission-broker, who, 
though without a " local habitation," an office, or 
any thing answering to either title, has yet " a 
name" for "getting things done" for a considera- 
tion, for our certain small "money'd men" in the 
Street. Capacious pockets and the top of a greasy, 
broad-brimmed hat were the apartments where the 
undiscounted "paper" was kept, and the "safe" 
where the proceeds were deposited, previous to be- 
ing returned as such, or "invested," as the case 

might be. One such character, " Old £< ," was 

well known in our City " Bourse" or "Royal Ex- 
change" in Wall Street. 

But what does the reader think of a Government 

officer of this description ? " Old S " was a 

private officer — on his individual personal curve, 
or, in other words, "his own hook." But here is 
a national case : 

When the good land on the northern frontier of 
Missouri was beginning to be found out, say some 
thirty-five years ago, " Uncle Moses," who had 
built his cabin in a wilderness "opening," went 
into a village in that region to see if he could find 
a letter from an old friend in the interior or heart 
of " Old Kentucky." 

Three hours' ride brought him " to town." Here 
he found "The Major," who had lately been ap- 
pointed Postmaster, and who appropriated his hat 
to the purposes of a post-office, by which he com- 
plied literally with the law. He thus took "spe- 
cial care" of "letters and papers committed to his 
keeping," while, at the same time, he enjoyed 
abundant locomotive freedom. He hunted, and 
fished, and engaged in other sports, but was always 
found " in his office," and when found, was " made 
a note of," even if he had no letter in his office for 
the inquirer. 

" Are you Major ■ -, the postmaster?" 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



715 



"Yes. Any call on my department ?" 

" Got any letter in your orifice for ' Uncle 
Mose?'" 

" Guess not : no : reckon there ain't n'ary letter 
for that name." 

" It's Moses : they call me Uncle Mose." 

" Set down, ' Uncle Mose :' mebbe I have : 'pears 
to me there is a letter in the office for Moses ." 

The Major laid himself out on his side on the 
grass, emptied his hat of its contents, and said : 

" Come, Uncle Mose, help me to hunt for your 
letter. Whenever you come to any that looks 
dirty and greasy, like these," said he, " lay them 
out on this pile : they are all dead letters, and I in- 
tend to send 'em off to head-quarters the very next 
time the post-rider comes. I ain't going to take 
'em about in the office any longer !" 

"Uncle Mose" thought they were at head-quar- 
ters already ; but he put on his spectacles and as- 
sisted in the search. 

After a long look, it was found that there was 
no letter in the office for Uncle Mose. 

But the "postmaster" offered to sell "Uncle 
Mose," on commission, a lot of " store-goods" which 
he had in his capacious pockets, and a sale was ef- 
fected. 



Here is a very beautiful brace of verses upon 
"Music," which strike us as well worthy of pres- 
ervation in the Drawer : 

When life's sad dream is o'er, 

Its happiness and woe ; 
And Nature, weak and wearied out, 

Has done with all below ; 
Sit near my couch, and while my breath 

Comes feebly up, oh ! let me hear 
Thy voice repeat that plaintive strain, 

My dying hour to cheer! 

Sing while my fluttering pulse 

Its labor faintly plies ; 
Sing while my spirit hovers near, 

And while to God it flies ; 
Let the voice that soothed my morning hours, 

As cheerful sound at even, 
And thy music waft my soul away 

To sweeter strains in heaven ! 



How much, in the way of a maxim or apothegm, 
there is sometimes in a single line from a simple- 
minded, honest thinker ! Here is one which should 
not be lost upon the thousands who are thinking 
how they look, how they appear in the eyes of oth- 
ers at a party, or how, in the minds of their guests, 
their great dinner, which has cost them a world of 
trouble, fuss, and feathers, is passing off: " The 
happiest moment of your life is ichen you don't know 
it." 



" I understand you are engaged to be mar- 
ried," said a " satirical rogue" to a young man who 
was known to have no other idea of a proper 
" qualification" for a wife than that she had mon- 
ey. " Is your intended a young lady of good 
moral character?" 

" Well, yes — tolerably fair; she has forty thou- 
sand dollars in her own right now." 

" Is she accomplished ?" 

" Well, not exactly yet, but she will be. When 
the 'old man dies' she will have thirty thousand 
more. You know there are only three children, 
and the old man is as rich as Job was when he 
came into bis last property." 

Speaking of matrimony and money reminds us of 



a very clever, but carelessly written poem, deliver- 
ed by a young lady of Madison (Georgia) Female 
College, on its last commencement-day. It has 
some telling " hits," and some few phrases which 
show its Southern origin. We subjoin a few brief 
passages. If bears the appropriate title, " Has 
She any Tin ?" " tin" and " spelter" being convert- 
ible terms for cash : 

"Away with accomplishments! charms, all away! 
Tell me not of proud beauty's resistless array: 
It's nonsense, all witchcraft, a bundle of trash, 
Things heeded alone by the foolish and rash. 
Give me the rich lady, with purses of charms, 
Who wins by her dark-zes, plantations, and farms; 
Not beauty, nor graces, naught's wanted but dimes — 
They alone can console in these hard, hard times. 
Your slender-built beauties, your delicate flowers 
The sunshine can stand, not adversity's showers ; 
Like the glittering ray-fish, they're beautiful things, 
But you'd better not touch, and beware of their stings. 
Then accomplishments, extras — what won't come up next ? 
I scarcely can think of the things but I'm vexed ; 
French, Music, and Latin — the whole endless list 
Could all be dispensed with, and yet never missed. 
Your opera music, your fashionable singing, 
A sheep can surpass when his neck-bell is ringing ; 
Your daubing with paint, and your working with floss ; 
This knitting and braiding, this patchwork of moss, 
All heaped in a pile, make a beautiful mess 
For a young lady's fortune, I truly confess. 
But there's one humbug more, and the least of the train — 
That vapor that springs from the novelist's brain — 
The bubble called love, which its origin claims 
Alone in the fancy of novel-spoilt dames. 
I presume it is true, as we've all heard it said," 
It inhabits not seldom the college-boy's head, 
Imparting a smoothness and softness of skin 
That is equaled by naught but the softness within.' 
Ah ! pitiful creatures, how can they esteem 
So highly the visions of which they but dream ? 
But let them alone, they are sure to repent 
Ere in life's busy battle they've many years spent. 
When Poverty enters the threshold, she makes it 
A point to give Love through the window his exit ; 
And your lovely young wife, though the town all extol her, 
Can't compare with the charms of the all-mighty dollar. 
For this is a love which can long be enjoyed — 
Not a dream, something real, and can't be destroyed. 
******** 

As to ladies' accomplishments, tell me, I pray, 

Are these not the thoughts of this audience to-day ? 

Perhaps not of all, but of many, I guess, 

Who, if questioned, would quickly (or slowly) confess 

They have always committed that commonest sin 

Of serving their favorite divinity, Tin. 

Now do not repel the assault with a blush, 

And declare you have never regarded the plush ; 

It sticks out too plainly, when, anxious to hear, 

You inquire so intently her income a year; 

Or, with head half inclined, the sweet sound to draw in — 

' Just between you and me, has she got any tin V 

And then can't your motives be plainly discerned, 

When about some old Colonel you're might'ly concerned : 

Inquiring of weather, the prospect of rains, 

How comes on the cotton, the corn crop, and grains ; 

But finding she's rich, don't know enough yet, 

To be certain, must ask if her daddy's in debt 

If every thing suits, and the investment is sure, 

Then a quick introduction you'll plan to procure. 

But just let the answer be this : ' She is poor," 

Then your curious questions are whispered no more ; 

And turning away, like a sorrowful churl, 

' She looks like she might be a very nice girl.' " 

That pun of "dark-zes" and the "like" in this 
last line, are thoroughly indigenous. 

We printed once in the Drawer a very striking 
picture of entering London, by an American, and 



71 G 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the almost overpowering impression which its vast- 
ness made upon him. In the annexed paragraph 
from a London journal — the Times, we believe — 
the reason of this impression is, in very brief terms, 
made apparent enough : 

"London extends over a surface of one hundred 
and ticenty-two square miles, and the number of in- 
habitants is over Uvo millions three hundred thou- 
sand. A conception of this vast mass of people 
may be formed from the fact, that, if the metrop- 
olis were surrounded by a wall having gates north, 
south, east, and west, and each of the four gates 
wide enough to allow a column of persons to pass 
out freely, four abreast, and a peremptory neces- 
sity required the immediate- evacuation of the city, 
it could not be accomplished in less than twenty- 
four hours, at the end of which time the head of 
each of the four columns would have advanced at 
no less distance than seventy-five miles from their 
respective gates, all the people being in close file, 
four deep !" 

What a picture of a city is that ! And it is a 
picture that is increasing in vastness every day ; 
for London is said to be growing as fast as New 
York; but that we take leave very much to 
doubt. 



He is perhaps a foolish man who can not afford 
to laugh at a grotesque or foolish thing. Some- 
times one feels almost ashamed to be amused by a 
trifle which bears upon its face an air of iwauthen- 
ticity ; but following this rule, who would ever have 
enjoyed Gulliver's Travels — a work so often quoted 
in defense of geographical statements and psycho- 
logical developments ? Let such doubters skip the 
following : 

" A solemn-looking fellow, with a certain air of 
dry humor about the corners of his rather sancti- 
monious mouth, stepped quietly, one day, into the 
tailoring establishment of ' Call and Tuttle,' Bos- 
ton, and quietly remarked to the clerk in attend- 
ance, 

'"I want to tuttle: 

" ' What do you mean, Sir ?' 

" 'Well, I want to tuttle: noticed the invita- 
tion over your door, so I called ; and now I should 
like to tuttle /' 

" He was ordered to leave the establishment, 
which he did, with a look of angry wonder, grum- 
bling to himself, 

'"If they don't want strangers to call and tut- 
tle, what do they put up a sign for, asking 'em in 
to do it ?' " 



College-life in the last century was very dif- 
ferent from what it is now, not only in the Mother- 
Country but in our own. At that time the stu- 
dents were obliged to go to the kitchen-doors with 
their bowls or pitchers for their suppers, where 
they received their milk or chocolate in a vessel 
held in one hand, and their piece of bread in the 
other, and went straight to their rooms to devour 
it. 

"There were suspicions at times," says a writer 
of that period, " that the milk was diluted with 
water, which led a sagacious Yankee student to 
put the matter to the test. So one day he said to 
the carrier-boy : 

" 'Why don't your mother mix the milk with 
warm water instead of coldV 

" ' She does, 1 replied the boy; 'she always puts 
in warm water !' " 



Not unlike the reply of the little country girl, on 
a visit to her aunt in the city, who had waited long 
for the promised milkman to arrive, and who, 
when he did come, brought' the usual "fluid." 

The little girl had her bowl of milk, crumbled 
with bread; and after eating a mouthful or two, 
said: 

" Aunty, I don't like milkman's milk so well as I 
do cow's milk ! 'Tisn't near so good !" 



The readers of the Drawer will remember the 
"permission" given by a gallant American Col- 
onel, at Valley Forge, in the Revolution, to com- 
plaining soldiers, to leave the army and go home, 
if they chose to signify their wish to do so by step- 
ping out from the ranks ; " but," he added, " the 
first that steps out shall be shot, or my name is 

not Colonel « !" 

Something like that is the following : 
" On board the Cunard steamships the Church- 
service is read every Sunday morning. The mus- 
ter-roll of the crew is called ' to attend service.' 
" A gentleman, one day, said to one of the sailors, 
" ' Are you obliged to attend public worship ?' 
" ' N-o-o ; not exactly obliged, ye kno', Sir ; but 
we should lose our grog if we didn't ." * 

Rather "compulsory worship" we should call 
that, after all ! 



Any thing better than the subjoined illustration 
of Categorical Courtship we can safely assume no 
reader of the Drawer for many a day has encoun- 
tered : 

" I sat one night beside a blue-eyed girl — 

The fire was out, and so, too, was her mother ; 

A feeble flame around the lamp did curl, 

Making faint shadows, blending in each other ; 

'Twas nearly twelve o'clock, too, in November; 

She had a shawl en, also, I remember. 

"Well, I had been to see her every night 

For thirteen days, and had a sneaking notion 
To pop the question, thinking all was right, 

And once or twice had made an awkward motion 
To take her hand, and stammer'd, cough'd, and stut- 

ter'd; 
But somehow, nothing to the point had utter'd. 

"I thought this chance too good now to be lost; 
I hitched my chair up pretty close beside her, 
DreAv a long breath, and then my legs I cross'd, 

Bent over, sighed, and for five minutes eyed her; 
She look'd as if she knew what next was coming, 
And with her feet upon the floor was drumming. 

"I didn't know how to begin, or where — 

I couldn't speak — the words were always choking ; 
I scarce could move — I seem'd tied to the chair — 

I hardly breathed — 'twas awfully provoking! 
The perspiration from each pore came oozing, 
My heart, and brain, and limbs their power seem'd 
losing. 

"At length I saw a brindle tabby cat 

Walk purring up, inviting me to pat her ; 
An idea came, electric-like, at that — 

My doubts, like summer-clouds, began to scatter ; 
I seized on tabby, though a scratch she gave me, 
And said ' Come, Puss, ask Mary if she'll have me.' 

"'Twas done at once — the murder now was out. 

The thing was all explain'd in half a minute ; 
She blush'd, and turning pussy-cat about, 

Said, • Pussy, tell him " yes ;" ' her foot was in it! 
The cat had thus saved me my category, 
And here's the catastrophe of my story." 

" Little Rhody" turns out this through the col- 
umns of the Providence Daily Journal. 



jFiiflfei} fA—M-fM Dfltj iktrlja 



•r>^. 




THE MUSICAL FOOL. 
Mr. Paganini Pedal volunteers his seventeenth Song. 




THE STAGE-STRUCK FOOL. 
'oung Samson Blower applies for an Engagement. 




THE ARISTOCRATIC FOOL. 
Mr. Mushroom Codfish selects a Coat-of-Arms. 




THE MILITARY FOOL, 

Mr. Sabektash Centaur goes in for Glory. 




THE LITERARY FOOL. 

Mr. Byron Blobb reads his Poems to his Friends. 




THE FAST FOOL. 

Oscar Shanghai becomes a Fireman for Excitement. 




THE POLITICAL FOOL. 

Mr. Cocktail Bloater works for his Party. 




THE INQUISITIVE FOOL. 

Mr. Peeper tries to find out how Daguerreotypes are made. 



Vol. XII.— No. 71.— Y y * 



718 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




THE PEDESTRIAN FOOL. 
Mr. Podgees (the Lively Turtle) runs a Foot-Race in July. 





THE VISIONARY FOOL. 
Mr. Flighty at work on his new Flying-Machine 



THE MONEYED FOOL. 

Mr. Banker lends a Poor Man money without Security. 




AN APRIL FOOL. 
Mr. Gkabbit finds himself decidedly " sold. 




THE MATRIMONIAL FOOL. 
Mr. IIenpeck, who has married a Strong-minded "Woman. 




A BASHFUL FOOL. 
Augustus Darling dares not "propose. 




THE VERDANT FOOL. 

Mr. Jolly Green was perfectly sure of the Cards. 




NOT A BIT OF A FOOL. 
Mr. Brown declines to run for Alderman. 



fm^m k ijiriL 



Furnished by Mr. G. Bkod.e, 51 Canal Street, New York, and drawn by Vo 

from actual articles of Costume. 



IGT 



$ : ^M* 




FIGURES 1 AND ^-PbOMBIADE AND JJlNN.u TOILETS. 



720 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



THE Mantilla in Figure 1 is of black tafteta, 
ornamented with pomegranates and scrolled 
leaves embroidered in needlework, with a very rich 
crochet-headed fringe. That in Figure 3 is a scarf, 
with a passmenterie of velvet ribbon. The fringe is 
alternately black and purple, which last is the col- 
or of the garment from which our illustration has 
been drawn ; though in this respect the wearer will 
be guided by her own taste in making a selection. 
The frill is continued round the tabs, which are 
pointed. 

In the Dinner Dress (Figure 2) it will be per- 
ceived that ribbons, as trimming, are entirely su- 
perseded by velvet. This trimming is not confined 
to the robe — the laces, which are en suite, being 
traversed by narrow lines of it. The ornaments are 
drop-buttons. The sleeves, which fall away very 
full from the band below the elbow, are cut square 
upon the lower edge. They are caught up and 
confined by a strap, so as to expose the under- 
sleeves. The skirts are double, the upper one be- 
ing a tunic. It is said — we trust upon insufficient 
grounds — that jackets are losing their favor. Their 
intrinsic merits should keep them always in vogue. 

The Infant's Robe is especially adapted for a 
baptismal robe. It is only necessary to say, by 
way of description, that it is embroidered in needle- 
work. It may, if desirable, be shortened by omit- 
ting; all below the second flounce. 




Fig. 3.— Mantilla. 




Fig. 4. — Infant's Robe. 



HARPER'S 

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



No. LIXII.-MAY, 1856.— VOL XII. 






A 






mmMt 



■1! 'ffll --•■;■:-• 









^iSSHl 




nACIENDA OF LEPAGUAEE. 



A VISIT TO THE SILVER MINES OF 
CENTRAL AMERICA. 

IT was included in the instructions which 
marked out my course of travel in Central 
America, that I should examine the silver re- 
gion of Honduras, where that State borders 
upon Nicaragua, and report to my employers 
the condition, yield, and probable value of the 
principal mines. In pursuance of this duty, 
I collected all the information that could be 
gathered by conversation during the month of 
my first sojourn in Tegucigalpa, before visiting 
the gold fields of Olancho ; and on my return 
I made large additions to this knowledge by a 
personal inspection of the localities. On both 
occasions I enjoyed the hospitality of many dis- 
tinguished gentlemen interested in the produc- 
tion of silver, more especially of the Sefiores 
Lozano and Ferrari, who are probably the own- 
ers of the finest and most accessible mines of 
silver on either continent. 

The gold of modern discovery has widened 
the basis of our commerce, and, as an object of 
productive industry, has given birth to two new 
commercial centres, which will divide between 
them the wealth of the Pacific. These events 
are more important than revolutions. 



But if Gold has thus established for itself a 
new dignity and power, as a cause and instiga- 
tor of progress, no less, in times near at hand, 
will the virtue of Silver be acknowledged ; when 
its production, like the sister metal, shall fall, 
once for all, into the hands of Anglo-Saxon in- 
dustry, and under the ken of its prophetic in- 
telligence. But I am not now permitted to 
predict, and must confine these pages to what 
I have merely seen and heard. 

Nearly in the centre of the plain of Lepa- 
guare, fronting the great hacienda of Don Fran- 
cisco Zelaya, there is a hill, or ridge, called 
Cerro Gordo, about eight hundred feet high. 
In this hill, which is a mass of primary rocks, 
there are veins of silver; but as they are in the 
centre of some of the richest gold fields of the 
continent, many years will have elapsed before 
the price of American miners' labor will allow 
their being worked. Beyond the Cerro Gordo 
I saw no silver ores until I arrived, on my home 
journey, at Tegucigalpa; for I did not take the 
road through Ccdros or San Antonio, but chose 
a shorter route across the mountains, as shown 
in the map on the following page. 

Tegucigalpa (the Department) contains with- 
in its boundaries ten minerales, as the Spaniards 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S56, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the Dis- 
trict Court for the Southern Distinct of New York. 

Vol. XII.— No. 72.— Zz 



722 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



call them — mining districts — each of which has 
its group, or cluster, of important mines, most 
of them long since opened, and many in a good 
working condition. 



I shall begin this brief ac- 



count of them with a narrative of my descent 
into an old and deep silver mine in the min- 
eral of Santa Lucia. 

The map on page 726, which is the only one 



B&ycf Honduras 




I have seen, was made for me by the vener- 
able Don Francisco Lozano, himself a rich mine 
of information on all that relates to silver and 
gold. His death, which happened during my 
absence in Olancho, was a serious loss to the 
silver interest of Honduras. 

In company with Senor Ferrari, I started 
early in the morning for the mineral of Santa 
Lucia, half a day's ride from Tegucigalpa in a 
northeasterly direction, by a winding and as- 
cending road. Half way to Santa Lucia we 
turned aside to take a passing look at the Mina 
Grande, celebrated for the breadth of its veins. 
It is a joint property of Ferrari and the heirs 
of the elder Lozano. The principal vein (veta 
principal) is 11 varas (33 feet) in thickness, and 
yields a good working per-centage to the ton of 
ore. Good ores yield from $80 to $200 per 
ton, and rich ores much more than that. The 
richness of an ore is governed by its chemical 
constitution, and can not exceed a certain aver- 
age, unless, as in the Guayavilla mine, it con- 
tains threads of pure silver. Mina Grande be- 
longed formerly to the wealthy royalist family 
of Rosas, who were driven out by the revolution 
of independence. The works are drained by 
subterranean channels (taiadras). It yielded 
more than a million to the family of Rosas, 
whose enormous wealth and tyrannical oppres- 
sion made them an object of hatred to the rev- 
olutionists. 

The entrance of the principal vein is situated 
on a beautiful piece of well-wooded table-land, 
near the summit of a high mountain of lime- 
stone, on the camina real (royal highway) to 
Santa Lucia, more than 4100 feet above the sea. 



It was amusing, and really pitiable, to observe 
the excessive rudeness and inefficiency of the 
methods used for extracting the metal. Two 
old gray-headed Indians were slowly pounding 
up the rich ore between large stones ; but even 
by this process they earned a fair living, and a 
profit for the proprietors. The best organized 
works employ rude machinery for pounding, 
which consists of two irregular mill-stones, 
dragged around in a circular stone water-trough, 
by mules or oxen pulling at a long beam which 
turned on a centre post, like old-fashioned cider- 
mills. One which I saw elsewhere in operation, 
moved by water, hobbled stupidly around, crush- 
ing, it may be, half a ton a. day very imperfect- 
ly. The crushed ore, or mud, is treated by fire 
or quicksilver, or both, according to the nature 
of the ore. A good crushing machine of mod- 
ern make, such as is used by the quartz miners, 
will do more than Jifty times the Avork of these 
rumbling old mills, and with as little cost. A 
single mill would prepare ore enough on the 
Mina Grande to yield $5000 in silver every day, 
and on some mines $10,000. The manager, or 
major domo, told me, with a great deal of Span- 
ish pathos, that they lost half their silver, and 
at least half the quicksilver used in amalgama- 
tion, by bad machinery and stupid management. 
I saw little mounds of refuse ore, each of which 
would be a fortune to a Yankee miner with his 
crushers and his " science." An unaccountable 
error prevails at present about the expenditure 
required upon silver mines. I saw here, in the 
Mina Grande, ore enough at hand to keep two 
crushers at work. A good mill can be had for 
five thousand dollars ; ten thousand in all would 



A VISIT TO THE SILVER MINES OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



723 




PRIMITIVE MILL. 



erect the ovens, pay for the quicksilver, and set 
the miners at work. But the outlay of the same 
money by a Spaniard would yield only a very 
moderate return. 

We descended from Mina Grande with one 
of the noblest landscapes in the world before 
us, through a growth of shrubbery and pitch 
pine. A sea of mountains, forested to their 
crowns, lay around us. Arrived at the foot of 
this eminence, we began to ascend another, at 
the summit of which is the village, or hamlet, 
of Santa Lucia. Our tough little mules struggled 
gallantly up the steep road, and at eleven o'clock 
we had reached the highest point, 4320 feet 
above the sea. The temperature, by my own 
thermometer, did not here exceed 72° Fahren- 
heit at noon. Our little party stopped at the 
door of a neat stone house, which belongs to 
Sefior Fialles, and the servant, who was loaded 
with provisions, soon spread an excellent din- 
ner, of which Ave gratefully partook after the 
toil of the morning. After dinner we resumed 
our journey, traversing by a good road a dense 
forest for several miles, and arrived at two 
o'clock before a small hamlet of four adobe" 
houses, the property of Sefior Ferrari, one of 
which covered the entrance of the great San 
Martin mine, said to be the richest in the dis- 
trict. One of the four houses was designated 
by Sefior Ferrari as a store-house, where the 
more valuable ore is collected until it can be 
carried to the mill, three miles distant. A third 
house served as a residence for the major domo, 
or director of works, and a fourth for servants. 



The entrance to the mine is on the brow of 
the mountain, looking northwestward against a 
spur of the Cordilleras, called the Lepaterique, 
which divides the department of Comayagua 
from that of Tegucigalpa, and some of its peaks 
are among the highest in the State. Through 
a " gap," or depression, in the Lepaterique, we 
saw the distant "peak of Comayagua," near 
the city of that name, rising like a cone of 
indigo in the clear evening air. The foliage 
of the immense valleys and hillsides which 
environed us was diversified with beautiful 
tints, the brighter shades of oak and shrubbery 
contrasting with the evergreen darkness of the 
pines. 

After we had sufficiently enjoyed the splen- 
dor of this rare view, we prepared ourselves for 
a descent into the famous Mina de San Martin, 
by first taking each a " stiff horn" of aguardiente 
to keep off the subterranean cold. Then, with 
a naked Indian, bearing a tallow candle, to pro- 
ceed us, and another in similar costume to 
bring up the rear, with slow and cautious steps 
we began our backward descent into the " cel- 
larage." 

My seven months' residence in Honduras had 
given me a tolerable command of the Spanish 
language ; but during the explanatory conver- 
sation which took place between Sefior Ferrari, 
the major domo, and myself — before we entered 
the mine — I was obliged frequently to ask for 
definitions of terms. The vocabulary of the 
miners includes a variety of technical expres- 
sions. The ore itself, which they call brosa, h 



724 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



a combination or mixture of crystallized min- 
erals — limestone, quartz, sulphuret of lead, sul- 
phuret of antimony, of iron, of copper, etc., etc. 
— which fill up the irregular fissure, or break 
in the mass of the raspalda, or live-rock of the 
mountain. A vein of ore (veto) may lie be- 
tween two beds of flat rock, like a sheet be- 
tween two blankets ; or it may be simply the 
contents of a crack or fissure, which descends 
into the lower regions of the earth to an incal- 
culable depth. The metal (metales) is some- 
times pure, in threads of silver, penetrating the 
crevices of the rock like the roots of a plant ; 
but the quantity of this is never great, and the 
best mines are those which furnish a steady 
yield of rock-ore, or brosa. It is probable that 
the sulphurets of silver, antimony, copper, mer- 
cury, lead, iron, etc., which are found in these 
crevices, have risen up, either in the form of 
vapor or of lava (liquid rock), from volcanic fur- 
naces in the deep chambers of the earth. 

We entered first what is called a fronton, a 
horizontal chamber, or drift — in other words, a 
hole in the rock; but this terminated immedi- 
ately over a perpendicular shaft or well ; in min- 
ing language, sipozo. Down this, preceded by 
our guide, we commenced a slow and cautious 
backward climb, by means of an upright log of 
oak, with notches cut in it, by way of steps, for 
the feet and hands. These posts are called esca- 
feras. An escalera is usually four varas, or elev- 
en and a quarter feet in depth. At the foot of 
each escalera is a small platform of earth just 
wide enough for a landing-place ; the drift is 
then horizontal for a few feet, and a second 



escalera commences. I think that no person 
would undertake alone, though he were the 
bravest man in the world, the descent into the 
gloom of one of these mines. The reflection 
that others have gone before, and go every day 
without danger, is hardly sufficient to assure 
him. At the foot of the second escalera the 
darkness became impenetrable, and here was the 
commencement of & fronton, or horizontal drift, 
with galleries branching out, their roofs support- 
ed on either side by Avails of solid stone formed 
of the raspalda, or the natural rock, cut with 
great regularity, and the roof propped, in addi- 
tion, with pillars of heavy oaken timber, be- 
tween which glittered millions of bright reflec- 
tions from the crystalline ore. The air of this 
cavern had the clammy dampness of a neglect- 
ed dungeon. Continuing our way along the 
drift, we resumed, a little further on, our slow 
and cautious descent of the escaleras. 

I began now to perceive a faint rumbling 
sound, like the echo of footsteps in a hollow 
vault. This arose from the blows of the miners 
sounding far below us. 

After a fatiguing descent of 150 feet, in an 
air so close and palpably damp as to impede 
respiration, we found ourselves at the bottom of 
the mine : the temperature at this point was 68° 
Fahrenheit by my thermometer. Erom the bot- 
tom of the lower escalera the vein had taken a 
more horizontal direction, and was excavated 
in caverns with arched roofs, which now re- 
echoed to the blows of the miners, who struck 
the rock with pointed bars of iron, breaking off 
at every stroke portions of the rich and spark- 





TUE CONE OF COMAYAOUA. 



A VISIT TO THE SILV-ER MINES OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



725 








miner in California deep shafting was little used, 
and I had no desire to become acquainted with 
its dangers. 

One of the workmen drove his bar into a 
bank or shelf of ore, which yielded to the stroke 
like soft clay, falling out in pieces of from 10 to 
80 pounds' weight, glittering with the pyrites of 
silver and antimony. I pocketed as much as I 
dared ascend with. After a toilsome and peril- 
ous climb over yawning chasms which seemed 
like wells of liquid night, we arrived, breathless 
and reeking with perspiration, at the light of 
day. For a few moments the glare was intol- 
erable, and we felt the full effects of our fatigue. 
A pull at the bottle of aguardiente soon, how- 
ever, put our party in good-humor again, and 
served to protect us against the much-dreaded 
catarrh, the only disease of this climate, but 
which is apt to terminate in a serious influenza. 
While we were resting, the major do?uo, a civil, 
intelligent fellow r , gave me a very clear account 
of the methods employed for extracting the sil- 
ver. It yields $200* and even $300, to the 
ton of ore when treated by American chemists, 
but the workmen of Sefior Ferrari do not re- 



SECTION OF A SILVEK MINE. 

ling brosa, and emitting from the chest, as they 
struck, a peculiar hollow groan, very painful to 
hear, for one unaccustomed to the sound, but 
which a tall Herculean fellow assured me was 
" necessary to the miner, and materially eased 
his labor." The echoes of these caverns gave 
back a dense and muffled sound. It seemed as 
though the palpable darkness — compared with 
which the blackness of the night is twilight — 
bad poured itself into the hollows of my ears 
and deadened their sensibility. The cold damp, 
the haggard appearance communicated to all our 
countenances by the candle-light reflected from 
the shining ores, the wild and unnatural look 
of the subterranean workmen, the dark opening 
which led away to unknown depths and dis- 
tances into the solid heart of the earth, the idea 
which continually haunted me of the mountain 
hanging overhead, which might at any moment 
fall in and exclude us from the light of day — 
an accident for which the miner has a word in 
his dialect, campana — these thoughts made me 
take an inward resolve that my descent into the 
Mina de San Martin should be the last of my 
adventures of this kind. To the perils of the 
sea and of the wilderness I had been already 
reconciled by experience ; but when I was a 




CAMPANA, OB CAVING IN. 



726 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



alize half that amount from it. Some very or- 
dinary specimens, which I picked up and took 
with me to San Francisco, were analyzed by my 
friend Mr. Hewston, of the Mint, and gave $218 
to the ton ; Ferrari's results do not reach half 
that amount. The major domo appeared to be 
fully aware of the great loss incurred by the in- 
ferior processes in use in Honduras. " Traba- 
jamos aqui ciegos, Sefior," he exclaimed, " no 
hay intelijcntes, no hai brazos, ni fundos, ni na- 
da — absolutamente nada, Sefior — Perdimos la 
mitad de la plata porque nadie sabe estraerte."* 

To my surprise the proprietor of the mine 
corroborated the statement, and joined in the 
complaints of the major domo, and then told me 
that he was so thoroughly disgusted with the 
miserable management of the native metallur- 
gists, he would freely give me a quarter of the 
proceeds of the mine — which is one of the best 
in Honduras — if I would, of my own knowledge, 
or with the assistance of a good chemist, enable 
him to save his enormous losses in silver and 
quicksilver by the introduction of a good mod- 
ern process. 

Nature does every thing for Honduras, man 



DEPT OF YORO 



OF OLANCHO 




— at least during the present age — almost no- 
thing. A silver mine in Connecticut or Vir- 
ginia yielding $20 of silver to the ton, Avould 
be a valuable property. The Germans work 
ores of argentiferous galena, which yield only 
$5 or $7 to the ton ; and they are not unprofit- 

* " We work in the dark here, Sir; no intelligence, no 
workmen, no funds, nothing — absolutely nothing, Sir. 
We lose the half of the silver, because we are ignorant of 
the means of extracting it." 



able ; large investments of capital are made in 
mines of an inferior quality in the United States. 
and roads constructed to reach them, which cost 
twice what will be required to control the access 
to the mines of Santa Lucia. It is our gross 
ignorance of Honduras, its geography, and its 
metallic wealth, which has allowed us to leave 
it so long a hidden and useless treasure. Not 
many years can pass before this darkness will 
have been dissipated by the press ; and I regard 
even the slight and superficial information con- 
tained in this article, scattered as it will be, like 
wheat from the hand of the sower, over vast 
surfaces of active and fruitful mind, as the first 
in a series of events which will end in opening 
to all the world a new and inexhaustible source 
of commercial prosperity. 

Although we know that, under Spanish rule, 
millions of silver were taken annually from these 
mines, we are not therefore to suppose that the 
methods-of mining Avere in those days any bet- 
ter, or the arts of metallurgy more advanced. 
The secret of the great yield lay in the number 
of workmen employed in taking out the ore, 
and the number engaged in breaking and crush- 
ing it. The aim of Ameri- 
can miners is to save labor 
by machinery; machinery, 
first, to draw the ore up 
from the mine ; next, to break 
and crush it into fine dust. 
rapidly and without waste; 
and, finally, skillful metal- 
lurgy, in amalgamating and 
refining, which should not 
only save, as in Germany, 
every ounce of silver, but 
economize the quicksilver 
now dissipated and lost. 
Where there is a profit of 
ten dollars by the old pro- 
cess, there should be a hun- 
dred by the new. 

The operation of breaking 
ore for the mill is now done 
by a lazy naked native, with 
a hammer or a stone. A hun- 
dred of these fellows would 
hardly supply the trough of 
an American quartz -mill. 
The tanateros, indeed, who 
are a class of workmen em- 
ployed to bring up the ore 
in sacks from the bottom of 
the mine, do their work man- 
fully, and are, physically, a 
superior kind of laborers. They climb nimbly up 
the slippery escaleras with a load of 125 pounds 
attached to their backs. The enormous devel- 
opment of their muscles proves the violence of 
the exercise. These men are Indians or half- 
breeds, and are beautiful in form, mild, indus- 
trious, and obedient. The same labor would 
be much better and more economically per- 
formed by a small steam-engine, such as would 
cost only three or four hundred dollars ; and 



A VISIT TO THE SILVER MINES OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



727 




ENTRANCE TO A MINE. — TIMBER PROPS. 



jet by the slow methods in present use, more 
than two millions, it is said, have been netted 
since it was first opened, long previous to the 
Revolution, from the San Martin mine; corre- 
sponding with more than thirty thousand tons of 
good ore, allowing the usual losses, from a mine 
only 150 feet in depth ! This is certainly the 
largest yield on record. Not less than 60,000 
tons of rock and ore together must have been 
carried up on the backs of tanateros ! Conse- 
quent^, one million sacks of stone and ore have 
been taken out through the mouth of the mine ! 
Tf steam were applied, the annual yield of this mine, 
in pure silver, would be limited only by the number 
of men who could work abreast in its subterranean 
galleries. 

From the San Martin we rode over the same 
evening, not a mile distant, to the Gatal, an- 
other celebrated mine, also the property of Sefior 
Ferrari. Our road lay through a forest of stunt- 
ed oaks, mingled with large pines, very suitable 
for mine-timber, and terminated at a small set- 
tlement resembling the one already described. 
Notwithstanding my resolution, I made a sec- 
ond descent into the earth at this point, and 
found the excavations of the Gatal much more 
extensive and imposing than those of the com- 
paratively modern San Martin. Galleries branch 
off to the right and left to a great distance, fol- 
lowing the course of a second intersecting bed 
of ore, which traverses the plane of the larger 
or perpendicular vein. One of these, called the 
veta azul, or blue vein, is apparently conforma- 
ble with the stratification — like a bed of trap 
interposed between two layers of sandstone — 
while the other (veto, principal) is a perpendicu- 
lar fissure. All the fissures of the mountains, 



and consequently the beds of ore in this min- 
eral, run north and south, except the veta azul. 

I am not a professional geologist, and can not 
explain, even hypothetically, the causes of these 
fissures, through which the precious metals have 
oozed up to the surface from the interior metal- 
lic-lava lakes of the earth. Did they arise in 
vapor, condensing upon the walls of the fissures ? 
Were they dissolved in water, heated far beyond 
the temperature of white-hot iron, and prevent- 
ed from evaporating by the pressure of solid miles 
of rock above them? Were the fissures made 
by ancient earthquakes, themselves occasioned 
by the bulging of the crust of the earth as it 
cooled? Did the metals rise molten, in the 
form of lava ? Of one thing I am convinced, 
however, that the causes — whatever they may 
have been — pervaded a wide extent of territory, 
and were deep-seated in the earth. Silver 
mines in this region never give out ; they vary 
in width, but are indefinitely continued. Their 
supply is inexhaustible. 

While examining the interior of the Gatal, I 
observed more carefully the method of propping 
the roof of the excavation. Wherever the roof 
is shaky, or of loose stone, heavy masses of un- 
hewn timber — oak is preferred — are set under, 
as supports. The weight of the roof pressing 
slowly and insensibly downward, will sometimes 
bend these columns like reeds. Fragments are 
continually dropping from the roofs of the gal- 
leries. The miners grow accustomed to the 
danger. As I was standing in one of the 
caves which are left where large masses of ore 
are taken out, I looked up, and saw over my 
head a mass of at least five tons' weight hang- 
ing in the crevice, and ready at any moment to 



"28 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



fall. The echo of the voice or the sound of 
a hammer might have brought it down. One 
of the miners touched me, without speaking, 
and pointed to the rock. I stepped quietly out 
of the way, with a sensation like sea-sickness. 

A campana, or " caving-in," is not so danger- 
ous an affair, however, as might be imagined. 
Before the roof comes down — more especially 
when the strata above are horizontal, or mod- 
erately inclined — the mine gives out a sound, 
(|uivering and grumbling ; each timber prop — set 
close to its fellow — begins to sigh and struggle 
against the roof like a weary Hercules. The 
crash comes on slowly. A wind blows out of the 
mine ; the miners run to the main gallery, which 
is always secure, and a sound is heard for a few 
moments, not loud, but awfully significant of the 
forces at work. 

After the flight of the Rosas family, in 1831, 
the Gatal was neglected, and the galleries fell 
to decay ; but recently they have been cleared, 
and are now worked with considerable results. 
The works are placed, as usual, upon the brow 
of a steep hill, perhaps 300 feet above the gen- 
eral table-land of the district. Penetrating the 
flank of this eminence is a subterranean con- 
duit, or water-drift, called by the miners a ta- 
laclro. The entrance of the mine is certainly 
not less than 200 feet perpendicularly above the 
mouth of the taladro. Out of this runs all the 
natural drainage of the mine, and the excess 
poured into it during the rainy season. The 




drain penetrates horizontally and upward to the 
galleries, with which it is connected by wells, or 
shafts, sunk in the remote interior. This tala- 
dro is estimated to have cost the Rosas $30,000, 
when labor under an arbitrary government was 
far less expensive than at present. American 
miners would have incurred an outlay of at 
least $100,000 in the boring of this tunnel, and 
without it the Gatal mine would be compara- 
tively valueless. There are several mines in the 
mineral of Santa Lucia drained in the same 
manner. Taladros are the principal expense 
in silver mining. Without them the only re- 
source would be a powerful steam-pump, and it 
is for this reason that all the mines of the de- 
partment are opened on heights, which gives an 
opportunity for subterranean drainage. Farther 
to the north, on the summit of the hill, is a him- 
brera, or air-hole, which must have been equally 
expensive, as it penetrates to the lower galleries. 

As we rode over the country many places 
were pointed out to me by my companions where 
silver veins had been traced ; and there is no 
doubt that a net-work of silver penetrates all 
the mountains of this district. It will always 
be impossible to estimate the amount of silver 
contained in these hills, but it is not saying 
much to affirm that the present waste and wear 
of silver in arts and commerce might be readily 
supplied from them. 

Having filled a sack with the glittering ore 
of the Gatal, I mounted with the rest, and we 




TANATEKO — OKE CABBIES. 



A VISIT TO THE SILVER MINES OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



729 



*J 









ISiiM 



1 T<H XV 













1 



INDIAN BILVEK AIINEB. 



turned our faces homeward. At the roadside 
I saw a mound of not less than 1000 tons of re- 
fuse, or medium ore, mingled with rubbish, too 
poor for transportation by mules to the mill. 
This will yield $20 or $30 to the ton, and can 
be had for the asking. Seiior Ferrari assured 
me that he does not raise more than half a ton 
a day from the Gatal, employing ten workmen. 
This daily half ton gives full employment to his 
mill, and yields an average of 12£ marcs, equal 
to 100 ounces of silver. A marc is worth $3 of 
good coined money in Tegucigalpa. There is 
not a mine in Santa Lucia which does not average 
four marcs to the quintal of 500 pounds. The 
native miners, nearly all of them out of employ- 
ment, haunt the old mines, and by a rude smelt- 
ing process, in earthen pots, obtain buttons of 
crude silver, worth intrinsically about $1 the 
ounce. These are every day brought into Te- 
gucigalpa, and sold to the retail traders at a large 
discount. This is one source, and at present 
the principal one, of the silver carried from Be- 
lize and San Miguel to London. 

While riding in company with a friend in 
the vicinity of Tegucigalpa, I happened upon a 
group of Indians near the entrance of a desert- 
ed mine. It was a gloomy cavern in the side of 
the hill, overhung with aged trees. An old wo- 
man, with a couple of naked children, was boil- 
ing a pot over a fire of pine-knots. The father 
of the family, with a bar of iron in his hands, 
stood at the entrance of the cavern, waiting 
until the strangers should pass by. Several 
masses of very rich ore lay at his feet. Wish- 
ing to see this primitive metallurgist at work, I 
alighted, and remained awhile in the shade ob- 



serving the process. A bag of copper dollars 
and a few words of encouragement were all that 
was required to induce him to begin again for 
me. He entered the low drift, creeping on his 
hands and knees, and soon the muffled blows of 
the bar announced that he had discovered a mass 
of ore by the twilight of the mine. In half an 
hour, or less time, he came out, dragging behind 
him in a sack about twenty pounds of the shin- 
ing brosa. The man and woman then selected 
each a flat stone, and began pounding the ore, 
which was thus gradually reduced to the condi- 
tion of a gravelly dust. The fire, meanwhile, 
was fed largely by the children ; a smaller earth- 
en pot, holding a portion of the brosa, was set 
deep in a bed of coals. The wood was piled 
over it, sulphureous vapors escaped, and when 
the whole had burned fiercely awhile and fallen 
to ashes, our son of Tubal Cain drew forth the 
pot and turned out upon the ground a mass of 
gray, black, and red slag and ash, out of which 
I drew with a stick a button of red-hot silver, 
weighing, perhaps, two ounces. For this button 
I gave the miner a silver dollar, and he seemed 
well satisfied with the price, which was less than 
half its value in the market. These wandering 
miners form a considerable portion of the coun- 
try population. Their occupation yields them 
a meagre subsistence. With them also rests the 
knowledge of many rich veins in the recesses of 
the mountains, to which they resort at certain 
seasons, transmitting the secret through many 
generations. It is, however, only the best ores 
that can be treated in such a primitive fashion, 
and the loss is excessive. 

The riches of this wonderful region are not 



730 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



confined, however, to the precious metals. Lead 
in the form of sulphuret is almost too common 
to attract attention, more especially in the min- 
eral of El Plomo, the ores of which are a mix- 
ture of lead and silver, the former in so large a 
proportion as to make them unprofitable by the 
native methods of working. 

The hill called "El Chimbo," two leagues 
S.S.W. from the city, is a mass of copper dust. 
The surface of this hill must have been once a 
solid rock of copper pyrites (sulphuret), now de- 
cayed and converted into a blue rotten-stone. 
While standing on the side of the hill I kicked 
away the sod with the heel of my boot, and turn- 
ed up the copper earth in lumps like potter's 
clay. From a quantity of this clay, which was 
carried home for me by the mozo, I washed out 
clean grains of native copper. The entire hill 
seemed to be composed of it. Here, then, are 
thousands of tons of pure copper to be had for 
the washing, and a waterfall near by to do it 
with. 

Tegucigalpa should have been called Argu- 
ropolis — the Silver City — since there is none 
other in the world so well entitled to the name. 
Its grand cathedral, massive public buildings, 
and well-paved streets testify to its former 
wealth and prosperity. Many of its private 
dwellings must have been occupied by men of 
vast wealth and aristocratic habits; but the day 
of these has gone by, and never will return. Non 
bis in idem — the same fortune will not twice hap- 
pen to the same people. The Spanish race are 
outworn ; their own servants have thrown down 
the tools, and now they sigh for us to come and 
help them. 

Las Minas de la Plata, San Juan de Cantara- 
nos, La Mineral de Guascaran, where there is a 
mine now in operation yielding silver; Xa Min- 
eral de Plomo, where, in any part of the district, 
ten or twelve feet of digging uncovers Hat layers 
of argentiferous ores conforming to the strata ; 
Villa Nueva, Santa Lucia, with its six grand 
mines in a circle of less than twelve miles di- 
ameter; Yuscaran, with nine valuable mines, 
all well situated and drained, and from one of 
which, the Guayavilla, $500,000 was taken in 
four months during President Ferrara's admin- 
istration ; Cedros, on the road to Olancho, where 
the silver is pure in threads ; San Antonio, where 
there are vast horizontal layers of ore, yielding 
native silver, only a few yards beneath the sur- 
face, where $16,000 was taken out from Sefior 
Gardela's mine (the Veta AzvT) in ten days, and 
where the Mairena mine, in the years 1 804-1808, 
yielded an immense fortune to its proprietors ; 
all these minerales lie open to the enterprise of 
Americans, who have the good-will of the gov- 
ernment and the proprietors, to introduce ma- 
chinery and the best methods of extracting the 
ore. 

In the year 1805 Sefior Mairena, with a por- 
tion of the proceeds of his own, the Mairena 
mine, built a church in San Antonio, at a cost 
of $600,000, and, at the feast of dedication, 
when the edifice was completed, threw away 










BREAKING OEE. 



thousands in pieces of silver among the crowd. 
In 1816 the mine which yielded such enormous 
wealth was abandoned, all the workmen having 
been taken for military service. The mineral 
of San Antonio, though less than a quarter of 
a league square, has produced millions of dol- 
lars. At present, silver is taken from it only 
by a few wandering miners, who get out bars 
worth from five to ten dollars to sell to the 
traders. 

I found the climate very cool and pleasant 
during most of the time in this elevated region. 
Its general height above the sea, which exceeds 
4000 feet, makes it temperate, and the ther- 
mometer ranges some fifteen or twenty degrees 
lower than on the coast. The soil and air are 
both favorable in the highest degree to agricul- 
tural labor, and with an industrious population 
it would have no occasion to import any kind 
of food. The dullness of the lower class of 
people here is only equaled by that of negroes, 
but they will work when they are well paid and 
fed. Of machinery their ideas are limited to 
an ox-mill, and in these days they can not even 
build that. The general insecurity of property 
since the beginning of revolutions in 1821, has 
so thoroughly demoralized the people that they 
are even afraid openly to accumulate riches. It 
was related to me that a German miner, who 
came up from Nicaragua, having discovered a 
good vein of silver in a recess of the mountains, 
began working at it in the Indian fashion, and in 
two seasons he had accumulated what we call in 
California " a pile" — several thousand dollars — 
which he hid carefully away in the shrubbery of 
a canon or gorge. He made periodical journeys 
to the nearest settlement — twenty miles distant 



A VISIT TO THE SILVER MINES OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 



731 



— for provisions. At length, grown weary of 
his solitary life and the danger attending it, he 
went down to San Miguel, on the Pacific, and 
persuaded a merchant of that place to go with 
him and assist in the removal of the treasure. 
Such incidents are entirely possible, and of the 
many that were related to me, I have no doubt 
a good number were truly told. Three adven- 
turers from Nicaragua, in the same manner, go- 
ing up into the mountains, lighted on a cinna- 
bar mine, and, working all by themselves, car- 
ried off seven or eight thousand dollars in quick- 
silver before the proprietors discovered them. 

I will endeavor, before closing this article, to 
give my readers a rough description of the va- 
rious metallurgic processes now in use in Hon- 
duras ; but before doing this I must make sure 
to place on record the history of an enterprise 
undertaken some years ago in Yuscaran — the 
exploration of the celebrated Guayavilla mine. 

The causes of the decay and neglect of sil- 
ver mining in Honduras are not perceived by 
Americans only. My esteemed friend, the el- 
der Lozano, whose knowledge of silver mines ex- 
ceeded that of any person I have met, was truly 
sensible of the faults and misfortunes of his 
countrymen in their political and mining econ- 
omy. His death, during my absence in Olancho, 
deprived me of many advantages ; but I took the 
precaution during my first visit to note down 
several conversations with him, and to procure 
all the information which the time permitted. 

"My countrymen," he would say, "have 
gained many things by throwing off their alle- 
giance to Spain; but they have also deprived 
themselves of great benefits by not establishing 
a firm and lasting government." 

"Why, then," I asked, "have you not culti- 
vated a good understanding with powerful and 
well-governed nations — Great Britain for ex- 
ample, or France? Have not they always 
shown a willingness to trade with you, and to 
develop the wealth of your mines?" 

"Their intentions," he replied, "may have 
been good, but their efforts have not resulted fa- 
vorably. I do not know why they are so un- 
lucky, unless it be that their manner of treating 
our people has been too arbitrary, and too openly 
selfish. They think it necessary always to ter- 
rify and overawe us; or perhaps, as in the case 
of Nicaragua, instead of cultivating just and 
friendly relations, their agents have aggressed 
and trampled upon us at every opportunity. 
We are not the less sensible of injustice be- 
cause we are weak. Besides that, Sefior, they 
carry too much away with them. We wish those 
who develop the mines to remain with us, and give 
tis a portion of the benefit" 

"And have all these enterprises proved un- 
successful ?" 

"By no means. Mr. Bennett's management 
of the Guayavilla mine in Yuscaran was emi- 
nently successful, for a time. That, you know, 
was broken up by a revolution." 

"I should like to hear more about it." 

" Mr. Bennett was at one time the partner in 



.business of your consul, Sefior Follin, at Omoa. 
A very intelligent gentleman is Sefior Follin, 
who has rendered eminent services to Honduras. 
Well, as I was saying, Bonnett went afterward 
to Omoa, and died there, I have been told, in 
1847. -He came to Tegucigalpa in 1838, and 
re-opened the Guayavilla mine in Yuscaran, 
near by here, with Cornwall miners, who were 
sent for from England ; coarse, quarrelsome 
men, hard-headed brutes, but good miners — 
very good miners, Sefior; and I wish Sefior 
Ferrari and I had a hundred of them. Long- 
before this, the Guayavilla mine had been 
worked. Previous to the year 1821 — the year 
of revolution — Tegucigalpa was a rich capital, 
and the mining business made us all rich, pros- 
perous, ' and proud. When the two factions, 
the Conservatives and the Democrats, began 
their civil wars, now happily terminated by 
President Cabafias, each in its turn seized 
upon the miners and pressed them into the 
army. The estates were confiscated, the for- 
eign and Spanish proprietors driven out of the 
country. Industry fell dead. There was no 
capital, no credit, no exchange. Confusion, 
misery, and distrust prevailed, and extinguished 
even avarice and ambition, passions in which we 
are not deficient, Sefior. The export of silver 
fell off to less than half a million. 

" At length, after seventeen years of distrust 
and inactivity, Mr. Bennett made his appearance, 
and we were again delighted with the sound of 
business and the dawn of better days. Many 
citizens of Honduras joined Mr. Bennett and 
his English associates, and the Guayavilla mine 
was re-opened. Its wealth in silver exceeded all 
expectation. The Cornish and native miners, 
paid weekly their regular wages, worked with 
energy and skill. Thousands of tons of rich 
ore, yielding one hundred and even five hun- 
dred dollars to the ton, were rapidly taken out. 
The stamping-mills, furnaces, and quicksilver 
machines, were soon erected and in full opera- 
tion. Provisions in abundance poured in from 
the country. Every body in Tegucigalpa began 
to smile and look happy. Trade revived. The 
women boughtluxuries, and enjoyed themselves. 
People danced and sang, and made jollifications, 
and all this quarter of Honduras was in a tu- 
mult of pleasure and prosperity. Every one 
was benefited and no one was jealous. Oh ! 
Sefior Guillermo," said the old man, pausing 
to draw a deep sigh in the midst of his narra- 
tion, "if your countrymen, los Americanos del 
Norte, that great and happy people, would but 
come here and renew those good old times, how 
rich and happy we should become !" 

The old gentleman paused to roll a fresh 
cigarito ; then waving it gracefully in the air, 
he said, 

"Do you believe, Sefior, that the great rail- 
road from Omoa to the Pacific will ever be 
built?" 

"Certainly," I replied, "Senor Lozano, it 
will be finished ; and, more than that, the mines 
will be re-opened by my countrymen." 



732 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




CAVERNS IN THE GUATAVILLA MINE. 



"Ah, I am too old to see such happiness; 
is not this country a heautiful piece of earth ?" 

" But the Guayavilla mine," said I ; "proceed, 
Senor." 

"Well, as I -was saying, the mine yielded 
enormously. Nothing like had been ever heard 
of before. The ore was often found coated over 
with threads of pure silver, and pieces yielded 
fifty per cent. Enormous ovens were constant- 
ly filled with it, from which streams of silver 
poured away day and night. Government, par- 
tially interested, gave us every help. All the 
proprietors and stockholders were enriched. No 
enterprise of industry ever yielded better or 
more constant returns. The fame of the mine 
extended even to England. The silver was 
shipped to that country through Belize. Here 
was a forcible illustration of the value of foreign 
labor, skill, and capital, in Honduras. I used 
to see the workmen paid off in lines, commenc- 
ing at noon on Saturday, and not ending until 
dark." 

" This prosperity had an end, however," said I. 

"Yes, Seiior, la fatalidad del pais, the curse 
of the people — revolution, killed it all. Ferrara, 
the murderous instrument of the aristocratic fac- 
tion (Serviles), was elected by fraud to the presi- 
dency ; property confiscated ; rich men mur- 
dered, or driven away ; all respectable and hon- 
est people banished ; all affairs reversed and 
ruined. A gentleman of Guatemala, a large 
proprietor of Guayavilla stock, dying, the prop- 
erty went into the hands of his brother, a law- 
yer of the lowest character in the party of 
Ferrara. Hitherto the Guayavilla mine had 
been comparatively exempt from the outrages 
of the Servile faction. This was owing to the 



influence of foreigners, principally Englishmen, 
and some members of the faction of Ferrara 
who were interested in the property. The law- 
yer of Guatemala, Senor Don Philipe Janregui, 
defrauded the heirs of his brother ; and because 
he knew that at the close of Ferrara's adminis- 
tration he would be compelled to restore the 
property, resolved, meanwhile, to make the best 
of it. 

There is a law which prohibits the removal 
of those natural columns of rock and ore which 
support the roof and arches of a mine. In the 
Guayavilla mine they were solid ore of immense 
value. President Ferrara was bribed by Senor 
Janregui to procure a repeal of the law. Others 
of the owners agreed ; the pillars were taken 
down, and in four months yielded more thaa 
half a million in pure silver ; but the next rainy 
season the roof fell in, and the mine was ruined. 
The long galleries became choked with stones, 
timber, and mud ; the machinery went to wreck, 
and the foreign proprietors, after expostulating 
in vain with Ferrara, abandoned the enterprise 
in disgust." 

" The mine, then, is still in ruins ?" 

"Yes, a mere mud pit. The heirs recovered 
their property when Cabanas came in ; but they 
have no capital." 

" Sefior, it is my opinion that my countrymen 
will re-open the Guayavilla mine." 

" Bueno ! if they will ! Our department is 
full of silver veins. I will show you." 

The old gentleman then took a pencil and, 
still retaining the inevitable cigarito, sketched 
with a trembling hand a rude map of the silver 
localities, or minerales of the department. 

" Here," said he, " is coin for the world ; 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



733 



forty good mines, known to be rich, and which 
have already yielded great sums with little la- 
bor. Veins, as yet unopened, intersect every 
mountain from base to summit. I have marked 
out the minerales for you thus. Each has its 
group of mines. Many are already drained, 
and require but a small outlay to be made pro- 
ductive. We offer great riches to your coun- 
trymen, Senor Guillermo." 

" They are a careful and considerate people," 
I replied; "and though they well know that it 
is a part of their future business to supply the 
world with silver, as well as with ships, food, 
and gold, they will not enter rashly upon these 
works. They wish tc know before they under- 
take. Americans are not like some other na- 
tions I could speak of, who throw millions into 
the sea to catch a few poor little fish." 

" That is right — I approve. But you shall be 
the first to inform them ; they will believe you." 

It remains only before closing this very mea- 
gre and, I fear, unsatisfactory abstract of my in- 
formation regarding the silver region of Tegu- 
cigalpa, to add a few paragraphs explanatory of 
the metallurgic processes in use here for ex- 
tracting the ore. In my report to the Honduras 
Mining and Trading Company, I have explain- 
ed these methods at large, and with the assist- 
ance of Mr. Hewston's analysis of the ores, have 
given an estimate of the capital required to open 
new mines, and to clear out and work the old 
ones. This latter I believe to be much the best 
policy for those who engage in silver-mining in 
this region with a limited capital. 

Mines are located upon high ground, as near 
as possible to the verge of a hill, to afford op- 
portunity for drainage. It struck me that the 
American method of opening a mine at the foot 
of the hill, and making the entrance serve the 
double purpose of a drain and a level for ore- 
cars, would be far more profitable than the la- 
bor of tanatcros. The ore and the water would 
then run out through the same channel by force 
of gravitation. 

Ox-mills are in use in several parts of this 
region. They are slow and unserviceable. As 
mill-dams are too apt to be carried away by the 
vast torrents of the rainy season, small steam- 
engines, fed with pitch-pine, which is abundant, 
would be more manageable, and save a great 
expense in carrying the ore to the mill, as a 
j-team-engine can be placed any where, even in 
the mine itself, if desired. 

The Spanish year has one hundred feast-days, 
during which there is no labor. This is one- 
third of the time lost. A little discreet man- 
agement, such as paying double wages a few 
times to those who will work, aided by a good 
understanding with the priests, would soon 
break down this custom. The example of a 
few foreign miners will also have a great effect. 

The ore, ground to a paste by the rolling 
stones attached to the horizontal shaft, or cross- 
beam, of the ox or water-mill, flows out in mud 
through a set of seives, which retain the coarser 
particles, and settles in a huge stone vat. This 



paste is shaped into cakes of 100 pounds each, 
mixed with a quantity of salt, to detach the 
sulphur during the baking process. The heat 
of the ovens is very great. The burnt powder 
contained pure silver, separated and diffused. 
It is spread out on a stone floor and sprinkled 
with quicksilver, showered down from above 
through seives. This forms an amalgam. The 
amalgam is washed out and heated in iron re- 
torts, which sublimes the mercury and leaves ' 
the silver in solid buttons. The mercury is 
condensed in cold receivers, but a great deal is 
lost in the dust of the burnt cakes. 

Another method is to roll the baked ore with 
water, pieces of iron, and mercury, in barrels, 
revolving by machinery. Ores which contain a 
great deal of lead are burnt, so as to drive off 
the sulphur, and melt the lead and silver to- 
gether. The lead is then burnt out by a steady 
blast of hot air. This is the ordinary " cupel- 
lation." All the operations of roasting, smelt- 
ing, and " cupellation" are sometimes performed 
in one process by a powerful blast-furnace. 

Quicksilver is, of course, in great demand : 
but the mines of quicksilver ore (cinnabar), 
though near at hand, are not worked for want 
of knowledge. 

Germans would be probably the best opera- 
tives to employ on these mines, under Amer- 
ican direction. They do not expect high wages, 
and are faithful to their engagements. 

The ratio of profit in first-class silver mines is 
from $60 to $70 of gross receipts for $30 of 
outlay — an excellent return ; but this is by the 
Mexican method of working, with a few Ger- 
man improvements. In American hands the 
profits should be doubled. That valuable cin- 
nabar mines should remain unworked, within 
less than thirty miles of Tegucigalpa, is a fact 
that precludes the necessity of answering the 
usual question of overshrewd and ignorant peo- 
ple, "Why, if these mines exist, have they not 
been worked by those who own them?" To 
have acquired and to possess a good estate is 
the virtue and fortune of the Spaniard and of 
all his descendants ; not to know how to draw 
from it a good revenue is his fault and his evil 
destiny. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION 
TO JAPAN. 

"I am for bombarding all the exclusive Asiatics, who 
shut up the earth, and will not let me walk civilly and 
quietly through it, doing no harm, and paying for all I 
want." — Sydney Smith. 

SECOND VISIT. 

AFTER Commodore Perry's first satisfactory 
visit to Japan, he returned to China in or- 
der to secure a thorough refitment of his ships, 
and to obtain such an accession to his squadron 
that he might present himself for the second 
time in the Bay of Yedo, with so formidable a 
force that the Japanese should be persuaded, 
however reluctantly, to accede to the rational 
demands of the United States. While the 
Commodore was disposed to proffer the hand 



734 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 










. 



^*-*- ^r. 






■ mi 
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VIEW OF THE BAY OF YEDO. 



of friendship, he was also determined to show- 
that he had the power to strike, so that the Jap- 
anese, if disinclined to become friends, might 
fear to be enemies. A respectful hearing he was 
resolved to have ; this he believed his country 
fully entitled to, and this he knew, with the 
force at his command, he could secure. 

It was originally the intention of Commodore 
Perry to have delayed his second visit until the 
spring of 1854, but finding that some Russian 
and French government vessels were moving 
suspiciously in those Eastern seas, and fearing 
that their purpose was to proceed to Japan, 
and to forestall the proposed American negoti- 
ations, he determined to anticipate their manoeu- 
vres. The Commodore, accordingly, left Hong 
Kong in the middle of January, in the steam- 
er Susquehanna, accompanied by the Powhatan, 
which had lately arrived from the United States, 
the Mississippi, and the storeships the Lexington 
and Southampton, and arrived at Napa, in Loo- 
Choo, on the 21st of January. Here he re- 
mained two weeks, and sailed again with the 
three steamers, on the Gth of February, for the 
Bay of Yedo ; the sailing ships the Macedonian, 
Vandalia, Lexington, and Southampton having 
been dispatched five days previously for the 
same place. The Commodore directed his 
course, on leaving the harbor, to the southwest 
of Loo-Choo, with the hope of falling in with 
the Saratoga man-of-war, which had been ex- 
pected to arrive from Shanghae and meet him 
at Napa. The three steamers had hardly stood 
out to sea when they fortunately fell in with the 



long-looked-for ship, which was ordered to pro- 
ceed immediately to the rendezvous in Yedo 
Bay. 

With smooth seas and prosperous winds, the 
steamers made a rapid run, and on the fifth day 
after their departure from Napa, in Loo-Choo, 
arrived off the mouth of the Bay of Yedo. A 
severe blow from the northward and eastward 
forced the vessels, however, to keep during the 
night under the lee of the island of Oho-Sima, 
in order to avoid the violence of the gale. The 
next day, however, opening more favorably, the 
three steamers stood up the bay. The outlines 
of the coast were recognized from the recollec- 
tions of the previous visit, but a great change 
had come over the face of the landscape in con- 
sequence, of the difference of season. The pre- 
cipitous bluffs of Cape Sagami rose bleakly in 
the wintry atmosphere on the left, and the ir- 
regular coast of Awa, some twelve miles away 
on the right, showed dim and blue in the dis- 
tance. The summit of Mount Fuzee-Yama 
peered high above the island of Niphon, and 
was now, Avith the surrounding mountains, com- 
pletely clothed in a winter mantle of snow. 
The rich verdure of the land had lost its cheer- 
ful summer aspect, and looked withered, bleak, 
and sombre. The abundant vegetation of the 
valleys was stripped of its foliage, and the bare 
trees swayed to and fro in the wintry wind which 
swept through them. Along the shores every 
where thronged the villages and towns, which 
looked desolate and exposed in comparison 
with their former appearance of rural comfort 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



731 



when nestling in the full-leaved groves of sum- 
mer. 

On the steamers closing in with the shore on 
the left, as they advanced up the bay, two square- 
rigged vessels were observed, apparently at an- 
chor, within a bight of the land in the neigh- 
borhood of Kama-Kura. They were soon dis- 
covered to be the Macedonian and Vandalia, the 
former of which had got aground by mistaking 
the bearings of the coast, and was now being- 
assisted by her consort, which had gone to her 
relief. With the aid of the steamers the Mace- 
donian was soon relieved from her perilous posi- 
tion, but as the day was far advanced, the whole 
squadron, including the Lexington, which had 
arrived during the evening, anchored for the 
night. 

Next morning ("February 13th) the three 
steamers, the Powhatan, Mississippi, and Susque- 
hanna, with the Lexington, Vandalia, and Mace- 
donian in tow, moved up the Bay of Yedo, sail- 
ing in a line ahead. With the experience of 
the navigation acquired on the previous visit, 
there was no occasion for the ships to feel their 
way cautiously as before, and they now confi- 
dently advanced up the magnificent bay. As 
the squadron doubled the promontory of Uraga, 
and passed the old anchorage abreast of the 
town, a large number of government boats, Avith 
their athletic oarsmen sculling vigorously, and 
their little striped flags fluttering in the wind, 
pushed off to intercept the ships as on the pre- 
vious visit. The squadron, however, moved on 
majestically without altering its course a line, 
or lingering a moment in its speed, until the 
anchorage was reached. The place in which 
the vessels came to anchor was the appointed 
rendezvous, termed on the previous visit the 
" American Anchorage," and where the South- 
ampton, having arrived in advance of all the 
ships, was now found moored. The three 
steamers and four ships presented a formidable 
force. Such a vigorous manifestation of power 
on the part of a far-remote nation, within the 
very centre of Japan, and at the distance of 
only an hour's sail from the capital, must have 
greatly impressed the secluded Japanese with 
the wonderful energies and resources of the 
United States, and their own utter powerless- 
ness to cope with them. 

The "American Anchorage" is situated on 
the western side of the Bay of Yedo, in the 
bight embraced within two bold headlands, 
about twelve miles distant from each other. 
The position of the squadron was thus less 
than a dozen miles from the capital of Yedo 
itself, and at about the same distance up the 
bay from the town of Uraga, which had been 
the scene of the interview during the previous 
visit on the reception of the President's fetter. 
Although the winter is not very severe in that 
part of Japan, the climate of which is similar 
to that of Carolina, yet there was a very ap- 
parent change of season in the aspect of the 
country, as, in fact, in the temperature of the 
atmosphere. The thermometer in the month 



of February did not often indicate a degree of 
cold less than 38°, but frequent blustering winds, 
prevalent fogs and rains, and occasional snow 
storms, made the weather chilly and uncom- 
fortable. The surrounding country, in spite of 
the groves of ever-green pines, had a wintry 
look, and the vegetation even in the sheltered 
valleys was comparatively bare, while the dis- 
tant hills and mountains were covered witli 
snow. The island that had been called Perry's, 
which had presented such a picturesque ap- 
pearance with its verdant groves during the 
summer, now lay within sight of the squadron 
comparatively winter-stricken, with many of its 
trees stripped of their foliage by the winds and 
frost, and with the fort which crowns the sum- 
mit of the rising ground more plainly visible. 
The villages of Otsu and Torrigaske, within the 
bend of the bay, about a mile distant from the 
anchorage, now but partially sheltered by the 
pines, stood out, with the staring surfaces and 
sharp outlines of their peaked-roofed and un- 
painted boarded houses, more distintly defined. 

Two of the government boats had followed 
in the wake of the squadron as it moved up to 
its anchorage, and the ships had hardly let go 
their anchors when the boats came alongside 
the flag-ship Susquehanna. The Japanese of- 
ficials on board desired to see the Commodore, 
but as he was still determined to preserve a 
strict exclusiveness, and only present himself of- 
ficially to the highest dignitaries of the empire, 
they were refused admission to the Susquehan- 
na, and were directed to the steamer Powhatan. 
Here they were received by Captain Adams, 
when the members of the Japanese deputation 
were officially announced by their names, titles, 
and offices. The chief dignitary was Kurakawa 
Kahie, and his subordinates were two interpret- 
ers, who were recognized as those who had of- 
ficiated on a former occasion, and three gray- 
robed individuals, who seemed to be making 
excellent use of their eyes and their note-books, 
and turned out to be Metske Devantigers — lit- 
erally cross-eyed persons, or those who look in 
all directions — whose function was that of spies 
or reporters. Upon being admitted to an au- 
dience, the Japanese interpreters explained that 
the object of the visit of the deputation was to 
prevail upon the Commodore to move his ships 
to Uraga, where, as they stated, there were 
some high dignitaries appointed by the Emper- 
or to meet the Americans. The Commodore 
had, however, resolved not to go back to Uraga., 
and Captain Adams so stated to the Japanese, 
who, however, insisted that the proposed inter- 
view, for the reception of the answer to the Presi- 
dent's letter and for the arrangement of a treaty, 
must be held there, in accordance with the im- 
perial command. They then Avere told that if 
the Japanese Commissioners would not consent 
to meet the Commodore at a point opposite to 
his present anchorage, he would move his ships 
further up the bay, and even to the capital it- 
self, if it should be deemed necessary. 

Day after day the Japanese officials repeated 



736 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 





VIEW OF YOKUIIAMA. 



their visits, and pertinaciously insisted upon the 
Commodore's going to Uraga, while he reso- 
lutely and emphatically reiterated his refusal. 
The Japanese, finding that the Commodore was 
not to be moved from his fixed resolve, at last 
yielded the point, and, giving up Uraga, ap- 
pointed Yokuhama, a place much higher up the 
bay, for the proposed interview with the Com- 
missioners. Ten days, however, had been spent 
in fruitless negotiations, and the Commodore 
had put his threat into execution of moving his 
ships toward Yedo, and had approached so near 
to the capital that the striking of its night- 
watches could be distinctly heard, before the 
Japanese dignitaries had shown any disposition 
toward concession. 

Yokuhama is one of the numerous villages 
which succeed each other in an almost uninter- 
rupted series along both sides of the Bay of 
Yedo, from the sea to the capital. It is situ- 
ated at the head of what the Americans have 
called Treaty Bay, and is distant about nine 
miles from Yedo. The Japanese having hastily 
erected a temporary wooden building on the 
shore near the village, and the Commodore 
having anchored his squadron, consisting of 
three steamers and six sailing vessels, so as 
completely to command the position, the con- 
ference took place on the 8th of March. 

The Americans proceeded in large numbers 
to the shore, and having formed an imposing 
procession, with their officers, marines, and 
sailors in uniform, and their bands playing, 
escorted the Commodore and his suite to the 
entrance of the building. There was less mili- 
tary display on the part of the Japanese than 
there had been on the occasion of the reception 
of the President's letter. There were, however, 
numerous groups of pikemen, musicians, and 
flag-bearers, in showy costume, with their coats 
emblazoned with armorial bearings, arrayed on 
either side of the approach. They were prin- 
cipally the retainers of the princes who were 
members of the Commission appointed to con- 
fer with the Commodore, and were only present 



to add to the show of the occasion. The build- 
ing itself was tricked off with streamers and 
banners, and draped in front with a curtain, 
upon which was painted the arms of the Em- 
peror, consisting of three clover-leaves embraced 
within a circle. Striped canvas was stretched 
on cither side of the building for a long distance, 
and barriers were erected to keep off the multi- 
tude of Japanese who thronged about with eager 
curiosity. 

The Commissioners had been observed from 
the ships to come down from the neighboring 
town of Kanagawa, at an early hour, in their 
state barge. This was a large and gayly-paint- 
ed vessel, which, with its pavilion rising high 
above the hull, had very much the appearance 
of a Mississippi steamboat. White streamers 
floated from tall flag-staffs, variegated drapery 
adorned the open deck above, and a huge silken 
tassel fell from the prow nearly to the surface 
of the water. A fleet of row-boats towed the 
barge opposite to the landing, and the Commis- 
sioners then disembarked, while the crews of 
the thousand Japanese craft in the bay prostrated 
themselves as the dignitaries passed to the shore. 

The apartment into which the Commodore 
and his officers first entered was a large hall, 
arranged in a similar manner to that at Gori- 
hama. Thick rice-straw mats carpeted the 
floor ; long and wide settees, covered with a red 
cloth, extended along the sides, with tables, 
spread with the same material, arranged in front 
of them. The windows were composed of panes 
of oiled paper, through which a subdued and 
mellow light illuminated the hall, while a com- 
fortable temperature was kept up — for, although 
the spring, which is early in Japan, had already 
opened, the weather was chilly — by copper bra- 
siers o*f burning charcoal, which, supported upon 
lacquered wooden stands, were freely distributed 
about. Hangings fell from the walls adorned 
with paintings of trees and representations of 
the crane, with its long neck, in every variety 
of strange involution. 

The Commodore and his officers and inter- 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



preters had hardly taken their seats on the left, 
the place of honor, and the various Japanese 
officials, of whom there was a goodly number, 
theirs on the right, when the five Commission- 
ers entered from an apartment which opened 
through an entrance at the upper end of the 
hall. As soon as they came in, the subordin- 
ate Japanese officials prostrated themselves on 
rheir knees, and remained in that attitude dur- 
ing their presence. 

The Commissioners were certainly august- 
looking personages, and their long beards, their 
grave, but courteous manners, and their rich 
flowing robes of silk, set them off to the highest 
advantage. Their costume consisted of an un- 



der-garment somewhat similar to the antique 
doublet, and a pair of very wide and short trow- 
sers of figured silk, which arc characteristic of 
rank, while below, their legs were encased in 
white cotton socks, laced to some distance above 
the ankles. The socks were so contrived that 
the great toe was separated from the other 
four for the passage of the band which was at- 
tached to the sandal, and joined another from 
the heel at the ankle, where the two were 
tied together. Over the doublet and trowsers 
a loose gown of embroidered silk, somewhat of 
the shape of the clerical robe, with loose sleeves, 
was worn. This was secured to the waist, in 
which were thrust the two swords, a large and 




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Vol. XII.— No. 72.— 3 A 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




JAPANESE NOELES. 



a small one, which mark the dignitaries of high- 
er rank. 

Hayashi-dai-gaku-no-Kami, or Prince Coun- 
selor, Avas evidently the chief member of the 
Commission, for all matters of importance were 
referred to him. He was a man of about fifty- 
five years of age, was handsomely formed, with 
a grave and rather saturnine expression of face, 
though he had a benevolent look, and was of 
exceedingly courtly manners. Ido, Prince of 
Tousima, was probably fifty, or thereabout, and 
was corpulent, and tall in person. He had a 
rather more vivacious expression than the elder 
Ilayashi. The third, and youngest of the princes 



was the Prince of Mimi-Saki, who could hardly 
be much beyond forty years of age, and was far 
the best looking of the three. 

Udono, who, though not a prince, was a man 
of high station, and was known by the title of 
Mimbu-Shiyeyu, or Member of the Board of 
Revenue, was a tall, passable-looking man, but 
his features were prominent, and had much of 
the Mongolian cast. The fifth and last one of 
the fiveCommissioners wasMatsusaki Michitaro, 
whose rank and title were not discovered. Hi> 
precise business in the Commission it was diffi- 
cult to fathom; he was always present at the 
conference, but took his seat constantly at 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



739 



rather a remote distance from the other dig- 
nitaries, on the further end of the sedan. By 
him, there was — continually crouched upon his 
knees — a scribe, who was constantly employed 
in taking notes of what was passing. Matsusaki 
was a man of sixty years of age at least, had a 
long, drawn out, meagre body, a very yellow, bil- 
ious face, and an uncomfortable, dyspeptic ex- 
pression, which his excessive short-sightedness 
did not improve, for it caused him, in his efforts 
at seeing, to give a very wry distortion to a coun- 
tenance naturally not very handsome. 

Moryama Yenoske was the principal inter- 
preter who officiated on the occasion. As soon 
as the Commissioners had taken their seats, 
Yenoske took his position, on his knees, at the 
feet of Hayashi the chief, and humbly awaited 
his orders. 

*The crouching position in which an inferior 
places himself when in the presence of his supe- 
rior in rank, seems very easy to a Japanese, but 
would be very difficult and painful for one to 
assume who had not been accustomed to it. 
The ordinary mode pursued is to drop on the 
knees, cross the feet, and cock up the heels, 
with the toes, instep, and calves of the legs 
brought together into close contact. Sometimes 
it is a mere squatting down, with the soles firm 
upon the ground, the knees bent, and the body 
crouched low. Yenoske was quite an adept in 
these manoeuvres, as were his coadjutors, and 
especially the Prefect Kura-Kawakahei, who 
who was one of the subordinate functionaries 
present during the conference. 

The Commissioners, after a momentary silence, 
spoke a word to the prostrate Yenoske, who list- 
ened an instant with downcast eyes, and then, 
by a skillful manoeuvre, still upon his knees, 
moved toward the Commodore's interpreter, 
and having communicated his message, which 
proved to be merely the ordinary compliments, 
with an inquiry after the health of the Commo- 
dore and his officers, returned, with an appropri- 
ate answer, to his former position. An inter- 
change of various polite messages having been 
thus borne backward and forward for several 
minutes, through the medium of the humble 
but useful Yenoske, refreshments, consisting of 
tea in porcelain cups, of cakes, and some con- 
fectionery, served on lacquered trays, Avere hand- 
ed round. 

It was now proposed by the Commissioners 
that an adjournment should take place to an- 
other room. Accordingly, the Commodore hav- 
ing consented, he, accompanied by the captain 
of the fleet, his two interpreters, and secretary, 
was conducted into another and much smaller 
room, the entrance to which was only separated 
from the principal hall by a blue silk flag, or- 
namented in the centre with the embroidered 
arms of Japan. On entering, the Commissioners 
were found already seared on the right, they hav- 
ing withdrawn previously to the Commodore, 
and arranged themselves in rank upon one of 
the red divans which extended along the sides 
of the apartment. The Commodore and his 



party took their seats on the left, and business 
commenced — the Commissioners having pre- 
liminarily stated that it was a Japanese custom 
to speak slowly. 

The chief Commissioner now handed the 
Commodore a long roll of paper, which proved 
to be an answer to the President's letter deliv- 
ered on the previous visit at Gori-hama, in July. 
After some conversation in regard to the nego- 
tiations under consideration, the meeting broke 
up, and the Commodore and his escort returned 
to the ships. Several prolonged conferences 
ensued, and the treaty was not finally agreed 
upon and signed until the 31st of March, 1854. 

Business being over, there was now an op- 
portunity for an interchange of courtesies, and 
for a friendly hobnobbing between the Amer- 
icans and the Japanese, to which the latter, 
with all their supposed exclusiveness and re- 
serve, were by no means indisposed. The Com- 
modore had provided himself with a variety of 
presents for the Emperor and the Japanese dig- 
nitaries, and now took occasion to deliver them. 
He accordingly sent the telegraph apparatus and 
the diminutive railway on shore, and the Amer- 
ican sailors, aided by the Japanese, were soon 
busy in putting them in working order. In 
addition to these there was a liberal supply of 
books, Colt's pistols, Champagne, whisky, and 
perfumery. The Japanese were not to he out- 
done in generosity, and, accordingly, had pro- 
vided a quantity of articles of the manufacture 
of their country as return gifts. These consist- 
ed of rich brocades and silks, chow-chow boxes 
for carrying provisions, tables, trays, and gob- 
lets, all made of the famous lacquered ware ; 
cf porcelain cups, pipe -cases, umbrellas, and 
various specimens of the Japanese wardrobe. 
There was one article which deserves mention, 
as it is a universal accompaniment of all pres- 
ents ; it consisted of a bit of salt-fish, wrapped 
in sea-weed, and tied in an envelope of paper. 

The presents having been duly arranged in 
the Treaty House at Yokuhama, the Commo- 
dore and his officers were invited by the Jap- 
anese Commissioners, on a certain day, to re- 
ceive them. After the ceremony of the recep- 
tion of the various gifts displayed on the occa- 
sion, the Commodore prepared to depart, when 
Prince Hayashi said that there was one arti- 
cle, intended for the President, which had not 
yet been exhibited. The Commodore and his 
officers were accordingly conducted to the beach, 
where one or two hundred sacks of rice were 
pointed out, piled up in readiness to be sent on 
board the ships. As such an immense supply 
of substantial food seemed to excite the won- 
derment of the Americans, who were naturally 
aghast at the idea of conveying such a stock of 
Japanese rice to the remote distance of the 
White House — and, moreover, loading them- 
selves with so much coal for Newcastle — the 
interpreter, Yenoske, remarked that it was al- 
ways customary for the Japanese, when lie- 
stowing presents, to include a certain quantity 
of rice. 



740 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




WRESTLERS (FROM AN ORIGINAL, JAPANESE riCTTJRE) 



While contemplating these substantial evi- 
dences of Japanese generosity, and puzzling 
themselves with all sorts of impossible contriv- 
ances for storing them away on their arrival at 
Washington, in Mr. Pierce's quarters, and spec- 
ulating upon the possible effects of a prolonged 
diet of rice upon the warlike characteristics of 
the President's kitchen cabinet, the attention of 
the Commodore and his party was suddenly riv- 
eted upon a body of monstrous fellows who came 
tramping down the beach like so many huge ele- 
phants. They Ave re professional Avrestlers, and 
formed part of the retinue of the Japanese prin- 
ces, who keep them for their private amuse- 
ment and for public entertainments. They 
were twenty-five in all, and Avere men enor- 
mously tall in stature and immense in weight 
of flesh. Their scant costume — Avhich was 
merely a colored cloth about the loins, adorned 
Avith fringes, and emblazoned with the armo- 
rial bearings of the prince to whose service each 
belonged — revealed their gigantic proportions, 
in all the bloated fullness of fat and breadth of 
muscle. Their proprietors, the princes, seemed 
proud of them, and Avere careful to sIioav their 
points to the greatest advantage before the as- 
tonished spectators. Some tAvo or three of the 
huge monsters were the most famous Avrestlers 
in Japan, and ranked as the champion Tom 
Cribs and Hyers of the land. Koyanagi, the 
reputed bully of the capital, Avas one of these, 
and paraded himself Avith conscious pride of 
superior immensity and strength. He was 
brought especially to the Commodore, that he 
might examine his massive form. The Com- 
missioners insisted that the monstrous felloAv 
should be minutely inspected, that the hard- 
ness of his well-rounded muscles should be felt, 



and that the fatness of his cushioned frame 
should be tested by the touch. The Commo- 
dore accordingly attempted to grasp his arm, 
Avhich he found as solid as it was huge, and 
then passed his hand over the enormous neck, 
Which fell, in folds of massive flesh, like the 
deAA r -lap of a prize-ox. As some surprise Avas 
naturally expressed at this wondrous exhibition 
of animal development, the monster himself 
gave a grunt, expressive of his flattered vanity. 
They were all so immense in flesh, that they 
appeared to have lost their distinctive features, 
and seemed only tAventy-five masses of fat. 
Their eyes were barely visible through a long 
perspective of socket, the prominence of their 
noses Avas lost in the puffiness of their bloated 
cheeks, and their heads Avere almost directly 
set upon their bodies, with only folds of flesh 
Avhere the neck and chin are usually found. 
Their great size, hoAvever, Avas more owing to 
the development of muscle thnn to the mere 
deposition of fat ; for although they were evi- 
dently Avell-fed, they Avere not less well exercised 
and capable of great feats of strength. As a 
preliminary exhibition of the power of these 
men, the princes set them to removing the sacks 
of rice to a convenient place on the shore for 
shipping. All the sacks weighed one hundred 
and tAventy-five pounds a piece, and there were 
only a couple of the wrestlers Avho did not each 
carry two sacks at a time. They bore the sacks 
on the right shoulder, lifting the first from the 
ground themselves and adjusting it, but obtain- 
ing aid for the raising of the second. One man 
carried a sack suspended by his teeth, and an- 
other, taking one in his arms, kept turning re- 
peated somersaults as he held it, and apparent- 
lv with as much ease as if his tons of flesh had 



COMMODORE TERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



741 



been only so much gossamer, and his load a 
feather. 

After this preliminary display, the Commis- 
sioners proposed that the Commodore and his 
party should retire to the Treaty House, where 
they would have an opportunity of seeing the 
wrestlers exhibit their professional feats. The 
wrestlers themselves were most carefully pro- 
vided for, having constantly about them a num- 
ber of attendants, who were always at hand to 
supply them with fans, which they often re- 
quired, and to assist them in dressing and un- 
dressing. While at rest, they were ordinarily 
clothed in richly adorned robes of the usual Jap- 
anese fashion; but when exercising, they were 
stripped naked, with the exception of the cloth 
about the loins. After the performance with 
the sacks of rice, their servitors spread upon 
the huge frames of the wrestlers their rich gar- 
ments, and led them up to the Treaty House. 

A circular space of some twelve feet in diam- 
ater had been inclosed within a ring, and the 
ground carefully broken up and smoothed in 
front of the building ; while in the portico di- 
vans covered with red cloth were arranged for 
the Japanese Commissioners, the Commodore, 
his officers, and their various attendants. The 
bands from the ships were also present, and 
enlivened the intervals during the performance 
with occasional stirring tunes. As soon as the 
spectators had taken their seats, the naked 
wrestlers were brought out into the ring, and 
the whole number being divided into two op- 
posing parties, tramped heavily backward and 
forward, looking defiance at each other, but not 
engaging in any contest, as their object was 
merely to parade their points, to give the be- 
holders, as it were, an opportunity to form an 
estimate of their comparative powers, and to 
make up their betting-books. They soon re- 
tired behind some screens placed for the pur- 
pose, where all, with the exception of two, were 
again clothed in full dress, and took their posi- 
tion on seats in front of the spectators. 

The two who had been reserved out of the 
band, now, on the signal being given by the 
heralds, presented themselves. They came in, 
one after the other, from behind the screens, 
and walked with slow and deliberate steps, as 
became such huge animals, into the centre of 
the ring. Here they ranged themselves, one 
against the other, at a distance of a few yards. 
They stood for a while eying each other with a 
wary look, as if both were watching a chance to 
catch their antagonist off his guard. As the 
spectator looked on and beheld these overfed 
monsters, whose animal natures had been so 
carefully and successfully developed, and as he 
watched them, glaring with brutal ferocity at 
each other, ready to exhibit the cruel instincts 
of a savage nature, it was easy for him to lose 
all sense of their being human creatures, and to 
persuade himself he was beholding a couple of 
brute beasts thirsting for one another's blood. 

They were, in fact, like a pair of fierce bulls, 
whose nature they had not only acquired, but, 



even their look and movements. As they con- 
tinued to eye each other, they stamped the 
ground heavily, pawing, as it were, with impa- 
tience, and then stooping their huge bodies, 
they grasped handfuls of the earth, and flung 
it with Bn angry toss over their backs, or 
rubbed it impatiently between their massive 
palms or under their stalwart shoulders. They 
now crouched down low, still keeping their eyes 
fixed upon one another and watching each 
movement, and in a moment they had both 
simultaneously heaved their massive frames in 
opposing force, body to body, with a shock that 
might have stunned an ox. The equilibrium 
of their monstrous persons was hardly disturbed 
by the encounter, the effect of which was but 
barely visible in the quiver of the hanging flesh 
of their bodies. As they came together, they 
had flung their brawny arms about each other, 
and were now entwined in a desperate struggle, 
with all their strength, to throw their antago- 
nist. Their great muscles rose with the distinct 
outline of the sculptured form of a colossal Her- 
cules, their bloated faces swelled up with gush- 
es of red blood, which seemed almost to burst 
through the skin, and their huge bodies palpi- 
tated with savage emotion as the struggle con- 
tinued. At last, one of the antagonists fell 
with his immense weight upon the ground, and 
being declared vanquished, he was assisted to 
his feet and conducted from the ring. 

The scene was now somewhat varied by a 
change in the kind of contest between the two 
succeeding wrestlers. The heralds, as before, 
summoned the antagonists, and one having 
taken his place in the ring, he assumed an atti- 
tude of defense, with one leg in advance as if 
to steady himself, and his body, with his head 
lowered, placed in position as if to receive an 
attack. Immediately after, in rushed the oth- 
er, bellowing loudly like a bull, and, making at 
once for the man in the ring, dashed, with his 
head lowered and thrust forward, against his 
opponent, who bore the shock with the steadi- 
ness of a rock, although the blood streamed 
down his face from his bruised forehead, which 
had been struck in the encounter. This ma- 
noeuvre was repeated again and again, one act- 
ing always as the opposing and the other as the 
resisting force, and thus they kept up this bru- 
tal contest until their foreheads were besmeared 
with blood, and the flesh of their breasts rose in. 
great swollen tumors from the repeated blows. 
This disgusting exhibition did not terminate 
until the whole twenty-five had successively, in 
pairs, displayed their immense powers and sav- 
age qualities. Erom the brutal performance of 
the wrestlers, the Americans turned with pride 
to the exhibition to which the Japanese Com- 
missioners were now in their turn invited, of 
those triumphs of civilization — the telegraph 
and the railroad. 

To celebrate the occasion of the signing of 
the treaty, invitations to dinner were exchanged 
between the Commodore and the Japanese 
Commissioners. The American feast was to 



742 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



come off first, and accordingly on the day ap- 
pointed the Powhatan was made resplendent, 
with all her streamers flying, and all the spare 
bunting tastily hung in fanciful devices about 
the decks and shrouds. A large number of 
officers from the various ships, in full uniform, 
gathered to assist as hosts during the festival, 
and the marines and sailors were dressed up 
and grouped in the most effective manner. As 
the Japanese party was to be large and com- 
posed of different ranks, it was found necessary 
to spread two tables, one in the cabin for the 
High Commissioners, and another on the quar- 
ter-deck, beneath the awning, for the minor of- 
ficials and subordinates. The Japanese guests 
arrived in due time and in great numbers, there 
being no less than seventy in all, and were re- 
ceived with salvos of artillery from the various 
ships, and a cheerful burst of music from the 
bands. 

The five Commissioners were conducted to 
the cabin, where they were entertained by the 
Commodore and several of his superior officers. 
Yenoske, the interpreter, was also allowed, by 
special favor, to eat and drink in the august 
presence of his superiors, but only at a side ta- 
ble, where, however, he showed, though inferior 
in dignity, that he was at least equal, if not su- 
perior, in appetite to his betters. The Commo- 
dore had long intended to give this banquet 
provided a successful result to his negotiations 
should justify such a convivialit}-, and had ac- 
cordingly kept in reserve half a score of bull- 
ocks, a large supply of Shanghae fowls, and a 
flock of sheep or so, for the occasion. These, 
together with the ordinary cabin stores of pates, 
preserved game, various delicacies, and the un- 
limited resources of the Commodore's French 
cook, served to spread a feast that was not only 
substantial and abounding, but choice and ap- 
petizing. Wines, liqueurs, and other more po- 
tent drinkables, of course, abounded, and were 
by no means the least appreciated by the guests. 
The sweetness of the maraschino found great 
favor with the taste of the Commissioners, 
while its strength did not seem to raise any 
serious objection, although its effect was very 
perceptible. The Japanese dignitaries, with 
the exception of Hayashi-no-Kami, who ate 
and drank sparingly, proved themselves excel- 
lent trenchermen and "fair drinkers." The 
jovial Mimi-Saki was soon lost to all sense of 
Japanese reserve, and passed rapidly, under the 
combined influence of Champagne, maraschino, 
and Monongahela whisky, through all the gra- 
dations of bacchanalian delight, until he reach- 
ed the stage of maudlin affection, which he de- 
monstrated rather inconveniently by embracing 
his host, and very seriously damaging a new 
pair of golden epaulets. 

The party on deck, which was much larger 
and more miscellaneous in rank and character, 
in the mean time, had become very uproarious, 
after having made way with unlimited supplies 
of solid food and numberless bowls of punch. 
Nor were the Japanese satisfied with what they 



so copiously and indiscriminately appropriated 
to their present appetite, but loaded their per- 
sons with provision for the future. The Japa- 
nese have a practice of carrying away with them 
portions of the feast where they have been 
guests, and whenever the Americans were en- 
tertained by them, they were expected to do 
likewise. Each Japanese carries in a pocket 
within the breast of his robe, a supply of paper 
for the various purposes of a pocket handker- 
chief — for he has no other — of taking notes, and 
of wrapping up the remnants of a feast. To 
the dinner succeeded an Ethiopian entertain- 
ment, got up by the sailors, and negro minstrelsy 
proved its catholicity of interest by being re- 
ceived by the Japanese with the same " un- 
bounded applause" as.in Broadwa} r . 

A few days subsequently the Commodore and 
his officers were invited to a return feast by the 
Japanese Commissioners. The banquet was 
spread in, the Treaty House, in the principal 
hall of which were arranged narrow benches 
covered with red crape. The tables were the 
same as the benches, and were raised to a con- 
venient height for eating by a square lacquered 
stand placed before each guest. The guests 
having taken their seats, in accordance with 
their rank, the Commodore and his suite be- 
ing conducted to the dais where the Commis- 
sioners presided as hosts, and the other Amer- 
icans being arranged along the tables in the 
lower apartment, the feast, after some prelim- 
inary compliments, began. A number of serv- 
itors at once thronged in, bearing upon lacquered 
trays several earthen cups. These contained a 
thick soup, which was accompanied by a supply 
of soy, or some other condiment. Soup suc- 
ceeded soup, and soup followed soup again, 
which seemed to be the staple article of the 
entertainment. There was but little difference 
of taste distinguishable by an American palate 
in these various dishes, and most of them seemed 
to have fresh fish as a chief constituent, large 
portions of which floated in the thick liquid. 
Between the services of soup, various sweetened 
confections and an abundant supply of ginger- 
bread and other cakes were handed round, while 
the silver vessels which contained the national 
drink of sakee — a kind of whisky distilled from 
rice — were kept diligently replenished. The 
sakee cups are mere thimbles in capacity, like 
those of Loo-Choo, but the Japanese have ac- 
quired by practice such a facility in filling and 
emptying them, that they evidently lose nothing 
for want of larger goblets. Toasts and healths 
were passed, and the whole assemblage soon 
became happy and friendly. At the end of the 
dinner, a dish containing a boiled craw-fish, a 
piece of fried eel, and a square-shaped, jelly-like 
pudding was served to each guest, with the ex- 
planation that he was to carry those articles 
with him, or that they would be sent after him, 
as in fact was done. The Japanese dinner, 
however, had left no such agreeable impressions 
upon the Americans that they cared to have any 
memorials to perpetuate its taste or memory. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



743 



Japanese diet seemed particularly meagre in 
comparison with American fare, and soup, how- 
ever desirable in its proper place, was found 
to be but a poor substitute for a round of beef 
or a haunch of mutton. The Prince of Tous- 
Sima, who had the character of being, like Tal- 
leyrand, not only an expert diplomatist but a 
finished gourmand, had brought all the resources 
of his own kitchen, under the immediate super- 
intendence of his far-famed cook, to bear upon 
the dinner, and yet the result was by no means 
satisfactory to a vigorous nautical appetite. 

The Commodore had now been nearly two 
months in the Bay of Yedo, most of which time 
had been spent in negotiations preliminary to 
the formation of the treaty. Although during 
this period there was but little opportunity, in 
consequence of the jealous interposition of the 
authorities, of having much intimate intercourse 
with the people, there were, notwithstanding, 
occasional opportunities of observation of their 
peculiarities. After the negotiations had term- 
inated, the Commodore insisted upon the privi- 
lege being granted to his officers of visiting the 
land. This was accorded, but under severe re- 
strictions, limiting the visits of the Americans 
to within certain fixed limits, and the Japanese 
people were so strictly watched on these occa- 
sions by the police and spies, that they did not 
dare to speak with, and hardly to look at, the 
strangers. In obtaining water and other sup- 
plies, in the conveyance of the presents back 
and fro, and putting up the telegraph, and ar- 
ranging the miniature railroad, the Americans, 
however, were necessarily brought in contact 
with the natives. The common people always 
showed, on these occasions, a very friendly dis- 
position toward their visitors ; and although they 
were generally reserved about themselves and 
their country, as if constrained by fear of their 
superiors, they showed an intense curiosity to 
know all about the United States. It was dif- 
ficult to satisfy their exceeding inquisitiveness, 
which seemed to be particularly directed toward 
the dress, every article of which they were de- 
sirous of handling and finding out the English 
name by which it Mas called. A button excited 
the highest interest, and the present of one was 
esteemed an immense favor. Their curiosity 
about the woolen clothing and the buttons of 
the Americans may be accounted for from the 
fact of the Japanese not having either. 

The Japanese are naturally social, and freely 
mingle in friendly intercourse with each other. 
Woman, too, participates in the enjoyments of 
society with no more restriction than with us. 
Evening parties are common to both sexes, 
where, as in the United States, the friendly cup 
of tea is handed round, and the company is en- 
livened by the usual gossip and amusements, 
such as music and card-playing. It is the jeal- 
ous watchfulness of the government alone which 
prevents the people from the exercise of their 
natural companionable disposition in a friendly 
communion with foreigners. Polygamy does 
not prevail in Japan as in other Oriental coun- 



tries, and the natural effect is a high appre- 
ciation of the female sex, and a reverence for 
the domestic virtues. Little was seen of the 
women; but the Commodoie, on one occasion, 
had an opportunity of making the acquaintance 
of a circle of Japanese ladies, a visit to whom 
is pleasantly described in the narrative pub- 
lished by the Government — a work from which 
we have condensed several descriptions for this 
article. After having been entertained at the 
Treaty House with the usual refreshments, the 
party (consisting of several American officers in 
company with the Commodore) set out on their 
walk, attended by Moryama Yenoske, the chief 
interpreter, and several of the Japanese officials. 
A circuit embracing some five miles was the 
extent of the field of observation, but this gave 
an opportunity of seeing a good deal of the 
country, several of the villages, and large num- 
bers of the people. The early spring, in that 
temperate latitude, had now much advanced, 
and the weather, though never very severe, had 
become more warm and genial. The fields and 
terraced gardens were carpeted with a fresh and 
tender verdure, and the trees, with the full 
growth of renewed vegetation, spread their 
shades of abounding green foliage in the val- 
leys and on the hillsides of the surrounding 
country. The camelias, with the immense 
growth of forty feet in height, which abound 
every where on the shores of the Bay of Yedo, 
were in full bloom, with their magnificent red 
and white blossoms, which displayed a purity 
and richness of color and a perfection of de- 
velopment unrivaled elsewhere. 

As soon as a village or hamlet was approach- 
ed, one of the Japanese attendants would hurry 
in advance, and order the women and the rab- 
ble to keep out of the way. The Commodore 
spoke to the interpreter, and took him to account, 
particularly for dispersing the women. Yenoske 
pretended that it was entirely for the benefit of 
the ladies themselves, as their modesty was such 
that it could not withstand the sight of a stran- 
ger. The Commodore did not believe a word 
of this, and plainly told Yenoske so. The im- 
putation, though it expressed a doubt of his 
truthfulness, did not offend the interpreter, but 
was rather taken as a compliment to his du- 
plicity, which is one of the most cherished ac- 
complishments of a Japanese officinl. Yenoske 
promised that at the next town, where some re- 
freshments had been ordered, the women should 
not be required to avoid the party. According- 
ly, on entering this place, every one, man, wo- 
man, and child, crowded out to see the stran- 
gers. 

The Commodore and his officers were con- 
ducted to the house of the mayor or chief mag- 
istrate of the town. This dignitary, with great 
cordiality, met and welcomed them to the hos- 
pitalities of his establishment. The interior 
was quite unpretending, consisting of a large 
room, spread with soft mats, lighted with oiled- 
paper windows, hung with rudely-executed car- 
toons, and furnished with the usual red-colore ] 



744 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 




benches. The wife and sister of the town offi- 
cial were present, cronched on their knees in 
one corner of the apartment, and smiled a tim- 
id welcome to the visitors. These women were 
bare-footed and bare-legged, and were dressed 
very nearly alike, in dark-colored robes, w 7 ith 
much of the undress look of night-gowns, se- 
cured by a broad band passing round the waist. 
Their figures were fat and dumpy, or, at any 
rate, appeared so in their ungraceful drapery; 
but their faces were not wanting in expression, 
for which they w r ere very much indebted to 
their eyes, which were black as well as their 
hair, that was fastened up at the top of the 
head like that of the men, although not shaved 
in front. As their " ruby" lips parted in smil- 



ing graciously, they displayed a row of black 
teeth set in horribly corroded gums. The mar- 
ried women of Japan enjoy the exclusive priv- 
ilege of dyeing their teeth, which is done with 
a mixture of urine, filings of iron, and sakee. 
termed ohar/ur or camri. This compound, as 
might be naturally inferred from its compo- 
sition, is neither pleasantly perfumed nor very 
wholesome. It is so corrosive that, on applying 
it to the teeth, it is necessary to protect the 
more delicate structure of the gums and link 
for the mere touch of the odious stuff to the 
flesh burns it at once into a purple, gangrenous 
spot. In spite of the utmost care the gums 
become tainted, and lose their ruddy color and 
vitality. We should think that the practice 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



745 



was hardly conducive to connubial felicity, and 
it would be naturally inferred that all the kiss- 
ing must be expended in the ecstasy of court- 
ship. This compensation, however, is occasion- 
ally lost to the prospective bridegroom, for it 
is not uncommon for some of the young ladies 
to inaugurate the habit of blacking the teeth 
upon the popping of the question. The effects 
of this disgusting habit are more apparent from 
another practice, which prevails with the Japa- 
nese as with our would-be civilized dames — that 
of painting the lips with rouge. The ruddy glow 
of the mouth brings out in greater contrast the 
blackness of the gums and teeth. 

The worthy mayor had some refreshments 



prepared for his guests, consisting of tea, cakes, 
confectionery, and the never -absent sakee. 
With the latter Avas served a kind of hot waf- 
fle, made apparently of rice-flour. The civic 
dignitary himself was very active in dispensing 
these offerings, and he was ably seconded by 
his wife and sister, who always remained on 
their knees in presence of the strangers. This 
awkward position of the women did not seem 
to interfere with their activity, for they kept 
moving about very briskly with the silver sakee- 
kettle, the services of which, in consequence of 
the smallness of the cups, being in constant 
requisition. 

As the officials no longer interfered with the 




'46 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Japanese, there was a good opportunity of ob- 
serving them, though hurriedly, as the Commo- 
dore and his party were forced to return early 
to the ships. Every where a scene of busy ac- 
tivity met the eye, in the towns, the villages, 
the fields, and the farm-yards. Some laborers, 
up to their knees in water, were hoeing the 
lands, artificially overflowed for the culture of 
the rice ; some were pounding the grain into 
flour with their heavy mallets; and others were 
busy lading their pack-horses with baskets and 
bags of meal for the market. The only idlers 
were the mothers, and the babes they bore in 
their arms or carried upon, their backs. The 
inferior people, almost without exception, seem- 
ed thriving and contented, though hard at work. 
There were signs of poverty, but no evidence of 
public beggary. The women, in common with 
many in various parts of over-populated Europe, 
were frequently seen engaged in field-labor, 
showing the general industry and the necessity 
of keeping every hand busy in the populous em- 
pire. The lowest classes even were comforta- 
bly clad, being dressed in coarse cotton gar- 
ments of the same form, though shorter, than 
those of their superiors, being a loose robe just 
covering the hips. They were, for the most 
part, bare-headed and bare-footed — the women 
being dressed very much like the men, although 
their heads were not shaved like those of the 
males, and their long hair was drawn up and 
fastened upon tfie top in a knot or under a pad. 
In rainy weather the Japanese wear a covering 
made of straw, which being fastened together 
at the top, is suspended from the neck, and falls 
over the shoulders and person like a thatched 
roof. Some of the higher classes cover their 
robes with an oiled-paper cloak, which is im- 
permeable to the wet. The umbrella, like that 
of the Chinese, is almost a constant companion, 
and serves both to shade from the rays of the 
sun and keep off the effects of a shower. 

The Commodore had resolved to obtain a 
glance at the far-famed capital of Yedo, and ac- 
cordingly moved his squadron so near to that 
city that, had it not been for one of those fogs 
so frequent in Japan, he would have obtained a 
distinct view. Enough, however, was seen to 
confirm the reports of the immense size of the 
capital, the houses and buildings of which were 
observed to cover many miles of land. These, 
however, seemed to be merely peaked-roofed, 
unpainted wooden houses, such as are found 
every where in the villages and towns throng- 
ing both sides of the bay. The country in 
the neighborhood was highly cultivated with 
gardens and terraced fields, and the projecting 
spurs of land, which are characteristic features 
of the scenery, were crowned with fortifications. 
Palisades, stretched for a long distance, were 
found protecting the approach to the harbor, but 
were supposed to be temporary structures put 
up to defend the city from the possible attack 
of the Americans. The Commodore's naval 
eye soon discovered that the capital, with all its 
parade of fort3 and palisades, could be readily 



made to yield to a few steamers of a light 
draught of water and a heavy armament ; but 
as he was in the most friendly disposition, after 
the concession of the treaty, toward the Japa- 
nese, he was not inclined to test their weakness 
or to display his own power. The Japanese 
authorities were, however, in great trepidation, 
and earnestly protested against the Commo- 
dore's sail up the bay, and were much relieved 
when he considerately turned round to his old 
anchorage without mooring in face of the cap- 
ital. 

The Commodore having dispatched all his 
business in the upper part of the Bay of Yedo, 
took his departure, with the two steamers, the 
Mississippi and Poichatan. The steamer Sus- 
quehanna had been sent to China, the Saratoga 
to the Sandwich Islands, en route to the United 
States, with Captain Adams, bearing to Wash- 
ington the new treaty, the Macedonian to the 
Bonin Islands, and the other ships to Simoda, 
where Commodore Perry followed them with 
his steamers on the 18th of April, 1854, and ar- 
rived in that port on the afternoon of the same 
day. 

Among the more important concessions of 
the treaty, was the opening of the two ports of 
Simoda and Hakodadi to American vessels, and 
the Commodore was accordingly desirous of vis- 
iting these places, and making a thorough in- 
vestigation of their facilities for the purposes in- 
tended. Moreover, certain details for the reg- 
ulation of American intercourse, subordinate to 
the treaty, were yet to be agreed upon; and it 
was arranged that the Commissioners should 
meet the Commodore, for the purpose, at Simo- 
da, after he had paid a preliminary visit to that 
place and Hakodadi. 

Simoda is on the island of Niphon, and is 
situated on the southern end of the promontory 
of Idzu, near the mouth of the lower bay of 
Yedo. The town lies low — whence its name of 
Simoda, the Japanese word for low field — on a 
plain where the valley, that extends back be- 
tween the hills, opens to the bay. The sur- 
rounding country presents the usual aspect of 
the scenery of the Gulf of Yedo, where alternate 
hills and valleys, richly cultivated, with terraced 
fields and gardens, succeed each other, bounded 
in the distance by a range of mountains, the 
loftiest summits of which were, in the month of 
April, covered with snow. A number of con- 
ical rocks and islands, here and there darkly 
shaded with groves of pine, project above the 
surface of the water of the harbor, and show the 
characteristic marks of volcanic agency. The 
town itself looks paltry enough, with the usual 
small, unpainted houses, but the eye is com- 
pensated by the richness and beauty of the sur- 
rounding landscape. The fleet of junks and 
other Japanese craft gathered about the mouth 
of the river, which flows through the town and 
empties into the harbor, give some appearance 
of commercial activity to the place. A consid- 
erable trade, in fact, is carried on between Si- 
moda and the interior, by means of this stream, 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



747 



which waters a valley populous with 
villages and rich with highly-culti- 
vated farms. 

Simoda is regularly built, with 
streets of about twenty feet in width 
crossing each other at right angles. 
Their condition surpasses any thing 
in our own country, being well paved, 
supplied with gutters and sewers, 
and kept thoroughly clean. The 
houses are small, and slightly con- 
structed ; some of them, in fact, are 
only thatched huts. There are a 
few stone houses, inhabited by the 
wealthier people, but most of the 
dwellings are first built up with a 
frame- work of bamboo, and then 
covered with a mud which, on expo- 
sure, becomes dry and impermeable 
to the wet. The surfaces of the 
houses have generally a curious 
checkered appearance, from being 
scored with narrow white mould- 
ings, which cross each other. The 
roofs are covered with red earthen 
tiles, and project in front toward 
the street, where they are supported 
by posts. Between the posts there 
are movable shutters, or screens, 
made of oiled paper, and encased in a frame- 
work of wood. There are no glass windows, but 
occasionally there are mica ones, although pa- 
per is generally the material used. The screens 
are removed in the day time, allowing of free 
access below the projecting roofs, where, in the 
shops, the coarser articles for sale are display- 
ed. The interior of the houses is composed of 
a platform raised about a foot from the ground, 
and is closed in with oiled-paper casements, 




BOILING THE FOT. 




HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS. 



and subdivided into compartments by movable 
screens of the same material. This platform is 
used for all possible purposes — for eating and 
drinking, trading and working, receiving visit- 
ors, entertaining friends, and sleeping at night, 
the movable partitions allowing it to be divided 
into a variety of small apartments, or opened 
into one large one. 

The furniture is exceedingly scanty. The 
floors are spread with mats of a uniform size of 
three feet by six, prescribed by law. These are 
made of rice-straw, and are so neatly put to- 
gether that the apartments seem to be carpeted 
by a single uniform covering. As the ordinary 
practice of the Japanese is to kneel and crouch, 
and not sit, they have little occasion for seats or 
chairs, yet benches or divans, and a kind of 
eamp-stool are sometimes seen. The common 
people generally crouch down in a sitting pos- 
ture, while kneeling is affected by the would-be 
genteel. There are no beds, but a Japanese at 
night reclines upon the mat-spread floor, covers 
himself with an additional mat, and props up 
his head with a wooden block. There are no 
tables, but small lacquered stands of about a 
foot in height are used instead. One of these 
is placed at meals before each person, and he 
takes his tea, sips his sakee, or eats his soup 
from it, as he crouches on the floor. The house- 
hold utensils are few and simple, consisting of 
a supply of wooden chop-sticks, an occasional 
earthen spoon, a few china bowls, some lacquer- 
ed cups, and the ubiquitous tea-kettle. The 
kettle is of earthen-ware or of bronze, and 
sometimes, but rarely, of silver, and is always 
kept boiling over the charcoal fire, which burns 
in the centre of the apartment, where square 



748 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



holes, lined with tiles and filled with sand, are 
made for the purpose. The tea is a universal 
article of consumption, and is infused, as in 
China, in each cup as it is wanted, and drank 
without sugar. The native sakee, which is a 
potent liquor, not unlike whisky, divides with 
the beverage " that cheers but not inebriates" 
the honors of a general appreciation. On the 
arrival of a guest, he is expected to accept of 
either tea or sakee, or of both. The chief meal 
of the day consists mostly of three dishes — hot 
stewed fish, of the consistency of a thick soup ; 
cold fish, garnished with grated radish; and 
a heterogeneous compound, where hard-boiled 
eggs, cut in halves, are found mixed with fish, 
shrimps, and dried sea-weed. These are served 
up in covered bowls, and are always accompa- 
nied by two cups — one containing soy, in which 
the contents of each dish are dipped before be- 
ing eaten ; and the other sakee, which is used 
universally by all classes. The cooking is sim- 
ple, and ordinarily performed over the charcoal 
lire in the sitting-apartment, though in the more 
imposing establishments there are kitchens in 
the rear of the house for the purpose. 

Some of the wealthier people have 
suburban villas on the outskirts of 
the town. These are surrounded 
with walled gardens, which are laid 
out in the Chinese style, with fish- 
ponds, containing gold fish, minia- 
ture bridges, pagoda-like summer- 
houses, and private chapels or shrines. 
Dwarf fruit-bearing and shade trees, 
and beds of gayly-variegated flowers, 
camelias, chrysanthemums, and oth- 
er choice varieties, adorn these re- 
treats of the well-to-do Japanese cit- 
izen. The same simplicity of con- 
struction and scantiness of furniture 
generally characterize these as the 
more humble dwellings. There is 
greater spaciousness, however, in the 
apartments, and sometimes more re- 
gard to ornament. The cornices of 
the rooms occasionaly show carvings 
of wood which would have done 
credit to Grinling Gibbons, and the 
oiled-paper panels are not seldom 
adorned with paintings of birds, 
among which the sacred crane is a 
favorite subject, and with land- 
scapes much superior to the gaudy frescoes of 
our Fifth Avenue palaces, and not surpassed 
by many of the pictures which hang from their 
showy walls. The various household utensils, 
too, in the better houses, are often of handsome 
pattern and skillful workmanship. The lacquer- 
ed stands upon which food is served are grace- 
fully carved, and very highly polished with the 
famous Japanese lacquer ; the lanterns, which 
are of paper, are sometimes adorned with pic- 
tures, and supported upon well-executed bronzed 
branches ; and the china tea-pots and cups are 
beautifully painted and enriched with gilt. 

Simoda, like all flourishing towns, has its ac- 



commodations for travelers, but these differ little 
from the ordinary residences. The names of 
visitors are always recorded, as with us, but 
somewhat more conspicuously, being registered 
in large letters upon the door-posts in the street. 
The arrival of distinguished travelers is an- 
nounced by the display of their coats-of-anns, 
in full emblazonry, in front of their stopping- 
places. 

The people of Simoda have temples and 
shrines enough to entitle them to the character 
of being religious, although they are justly sus- 
pected of not being the most moral people in 
the world. It is true that they have nine 
Buddhist temples, several Sintoo ones, and in- 
numerable shrines perched upon the mountain 
tops and hid away in the groves. It is no less 
true, however, that they have public baths in 
which the sexes indiscriminately wash and sport 
themselves, and a popular literature equally un- 
reserved and demoralizing with this disgusting 
practice. 

The temples are the most imposing structures 
in Simoda. Their general construction is sim- 
ilar to that of the houses, but their size is much 




SIIEINES AND CANDLESTICKS. 

larger and their ornaments more elaborate, 
there being often richly-carved architraves and 
cornices. The buildings are of wood, and cov- 
ered Avith tiled roofs, which project in front, 
where they are supported upon wooden pillars, 
polished with lacquer. The interior is spread 
with mats, and has its shrines, its idols, its can- 
dlesticks, and its pictures. Gongs, drums, rat- 
tles, and other noisy musical instruments, bear 
an important part in the worship, and some of 
these are no less remarkable for the beauty of 
their workmanship than for the vileness of the 
music they produce. At the door of each tem- 
ple there is a straw rope connected with a bell 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



749 



and a drum, and the former is pulled and the 
latter beaten on the arrival of a devotee, in or- 
der to awaken the deity to a consciousness of 
the presence of a worshiper. There is a great 
resemblance between the shrines, images, and 
some of the ornaments of the Buddhist temples 
and those of our own Christian establishments; 
and a visitor to a religious edifice in Japan 
might almost fancy that he was within the de- 
minion of his Holiness the Pope himself. The 
abounding offerings of bits of paper, bouquets 
of flowers, copper cash, and long queues, which 
are hung up on the walls or heaped before the 
idols, show the devotion of the people. Occa- 
sional boxes, like those which appeal to our 
charity in some of the old European cathedrals 



and churches, are seen ; but when it is learned 
that the inscriptions on them often read, " For 
Feeding Hungry Demons," the Christian's be- 
nevolence will be proof against the appeal, unless 
he is as tender-hearted as Uncle Toby, who had a 
good word, v and no doubt an obolus, for even the 
devil himself. The temples are generally situ- 
ated in the outskirts of the town, on sites chosen 
evidently for their picturesqueness of position. 
Wide avenues, bordered with spreading pine- 
trees, lead to them, and the surrounding grounds 
are adorned with beds of flowers, artificial lakes, 
and miniature bridges. To each temple there 
is attached a burial-ground, where monumental 
stones are erected, as with us, to the memory of 
the dead. Inscriptions record the names of the 




750 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF WORSHIP. 



deceased and their virtues, among which, the 
good work of having recited thousands of vol- 
umes of the canonical books is often recorded as 
entitling the departed to the "heavenly felici- 
ties of Buddha." 

The Commodore, on his arrival at Simoda, 
was met with the usual obstructions, on the part 
of the authorities, to that freedom of intercourse 
which it was his desire to establish between the 
Americans and the Japanese. No sooner did 
one of the ship's officers land with the purpose 
of visiting the town, than he was surrounded by' 



a squad of the native officials, who persevering- 
ly clung to his steps wherever he moved. The 
people were beckoned away at his approach, 
and the shop-keepers ordered to shut up their 
shops and hide themselves from observation. 
This, however, was soon changed for the better 
through the resolute protests of the Commo- 
dore, who insisted that the treaty entitled the 
Americans to different treatment. One of the 
temples — for their establishments are not ex- 
clusively devoted to spiritual purposes — was ap- 
propriated, after repeated demands, as a place 






v a 




VIEW OF IIAKODADI. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



751 



of resort for the Americans, and the Japanese 
tradesmen soon gladly availed themselves of the 
permission of their superiors to sell their lac- 
quered cups, their chow-chow boxes, and pipe- 
cases to the strangers. There was a good deal 
of difficulty at first in regard to the currency, 
but it was finally adjusted in a manner that 
ought to have been satisfactory to the Japanese, 
for they received the American dollar at a val- 
uation of at least 50 per cent, less than its real 
worth. The laws of the Japanese are very 
strict in regard to the money of their own coin- 
age, which is forbidden to be sent out of the 
country under the penalty of death. A full set 
of their coin of all denominations was, however, 
given by the Commissioners as a present to the 
Commodore. Though the Americans were al- 
lowed to select the articles wanted in the shops, 
the receipt and payment of them were made 
through the authorities alone, so jealous did 
the government seem to be of all commercial 
transactions between its subjects and foreigners. 
The treaty did not, as some eager American 
traders have claimed, guarantee the privilege of 
commerce with the Japanese ; though it might 
be reasonably inferred that that instrument 
would lead, under a judicious policy, to future 
negotiations by which such a privilege might 
be secured. The treaty was one of amity, and 
was a formal surrender, on the part of Japan, 
of its absurd national exclusiveness. This im- 
portant change of policy was due to the ener- 
getic conduct of Commodore Perry, whose serv- 
ice is proudly recognized by his country, and 
appreciated by all civilized nations, each of 
which equally shares in the benefits. The eager- 
ness with which France, England, and Russia 
hurried to obtain from the Japanese treaties 
like that secured by Commodore Perry for the 
United States, is a striking proof of the great 
value at which it is estimated. 

The Commodore remained three weeks at 
Simoda, during which the harbor was diligently 
surveyed, and the ships supplied with water and 
fresh provisions, of which an abundant quantity 
of fish, fowls, eggs, sweet potatoes, and other 
vegetables, was obtained. There was, however, 
no beef to be procured, as, although there are 
cattle at Simoda, they are only used as beasts 
of burden, and their flesh, in accordance with 
the religious doctrines of the people, is not 
eaten. 

Early in the morning of the 13th of May, the 
two steamers, the Powhatan and Mississippi, 
sailed for Hakodadi. After coasting for three 
days along the shores of Niphon, and so close to 
the land that the terraced fields and the throng- 
ing villages were clearly visible, the steamers, 
on the fourth morning, sailed into the straits 
of Sangar, which divide Niphon from the north- 
ern island of Yesso. In a few hours the ships 
Macedonian, Vandalia, and Southampton, which 
had preceded the Commodore, were seen at an- 
chor amidst an immense fleet of junks, to the 
northward of a low isthmus which stretches out 
from the main-land, and terminates in a penin- 



sular mountain some twelve hundred feet in 
height. At the base of this mountain lies the 
town of Hakodadi, with its houses and temples, 
extending along the shore, an I distributed among 
the groves of trees which shade the acclivity. 
The lofty. mountains, with their summits cov- 
ered with snow, looked gloomy in the distance, 
but the harbor, populous with its many hundred 
junks, the expanse of the straits crossed and 
recrossed by the numerous vessels plying be- 
tween the towns on the opposing coasts, and the 
cultivated slopes of the hills, with the rice and 
other grain ripening in the sun, gave a cheerful 
aspect to the scene. 

Great consternation was produced among the 
people of Hakodadi by the arrival of the Amer- 
can squadron in their waters. The inhabitants 
were seen to hurry out of the town with their 
backs and their horses loaded down with goods 
and valuables ; and as soon as the steamers came 
to anchor, some of the Japanese officials pushed 
off and boarded the ships. They showed marks 
of great anxiety on their arrival, and asked, with 
very evident concern, the purpose of the visit 
of the Americans. Upon being told that, a 
treaty had been made, they expressed much sur- 
prise, and declared that they had been kept in 
entire ignorance of the negotiations. The Com- 
missioners had agreed to send a representative 
to meet the Commodore at Hakodadi, but no 
such personage had arrived. In the mean time 
the Commodore insisted upon the same privi- 
leges as had been reluctantly conceded to him 
at Simoda. After a long delay and a series of 
tedious daily negotiations, the Americans were 
allowed to visit the land, to have possession 
of several temples of resort on shore, and to 
obtain those articles and supplies they desired 
to purchase. The inhabitants of Hakodadi were 
soon reassured, and, returning to the town, re- 
sumed their routine of daily occupation, and be- 
came gradually familiarized with the presence of 
the strangers. 

Hakodadi is situated in the straits of Sangar. 
at the south of the Island of Yesso, of which it 
is the largest town, with the exception of Mats- 
mai. It is a place of considerable commercial 
importance, and carries on a large trade with 
various ports in Japan and the interior of Yesso. 
Fleets of junks are constantly engaged in car- 
rying dried and salted fish, prepared sea-weed, 
charcoal, and deers'-horns, the products of Ha- 
kodadi and the neighboring country, and bring- 
ing back rice, sugar, tea, tobacco, silks, cloths, 
lacquered ware, cutlery, and whatever else there 
may be a market for in the town and in the 
interior. During the short stay of about two 
weeks of the American squadron, over a hun- 
dred junks sailed from Hakodadi for various 
southern ports in Japan. The inhabitants are 
mostly engaged in occupations connected with 
the water, and are either merchants, sailors, or 
fishermen. The bay and harbor abound in 
excellent fish, in salmon, salmon-trout, floun- 
ders, herrings, and in clams, crabs, and muscles. 
The ships were always sure of large draughts 



752 



HAKPEK'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



with their seines, and were thus never without 
a supply of excellent fish of all varieties. The 
fishermen were daily out in the bay with their 
nets ; and groups of idlers, with their rods and 
lines, never failed to gather about the piers to 
pass the day in angling, as they squatted over 
the water and patiently waited for a bite. 

Hakodadi is large, containing several thou- 
sand houses, which extend in a main avenue 
for a mile or more along the sea-shore, with 
cross-streets which ascend a short distance up 
the acclivity of the lofty hill at the base of which 
rhe town is built. The houses are similar in 
construction to those of Simoda, but have one 
peculiarity which strikes the stranger at first 



sight. On the front of the gable of each build- 
ing, which, like that of the Dutch houses, faces 
the street, there is always a wooden tub wrapped 
in straw and filled with water. By the side 
of the tub there is a broom, which is kept 
there in readiness, in case of fire, to sprinkle 
the roof with, and protect it from the sparks. 
It would appear, from the careful provision 
against conflagrations, that there Avas great anx- 
iety on this score. Along the streets every 
where, in addition to the tubs on the tops of the 
houses, there are wooden cisterns conveniently 
placed in all parts of the city; and, moreover, 
the town is as well-supplied with fire-engines as 
New York. These engines, though in appear- 




COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



753 



ance something like our own, are deficient in 
the important part of the machine called the 
air-box, and consequently are spasmodic in their 
efforts, and do not eject a continuous stream of 
water. Alarums, made of thick pieces of wood, 
hung upon posts, which are struck on the break- 
ing out of a fire, are found at every corner, and 
watchmen, stationed in sentry-boxes, are always 
on the alert, by day and night. The streets of 
Hakodadi, like those of most Japanese towns, 
are subdivided into various wards by means of 
picket-gates, which cross from side to side, and 
are closed after dark. These several wards are 
so many separate communities governed by an 
alderman, who is called, in the Japanese lan- 



guage, an Ottona. This official is responsible 
for the condition of that part of the city under 
his administration, and each Ottona is held an- 
swerable for the bad conduct of his coadjutors 
— an extent of responsibility which would be 
quite insupportable in the corrupt municipal 
governments of our Christian country. The 
system apparently works well, for Hakodadi is 
perfectly well-ordered, being always quiet, clean, 
and wholesome. 

The stillness of the town was very impressive 
to those accustomed to the din and turmoil of 
a city like New York, for example. There was 
none of the hum and apparent confusion of a 
place in the busy excitement of daily business 




Vol.. XII.— No. 72.-^3 15 



754 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




BLACKSMITH S BELLOWS. 



and pleasure. Hakodadi, though evidently 
carrying on a large trade — for the harbor, with 
its numerous junks and fishing-boats, presented 
a stirring scene — showed no outward marks of 
activity in the streets. There are no public 
market-places, and all business is carried on 
silently within the stores and shops. It is 
true, long trains of pack-horses, loaded down 
with goods, occasionally trot through the streets, 
but there are no wheeled carriages or carts to 
disturb the general silence. The kago, which 
is a square box, to the contracted capacity of 
which the suppleness of a Japanese back or 
knee can alone accommodate itself, is the only 
kind of carriage used. This is carried by means 
of a couple of poles, like those of a sedan-chair, 
borne by two men, and is the most uncomfort- 
able kind of conveyan.ce conceivable. The kago 
is occasionally made very ornamental when be- 
longing to the wealthier and higher classes. 
The greater dignitaries generally travel on horse- 
back, and their animals are often adorned with 
rich trappings. The Japanese horse is of small 
breed, but of a compact form, with delicate ten- 
dinous limbs, and is active, spirited, and of good 
bottom. 

In a large town like Hakodadi, there are, of 
course, many engaged in the mechanical arts. 
The building of junks is carried on extensively 
in yards bordering the harbor. These vessels 
are seldom more than a hundred tons in bur- 
d-en, and are constructed very much like the 
Chinese junks. Canvas is, however, used in- 
stead of the bamboo as in China, for the sails. 
The Japanese are timid navigators, and never 
lose sight of the land, if possible, in their various 
voyages. Although, from the insular character 
of their country, they are naturally a maritime 
people, the government — so resolute is its iso- 
lated policy — has forbidden, for hundreds of 
years, all direct communication with foreign 
countries under the penalty of death. The 
construction of the junks is regulated bylaw as 
to size and form, so that, with their small ton- 
age and open sterns, they are unfit to encoun- 
ter the storms of the sea, and the people are 
fearful of venturing, in their ill-constructed ves- 
sels, beyond the limits prescribed by the govern- 
ment. 

The Japanese are familiar with the working 
of the metals. Their jewelers and silversmiths 
are expert workmen, and the specimens of their 
manufacture are often tasteful in design and 
of excellent workmanship. Of the coarser met- 



als copper is much used, and, as with us, for 
sheathing and bolting their vessels, and for 
the manufacture of various cooking and other 
household utensils. Iron is less frequently em- 
ployed, and with great economy. It is seldom 
that their implements are entirely composed of 




PRAYING MACHINE, 



COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



755 



this metal, it being usual to make them of wood, 
and merely tip them with iron. The black- 
smiths work, as with us, with a charcoal fire 
and a bellows. The latter, however, is pecu- 
liarly made, being a box with a piston working 
horizontally, and two holes at the side for the 
issue of the blast. Coopering is an important 
trade at Hakodadi, where immense quantities 
of fish are salted and packed for exportation in 
barrels. These are made of staves, and hooped 
as with us, but their form is peculiar, being- 
somewhat conical in shape. The neatness of 
finish of the wood-work of the houses, proves the 
carpenters skillful workmen, and the cabinet- 
ware often inlaid, richly adorned, and cover- 
ed with the exquisite lacquer polish, is unsur- 
passed by the finest marqueterie of Paris. Weav- 
ing and the manufacture of coarse cotton cloth- 
ing are carried on in almost all the houses by 
the women, who use looms constructed very 
much like those familiar to our own people. In 
the higher arts the Japanese deserve a rank much 
beyond any Oriental nation. The carvings in 
wood, with which many of the better houses 
and most of the temples are adorned, show an 
exact knowledge of form, particularly of that 
of familiar objects of nature, such as birds, 
fish, and flowers, and a skill of hand in the cut- 
ting almost perfect. In the Japanese paintings 
and drawings there is the freedom that belongs 
to great manual dexterity, and a correctness of 
outline which proves a close observation of na- 
ture. Some specimens of the illustrated books 
brought to this country by the Commodore, 
establish the fact hitherto denied, that the 
Japanese, unlike the Chinese, are familiar with 
the principles of perspective. These works also 
show, in their drawings of the human figure and 
of the horse, a well-directed study of the anat- 
omy of form in its external developments. 

The Japanese are great readers, and popular 
romances issue from their presses with the fre- 
quency of cheap novels with us. Their books 
are printed by means of wooden blocks, and it 
is said that they have separate type of the same 
material, while printing in colors, which is an art 
just beginning with us, but has been long prac- 



ticed in Japan. Their paper is made of the 
bark of the mulberry and of other woods, and 
presents a good surface for the reception of the 
type, but is of so thin a texture that the print- 
ing is confined to one side only. The leaf of 
each book is accordingly double, with two blank 
surfaces inclosed within. A general system of 
public instruction extends its influence through- 
out the empire, and the commonest people can 
read and write. 

The prevailing religions of the Japanese are 
Buddhism and Sintooism. The former, how- 
ever, is the favorite form of worship, and all its 
ceremonies are carefully observed. Sculptured 
statues of Buddha abound every where, in the 
temples, in the roadside chapels, and. in the 
shrines, which hang upon the acclivities of the 
hills, or lie hid away among the pine groves. 
The devotion of worshipers is shown in the bits 
of paper, the copper cash, the bouquet of flowers, 
and in the long queues of hair which are found 
offered up in great abundance. The Japanese 
have reached that perfection of religious form- 
alism — machine praying. At Hakodadi cer- 
tain posts were observed conveniently placed for 
the use of the pious passer-by. These were in- 
scribed with prayers, and at a convenient dis- 
tance from the ground were attached wheels, 
which worked on axles, passing through the 
posts. For each turn of the wheel the devotee 
is supposed to obtain credit in heaven for one 
of the inscribed prayers, and such is the facility 
acquired by some whose religious education has 
not been neglected, and whose pious diligence 
has been exemplary, that they succeed in spin- 
ing off the whole liturgy of the post in a single 
whirl. 

The higher classes of the Japanese are sup- 
posed to be imbued with a wide philosophical 
skepticism, and to regard the religion of their 
country merely as a state institution. They are 
tolerant of all forms of worship but that of the 
Christian, which, since the interference of the 
Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, two hundred 
and fifty years ago, with the policy of the gov- 
ernment, has been strictly excluded from Ja- 
pan. The Americans, however, regularly per- 



^ 




AMERICAN BURIAL-PLACE. 



756 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



formed the Christian worship on board their 
ships, while floating within Japanese waters, 
and several of the sailors who died were buried 
in Japan with the usual ceremonies of our re- 
ligion. The authorities, in fact, appropriated, 
both at Simoda and Hakodadi, places of inter- 
ment for the American Christians. 

The Commodore awaited more than two 
weeks the arrival of the expected representative 
of the Japanese Commissioners, who was to 
meet him at Hakodadi. After frequent confer- 
ences with the local authorities and the agent 
of the Prince of Matsmai, the Commodore, 
finding that no final arrangements could be 
made in regard to the limits and other details 
regulating the opening of Hakodadi to Ameri- 
can intercourse, found it necessaiy to defer all 
further consideration of the subject until his re- 
turn to Simoda. Just, however, as the squad- 
ron was about to sail, a Japanese functionary 
arrived from the court at Yedo, but as he did 
not seem to be fully authorized to act, his visit 
was received and considered as one purely of 
ceremony. On the 3d of June the Commo- 
dore sailed for Simoda, where he arrived on the 
seventh. The Commissioners were found there 
in readiness for negotiation, which was entered 
upon at once, and resulted, after a good deal 
of tedious diplomacy, in the agreement of cer- 
tain regulations subsidiary to the treaty. These 
had reference particularly to the boundaries with- 
in which the Americans were to be confined in 
their visits to Hakodadi and Simoda, and to 
certain pilot and port arrangements essential 
to the navigator. 

On the 28th of June, 1854, the Commodore 
took his final departure from Japan in the steam- 
er Mississippi, accompanied by the Powhatan, 
and directed his course homeward, by the way 
of Loo-Choo and China. The sailing ships 
were dispatched to various places of destination 
in the East. On the arrival of the steamers at 
Hong-Kong, Commodore Perry took passage in 
the English steam-packet for India, thence by 
the Red Sea to Europe, and thus to the United 
States. 

THE GNAWERS. 

SPECIMENS of the rodentia, or gnawing 
animals, are familiar to every one in the 
destructive rat, the playful squirrel, and the 
harmless rabbit. The order is remarkable for 
intelligence, and has furnished our households 
with their greatest pests, as well as their most 
favored pets. 

The peculiarity of the rodentia consists in 
having on each jaw two long, flat, and slightly 
curved teeth, which ingeniously work upon each 
other in such a way that they are kept sharp 
like chisels, and are used for cutting the bark 
and wood of trees, the hard shells of the differ- 
ent kinds of nuts, and, in some instances, the 
softer metals, such as tin and zinc. The con- 
stant labor which these teeth perform would 
rapidly wear them away if they were not con- 
stantly replenished from the roots, so that as 



fast as the upper surface is worn off, they are 
pushed forward from below, and thus kept con- 
tinually upon a cutting edge and in their true 
position. If, however, an accident happens to 
these teeth, and those on either jaw have no 
corresponding ones to grind upon, and thus 
keep them at a proper length, they rapidly as- 
sume the form of tusks, and, if coming from 
the lower jaw, will curl upward over the lips, 
and finally produce such a deformity as to 
cause the animal's death. 

The rat and the mouse, so familiar as house- 
hold nuisances, are the most destructive, so far 
as man's interests are concerned, of all the 
gnawing animals, and therefore occupy so large 
a space in the history of civilized society, and 
so well deserve a chapter by themselves, that 
their eventful history will be reserved for a fu- 
ture occasion, while we proceed for the present 
to treat of other less known members of the 
family. 




THE CArYliAKA. 



The capybara, a native of South America, is 
the largest of the rodentia, and from its size and 
coarse hair might, upon superficial examina- 
tion, be mistaken for a half-grown pig. It is a 
solitary, harmless being, living upon grass, veg- 
etables, and fruits, and is rarely seen in the 
daytime even amidst its most favorite haunts. 
If alarmed, it retreats to the water for protec- 
tion. The inhabitants of the country where it 
is found esteem the animal a great luxury, and 
the jaguar pursues it with never-tiring indus- 
try. The guinea-pig, also a native of South 
America, and always so great a pet among chil- 
dren, is a miniature specimen of the capybara. 




THE AGOUTI. 

The agouti is found in Guiana, Brazil, and 
Paraguay. It is about the size of the rabbit, 
and resembles that animal in its habits. As a 
destroyer of sugar-cane, it is looked upon as a 
great pest by the planters. When pursued, it 
runs for a short time with rapidity, then en- 
deavors to conceal itself from sight ; if unsuc- 
cessful, it suffers capture without any other pro- 
test than a plaintive cry. 

The jerboa is a native of Egypt, and is about 



THE GNAWERS. 



757 




THE JEKilOA. 



the size of the common rat. It resembles in 
form the kangaroo of Australia, and like that 
animal, is remarkable for leaping, or rather fly- 
ing over the plain, for so rapid are its move- 
ments that the swiftest greyhound is unable to 
overtake it. 




TUE CHINCHILLA. 

The chinchilla is an inhabitant of cold coun- 
tries, and is covered with the long, soft fur 
called after its name, and once so much es- 
teemed as an article of dress. In its form we 
have the common characteristics of the squirrel 
and rabbit. 



3W 




THE HAMbTES. 



The hamster is native to the Valley of the 
Rhine, and burrows in the ground the same as 
a rabbit. It not only devours immense quan- 
tities of corn in summer, but by the aid of two 
pouches, one on each side of the jaw, manages 
to lay up incredible stores for winter use, its 
rich magazine of provisions being sometimes 
seven feet deep. It is a brave little animal, 
and will attack any thing, man or beast, that 
comes near its property. Rats, mice, lizards, 
birds, and even the helpless of its own kind, 
fall before its ravenous appetite. Its skin is of 
some value, but the hunter often finds its de- 
pository of food the greatest consideration, for 
in a single one has been found provision suffi- 
cient to last a peasant's family a month or more. 



The dwelling of the hamster, says an imagina- 
tive writer, is the perfect image of the social 
household and the cordial understanding of civ- 
ilized married couples. Tie male and female 
at first get along harmoniously in pillaging the 
public in general, discord, as in civilization, 
only coming at the moment of dividing the 
spoils. The male, delighted to use the labor 
of his wife in filling the storehouse, the mo- 
ment winter sets in, attempts to drive her from 
the conjugal abode. Obliged to run before su- 
perior strength, she appears to leave forever, 
but digs a sideway, and thus enjoys the treas- 
ure. So far the practice is too true of many 
latitudes, but the fanciful theorist locates his 
ideas and himself in France, when he adds, 
"The female does more, she obtains the assist- 
ance of a comrade, and the two, profiting by 
the torpor of the gorged husband inside, stran- 
gle and eat him, and thus set up housekeeping 
over his remains." The Archbishop of May- 
ence, so says an old German legend, bought up 
all the corn of the surrounding country, and 
stored it in his castle, situated upon one of the 
many beautiful islands in the Rhine. The fam- 
ine he thus occasioned extended not only to the 
human inhabitants, but reached the greedy ham- 
sters. Scenting the treasure of the wicked bish- 
op afar off, they joined together in great multi- 
tudes, swam across to his palace, and in one 
night devoured him from off the face of the 
earth. 

The porcupine, widely scattered over the 
world, unlike the rest of its family, is remark- 
ably slow in its movements, and never attempts 
to get out of the way of an enemy : nature, 
however, has protected it from attack by cover- 
ing its body with an impenetrable coat of mail, 
bristling with bayonets; but for this, its help- 
lessness would soon cause it to be exterminated 
by the lynx and the cat. This harmless animal 
has been the subject of much fabulous exaggera- 
tion. It can not project its quills from its sides, 
as arrows from a bow, as some historians have 
gravely asserted ; and, in spite of Shakspeare's 
insinuation to the contrary, it is not fretful in its 
disposition, for if left to its solitary haunts, no 
animal of the forests is more happy in the en- 
joyment of its humble life. Its quills vary from 
six to fourteen inches in length, and are much 
esteemed, both by savage and civilized people, 
for various useful purposes to which they can 
be applied. The Indians, particularly of Can- 
ada, by arts peculiar to themselves, dye these 
quills of various brilliant colors, and use them 
for the most attractive yet rude ornamenta- 
tion of their moccasins, war-belts, and tobacco- 
pouches. As weapons of defense, they protect 
the animal from the prowess of the grizzly bear, 
as well as from the fox and minx. Audubon 
mentions meeting with a lynx that was dying 
from the effects of a number of these quills 
sticking in its mouth ; for they are so nicely 
barbed on the ends that they constantly work 
into the flesh after they have made an entrance. 
This animal lives upon the bark of trees, and 



758 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




THE PORCUPINE. 

it seldom leaves one that it has selected for 
food until it strips trunk and limbs of their cov- 
ering. So destructive are they on forest vege- 
tation, that a small number will make a neigh- 
borhood appear as if it had been scathed with 
fire — one porcupine, in a single winter, destroy- 
ing a hundred trees. 

The hare and the rabbit so much resemble 
each other in their outward appearance, that 
they are often confounded together even by 
close observers ; they differ, however, very wide- 
ly in their individual characteristics. The hare 
is a timid, lonely creature, and will sit for hours 
without moving, crouched in what is termed 
hsform. The rabbit, on the contrary, is lively 
and frolicsome, delighting to pop out from its 
burrow into daylight, bask for a few moments 
in the clear sunshine, and then, as if in very 
joy and capriciousness, throw its heels into the 
air, and suddenly sink into the ground and out 
of sight. The hare, when pursued, trusts to 
his speed for safety ; the rabbit, on the contra- 
ry, rushes into his burrow as the only secure 
place of refuge. The nest of the hare is of the 
rudest construction, a few sticks and dried leaves 
spread upon the cold ground being all that is 
deemed necessary. The rabbit burrows in the 
earth, his nest is lined with the softest sub- 



stances, the mother plucking the longest 
and softest materials from her own body 
to give its sides the proper protection and 
warmth. The young of the hare, at their 
birth, are covered with fur, and are capa- 
ble of running with swiftness, have their 
ears erect, and their eyes perfect. The 
young of the rabbit are naked, their eyes 
are shut, their ear-flaps closed, their bodies 
feeble, and for some time they are entire- 
ly dependent upon their parent for sup- 
port. The hare and the rabbit are both 
very prolific, bringing forth several litters 
annually; but for this, they are so harm- 
less and incapable of self-defense, and 
have so many enemies, that the races would 
soon become exterminated. 

The rabbit shows no particular intelli- 
gence, and in its wild state, if it misses 
its burrow, it is easily killed, and the hunt, 
though short, affords immense sport for the 
exercise and amusement of juvenile hunters. 
As the rabbit generally runs into some hollow 
log, or hole in a stone wall, the boys pull him 
out by the screw of the ramrod, in the same 
way that they do hemp wadding from the bar- 
rel of their gun. No animal, the dog ex- 
cepted, is more altered by domestication than 




THE BABBIT. 




THE HARE. 



the rabbit, and from its attractive appear- 
ance has become deservedly a favorite. Yet 
all the varieties of the tame rabbit are shown 
to have sprung from the common wild stock, 
from their constant tendency to return to the 
original form and appearance. Harmless as 
the rabbit is to its captors, they are remark- 
ably quarrelsome among themselves, and ap- 
parently subject to gusts of uncontrollable 
passion. Their most effective method of 
doing injur} 7 is to spring up and strike 
their opponent with their hind feet, and 
this is done with such effect that not only 
the " fur flies," but injuries are sometimes 
inflicted of quite a serious nature. 

The existence of the hare is a perpet- 
ual series of anxieties and terrors — of 
machinations and stratagems. Its eye, 
which is so placed that it can see, with- 
out moving the head, what is going on in 
its rear as well as in front, is never en- 
tirely closed even in sleep, while its speed 
of foot, its size considered, surpasses that 
of all other animals. Its intelligent ef- 
forts to escape its enemies, are worthy 
of all praise, and have ever been the 
theme of eulogy among admiring sports- 



THE GNAWERS. 



759 




men, while its habits in this respect vary with 
every disposition of soil and climate. The 
least accident in the sur- 
face of the earth, afresh- 
dug pit, a land slide, a 
tree felled by an ax or 
the storm, are all ob- 
served by the hare, and 
suggest new means of 
concealment. It clears 
its accustomed road to 
its lair of every rough blade of grass that will 
tear off its fur, and thus betray its haunts, often 
making this excess of caution its ruin, for the 
schoolboy and the poacher spread their treach- 
erous snares in the habitual passage, and the 
fox and the weasel watch them to secure their 
prey. 



OVERGROWN TEETII OP A 
RABBIT. 




THE FLYING SQUIRREL. 



Squirrels are among the most interesting in- 
habitants of the woods ; and they are familiar 
to every one, because very numerous and easily 
tamed. The chisel-like teeth of the squirrel 
are remarkable among all the gnawers for their 
sharp, penetrating character, for they will in a 
moment chip off the flinty end of a hickory nut, 
and split it down the side with the precision of 
a penknife. The whole race, with one or two 
exceptions, inhabit the thick woods, and live 
and thrive upon the abundant seeds and nuts 
so peculiar to our forests. At times they be- 
come so abundant in certain sections of our 
country as to be a scourge to our farmers ; then 
they will disappear, and hardly one will be met 
with in their favorite haunts. This is to be ac- 
counted for, no doubt, by the strange peculiar- 
ity the squirrel has, in common with many oth- 
er wild animals, of periodical migrations. On 
such occasions the squirrels move forward in 




THE SQUIRREL. 



immense droves, and nothing can stop their 
onward progress. Much as they dislike water, 
and in a wild state they never quench their 
thirst except by lapping the aew-drops from the 
leaves, yet in these migrations they show their 
energy by ^boldly swimming the widest rivers. 
On such occasions thousands are drowned and 
killed, yet the host moves on, accumulating as 
it advances. In their train comes the wild 
turkey, and finally, at the close of the sea- 
son, the black bear brings up the rear, show- 
ing that the God of nature inspired these creat- 
ures to seek new homes in the distant wilder- 
ness. 

The familiar colors of these little animate 
are black, red, and gray ; the varieties, however, 
differ very little except in size, the habits of all 
being very similar. The gray squirrel is the 
most common, and seems to possess in an emi- 
nent degree the power of self-preservation, for 
while other kinds disappear before the rifle and 
the ax, the gray squirrel will still be found in 
families and groups, maintaining itself in the 
vicinity of the farm and plantation-house, and 
sometimes growing comparatively tame by as- 
sociation with human beings. This squirrel dif- 
fers from other kinds in building a nest of twigs 
and leaves in the forked branches of a high 
tree, which it occupies in the summer months, 
abandoning it in the fall for the more secure 
retreat in the hollow of the trunk. 

The first thrilling joys of the boy-hunter are 
associated with the pursuit of the squirrel. Full 
of life, rejoicing in the blessings of a holiday, 
armed with a trusty fowling-piece, and perhaps 
— oh, joy of joys ! — accompanied by some favor- 
ite and mischievous dog, no triumphs of man- 
hood equal this first essay into the woods — this 
first consciousness of awakening power called 
forth as the doomed victim, following the mu- 
sical echo of the just discharged weapon, comes 
dashing down from its airy abode and falls dead 
upon the ground. Then there is the excitement 
of the contest of wit — the squirrel instinctively 
dodges on the opposite side of the tree occupied 
by the tyro sportsman, and, by persevering in 
this course, will often baffle the inexperienced 
hunter ; anon, the cunning creature Avill skip 
nimbly into some high branches, out of the 
reach of shot, and bark and chatter in deris- 
ion at his enemy below ; else, not badly fright- 
ened, will extend himself along some horizontal 
branch, and rely upon his gray coat to make his 
body undistinguishable from the surrounding 
mass. At this moment the hunter's eye, quick- 
ened by experience, will discover the ruse, and, 
with palpitating heart — with almost suffocating 
excitement, will "fire away," and bring down 
the prize. 

The Western hunter — who uses nothing but 
the rifle, and scorns to shed the blood of an ani- 
mal so insignificant and harmless as the squir- 
rel — in the very spirit of chivalry introduced 
the method of barking the tree, and thus killing 
the game without any apparent wound. This 
is done by noticing the resting-place of the ani- 



760 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



mal, and firing underneath it and into the bark, 
the concussion instantly suspending the beating 
of the heart, and blowing the dead body from 
the limb as if projected upward by exploding 
powder. Some hunters, even more expert, have 
killed their game by firing across the nostrils of 
the animal, and thus depriving it of breath, in 
the same way that a cannon-ball has been known 
to kill a soldier by passing in the immediate vi- 
cinity of his head. 

Squirrels are possessed of great power, and the 
development of their muscles is unsurpassed for 
beauty and perfection. They leap from tree to 
tree with surprising agility, and, when hotly pur- 
sued, will, if necessary to effect their escape, 
drop themselves from tremendous heights to the 
ground, and then make off with inconceivable 
rapidity to the next favorable clump of trees 
that may stand in their path. Their claws are 
long and slender, and the nails are very acute 
and greatly compressed ; they are thus enabled to 
grasp the smallest twigs, and seldom miss their 
hold. If this should happen to be the case, they 
have an instinctive habit of grasping in their de- 
scent the first object which may present itself, 
or, if about to fall to the earth, they spread their 
legs and bodies out in the manner of the flying 
squirrel, and are thus enabled to reach the ground 
without injury. 

The squirrel is almost as provident as the 
ant, and, in the proper season, occupies all of 
its leisure time in industriously storing up food 
for winter. It has Avell-stocked graneries in the 
neighborhood of its nest, either in some hollow- 
tree or crevice in the rocks. The quantities 
sometimes stored away are represented as enor- 
mous, one depository containing perhaps a bush- 
el of hickory, beech, and chestnuts, together with 
acorns, chincapins, grains, etc. It is supposed 
that these collections are not made by one indi- 
vidual, but by several who join together for the 
general good. 

Although the squirrel is so common in cap- 
tivity, yet it is difficult to find an authentic case 
of its producing young in such a situation. We 
had a friend, some years ago, who became pos- 
sessed of a couple of very young gray squir- 
rels ; they were carefully raised, and in time 
became so tame that they were permitted to 
run at Random about the verandas and adjoin- 
ing rooms, always returning, however, to their 
cage at night. In their perambulations one 
day they leaped from the gallery into the limbs 
of a cherry-tree that grew close to the house, 
and nothing could exceed their display of joy 
as this new world of life broke upon them. 
Gradually they abandoned their prison and 
formed themselves a bed in the cherry-tree, 
where they slept at night, took their gambols, 
but came to the house regularly for their food. 
The succeeding spring the family were surprised 
and delighted by the appearance of the pets, 
bringing with them their tiny but playful young 
ones, which followed their parents boldly into 
the dining-room, skipped merrily about upon 
the tables and chairs, and seizing upon the bread 



crumbs and other luxuries in their reach, mount- 
ed upon their hind-legs, and, with comical grav- 
ity, turned the choice bits about in their little 
hands, and then consigned them to their mouths. 
These squirrels grew up in a semi-wild state, 
and their progeny gradually extended over the 
neighborhood. 




TUE EEAYEK. 

The beaver is the most interesting of all the 
rodentia, and possesses so much intelligence, 
and is so remarkable in its habits, that it has 
ever been the subject of the most intense inter- 
est to naturalists. This animal was once famil- 
iar to European rivers; a few are still to be 
found upon the Rhone and Danube, but, while 
they resemble the American representative in 
anatomical structure, and are believed to be 
identically the same animal, yet their intelli- 
gence is in no way superior to the musk-rat, 
and their lodges nothing but burrows in the 
river banks. It is said that Buffon, when he 
first heard of the American beaver, and compre- 
hended its superior talents as an architect and 
engineer, became very much excited, and ex- 
pressed the sentiment that he would rather see 
a beaver village than any collection of palaces 
in Europe. 

The teeth of the beaver are remarkable for 
their strength and sharpness, and in cutting 
wood, the chips it leaves are precisely such as 
are made by a carpenter when he uses a chisel; 
in fact, the Indians set these teeth in a rude 
handle, and by their assistance carve a variety 
of ornaments, and manufacture household uten- 
sils. The imbrocated tail serves as a trowel; 
the fore-paws have the intelligence and power 
of a hand ; with these appliances, so imperfect 
compared to the facilities possessed by man, 
this wonderful animal performs extraordinary 
tasks of labor, builds houses larger and more 
perfect than the Laplander's hut, and erects im- 
mense dams through streams of running water, 
upon the most scientific principles of the en- 
gineering art. 

The houses are composed of a mixed mass 
of wood, stones, and mud, the whole ingenious- 
ly wrought together so as to form a solid mass 
of great strength and firmness. After the struc- 
ture is finished, which is sometimes twenty feet 
in diameter, it is covered over annually with 



THE GNAWERS. 



7G1 



plaster, which is put on smooth, as if done by a 
mason's trowel ; but as the beaver always works 
in the night, how this fine finish is accomplish- 
ed has never been clearly ascertained. The en- 
trance to these lodges is under the water, and 
placed so low that when the water freezes the 
door- way will be below the ice. The nests are 
placed in galleries running round the sides of 
the building, tlfe centre being unoccupied. Most 
generally a number of families occupy the same 
lodge. 

The object of the dam is to raise the water, 
so that the ice of winter and the heats of sum- 
mer will not deprive them of a plentiful supply. 
Their form differs according to the demand of 
circumstances. If the current runs strongly, the 
dam is made to curve against the current, so 
that the fall occasioned by it resembles the 
horse-shoe of Niagara ; but when the current is 
light, the dam is placed in a straight line across 
the stream. At the first construction a dam is 
sometimes three hundred yards in length, and 
from eight to ten feet high, with a base of 
twelve feet, the whole work gracefully narrow- 
ing toward the top. When it happens that a 
colony has uninterruptedly continued its labors 
for many years — and each member under all cir- 
cumstances works on the dam every day — the 
structure becomes of gigantic size, seeds of the 
birch and other trees fall upon it, branches of 
the willow catch on its sides, and, in time, pleas- 
ant groves spring up filled with singing birds, 
and the whole assumes the appearance of a nat- 
ural bank, rather than the original work of ani- 
mal industry. 

The beaver is proverbial for being a hard 
worker, nevertheless there are some drones — 
always males, by the way — which refuse to labor, 
and are therefore driven from the settlement. 
These idlers scrape a hole in a neighboring 
bank, and associate together, picking up a liv- 
ing as best they can. They seem to be partic- 
ularly unpopular among the females, and are by 
them snubbed and ridiculed with impunity. 

In catching the beaver the Indians storm 
their houses in winter, and watching their " re- 
treating holes," kill them as they attempt to es- 
cape. The trapper on the contrary takes them, 
as his name implies, in traps, a manner, how- 
ever, which requires the most patient labor, love 
of solitude, consummate skill, and the most in- 
timate knowledge of the habits of the animal. 
The hunter desiring to set his trap, selects a 
steep, abrupt spot in the bank of the creek, near 
the beaver settlement, which he only approaches 
in a canoe or by cautiously wading up the stream ; 
for the beaver is so sagacious that he readily 
discovers the presence of man, and shuns any 
thing that is contaminated by his touch. Hav- 
ing chosen a spot suitable for the purpose, the 
hunter excavates with his canoe paddle a place 
sufficiently large to hold the trap, and in such 
a way that, when the machine is set, it will be 
three inches under the water. Two feet above 
the trap is a stick three or four inches in length, 
stuck into the bank, on the end of which is 



placed a minute quantity of perfume, made by 
mingling the fresh castor of the beaver with an 
extract from the roots and bark of the spice- 
bush, of which they are excessively fond, and 
can smell at a great distance. The animal, in 
his desire to reach the aromatic charm, swims 
to the steep bank, and in his attempt to climb 
up necessarily comes in contact with the trap. 
In the struggle to get away the beaver usually 
drowns, but instances have been known of their 
cutting off the imprisoned limb, and thus making 
their escape. 

In the life of that remarkable hunter and 
Rocky Mountain guide, Jim Beckwith, we find 
the following interesting reminiscences of this 
animal : " When hunting the beaver in the 
streams among the fastnesses of the Rocky 
Mountains, I have sat for hours to watch their 
proceedings when preparing to build their lodges. 
I have known them to fell cotton-wood trees 
seven and a half feet in circumference; and 
they always make choice of a tree having an 
inclination toward the stream they propose to 
employ it upon. The selection made, a num- 
ber set to w r ork upon its trunk, gnawing it with 
their four sharp teeth, while one retires to a 
distance to watch the tree, and give warning to 
those employed upon it when it threatens to 
fall. He keeps his eye fixed constantly upon 
the tree top, until he sees it begin to waver; 
this is the time to call his fellows out of danger, 
and he brings his flat tail down upon the ground 
with a rap which is distinctly heard by all. Re- 
called by this summons, the laboring beavers 
lose no time in retreating to their chief, where 
they await in silence the action of the tree. If 
its motion steadies, and it is found that it is not 
sufficiently gnawed away, one or two return, 
and renew their labors upon the trunk until 
again summoned away as before. They then 
watch it from their secure point of observation 
until it cracks and snaps, and finally falls; and 
if it falls in the required direction they all burst 
out into a jabbering of applause, reminding one 
strongly of boys at a ship launch. 

" The tree felled, they again return to it, and 
examine it from root to branch, and then fall 
to work in lopping the limbs and reducing them 
to a suitable length for their use. 

" The first steps they take in the construction 
of their dam is to drive their piles, which are 
generally willows ; these they plant in the bed 
of the stream at proper distances apart. When 
a sufficient number are thus secured, they com- 
mence weaving in the filling, using for the pur- 
pose the twigs and lighter branches of the tree 
they have felled ; and weaving it so closely as 
to render it almost, and in some cases entirely, 
impassable to the water, without the addition 
of any other material. They then proceed to 
fill in their compact wall with the application 
of a superincumbent mass of materials, using 
gravel, mud, clay, stones, or whatever comes 
first to hand, until it is rendered as stable and 
firmly set as any wall built by a mason of hewn 
stone. 



7G2 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" Their material is carried to the brink of the 
stream on their broad tails, and if reason does 
not guide them in the performance of this work, 
it is some innate intelligence that would answer 
very well the purpose. They select the place 
where the material best suited to build with 
is to be obtained : some of the party then ex- 
pand their tails to their utmost limit, while oth- 
ers scrape on with their fore-paws a tail-load 
of the building material — pressing it down and 
smoothing its surface as handily as a workman 
would do it; while these are being similarly 
loaded by others in the rear of them. Their 
load received, they advance with it to the dam, 
dragging their laden tails carefully over the 
ground ; when they discharge the burden on 
the surface of the dam, and return to the quarry 
for more. This process is continued until the 
superstructure is completed. The water is never 
suffered to flow over the surface of the dam, but 
sluices are left, at certain intervals, sufficient to 
afford a channel for the egress of the superflu- 
ous accumulation, thus preserving the surface 
from damage by the passage of the stream. 
These dams are built for the protection of their 
store-houses, where they preserve their winter's 
provision ; which consists of limbs of the cot- 
ton-wood tree, willow, pine, and other kinds of 
wood. When the bark is peeled, which they 
use for food, they bind it up in a bundle, and 
sink it before their dams to protect it from the 
winter frost ; and from this they draw their sup- 
ply to satisfy their daily wants. I have some- 
times seen their dams swept by an extreme 
pressure of water; but I never saw them dis- 
solve to pieces; they still hold together in the 
shape of basket-work, even when torn from their 
hold. 

"The beavers build their lodges according 
to the size of their families, which is done in the 
following manner : They burrow a hole in the 
superstructure of their dams down to high-wa- 
ter mark, which serves them for their winter 
residence. For the summer they have more 
airy quarters, by weaving a conically-shaped 
lodge over the top of their cellar, formed of 
wood, and put together in the same manner as 
they built their dams ; again interweaving wil- 
lows and other brush, and then plastering their 
walls with a compost of clay and mud, until it 
is rendered perfectly air-tight. Their lodges 
are kept as free from dirt and all kinds of litter 
as the most tidy housewife could desire ; every 
particle of chip or waste matter being cleaned 
out immediately after a meal, which all partake 
of together, having no second table for servants 
or children. 

" Their beds are all placed round the sides 
of the lodge, one bed for every pair. These 
beds are composed generally of dry moss, and 
have a clean and comfortable appearance. They 
are exemplary in their matrimonial relations, 
the male scrupulously adhering to his female 
partner, as probably the maintenance of a lar- 
ger family might be found inconvenient, since 
the gnawing down trees for their support is 



rather a laborious occupation. The usual in- 
crease is two at a time ; and when the young 
are sufficiently grown to provide for themselves, 
and their lodges grow inconveniently crowded, 
the males all migrate together, leaving the fe- 
males, with their offspring, in undisturbed pos- 
session of their homes. If a beaver dies in the 
lodge, they all remove from it and build an- 
other. 

" The beavers, when domesticated, make very 
interesting pets ; they are apt to be mischievous, 
but are remarkably sagacious, and can be taught 
almost every thing. Mr. M'Kenzie had a couple 
of tame ones at Fort Union, at the mouth of 
the Yellow Stone. He raised several acres of 
corn one season, the sprouts or suckers of which 
his men used to pull off to feed the horses with. 
One day, when the corn was well tassled out, 
there came on a heavy rain, and the water flowed 
in rivulets doicn thefurrows of the corn-field. Dur- 
ing the rain-storm the two beavers were out in 
the field all day, and returned home just before 
night, bemired all over and tired to death. My 
friend, who was a broad-spoken Scotchman, 
broke out in a perfect rage at seeing his pets so 
dirty, and bade them repair to the river and 
wash themselves. They slunk away to obey 
his behest, and then quietly crawded into their 
beds. Shortly afterward a laborer came in from 
the field to say that the men had been cutting 
up more than an acre of corn for their horses, 
and M'Kenzie Avent forth, in a great rage, to 
scold his 'dom'd Frenchmen' for their waste. 
On examination, however, it was discovered 
that the corn had been cut with sharp teeth in- 
stead of sharp knives, and the truth then came 
out : Betty and Billy had been hard at work all 
day in building dams, and had stopped up every 
furrow for over a mile in extent. 

" It is piteous to see the little ones after their 
mother has been caught ; their cries can scarce- 
ly be distinguished from those of a child, and 
they wander disconsolately about in search of 
their missing parent. The trappers frequently 
take pity on them, and carry them into camp, 
where they feed them on bark chips and other dry 
vegetable diet. I presume it was a day of great 
rejoicing among the beaver tribe when French 
silk hats were first introduced into general use, 
as their pelts were then so little called for that 
it did not pay to trap them. There is not one 
trapper engaged in the business now where for- 
merly there would be fifty or more. It is a rule 
with mountaineers that beaver skins are of the 
very best quality until the leaves of the trees 
become as large as the ears of the beaver, after 
which time the fur becomes coarse and com- 
paratively valueless. 

"Naturalists, I believe, have always over- 
looked the fact that the fore-feet of these ani- 
mals are open clawed like those of the dog, 
while the hind-feet are webbed." 

The beaver in captivity, as has already been 
noticed, soon becomes tame, and is a very amus- 
ing animal, but hard to keep confined;, for by 
his powerful teeth no ordinary woodwork of our 



MARTHA WYATT'S LIFE. 



763 



habitations stops his progress from one place 
to another. Although the beaver is thus pow- 
erful with his teeth, felling sometimes trees of 
immense size by cutting them asunder near the 
butt, yet in eating a potato they will skin it with 
a precision that could not possibly be obtained 
by the human hand or by the blade of the most 
delicate knife. 

Of one of these animals sent to England we 
have the following interesting account: "On 
his arrival in England he was in a most pitiable 
condition. Good treatment soon restored him 
to health, and kindness made him familiar. 
When called by his name 'Binny,' he gen- 
erally answered with a little cry, and came to 
his owner. The hearth-rug was his favorite 
haunt, and thereon he would lie stretched out, 
sometimes on his back, sometime on his belly, 
but always near his master. The building in- 
stinct showed itself immediately after he was 
let out of his cage, and materials were placed in 
his way for its gratification. His strength was 
wonderful even when half grown. He would 
drag along a large sweeping-brush, or a warm- 
ing-pan, grasping the handle between his teeth 
so that its head rested over his shoulder, and 
advancing in an oblique direction until he ar- 
rived at the point where he wished to place it. 
The long and large materials were always taken* 
first, and two of the largest were generally laid 
crosswise, with one of the ends of each touching 
the wall, and the other sides projecting out into 
the room. The open places he filled up with 
hand-brushes, rush-baskets, boots, books, sheets, 
clothes, dried turf, and any thing portable. As 
the work grew high, he supported himself on 
his tail, which propped him up admirably, and he 
would often, after his work, sit up over against 
it, appearing to consider its fitness for the pur- 
poses designed. These pauses were sometimes 
followed by a change in the arrangement ; some- 
times no alteration was made. After he had 
completed what turned out to be his da?n, he 
began another 'improvement' at a little dis- 
tance off, taking advantage of the legs of a table 
for the uprights of what he designed to be his 
lodge, which he soon covered up with dried 
turf, hay, cloth, coal — in fact any thing he 
could pick up. Having completed his nest, he 
would sit near it and comb out his fur with the 
claws of his hind-feet. Binny generally carried 
small light articles between his right fore-leg 
and his chin, walking on the other three ; large 
masses which he could not grasp readily with 
his teeth he pushed forward, leaning against 
them with his right fore-paw and chin. He 
never carried any thing on his tail, which he was 
fond of dipping in water : so long as it was wet 
he never drank, if it became dry, he seemed 
feverish, discontented, and would drink a great 
deal. Bread, milk, and sugar formed the prin- 
cipal part of Binny's food, but he was excess- 
ively fond of succulent fruits and roots; alto- 
gether he was a very entertaining little creature, 
and shed new light upon the varied character 
of the wonderful works of the creation." 



MARTHA WYATT'S LIFE. 

THERE are strange varieties of character in 
this round world of ours, unsuspected by 
the casual observer, even unappreciated by in- 
timate friends ; persons whose force and fire are 
kept down by the even and strenuous pressure 
of social circumstance, till the strength recoils 
upon itself with deadly power, and the unseen 
flame consumes its own dwelling-place with a 
true Smithfield fury. 

Such a person was Martha Wyatt, an old 
schoolmate of mine at Shelton Academy. To 
most people she seemed a quiet, intelligent girl, 
pale and plain, with peculiarly cold manners ; 
the only unusual thing about her being a rare 
smile that, once in an age, flashed across her 
face, and lit its colorless lines with the vivid 
splendor of lightning. She was nothing in any 
way to Shelton people, for her family consisted 
only of her father, her mother, and herself; 
were neither rich, poor, nor odd ; and had no 
near relatives or particular friends out of the 
village. Gossip lost its foothold in such com- 
monplace ground, and curiosity died of starva- 
tion. If ever any remarks were made about the 
Wyatts, they were generally a commiseration of 
Martha's feeble health, and a wonder as to what 
ailed her — for she never was tangibly ill, only 
weak and languid. Nor did I know her better ; 
for though we had a school-girl friendship dur- 
ing the last year or two I lived in Shelton, she 
kept her reserve intact, so far as concerned her 
own thoughts and feelings, according to me 
rather the support of her advice, and the com- 
mon-sense quiet of her exterior character, as 
became an older and more staid person. I have 
only since appreciated how old she must have 
been in feeling, so steadily to resist the over- 
flow of an impulsive and hopeful character like 
mine, and to value, as I could not then, the 
smile which woke for me oftener than for any 
other creature. She had one very singular habit, 
as I knew long after. In any unusual excite- 
ment of thought or feeling she was in the habit 
of writing long letters to the only intimate friend 
she ever had, who had long been dead. 

I transcribe three of these letters to complete 
my story, premising that they were addressed to 
Emily Barnes, who, at the date of the first one, 
had been lying three years in the grave-yard of 
Shelton church, with clove pinks and a sweet- 
briar growing over the record of her name and 
age on the little brown head-stone. 

LETTER FIEST. 

Shelton, June 5th, 18 — . 
Dear Emily — I promised, you know, long, 
long since, to tell you if ever I was in love. I 
do not think I should have made the promise if I 
had supposed such a thing would happen to me ; 
yet it is now a relief to keep it, since I made it, 
and to-night I am sitting, late as it is, by my open 
window, trying to begin. It is needless to tell 
you why I hover round the subject so long — you 
know why, for you did it once. Emily, it is no 
secret to you that I have not a happy, even a 
peaceful home; we are poor here, with that 



"64 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



worst poverty, the deadly struggle of pride and 
want. If only the world were a true, honest, 
self-sufficing world, where we need never have 
one needless ornament, but lived our lives by 
their actual measure, and despised shows, con- 
tented with the beauties that are in the reach of 
every man, how much real anguish, how much 
wear and tear of feeling might be saved; what 
pitiful subterfuges, what sickness, exhaustion, 
and cowardice, mental and moral, what useless 
struggles, what starvation of the soul to deceive 
in the body ! 

All these things dishearten and distress me, 
not only in their abstract insincerity and hol- 
lowness, but because they occasion discontent 
and bitter words in their daily routine. In such 
circumstances, how natural I should long for 
love — the elixir of young life, the alchemist's 
stone, that gilds all — how doubly natural that I 
should also make up my mind that I must some 
day love hopelessly. My plain face, my cold 
manner, my dreaming mind — what charm lay in 
these to attract any man I could love ? My 
consciousness was prophetic ; it is even so ! 

I can not stop to think where I first saw 
Adam Brooke, for I had seen him often before 
I knew him. I began to know him in Plym- 
outh, where I was spending a day with your 
mother. He came in to tea, and walked over 
home with me in the evening, and that night I 
heard his name all night. It was — is — so 
strange ! He was very kind to me — devotedly 
so ; and kindness was new to me from a man 
and a stranger. Handsome he was not, but 
Saxon blood shone clear in his keen northern 
eye and bright brown hair, and he had a Saxon 
heart — cool, steadfast, yet not a little crafty, 
and self-controlled to the verge of hardness. I 
saw him often after that first time, and we be- 
came true friends ; more was impossible, less I 
would not have ; and I loved, love, shall love 
him ! This sounds painfully school-girlish — 
sentimental ; yet never was I farther from either 
phase. I knew with unwavering certainty what 
I did, to what I was coming. I knew he could 
not and would not love me, but I had foreseen 
that fate afar off, and I only went a step to meet 
it. There was a time in our earliest acquaint- 
ance when I might have ended it, and been 
what I was before it began, but I would not. I 
thought, in my self-sufncientness, that any thing 
was better than the life of weary pain and ex- 
hausting endeavor that I led. I would have a 
place of rest, a little sleep, if it was the prece- 
dent trance of mortal anguish — and I had it ! 

I do not know how long this bliss of feeling 
lasted — whether weeks or months went by. If 
I were to name it with any definiteness I should 
say it was all October — a time of lingering sun- 
shine, golden, misty days ; unearthly brightness 
on the world and its creatures, all softened, sub- 
limed, made tender by the unspoken conscious- 
ness of winter at hand. My mother noticed a 
new strength in my slow steps, a deeper tint on 
my cheek, a fresher light in my eyes, wonder- 
ing what had done me such good, and comfort- 



ing herself with a new prospect of peace and 
cheer in a hitherto dull and sullen horizon. I 
had found the Fountain of Youth, and drank 
with insatiable lips. If you were here to speak, 
you would ask me why I loved Adam Brooke, 
and I could not tell you ; it is a mystery to my- 
self. I believe in fate — not fatalism. Perhaps 
it was because he treated me with care and ten- 
derness, neither of which had visited me before 
from any but my mother. Perhaps it was that 
shadow of the primeval curse that gives every 
man a power over some woman not to be de- 
fined or analyzed — the v divine and natural power 
of rule and subjection. I know I had never un- 
derstood it before I felt it. I could have lain 
on the turf and felt his horse's hoofs trample 
over me, could it serve or save him, with inex- 
pressible satisfaction. And yet he did not love 
me, nor did I yet ask love. Absorbed in the 
delight of my own overflowing and abundant 
emotion, I neither required nor expected its re- 
turn. What was I, that this crown and glory 
should descend upon me ? I wheeled and flut- 
tered about the lighted torch, knowing well that 
it did not burn for me, content to bask in its 
light ; not yet scorched, agonized, dying. 

For two or three years this went on. Daily 
I learned to admire Mr. Brooke's character, or 
thought I did ; daily I depended more and more 
upon his affection and aid. He rendered me a 
thousand little kind services that should have 
been done by a relative, had I possessed one. 
He taught the Bible class to which I had always 
belonged, and added to his height in my eyes the 
farther elevation of so sacred an office ; while 
he raised me intellectually nearer and nearer 
his own level, and fed heart and mind alike till 
they achieved a fearful and tropical growth — 
all the greater for the outward pressure I was 
forced to lay upon them of silence and coldness. 

Once only I came near betraying myself. I 
was walking home from church with him, as I 
often did — for our way home was the same for 
half a mile, through Isham's Lane — and in that 
green, silent path we had many a talk over the 
sermon and the day's lesson ; but that day we 
were silent — it was too warm to breathe un- 
necessarily — and as we went through the trees, 
every ray of sunshine that fell on us where a 
branch was lost from the thick shadow, burnt 
like a stream of fire ; and just where one fell, I 
discerned the glitter of a snake coiled in the 
worn foot-track. One thought only possessed 
me : I knew that a rattlesnake had been killed 
in that wood the week before — for so unusual 
a thing was proclaimed on the house-tops in 
Shelton — and I felt suddenly sure that this was 
the creature's mate ; all this thought was but a 
moment's flash. I grasped Mr. Brooke's arm, 
drew him back as if he were a child, stepped 
before him, and touched the snake with my 
foot, never remembering it could harm me. It 
did not stir ; it was dead ; and a common striped 
snake at that. Mr. Brooke stepped aside, and. 
with a laugh, asked what he had done to be 
sent behind me in that way ; and as he spoke, 



MARTHA WYATT'S LIFE. 



765 



saw the snake. He turned fairly round, looked 
in my face for a moment with his keen, pene- 
trating eyes that I could not meet, and said, 
slowly, 

"You thought it was a rattlesnake?" 

" Oh, no, it is not !" said I, affecting to mis- 
understand him ; " it is only a striped snake !" 

He did not speak again, but stooped and 
picked a wild rose-bud from the bushes beside 
us, and put the stem in his lips ; so he could 
not well say more, even to bid me good-by when 
our roads parted, and I don't know that he ever 
thought of the affair again. After a time his 
manner toward me changed, or I changed in 
my own ; I can not separate one possibility from 
the other, but I began to be miserable. I had 
not asked myself any question as to the climax 
of this unresisted passion or its end. I had 
breathed it in as a man consumed with painful 
disease inhales the deadly sweetness of the drug 
that quiets alike nerve and pulse. I was un- 
happy ; love was joy, rest, life ; why should I 
not love, and enjoy my delicate, intellectual 
theories of an unrequited, self-forgetful pas- 
sion, that asked no food for its support save its 
own tender overflow? I forgot that God had 
made me a woman ; now this fact returned to 
me with awful force. I began to die, having 
lived ; to hang on the sound of Adam Brooke's 
voice, the intonation of his words, the idlest 
speech he uttered in laughter or jest, for some 
other meaning than he expressed, some con- 
cealed significance that should guage his feel- 
ing toward me, and show how much or how 
little I was in his eyes, to his heart; and no 
mother ever trembled over her first-born with 
so speechless a rapture as I over the faintest 
shadow of affection, the most minute suggestion 
of interest or approval. I was like the man 
with the muck-rake in that world-wide treasure 
of Bunyan's ; and I never wearied with the toil, 
strong in false hope. 

Then came a bitterer phase. I grew mad 
with jealousy; my reason left me to be the prey 
of such pitiful suspicions, such wild surmisings, 
such distortions of the commonest act, the most 
unmeaning word, that I could scarce believe in 
my own identity. I had supposed myself gen- 
erous, high-minded, charitable; but now this 
vain conceit fled. I would have condescended 
to the most palpable meanness to gain certain- 
ty ; I would have been invisible to have dogged 
Adam Brooke's footsteps, watched his eye, 
heard his voice, and brought my fate to its cul- 
mination in despair or hope. I received from 
him no help ; self-poised, he went on his own 
way blind to the storm he had created — happily 
for me, blind. 

How tired I am of writing all this! The 
moon glitters tranquilly on the silver poplar 
leaves, wherein a soft south wind whispers and 
shivers : all the world sleeps but me ; and the 
awe of night, the mysterious, melancholy splen- 
dor of a waning moon, that casts its weird shin- 
ing over earth and sky, soften to tenderness 
the^ hard and feverish beatings of my heart. 
Vol. XII.— No. 72.-3 C 



How sad life is ! how helpful the certain tread 
and all-consoling crown of death ! I have loved 
and lived ! Emily, Emily ! Thekla did more 
— she died ; that is, at least, left. Soon I will 
write the rest. Martha. 

* LETTER SECOND. 

20th July, 18—. 

Dear Emily — I have a few hours now to 
write you, and I take up the dreary little his- 
tory where I left it. So far as those three first 
years I had idealized and adored Adam Brooke; 
now I began to know him. Whether pain had 
rendered my eyes clear-sighted, or the more 
self-centred growth of my passion taught me to 
appreciate the same element in his nature, I 
can not tell. One thing is certain, I began to 
know him as he was — a real, hard-natured, 
strong-willed man ; selfish, at times cruel ; not 
practically high-minded, noble, or generous ; 
merely a refined, cultivated, intelligent, and 
moderately kind-hearted man, who did not love 
me. Did that cure me? Not the least! I 
loved him more than ever; with more reality 
and fervor, more unchangeable and utter affec- 
tion. He was at my side now, mine by all the 
affinities of human nature and human weakness 
■ — all the dearer, all the more loved, and I all 
the more miserable ; with the cup trembling at 
my lips, and the water dripping past them. I 
hoped, prayed, and breathed for him ; my life 
flowed out before him with unhesitating free- 
dom. If I knew myself above the common 
range of women in thought or feeling, I was 
glad for his sake. I wore his favorite colors; 
read the books he praised ; copied, as far as my 
own strongly-individual nature would permit, 
the women he admired ; crushed down my faults 
by the strong hand ; fed my virtues with the 
angelic food of his approval, and moulded my- 
self after his mind, vainly hoping, longing there- 
by to reach his heart. I think at this time he 
began to perceive something of my feeling to- 
ward him. Certainly he knew I was attached 
to him, even as a friend and pupil, with unu- 
sual warmth ; and he grew, by nice modulations 
of manner too gradual for any eye but that of 
love to perceive, cold, polite, repressive; his 
eye kindled no longer with tenderness or sym- 
pathy ; he escaped from my care and attention 
in such a way as to make me smile, even through 
the pain his manoeuvres excited, though the 
smile was more bitter than tears. 

I could not suffer as I did, day after day, and 
month after month, the alternations of exquisite 
anguish with uncertain hope, and not show the 
effects of such excitement physically. My health, 
never of that robust type which characterizes 
many country girls, failed by slow and unmark- 
ed degrees. I could not eat ; my food was ut- 
terly tasteless and insipid ; nothing could tempt 
the languid forces of life to recruit themselves 
in this way, and soon I could not sleep. Then 
began a slow fever that consumed me with tor- 
turing thirst, and a total weariness not to be 
expressed, inasmuch as its climax was a rest- 
lessness only like that which I have seen pre- 



766 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



cede death. Oh, how I longed and prayed to 
die ! how I sat whole days by the small window 
of my room, my dull eyes weakly streaming 
with continuous tears-, and gathered all the re- 
maining energies of life to plead with God for 
its removal! yet I like to think now I never 
failed to add one clause to the prayer — "If it 
be Thy will." I was at least submissive. 

As I grew so ill, of course my mother's fears 
were excited ; she insisted on calling in a phy- 
sician, but he could make nothing of my case, 
left a tonic, talked of dyspepsia, and went his 
way. I knew there was but one remedy left 
me, rather one alleviation — a diversion of my 
almost monomaniac mind from its solitary sub- 
ject of thought, and I tried most thoroughly to 
do something to that end; but here came in 
the retaliative force of nature, weaker than the 
soul that had " o'er-informed" it — the body re- 
fused its aid. I could not exert myself, for I 
had no strength, and I fell back into a worse 
state than before. About this time my father 
was taken ill with a low fever; of course there 
was much for me to do, both for him and for 
my mother. This helped me in a measure, 
though it wore me out physically ; but I have 
lived to learn that there is no time when a wo- 
man is utterly helpless to those who are utterly 
cast on her help. After three months' sickness 
my father died. His death produced no mate- 
rial change in our circumstances, except that 
my mother had only an annuity to depend on, 
and it became necessary that I should do some- 
thing to support myself, in order to lay up a 
small sum yearly for future need. After a time 
of rest and preparation I succeeded in obtain- 
ing the post of teacher in our North District 
School, and entered on my duties the first week 
in April with twenty-five scholars. I was only 
too glad to have found a situation at first, and 
one so near my mother as not to separate me 
from her except through the day ; but as time 
wore on, I found my strength and patience 
scarcely sufficient for my place. I was weak 
in mind and body, irritable, excitable, over all 
wretched, and life grew daily a more irksome 
burden. The natural tastes of my character 
rose up one by one from their long suppression 
to mock me in their starveling shapes. I was 
born indolent, luxurious, artistic. I had a love 
of all beauty set firmly among the radical traits 
of my nature ; and an adaptativeness to every 
refinement of luxury and fastidious delicacy of 
art, that made me instantly more at home in 
the most careful appliances of a splendid house 
than I could be among the substitutions and 
rudenesses of a farm-house. I was a sybarite 
transmigrated into a New England country- 
school ma'am ! The contact of the two was — 
not pleasant. 

After I had taught school six months, in the 
October vacation came my tempting. I had gone 
over to Plymouth to spend a week with your 
mother, Emily. I had not seen Adam Brooke 
for two months ; he was away on some business ; 
and while I was resting my overstrained faculties 



in the quiet of dear Plymouth, I met one day a 

Mr. Hayton, from B , who was also visiting 

in the village, and we were introduced to each 
other at a little tea-party given by Mrs. Smith, 
the minister's wife. After that we met often ; 
for he staid in Plymouth till the middle of No- 
vember, and after 1 returned, contrived to find 
business in Shelton every other day. Mr. Hay- 
ton was a refined, intelligent, and wealthy man, 
widowed, some five years before I saw him, of a 
wife he adored. I have never since known a 
man who so fully commanded my esteem and 
my regard as he did when I learned to know 
him. A thorough gentleman in heart and man- 
ner, he added to this a true artist's perception 
of beauty, and a generous overflow of feeling 
and action toward any suffering he saw or sus- 
pected. Every thing about him and his belong- 
ings was perfect in its way. He read as your 
true book-lover reads, every thing; and shared 
his literary possessions with any one of like taste 
most gladly and untiringly. How he came to like 
me I can not tell or imagine ; I only know that I 
was surprised and terrified when the conviction 
flashed upon me as an inevitable truth. I well 
rememberthe day : it was a bright Saturday in the 
Indian Summer of early November. Mr. Hayton 
had driven over to bring me a new book that I 
had expressed a wish to see, and in the conver- 
sation which followed his arrival, was singularly 
confused and hurried, and once took from the 
closed book a letter, which he was about to offer 
me, but, startled by a footstep on the porch, he 
crushed it in his hand, and seizing his hat, left 
me. I sat a moment silent, and then the truth 
came into my mind like a sudden light. I can 
not deny that I was for an instant flattered and 
consoled, but only for an instant; my reason 
returned with unsparing vividness, and reproved 
me bitterly. I had led a man, my friend most 
truly, to the very painful and false position of 
an encouraged lover whom I did not love. 

Conscience acquitted me of intentional wrong 
in this ; but still I felt most deeply and keenly 
what I must yet make him feel. I must not 
only lose, but wound my friend, and lower my- 
self in his memory. He would think of me 
only as a heartless, cold-blooded creature, scarce 
worthy of a woman's name. Then began a 
harder struggle. Some insidious voice, that 
was neither reason nor conscience, intruded its 
whispering counsel in my ear. Why should I 
not marry him? My mind, recoiling at first, 
returned to look at the idea. He was all I could 
ask in character; good, gentle, and cultivated; 
not too forcible, but all the more tender and af- 
fectionate for that. Besides, he was rich — I 
was weak and poor. A little rest, a ceasing of 
daily anxiety, quiet, care, how they would re- 
store my own health, strengthen the inelastic 
springs of life within, and enable me to shake 
off the sluggish pain of a broken spirit. And 
my mother — how I could build around her lat- 
ter days the strong help and consolation of my 
own prosperity, and obtain for her the thousand 
nameless weapons with which gold fights time, 



MARTHA WYATT'S LIFE. 



767 



and renews the youth of its possessors. She 
would be at ease, I better, and he happy. That 
was the last and strongest argument. He loved 
me, I knew, well and truly. I looked forward 
to the time when he should suffer at my hands 
a little of the pain I had known. I remem- 
bered his desolation in his widowhood ; we were 
both bereft as it were — should we not console 
one another? And my mind went on in the 
misty sunshine of possibilities. I thought of an 
elegant, quiet home, my new strength and peace, 
my mother's joy, my husband's love. Ah ! the 
dream went. I was free, for the tempter over- 
passed his power. I — I, with every living, glow- 
ing, rapturous pulse in my nature poured out as 
lavishly as the waters of a great river before an- 
other man — I, who was not my own, but as 
much belonging to Adam Brooke as his heart- 
beats — /had dared to contemplate the possibil- 
ity, the chance of a life-long lie — an utter hy- 
pocrisy of soul and body ! I was dumb with 
indignant self-contempt. I was abased to the 
dust before my own imaginings. I hated and 
despised my momentary vision with the morbid 
horror of an oversensitive and unhappy mind, 
till a paroxysm of quick, hot tears, like a sudden 
shower, cleared my inner atmosphere, and I 
went about my usual evening tasks very weak, 
very humble, but also very glad to know myself 
again — to feel my soul yet stainless in the in- 
tegrity of its love, all hopeless as it was. 

I must sleep now. The cool night-air kisses 
my burning eyes like a regretful spirit, and I 
hear in my thoughts the echo of that old Gre- 
gorian chant you and I learned of our singing- 
teacher. How consoling the grand harmonies 
of music become when time and suffering inter- 
pret their meaning to us! Good-night! for I 
desire to sleep in that sound. Martha. 

LETTER THIRD. 

Dear Emily — I feel that in my last letter I 
gave you but an inadequate idea of the tempta- 
tion offered to me. I did not, indeed, care to 
be too frank — to admit the possibility of such a 
temptation touching me with any prospect of 
success, any inducement to dally with it for a 
moment. Yet it was too true. I had no pres- 
ent sweetness in life, no prospect of any future; 
I had a worn and aching physical nature, daily 
taxed to its extent ; and I was all the time anx- 
ious for my mother : could I be human and not 
tempted momentarily by a hope so flattering? 
However, the struggle was but momentary; yet 
so earnest as to leave with me a bitter sense of 
shame at my own weakness, and a more en- 
larged charity for the thousand cases of con- 
venient matrimony I had hitherto derided and 
despised. 

But now nothing was left except to save Mr. 
Hayton the mortification of a refusal. To this 
end I devoted all my energies, since it was the 
onlv atonement I could make for the wrong I 
had unconsciously done him. I have heard it 
said that no woman can help knowing that a 
man loves her early enough for her to repel his 
affection before he commits himself openly. 



This may be true of most women, not of me. 
I had trained myself for years to think of such 
a thing as a man's loving me as an impossibil- 
ity. I had dallied with no d\ -dreams of this 
nature — neither hope nor doubt disturbed the 
blank certajnty of my consciousness — and, 
though I loved Adam Brooke with that force 
•and entireness that seem almost to constrain, 
by the sympathetic powers of feeling, a recog- 
nition and a return, yet I know if he had loved 
me my first solitary feeling would have been 
dumb surprise. I was not equally astonished 
at the discovery I made of Mr. Hayton's affec- 
tion for me, because I did not love him. Still 
I was sincerely surprised and more grieved, and 
I began in that very hour to devise measures 
for his good. Here opportunity favored me, as 
she favors ever her seekers. Every time Mr. 
Hayton called for the next week I was not at 
home, and my mother could not see him, and 
this from circumstances I did not control. The 
first time he met me I was walking in Isham's 
Lane, coming home from church, with Adam 
Brooke, who had returned but the day before 
from a long absence and joined me as usual. I 
think Mr. Hayton intended to meet me in that 
lane, as it was out of his way to Plymouth, and 
seeing him coming, I had time and chance to 
turn my face toward Mr. Brooke, in a little more 
earnest conversation than before, and, as it were, 
let go of my heart, so long held firmly, and per- 
mit its living, palpitating glow to suffuse every 
feature and glorify the plainness of my dark, 
dull face. This Mr. Brooke could not see, oc- 
cupied in surveying the stranger in so unwonted 
a path, while Mr. Hayton saw that only — feel- 
ing rather than seeing the slight, preoccupied 
bow I granted him. His face I remember ever 
since — it was full of regret, a little tinged with 
contempt for me. From that I augured well. 
Not a year after he married a very lovely wo- 
man, far above me in personal graces and ac- 
complishments ; and, I doubt not, he is happy 
enough to have forgiven me entirely. 

After that, I had no further temptation. 
Adam Brooke left Shelton in a month for the 
West. We had a singular parting, or it seemed 
so to me ; possibly observers would have thought 
it simply blunt or unfeeling. It was Christmas 
night that he came to say good-by : there was a 
bright fire on the hearth in our little front room, 
and I was there alone, for mother had not left 
her room that day from a severe cold. I knew 
Mr. Brooke was going away, for he had told us 
in the Bible class on Sunday that he should not 
meet with us again, and this was Tuesday. I 
believe I was sewing when he came in, for he 
pulled off his gloves in such haste as to tear 
one, and asked me to mend it, saying he should 
like some of my sewing in Oregon to remember 
my quick fingers by; and I, jesting as pain 
jests, said he must remember me without any 
bribe ; but I mended the glove. We talked an 
hour of the idlest and most indifferent matters, 
and then he rose to go. How tightly then I 
held the reins of my mad impulse ! How 1 sot 



768 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



my teeth in the nervous effort to stifle the ache 
that possessed me to throw myself into his arms, 
and die there of shame and rest. I was terri- 
fied at myself, and subdued outwardly to such 
calm as is only wrought by the antagonism of a 
tempest working within : I held out my hand to 
him ; it was cold and rigid, and the touch seemed 
to sting him, for he, too, subdued a start as he 
took it, but he folded his own over it and looked 
into my face with an expression I would have 
given my soul to see, yet dared not meet. I 
looked away, up at a rude engraving of the as- 
cending Madonna that hung upon the wall ; in 
that moment of agony, the dead climax of an- 
guish, I noted every line and spot upon that 
picture, I measured its satisfied calmness with 
my own pulseless quiet. I saw myself, the 
alien and the seeker ; set beside her, the home- 
coming, the fulfilled. I saw every thing except 
the living face before me. I felt nothing but 
the firm, equal pressure that inclosed my hand ; 
and all this was but a few seconds : he dropped 
my irresponsive fingers with a light sigh, said 
"good-by," and left me — to a double winter — 
to a treble night ! I shall not tell you what I 
did when the door closed behind him. I do 
not know — there I was, and there I staid, till 
some faint light crept in at the window from a 
new day. I rose then from the hearth, put 
away the fallen hair from my face, and crept to 
my pillow beside mother, who had not waked 
or missed me, and I slept one feverish hour, till 
the welcome drudgery of school and the day 
forced me through a routine without whose 
steady and inevitable requirements I might, 
possibly, have sentimentally died of that in- 
credible ailment — a broken heart. 

I remember very little about that winter; we 
lived through it, and in the spring a distant rel- 
ative of my mother's, an elderly lady, possessed 
of some small property, desired to come and 
board with us, having an attachment to Shelton 
as her birth-place, and all her ties elsewhere 
having mouldered away one by one. In her 
society my mother found the little excitement 
necessary to render her silent life agreeable 
while I was away, and soon after spring came 
in I was offered a situation in Tennessee, at a 
much better compensation than I received in 
Shelton. I accepted the offer, as much for that 
reason as because I hoped a milder climate 
might strengthen my faltering life, and change 
of scene so entire give a new direction to the 
ever-recurring thoughts that preyed upon me day 
by day with no respite and no mercy. Also- — let 
me confess that last and weakest foible — I should 
be nearer that farthest West. I was too weak 
to do battle with so vague an indulgence of feel- 
ing as this, when there were real and practical 
reasons for acceptance. So it is in Tennessee 
that I write to-day. I do not know that I am 
better; sometimes my life gives a flash of the 
old fire, but rarely. My duties here are all la- 
bor; the children I undertake to teach are rough, 
insolent, and neglected in every way ; possibly, 
with health and strength, I might mould the 



untempered metal into some serviceable shape, 
but it is too hard work for a weary and lifeless 
person. I shall do my best for the year I am 
pledged to stay, and then return, how gladly, 
to my mother, and — home — ah! my home! it 
is not there. I know when the sunset glows 
broad and red over the low horizon that it rises 
upon my real home — but I have lost it; yet 
there is one other: "a rest remaineth to the peo- 
ple of God," anfl I have learned lately to be 
His ; too late to serve here, except in the serv- 
ice of submission, but never too late to love. I 
think, perhaps, I am going back to Shelton to 
die, and I am not sorry to think so, for even in 
the strength of my new faith I dread life ; my 
mother is cared for by her relative and will 
never want ; for whom else am I needed to live? 
I shall die unknown to Adam Brooke, though 
my soul calls him night and day with the des- 
perate cry of death in the wilderness — alone. 
Yet it is better so ; his cool affection for me 
would suffer to know the fire I have trodden 
through. I shall die happy that he did not 
know I have loved. Martha Wyatt. 

This was the last of her letters. Martha re- 
turned from her year's life in Tennessee utter- 
ly worn out. No physician could discover any 
thing about her definite enough to cure ; no 
nursing, however skillful and unwearied, seem- 
ed to restore her. I, myself, asked Dr. Broth- 
erton, a gray-headed, kind old man, who had 
been the village doctor since my childhood, 
what ailed her. 

" My dear," said the Doctor, " she is worn 
out. I can not tell how or where, but she has 
had some great suffering, and she is like ashes 
after a fire ; of course, we can not cure her. 
Poor child ! poor child ! she must have suffered 
very much !" 

At the time of Martha's return I was living 
in Shelton, after a long absence, and gladly re- 
newed my old acquaintance with her. Time 
and its suffering experiences had quieted my 
natural character into a more sympathetic se- 
riousness, and gradually this strangely reserved 
girl opened her heart to me during the long 
hours that I sat by her sofa, and the nights that 
I watched with her. After many months of 
languor and exhaustion, but little severe pain, 
the spirit that had lived so vivid a life leaped 
and flashed on its cold hearth-stone, and forsook 
the ashes of its consumed tenement forever. It 
was just moonrise when Martha Wyatt died ; the 
full glory of the red harvest moon shone through 
an open window upon her white, moveless feat- 
ures ; the sighing autumn wind lifted up and 
doAvn the locks of her black hair; and one great 
moth, left in some sheltered corner of the undis- 
turbed sick-room after its peers were dead of the 
frosts, flapped its wings slowly out into the leaf- 
scented air, and sailed upward through the 
moonshine ; was I superstitious to think it her 
freed soul ? 

She left a little package of papers for me, 
which contained these three letters, long since 



THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 



769 



promised to me, and a brief outline of some lit- 
tle things she wished attended to, but would not 
mention to her mother, lest they should add 
another drop to the cup all ready to overflow. 
Among other matters, she desired me to receive 
and open any letters that might come to her 
from Tennessee, as the arrears of her salary 
were still due from her employer there, and she 
directed that I should take those arrears into 
my own hands, give a receipt for them, and de- 
vote a certain proportion to erecting a plain 
headstone above her grave in the church-yard. 
I explained to Mrs. Wyatt this arrangement, so 
far as my receiving of the letters was concerned, 
and in consequence, some ten days after Mar- 
tha's funeral, she sent over to me a letter, hav- 
ing a very unintelligible post-mark, and I un- 
hesitatingly opened it. A dried wild rose-bud 
fell out, and fluttered to the ground. I read the 
first few lines before I saw my mistake ; but it 
was a mistake so natural Martha herself could 
not have blamed me. That letter was from 
Adam Brooke, and began: "If I did not know 
you to be the most patient, tender, and faithful 
of women, as well as the dearest in the world 
to me — " So far I read, and then turned to the 
signature. I re-sealed the letter carefully, and 
returned it to the post-office, appending to the 
original direction simply the word " Dead." I 
acknowledge now that I was altogether cruel 
and wrong to have done that, but 1 was full of 
indignation at the cold and self-regardant affec- 
tion that could introvert itself so long and give 
no sign. I determined that Adam Brooke 
should feel the full force of those terrible little 
words, "too late." I only repented, when on 
my return after a long absence from Shelton, 
having in the mean time received her dues from 
Tennessee, I went on the first evening after my 
arrival to visit her unnoted sleeping-place. To 
my utter astonishment, the long slants of June 
sunshine fell upon a shaven turf, green as em- 
erald, and gilded a shaft of pure marble, broken 
off abruptly, on whose base were inscribed these 
words (followed by her name and death-date) : 
ii God requireth that which is past." I desired 
no further pain for Adam Brooke, whose hands 
had written his own epitaph upon his heart's 
final sleep in her grave. 

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC* 

EVER since Diedrich Knickerbocker put 
forth his famous history, the popular con- 
ception has represented a Dutchman as a pon- 
derous individual, with broad-brimmed hat, vo- 
luminous doublet, and nether garments innu- 
merable ; smoking a perpetual pipe, fond of 
ease, and specially averse to giving or receiving 
hard knocks. 

Quite different from the Dutchman of that 
pleasant romance is the Hollander of true his- 
tory. Here he is pictured as wrenching a home 
from the jaws of the ocean ; making that ocean 
his tributary; building up free institutions amid 



* The Rise of the ljutch Republic. A History. By 
Joust Lothrop Motley. Harper and Brothers. 



the morasses ; defending them against kings, and 
lords, and priests ; setting the first example in 
modern times of successful resistance to arbi- 
trary power in the most unequal contest ever 
waged upon earth ; and leading the van in the 
long series-^-not yet concluded — of popular rev- 
olutions. The Hollanders were the pioneers in 
the great march of human progress and repub- 
lican liberty. 

It was fitting that the History of the Rise of 
the Dutch Republic should be first worthily 
written by an American. In our veins flows 
blood kindred to that which has made the soil 
of the Netherlands sacred to freedom. We are 
the heirs of the Dutch republicans. William 
of Orange, not less than Washington, toiled for 
us. The story of the seven United Provinces 
of Holland is full of warning and instruction for 
the two-and-thirty United States of America. 
Sectional jealousy, and disunion of States that 
had stood side by side in the great agony, left 
half complete the noble work that had been be- 
gun in Holland. May the gods avert the omen ! 
Let us learn wisdom as we follow our country- 
man in tracing the origin of the Dutch people, 
and the rise of the Dutch Republic. 

For unknown ages, of which history takes no 
note, the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt 
had deposited their slime around the sand-banks 
flung up by the stormy Northern Ocean, form- 
ing a wide morass, in which here and there 
appeared muddy islands, overflowed by every 
rising of the rivers or swelling of the sea. 
"Whether the region be land or water," so 
writes the Roman historian, "one hardly knows. 
The wretched inhabitants dwell in huts pitched 
on the sand-hills or built on stakes. When the 
sea rises they look like vessels floating on the 
waves ; when it falls, they seem to have suffered 
shipwreck." The country well deserved the 
name which it subsequently acquired and still 
bears — Holland — that is, the Hollow, or Low 
Land. Human industry was in time to render 
this the richest portion of Christendom. 

In the heart of this region, the Rhine — double- 
armed, as the poet styled it — separates into two 
main branches, inclosing an island between them 
and the sea. About a century before Christ, a 
great inundation drove out or drowned the Celt- 
ic inhabitants of this island. Soon after, a civil 
war broke out among the Teutonic tribes dwell- 
ing in the great German forest. The weaker 
party, driven out, journeyed westward in search 
of new homes until they reached this vacant 
Rhine island. All traces of the inundation had 
passed away. The land looked fair in its robe 
of summer green. They resolved to make it 
their home, naming it " Bet Auw" — the " Good 
Meadow." The Romans transformed the name 
into Batavia, calling the inhabitants Batavi. 
They and their kin spread from this centre over 
the northern parts of the Hollow Laud, while 
the southern portion remained in possession of 
the Belga; and other Celts. This partition of 
the land has lasted through all subsequent wars 
and migrations. Teutons in the north and Celts 



770 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



in the south, dwelt and still dwell, side by side, 
scarcely intermingling. Holland is Teutonic, 
Belgium is Celtic, to this day. In this fact lies 
the key to the history of the Netherlands. All 
history, in its ultimate analysis, is the history 
not of king and laws, but of races. 

Teutons — or, to give them the name by which 
they are best known, Germans — and Celts were 
both savage enough, yet with a difference. Both 
were of huge stature, with brawny limbs, light 
hair, and fierce blue eyes. The Celt was fond 
of gay attire and showy trinkets; the German 
went almost naked, his sole ornament being an 
iron ring about his neck, and this he discarded 
when he had slain an enemy in battle : he had 
become a man and would put away childish 
things. The Germans formed a military de- 
mocracy ; the Celts were clannish, and in ser- 
vile subjection to their chiefs. The religion of 
the Celts was ceremonial, sensuous, and, in a 
rude way, imposing ; that of the Germans was 
austere, simple, and, in a rude way, spiritual. 
The German was chaste and continent; the 
Celt was lewd and lascivious. Permanent mar- 
riage Avas almost unknown to the Celt ; the Ger- 
man had but one wife, whom he honored, in his 
rude way. Herein lies, perhaps, the distinctive 
characteristic of the Teutonic family. They 
have an Instinctive perception of the worth of 
woman — that she is not a plaything, or an idol, 
or a slave, but a mate. In whatever other race 
this feeling exists it is the product of Christian- 
ity. The German had it while yet a pagan. 

Each race had and has characteristics for 
good and evil which the other lacks. The na- 
ture of the one is hard, persistent, inflexible — 
Protestant. That of the other is eager, im- 
pressible, sensuous — Catholic. The union of 
both is essential to our highest ideal of human- 
ity. Once it seemed that this union of races was 
to be effected in the Netherlands. In the fiery 
furnace of Spanish persecution they seemed 
about to be fused together politically and so- 
cially. But this consummation was not to take 
place then ; perhaps never in the Old World. It 
seems to have been reserved for this New World 
of ours to give birth to a new race, composed 
mainly of Teutonic and Celtic elements. 

The Low Lands became absorbed in the 
Roman empire, and the Batavi furnished the 
choicest soldiery of the Imperial legions. Then 
the Empire grew feeble. The great migration 
of nations began. From the far slopes of the 
Altai Mountains appeared strange races in Eu- 
rope. The hordes in the rear pressed those in 
the van upon the devoted south. The old civ- 
ilization "went down, trampled like seed into the 
soil by rude feet. Then came centuries of 
chaos, which we name the Dark Ages. A new 
civilization at length sprung up from the bloody 
soil, marked by one distinguishing feature : 
Christianity has supplanted Paganism. Its cen- 
tre is Gaul, and it goes forth thence conquering 
— to the Netherlands as elsewhere. 

Charles the Hammer crushes the Saracens at 
Tours, and carries his arms to the mouths of 



the Rhine. Charlemagne completes the con- 
quest of the Batavi, or the "Free Frisians," as 
they are now called ; yet leaves them to be ruled 
by their old laws, which declare that they shall 
be free so long as the wind blows out of the 
clouds and the world stands. 

In the wreck and partition of the Empire of 
Charlemagne, the Netherlands fall now to the 
French King, and now to the German Emperor; 
sometimes they belong practically to neither. 
The sword is laAv, and whoso has the power 
takes the land. Dukedoms, marquisates, count- 
ships, and the like, are founded, of which we 
note but this, that the last Carlovingian mon- 
arch, surnamed the " Simpleton," bestows Hol- 
land, then a hook of barren sand and half-sub- 
merged morass, upon Count Dirk, whose de- 
scendants, father and son, hold their place for 
four centuries, then die out, and their heritage 
passes over to the Counts of Hainault. Of 
these the male line becomes extinct in 1417, 
and Hainault and Holland are heired by the 
fair and luckless Jacqueline, famous in song 
and story, who is dispossessed by her bad cous- 
in Philip of Burgundy, surnamed " the Good." 

So the great Dukes of Burgundy waxed great- 
er. Charles the Bold, the son of Philip, determ- 
ines to transform his ducal coronet into a regal 
crown. He tries to outwit the crafty Louis XL, 
and to conquer the indomitable Swiss. Pie is 
foiled in both attempts. Louis is too cunning, 
and the Swiss are too brave for him. He is 
routed at Morat and Granson, defeated and 
slain at Nancy. Louis clutches at his Burgun- 
dian dominions, while the Netherlands adhere 
to his daughter Mary, whom they give in mar- 
riage to Maximilian of Austria, soon to be Em- 
peror of Germany. Their son, Philip the Fair, 
born Sovereign of the Netherlands, weds the 
mad Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella of Spain, of whom is born, in the year of 
our Lord 1500, Charles, thus by birth King of 
Spain, Count of Holland, Marquis of Brabant : 
by the grace of the Pope and the sword of his 
conquistadors Lord of the New World ; and by 
election Emperor of Germany. Charles V. held 
sway, real or titular, over wider realms than were 
ever gathered under a single sceptre. The Neth- 
erlands were hardly perceptible on the map of 
his dominions. Though the country of his birth, 
he cared little for them except as the main 
source of his revenues. 

There is a history of a people as well as of 
princes. Through all these changing dynasties 
the national character of the Flemings — as the 
Netherlander are now called — had developed 
itself in one direction. First came the power 
of the sword, dividing the land among the no- 
bles, great and small. Next arose to view the 
ecclesiastical power, sometimes adverse to the 
people, but oftener hostile to the nobles. Wis- 
dom entered into contest with brute force. Un- 
derlying these, and mightier than either, was the 
power of Industry. The people were at work. 
They levied tribute alike upon the ocean and 
the land which they had won from it. No sea- 



THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 



771 



men were as bold as those of Holland; no mer- 
chants were as enterprising as those of Antwerp ; 
no soil was cultivated like that of Flanders ; no 
artisans were as skillful as those of Brabant. 
The Flemings actually earned more than they 
spent. So wealth accumulated. The gold of 
Mexico, the silver of Peru, and the silks and 
spices of the East found their way to that cor- 
ner of the land fenced from the sea by dikes 
and embankments. Upon the rivers arose cities 
and towns full of stormy, toiling, vigorous life. 
Burghers entered into alliance with burghers to 
curb the arrogance of their feudal chiefs. They 
win charters from their lords, sometimes by force, 
sometimes by cunning, sometimes by gold. They 
defend their privileges against the swords of 
dukes and counts, and the craft of bishops and 
abbots. A brewer of Ghent treats on equal 
terms with the Plantagenets three centuries be- 
fore the Huntingdon brewer mounted the throne 
of the Stuarts. If fortune sends them a strong 
lord they yield for a while ; but when a weak 
one arises, they regain their old privileges and 
demand new ones. The earliest charter on 
record dates in 1217. Before the close of the 
century the towns elected their own magistrates, 
and had a voice along with the nobles in the 
provincial assemblies. There was turbulence 
and tumult and uproar enough ; but these were 
a manifestation of life ; and the uproar of free- 
dom is better than the quiet of slavery. 

In spit.e of manifold checks and reverses, the 
wealth and power of the Estates increased dur- 
ing the Burgundian era. When the corpse of 
Charles the Bold was found stripped and fro- 
zen in a pool of blood after Nancy, the Estates 
would not allow his daughter to wed Maximil- 
ian until she had, for herself and her successors, 
solemnly given her sanction to the " Groot 
Privilegie!^ — the Great Charter — by which all 
the rights which they had slowly acquired were 
formally recognized. 

Nowhere in that day, scarcely any where in 
our own, have so many rights been secured to 
the people as the Flemings claimed under the 
" Groot Privilegie." Natives of the country 
only could hold office ; no offices were to be 
farmed out ; cities and provinces should hold 
assemblies at will ; and no ordinance of the 
sovereign should be valid if it conflicted with 
privileges of a city. No taxes could be imposed 
without the consent of the Estates ; the sover- 
eign must in person " request" all supplies ; 
and no city should be bound to contribute to- 
ward a grant to which it had not agreed. The 
sovereign could not make war without the con- 
sent of the Estates ; should he do so, they were 
absolved from contributing to defray its ex- 
penses. The power of regulating the coinage 
was taken from the monarch and vested in the 
Estates. The power of the purse was thus in 
their hands, and all history shows that this, 
sooner or later, involves the possession of all 
civil and military power. 

For a while, indeed, the Great Charter was 
worth less than so much blank parchment. 



Maximilian refused to acknowledge it. Bruges 
and Ghent and Ypres tried in vain to enforce 
it, and were compelled to beg pardon on their 
knees, and pay a round sum by way of punish- 
ment. Charles V. wholly ignored it, and the 
terrible "liumiliation of Ghent" warned the 
provinces to beware how they insisted upon 
their chartered rights. Yet the "Groot Privi- 
legie" still lived in men's memories ; and to it 
the great-grandsons of those who won it ap- 
pealed for justification when they threw off the 
authority of the great-grandson of her who had 
granted it. They threw themselves for justifi- 
cation upon the written law. Behind this they 
never thought of going. It was reserved for a 
later day, and for other builders, to found a 
state upon the self-evident rights of man, lying 
far back of all written law — rights which no 
sovereign can give or take away. Yet let us 
not undervalue those old narrow parchments 
upon which the founders of the Dutch Republic 
based their right to throw off the yoke of Spain. 
They were weights of priceless value by which 
oppressed mankind impeded the march of des- 
potism. 

Despot though he was, Charles V. knew the 
importance of cherishing the industry and com- 
merce of the Netherlands. Thence came half 
his revenues, while Spain and the New World 
furnished only a tenth each. The Netherlands 
were then the richest and most intelligent por- 
tion of Europe. Next after Paris and London 
Antwerp was the most populous city in Chris- 
tendom, while it far exceeded either in beauty 
and wealth. The population of Brussels and 
Ghent and Bruges exceeded that of any En- 
glish or French city except the capitals. Each 
town and province was famous for some special 
product. There were no cloths like those of 
Lille ; no tapestry like that of Brussels. Ant- 
werp was the commercial emporium and bank- 
ing-house of Europe. The morasses of Hol- 
land and Zealand were converted into the rich- 
est meadow-lands. The Dutch had learned 
how to catch and cure herrings, and found in 
their countless shoals wealth greater than that 
of Mexico and Peru. Lawrence Coster (the 
Sexton) of Harlem invented movable types, 
and thus furnished the fulcrum for the lever 
with which Luther was to move the world. 

The Reformation made early and rapid pro- 
gress in the Netherlands ; and Charles set him- 
self vigorously at work to suppress it. As early 
as 1520 he issued his first " placard," or pro- 
clamation, against the heretics. This was re- 
peated with increased vigor at different times 
during his reign, until in 1550 it took the form 
of the sanguinary edict, whose attempted en- 
forcement by Philip was, as we shall see, the 
occasion of the revolt of the Netherlands. He 
also established an inquisitorial tribunal, which 
was hateful in itself, and still more so because 
the popular mind identified it with the terrible 
Spanish Inquisition. Indeed, if we are to credit 
the accounts of grave contemporary historians, 
none of whom place the victims of the Flem- 



772 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



ish Inquisition during the reign of Charles at 
less than fifty thousand, while some double the 
number, it fully equaled in practical atrocity 
that of Spain. 

Persecutor though he was, Charles was no 
blind fanatic, like his son and successor. Pie 
opposed the Reformation because his keen eye 
detected the political tendencies of heresy. He 
never hesitated to sacrifice his religious princi- 
ples to his political interests. He waged war 
against the Pope with as little scruple as against 
Francis or Solvman. He signed the Peace of 
Passau establishing the equality of the Protest- 
ant and Catholic faiths in Germany, while he 
burned those suspected of heresy in Spain and 
the Netherlands. Lutheran preachers proclaim- 
ed the Word before his German regiments, 
while Flemish peasants were burned at the 
stake or buried alive for attending Calvinistic 
worship. 

The end tries the work ; and we may now 
pronounce the long reign of Charles to have 
been a failure. He left Spain weaker than he 
found it. He was unable to transmit to his 
son after him the Imperial crown of Germany 
which had been held by his father before him. 
Prance had risen with renewed strength from 
the fearful overthrow of Pavia. In vain had 
Charles crushed the Germanic Protestants at 
Muhlberg, for red-bearded Maurice of Saxony 
afterward foiled him in intrigue, defeated him 
in battle, and suffered him to escape captivity 
only " because he had no cage fitting for such 
a bird." 

Charles had deliberately pitted himself against 
the spirit of the age, and had found it too strong 
for him. He felt that there was nothing left 
but to retire from the field with imposing dig- 
nity, and resign the contest to other hands. 
Hence his famous abdication in 155."). 

Swift should have written the Convent Life 
of Charles. The second Charlemagne at the 
end of his career might almost have stood as the 
original of the immortal picture of the Sfndd- 
brugs. He was an old man at fifty-five — ex- 
hausted by toil and care and gluttony. He was 
a martyr to gout and asthma, and dyspepsia and 
gravel. He was crippled in every limb. Al- 
most toothless, his heavy Burgundian lower jaw 
protruded so far that he could scarcely mumble 
out his words intelligibly, or masticate the food 
which his eager appetite craved and his feeble 
stomach refused. In his retirement at Yuste 
he played the statesman and politician, keeping 
up a show of managing affairs of state which 
he had pretended to abjure. For the rest, he 
spent his days in gormandizing sardine omelets, 
Estremadura sausages, eel-pies, pickled part- 
ridges, fat capons, and quince sirups, washed 
down with iced beer and Rhenish wines — pay- 
ing the forfeit of his indulgence by copious 
draughts of senna and rhubarb ; writing long 
dispatches, listening to long sermons ; flagellat- 
ing his poor old body for the good of his poor 
old soul ; urging on the inquisitors to renewed 
activity, and exhorting his son and successor to 



cherish the Holy Office as the instrument for 
extirpating heresy; "and so" — thus he con- 
cludes his dying admonition to Philip — "shall 
you have my blessing, and the Lord shall pros- 
per you in all your undertakings." 

Philip needed no such prompting. All the 
energies of his sluggish nature were concentra- 
ted into a dull but determined hatred against 
heretics and heresy. Charles distrusted them 
on political grounds, Philip hated them with re- 
ligious bigotry. But his hatred took its char- 
acter from his own peculiar temperament. It 
was cold, bitter, and unrelenting. He might 
postpone the execution of his purpose to up- 
root heresy ; he might creep toward it by tortu- 
ous Avays ; but he never lost sight of it. It lay 
in his mind as a fixed idea, a settled principle, 
an unwavering determination. 

One of his earliest measures was to re-enact 
the edict of 1550. But an unlooked-for occur- 
rence compelled him for a while to postpone its 
strict execution. Sorely against his will he be- 
came involved in a war with the Pope and with 
France, and he required the subsidies of the 
rich Netherlands to enable him to keep his 
armies on foot. The Avar lasted four years. The 
skill of Alva at length brought it to a success- 
ful close in Italy, and the victories of Saint 
Quentin and Gravclines laid France prostrate 
before him. 

Philip Avas now at liberty to return to his be- 
loved Spain, and from a safe distance to devote 
all his energies to the prosecution of his favor- 
ite scheme. In August, 1559, he assembled the 
Estates of the Netherlands, and presented to 
them as regent his illegitimate sister, Margaret 
of Parma. The King could not speak the lan- 
guage of the country, and smooth-tongued An- 
tony Perronet, Bishop of Arras, soon to be known 
and hated as Cardinal Granvelle, acted as his 
mouth-piece. He expatiated upon his master's 
unbounded love for his Flemish subjects, asked 
for a large subsidy, and concluded by announc- 
ing that the Regent had orders rigidly to en- 
force the hiAvs against heresy, in consideration 
of which God Avould undoubtedly vouchsafe all 
manner of blessings to her and his subjects. 

The Estates responded in courtly style. Their 
lives and their wealth Avere at the disposal of 
his Majesty ; but his Spanish troops Avere un- 
endurable. They prayed that these might be 
AvithdraAvn. The King smothered his Avrath, 
returned a conciliatory ansAver in the main, but 
repeated that the burning and strangling of 
heretics should go on. He then took his de- 
parture from the Netherlands, never to return. 

He landed in Spain on the 8th of September, 
having narroAvly escaped shipAvreck. To evince 
his gratitude for his preservation, a month after 
he attended a grand auto da fe, at which thir- 
teen distinguished heretics Avere burned aliA'e. 
"Hoav can you permit me to be burned ?" asked 
the noble young Carlos de Sessa. " I Avould 
carry the fuel to burn my own son Avere he as 
Avicked as you are," was the savage response. 

Among the council Avho Avere to assist Mar- 



THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 



773 



garet, the most prominent were the Count of 
Egmont, the Prince of Orange, and the Bishop 
of Arras. 

Lamoral, Count of Egmont, was one of the 
most brilliant of the gay Flemish nobles. His 
military talents were of a high order. The vic- 
tory of Saint Quentin was gained by his bravery 
and conduct, though Philip piously chose to at- 
tribute it rather to the ghostly aid of Saint Lau- 
rence, upon whose day it was gained, and in 
whose honor he built the magnificent palace of 
the .Escorial, the ground-plan of which repre- 
sented the gridiron upon which the saint suffer- 
ed martyrdom. Egmont also gained the victory 
of Gravelines, which led to the peace of Cateau 
Cambresis, the most humiliating treaty to which 
France had submitted since Agincourt. He was 
a fervent Catholic and a zealous royalist ; but 
his brilliant services could not atone for the brief 
and faint opposition which, under the influence 
of William of Orange, he offered to the execu- 
tion of the royal purpose. 

William of Orange was the grand centre about 
which the history of his country was soon to re- 
volve. The richest of all the nobles of the Neth- 
erlands, he had been early taken by the Em- 
peror into his own household. Though his fa- 
ther was a Protestant, William was thus brought 
up in the Catholic faith. Charles soon dis- 
covered the rare genius of the lad, and suffered 
him to be present when the gravest affairs of 
state were discussed. His inviolable secrecy 
early gained for him the sobriquet of " the Si- 
lent," by which he is known in history. Before 
he had fairly reached man's estate, he was ap- 
pointed to the head of the army on the French 
frontiers. When Charles read his act of abdi- 
cation, it was on the shoulder of William of 
Orange that he leaned for support. He was 
now a young man of seven-and-twenty, gay in 
manner, genial in humor, profuse in his expend- 
iture, and liberal in sentiment. Catholic though 
he was, no heretic in peril of sword and fagot 
could have been more earnestly opposed to re- 
ligious persecution. Already he had excited 
the suspicion of Philip, who had a dim instinct- 
ive feeling that he was to be the great obstacle 
in the way of the execution of his scheme of 
destruction, though he little suspected that the 
Silent One was even now in possession of the 
great state secret of a secret league between the 
French and Spanish monarchs for the extirpa- 
tion of heresy and heretics in both their domin- 
ions. To the Prince also the eyes of the Estates 
and citizens were even now turning, almost un- 
consciously, as their future champion and leader. 

The real administration of the Netherlands 
was confided to Granvelle. The King could not 
have found a more dextrous or unscrupulous in- 
strument. He was a wonder of learning. At 
the age of twenty he spoke seven languages. 
At twenty-three he was named Bishop of Arras. 
At twenty-six his eloquence at the Council of 
Trent won him the favor of Charles V., who 
appointed him Councilor of State. He retained 
his credit under Philip. Bold, resolute, plausi- 



ble, he ruled the slow and hesitating Philip 
under the show of the most profound submis- 
sion. He insinuated his own ideas into the 
mind of his master so adrjitly that the King 
verily believed them to be the suggestions of 
his own profound genius. 

Philip and his minister were now at leisure 
to set about their work. The day of indulgence 
was past. The edict of 1550-55 should now 
be rigidly enforced. It was directed against 
all who should print or write, buy or sell, or 
give or have in possession any heretical writing; 
who should attend any heretical meeting ; who, 
being laymen, should dispute upon matters of 
faith, or read or expound the Scriptures ; who 
should openly or secretly teach or entertain any 
heretical opinions whatsoever. It embraced 
thoughts and opinions, as well as overt acts. 
All persons convicted of any of these heinous 
crimes were to be executed with fire unless 
they recanted ; in Avhich case they were to be 
— not pardoned — but simply beheaded, if men, 
or buried alive if women. In either event their 
property was to be confiscated to the crown. 
All persons suspected of heresy should be sum- 
moned to make public abjuration ; and if they 
afterward fell under suspicion, though not proven 
guilty, they should be considered as relapsed 
heretics, and suffer accordingly. 

Suborners and informers were encouraged 
by every motive that could be drawn from hope 
of reward or fear of punishment. A certain 
portion of the property of a convicted heretic 
was to be paid to the informer. Pardon was 
assured to any one who had been present at 
heretical assemblages, on condition of betray- 
ing his fellow-worshipers. Every person who 
knew of a heretic and failed to denounce him, 
or to point out his hiding-place, if concealed; 
or who should give food, or fire, or clothing, or 
shelter to a heretic, should himself undergo the 
extremity of punishment to which the offender 
himself was liable. No judge or official should 
alter or moderate the penalties prescribed by 
the edict. And to shut every possible avenue 
for mercy, it Avas further provided, that any per- 
son who should presume to petition the king or 
any one in authority, in favor of a condemned 
heretic, should be thenceforth incapable of 
holding any office, civil or military, and should 
be otherwise punished at the royal discretion. 

A large increase in the spiritual machinery 
of the country was necessary to insure the ful- 
fillment of this terrible edict. There were in 
the whole Netherlands but four bishoprics, and 
these were subject to foreign archiepiscopal 
jurisdiction. It was evident that this was in- 
sufficient to supply the spiritual wants of the 
people, and an augmentation, independent of 
any inquisitorial object, was manifestly desir- 
able. 

At the request of Philip a papal bull was is- 
sued for an increase in the number of bishops. 
"The harvest," so said the bull, with profane 
mockery of the words of peace, " is plentiful, 
but the laborers are few;" as though inquisitors 



774 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



were the laborers whom the Lord of the Harv- 
est was to be implored to send into his field. 
Three archbishoprics were therefore to be con- 
stituted, under which were comprised fifteen 
bishoprics. The neAv prelates were to be ap- 
pointed by the king, subject to the confirmation 
of the Pope. 

Thus far, on the face of the measure there 
was nothing objectionable, except that by the 
constitution of the provinces which Philip had 
twice sworn to maintain inviolate, he was ex- 
pressly prohibited from making any increase in 
the clerical power. But the sting was in the 
tail. Each bishop was to appoint nine prebend- 
aries, two of whom were themselves to be in- 
quisitors, to aid him in the detection and pun- 
ishment of heretics. 

To do Granvelle justice, this was no scheme 
of his devising; and he opposed it as long as 
he dared, although the archbishopric of Mech- 
lin, which was to be the primacy of the Nether- 
lands, was reserved for him. But his opposi- 
tion was based upon selfish grounds. It was 
better, he said, to be one of four, than one of 
eighteen ; and besides, the revenues attached to 
the archbishopric were less than those of the 
bishopric of Arras, which he must give up. 
Several rich benefices were added to his see, 
and he withdrew his opposition, and entered 
heart and soul into the measure; he was there- 
fore justly held responsible for it. 

It was foreseen that the scheme of blood 
would be distasteful to the Netherlands ; and 
that the aid of the Spanish troops might be re- 
quired to secure its enforcement. So too the 
Estates had foreseen, and hence their urgent 
demand that the troops should be withdrawn. 
Here was the first point of attack. The de- 
mand for the removal of the troops was pressed 
with such vigor that the Government thought 
it best to yield, and they were sent away. 

This concession availed little. The Inqui- 
sition was the real object of hatred. At the 
head of the opposition was William of Orange. 
Granvelle was too wise to quarrel about words. 
He was quite willing that some other word 
should be substituted in the edict for Inquisi- 
tors. But neither Prince nor people were to be 
duped by this paltry juggle. They opposed not 
the name, but the thing, and Granvelle as its 
chief supporter. 

Orange, Egmont, and Horn wrote to the 
King, denouncing Granvelle, and demanding 
his removal. Philip faltered, quibbled, and 
above all delayed. He demanded specific 
charges. If one of the nobles would come to 
Spain, he would confer with him about the 
matter. Accompanying this reply Avas a letter 
to the Regent, advising her that this was but a 
pretext to gain time. 

Granvelle meanwhile showed no lack of 
nerve or capacity. He confronted the nobles 
with a haughtiness equal to their own. They 
refused to attend the Council. He took all im- 
portant business into his own hands. The Re- 
gent herself became a mere cipher. The nobles 



pressed their demands more and more strenu- 
ously. The state of affairs grew alarming. 
The Estates were in the interest of Orange. 
The public exchequer was bare. When the 
Regent asked for money she was met by a de- 
mand for the convocation of the States General 
— that ominous cry which two centuries later 
heralded the outburst of the French Revolution. 
Government was fast drifting upon bankruptcy, 
the rock upon which so many despotisms before 
and since have been wrecked. 

But above all and through all was the de- 
mand for the dismissal of the Cardinal. Strong 
as he was in the confidence of Philip he grew 
alarmed. The Estates and nobles were against 
him. The Regent was beginning to waver. 
He had done his best to carry out the royal 
plan ; but the success had fallen short of their 
expectations. Heretics multiplied in spite of 
burnings and beheadings. The inquisitors were 
sadly thwarted by the remissness of the magis- 
trates. Doleful were the Jeremiads inter- 
changed between King and Cardinal. "There 
are but few of us left in the world who care 
for religion," wrote the King, and from this text 
he preached a homily upon the necessity of 
zeal in ferreting out the heretics. The Cardi- 
nal replied that there was no need of ferreting; 
they were known by the thousand ; adding, with 
grim levity, " Would that I had as many doub- 
loons in my purse as there are open and avow- 
ed heretics." Now and then there was a word 
of good tidings for the royal ear. A preacher 
was burned, or something of the kind. But 
what did it all avail while the governors of the 
provinces were so slack ? This one would not 
aid the inquisitors; that had eaten meat in 
Lent ; while this other openly declared that it 
was not right to shed blood for matters of faith. 
"For the love of God, and the service of our 
holy religion," he adds pathetically, "put your 
royal hand to the work, otherwise we have only 
to exclaim, 'Help, Lord, for we perish.'" 

For four years the Cardinal kept his place. 
The nobles urged his dismissal, and declared, 
in courtly phrase, their determination to aban- 
don their posts if he was retained. Margaret 
urged the King to yield, for she could not carry 
on the government without them. Granvelle 
at length petitioned for leave to retire. Philip 
took long to consider, and at length came to a 
characteristic decision. To Granvelle he wrote 
directing him to ask the Regent for permission 
to leave the country for a short time, on pretext 
of visiting his mother. He directed Margaret 
to grant his request, but at the same time to 
write to himself, asking for his approbation of 
the step which he had just directed her to take. 
To the nobles he replied, directing them to re- 
sume their seats in the Council, and adding that 
the affair of the Cardinal was not decided. All 
these dispatches were prepared at the same 
time. Truly Philip was a master of the arts of , 
kingcraft. 

After the departure of the cardinal, Margaret 
undertook to carry on the government herself. 



THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 



775 



She was worthy to he a sister of Philip. She 
lacked his ferocious bigotry ; but showed to the 
full all his duplicity and shallow cunning. Men 
said that it was not in vain that she had been a 
pupil of Ignatius Loyola. At first she seemed 
inclined to be guided by the counsels of Will- 
iam, and professed a deadly hatred toward the 
Cardinal. 

But Philip, in dismissing his " second self," 
had in no wise wavered in his designs against 
heresy. The Council of Trent had now closed 
its long session, and Philip ordered that its de- 
crees should at once be proclaimed and enforced 
in the Netherlands. Margaret was equally afraid 
to obey or disobey. As a middle course, Eg- 
mont was to go to Spain and lay before Philip 
a statement of the affairs of the provinces. Will- 
iam insisted that he should be instructed to de- 
mand that the whole system of persecution should 
be abandoned, and that the decrees of the Coun- 
cil should not be enforced. It was all in vain. 
Egmont was amused and flattered, and sent 
home with vague promises of amelioration. But 
with him came dispatches to the Regent, en- 
joining more energy in the inquisitors, and im- 
posing new punishments upon the heretics. In- 
stead of being burned in public they should be 
drowned in prison. And especially the decrees 
of the Council should be proclaimed and en- 
forced. 

Margaret laid these dispatches before the 
Council. Some of the members were in favor 
of further delay. But William calmly said that 
the orders were too explicit to admit of doubt. 
There was now no alternative except submission 
or rebellion. There can be little doubt that 
the " Silent" had by this time made up his mind 
which coui*se was inevitable. But for the pres- 
ent he kept his own counsel. As the procla- 
mation was prepared, he coldly said, "Now Ave 
shall see the beginning of a mighty tragedy." 

A great cry of wrath and indignation arose 
from the Netherlands as the ultimate decree 
went forth. At one swoop their religious lib- 
erty and their civil privileges Avere gone. The 
prosperity of the country was founded upon its 
comparatiA'e civil freedom. It Avas this that 
had made AntAverp and Bruges and Ghent and 
Brussels and Amsterdam Avhat they Avere. The 
barriers Avhich had been built up between the 
citizens and arbitrary poAver were all thrown 
doAvn. It was not merely that a man might be 
burned for reading a tract by Luther, or doubt- 
ing the real presence in the eucharist. But all 
security Avas gone. The ordinary pursuits of 
life Avere suspended. The hand of the artisan 
ceased to ply its craft. The hum of traffic 
ceased in Antwerp, the arm of industry Avas 
paralyzed in Ghent. Loav murmurs of Avrath 
Avere heard. Insurrectionary placards covered 
the Avails, inflammatory pamphlets snowed doAvn 
in the streets. It Avas not«in vain that Law- 
rence the Sexton had invented printing. So in 
doubt and gloom and darkness closed the year 
1565. 

The year 15G6 AYas the last year of peace 



which any man then living in the Netherlands 
Avas to see. It Avas a stormy time, and Mar- 
garet tried to set her sails to every breeze. 
Early in the winter a document was draAvn up 
by Avhich the signers bound themselves to resist 
the inquisitorial system, in every possible shape 
and form, and solemnly pledged themselves to 
stand by each other to the utmost extremity. 
The signers Avere soon numbered by hundreds 
and thousands. They soon undertook an open 
demonstration. A large body met at Brussels 
and presented a petition to the Regent, em- 
bodying the substance of these demands. Mar- 
garet Avas alarmed, and gave them vague prom- 
ises of compliance ; though one of her Council 
told her not to fear the beggars ( Gueux). There 
was some truth in the sarcasm; not a feAV Avere 
young nobles of broken fortune and scanty 
hopes. But they must celebrate their fancied 
victory by a sumptuous banquet. The Avine 
floAved freely, and they Avere gayly discussing 
a name for their confederacy. Some one re- 
peated the jest of the councilor. " Ha !" said 
Brederode, their leader, a drunken, reckless 
young noble. "They call us Gueux — beggars. 
Let us accept the name. We will fight against 
the Inquisition, and for the king, though Ave 
Avear the beggar's Avallet for it. Hurrah for the 
Gueux /" The jest took. "Hurrah for the 
Gueux!" resounded through the hall. The 
Avooden boAvl of a mendicant Avas brought in, 
and deep draughts were quaffed from it to the 
heal.h of the Gueux. The neAV party had found 
a name which Avas to be famous for ages ; for 
in Avhatever language the history of the revolt 
Avas AA'ritten, it Avas known as the " War of the 
Gueux." 

This and no more Avas accomplished by this 
league of the "Compromise." Orange stood 
aloof from the movement. He foresaw that 
these Avere not the men by whom the Nether- 
lands Avere to be saved. 

Hitherto the Reformers had held their meet- 
ings only in the deepest privacy and in the dead 
of night. But noAV spring had hardly given 
place to summer, before heretical preaching 
in the full day and in the open air prevailed 
through the land. Through the long summer 
days thousands thronged and trooped together, 
armed with swords, pikes, arquebuses, scythes, 
and pitchforks, to listen to the preachers of the 
new faith. Some of these preachers were Ioaa-- 
ly men, Avho sought in rude phrase to utter the 
truths that burned in their hearts. Not a few 
Avere ignorant and turbulent declaimers. But 
there were others of higher pretensions. Monks 
Avho had forsaken their cloisters, priests Avho 
had renounced their tonsure, inveighed against 
the corruptions of the orders they had aban- 
doned and ridiculed the doctrines they had ab- 
jured. Fiery Huguenots came from France ; 
the keen disciples of Calvin from Geneva. 
There Avas Francis Junius, famed to our day as 
a profound theologian, Avho had preached while 
the fires that were burning his brethren flashed 
through the Avindows of the room. There was 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



the fiery Provencal, Peregrine La Grange, who 
galloped ii]> on horseback to the place of assem- 
bly, and fired a pistol as signal that service was 
to commence. There was Ambrose Wille, with 
a price on his head, declaiming on the bridge 
of Ernonville to a congregation of twenty thou- 
sand ; assuring them that if he Mas slain, there 
were better than he to fill his place, and fifty 
thousand men to avenge him. There was Pe- 
ter Gabriel, once a monk, whose fragile body 
seemed unable to contain his ardent spirit, 
preaching for four hours in the fervid midsum- 
mer noon ; then hurrying away, for he must 
travel all night to reach the place where he was 
to speak next day. 

Thus was it throughout all the Netherlands. 
"What could the Regent do ? She orders the 
magistrates to suppress the gatherings. They 
reply that it is too late. The heretics are armed, 
and their meetings are military camps. She 
orders out the militia of the guilds. They have 
all gone to the meetings. She tries public 
prayers and processions ; but spiritual weapons 
are of no avail. She has no troops upon whom 
she can rely, and no money to enlist new bands. 
Oh, for those grim Spanish veterans whom we 
foolishly dismissed three years ago. We might 
have known that we should need them. They 
would have swept away these undisciplined 
throngs like chaff. So they would, and yet 
shall ; but not yet. 

A perplexed Regent truly. Meanwhile, she 
will temporize. She will invoke the aid of the 
Prince of Orange to allay the tumult. She will 
promise much, and in the mean time send to 
Philip asking for instructions, for troops, for 
money, and most of all for his personal pres- 
ence. Surely the King's name is a tower of 
strength. 

A new whirlwind broke over the land, brief 
but terrible. The Netherlands were full of 
churches, and the churches were peopled with 
images which had once been sanctified by popu- 
lar veneration. They were now but symbols 
of a hated worship, and upon them fell the 
storm of popular fury. It was August, the sea- 
son when the great festival of the Assumption 
is celebrated. According to custom the image 
of the Virgin was borne through the streets of 
Antwerp, but not to receive its wonted rever- 
ence. "Molly, Molly {Maykin, Maykin), 'tis 
your last promenade. The city is tired of you !" 
was shouted after it. The ceremonies were cut 
short, and the image was taken back to the Ca- 
thedral, and deposited behind the iron railing 
of the choir. Next day and the day after curi- 
ous crowds came to peep at and insult it. Some 
one raised the cry " Yivent les Gueux." An old 
woman who sold tapers at the door was scandal- 
ized, and in shrill tones inveighed against the in- 
sultcrs of the image. Gibe begat gibe. Blows 
followed words. The magistrates made some 
feeble attempt to check the tumult, and then 
like sage Dogberry's they left the church, and 
advised the populace to follow their example. 

It was the hour of evening mass. As if by- 



concert, the crowd raised the words of a psalm 
in the native tongue. In a moment a gang 
seized the statue of the Virgin, tore its gorgeous 
robes to tatters, and broke the image into a 
thousand pieces. Then they fell upon the 
other images and the sacred paintings. The 
rich robes were flung over the beggars' rags; 
the consecrated bread was profanely devoured; 
the sacramental wine quaffed to the health of 
the Gueux; the sacred oil smeared over their 
clumsy shoes. It was a wild, a brutal drama, 
enacted on that midsummer night in the stately 
church of Our Lady at Antwerp, and in thirty 
other churches in the city. Let us derive what 
consolation we may from the fact that the rage 
was directed exclusively upon temples and pic- 
tures and statues. These were destroyed and 
mutilated by thousands ; but not a man nor 
woman nor child was harmed. Those nobler 
statues " made in the image of God," that holier 
temple, "which are ye," was unprofaned. When 
history writes down the crimes which she has 
to record, perhaps she will reckon an auto dafe, 
or the burning of a witch, or the sacking of a 
town, as worse than tlie Antwerp iconoclasm. 

Prom Antwerp the fury spread in every di- 
rection. It lasted but a little more than a week. 
In Planders alone four hundred churches were 
sacked. The number in all the provinces no 
man knows. It is worthy of note that in Va- 
lenciennes the " tragedy" was enacted on Saint 
Bartholomew's day. Not many years were to 
elapse before that day was to be otherwise fa- 
mous. 

At first it seemed that this outbreak had se- 
cured the religious freedom of the land. The 
Regent was paralyzed w-ith fear and anger. 
Not less indignant were all true patriots and 
Reformers. Margaret took counsel with the 
Prince and others, and in view of the alarming 
state of affairs an agreement was entered into, 
on the 25th of August, between the Regent and 
the leaders of the League, that liberty of wor- 
ship should be allowed wherever it had been 
established, and that the confederates would 
abandon the League, and assist in maintaining 
the public tranquillity. The Prince of Orange 
exerted himself to preserve the public peace; 
Egmont signalized himself by the severity Avith 
which he pursued and punished the image- 
breakers. 

Margaret had written to Philip an account 
of the League, and the banquet of the Gueux 
early in April. An embassy had also been sent 
to him urging him to abolish the Inquisition, 
mitigate the severity of the edicts, and grant an 
unconditional pardon to all offenders. It was 
July before the King came to a decision. He 
sent back word that he would so far yield as to 
suffer the papal inquisition to be superseded by 
that of the bishops, and permit the Regent to 
assure a free pardon to those who had been 
compromised by the League; but that the de- 
cision about the other matters must be reserved 
for further consideration. But hardly was the 
ink dry with which this permission was written, 



THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 



777 



before he summoned a notary and made a sol- 
emn declaration that he did not consider him- 
self bound by the authorization of pardon. He 
also wrote to the Pope that as the Inquisition 
had been established by His Holiness, its prom- 
ised suspension was invalid unless sanctioned 
by him. This, however, was to be kept a pro- 
found secret. 

When tidings came to Philip of the image- 
breaking his wrath blazed out for a moment. 
But he soon suppressed all manifestations of it 
while he slowly revolved a project for the most 
tremendous vengeance ever wreaked by monarch 
upon a people. 

The dispatches of Margaret were worthy of 
the sister of Philip. She said that, sick in body 
and soul, she had by the Accord of the 23d of 
August promised pardon to the confederates, 
and granted liberty to the heretics to continue 
to hold worship in places where they had already 
established it. These concessions were to be 
valid until the King, by and with the advice of 
the States General, should otherwise ordain. 
But she added, she had given this consent sim- 
ply in her own name, not in that of the King. 
That consequently he was in no wise bound, 
and she hoped he would have no regard to her 
promise. 

In the Netherlands a reaction soon followed 
the folly of the confederates and the outrages 
of the iconoclasts. Egmont, who had been 
secretly counted upon to head the opposition, 
went over heart and soul to the royal side, and 
succeeded in raising troops to garrison the cities 
within his government. Valenciennes alone re- 
fused, and was besieged. Some ill-considered 
attempts were made to relieve it by raw troops 
raised upon the spur of the moment. These 
were easily defeated and dispersed by the regu- 
lar soldiers. The citizens meanwhile stoutly 
defended themselves for a while. It was evi- 
dent that the tide was setting strongly in favor 
of the government. Margaret was now as much 
elated as she had been depressed a few months 
before. She demanded that every functionary 
in the land should take a new oath of allegiance, 
pledging himself to obey all orders of the govern- 
ment, without limitation or restriction. Hardly 
a man refused. Orange spurned the demand. 
He would never disgrace himself by a blind and 
unconditional pledge; and offered to throw up 
all his appointments. His services could not 
yet be dispensed with, and the resignation was 
not accepted. He set himself coolly down to 
watch the progress of events. As a last service 
to the government, he succeeded in preventing 
a civil conflict in the streets of Antwerp. " God 
save the King !" he cried, for the last time on 
the 15th of March, 15G7. 

A week after, Valenciennes surrendered with 
the single stipulation that the lives of the in- 
habitants should be spared, and the city should 
not be given up to sack. The pledge was ill- 
observed. The franchises of the city were re- 
voked ; the soldiers were quartered upon the 
inhabitants, whom they robbed and insulted at 



will ; the principal citizens were thrown into 
prison, and their goods confiscated ; hundreds 
of heretics were put to death by the sword and 
the halter. But the punishnent of Valenciennes 
was only a foretaste of that which was in reserve 
for the whole country ; for Philip had now ma- 
tured his plan of vengeance, had selected his 
executioner ; and the Duke of Alva was already 
preparing to assume the government of the 
Netherlands. 

The triumph of the Regent was complete. 
By tacit consent the fate of the malcontents had 
hung upon the issue of the struggle at Valenci- 
ennes. No further opposition was made to the 
reception of royal garrisons ; the heretics were 
crushed ; the land was prostrate. The Prince 
of Orange withdrew to his estates in Germany 
to await the course of events. A last interview 
took place between him and Egmont. The 
Prince knew that not only his own death-war- 
rant but that of his friend was signed in Spain, 
and urged him to withdraw from his impending 
fate. Egmont was sure that his early services 
and his recent devotion to the King would more 
than atone for his fault in opposing the Inquisi- 
tion. He had put down field-preaching in his 
government; he had punished the image-break- 
ers with unsparing severity ; he had led the regi- 
ments, who were blindly devoted to him, to the 
siege of Valenciennes. "The King is good 
and just," said he, " and I have claims upon his 
gratitude." How much greater would have 
been his confidence had he known that letters 
were even then upon the way to him from Philip 
commending the course he had taken, and thank- 
ing him for his exertions. But William knew 
that he had to do with a master who might for- 
get a service, but never forgave an injury. " You 
will be the bridge," he replied, " which the Span- 
iards will destroy as soon as they have passed 
over it to invade our country." And so the 
friends parted never to meet again. 

Margaret lost no time in availing herself of 
the turn which affairs had taken. The privi- 
leges which had been granted to the heretics by 
the " Accord" were at once annulled. The new 
religion was banished from the cities. The con- 
venticles of the heretics were broken up; the 
churches which they had begun to build were 
torn down, and from their timbers scaffolds were 
constructed upon which their teachers were 
hung. Hardly a village in the land was so 
small as not to furnish a crowd of victims. A 
great emigration from the country began. Every 
one who was able fled, and the property of the 
fugitives was confiscated. Those who had in 
bravado called themselves Gueux found that 
they were now beggars indeed. 

In May the Regent issued a fresh edict on 
her own account. By it all heretical ministers 
and teachers were sentenced to be hung; all 
persons in whose houses heretical conventicles 
had been held were to be hung ; parents who 
suffered their children to receive heretical bap- 
tism were to be hung ; those who should act 
as sponsors were to be hung; those who sang 



778 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



heretical hymns at funerals were to be hung; 
those who bought or sold heretical books were, 
after the first offense, to be hung. Marga- 
ret doubtless anticipated that the King would 
fully approve of this edict. It showed that she 
had quite as little regard for her pledged word 
as she wished him to have. She was sadly dis- 
appointed. She had wholly failed to under- 
stand her brother. Philip wrote to her that 
she had done wrong in issuing such an edict. 
It was illegal, unchristian, and must be at once 
revoked. It sent only to the gallows criminals 
who should be condemned to the stake. But 
it now mattered little how mild or how severe 
Margaret might be. Her successor was already 
on his way, charged with the full execution of 
the vengeance which Philip had been so long 
maturing. She had been always tyrannical, 
often treacherous, sometimes cruel ; but men 
soon learned to look back upon her administra- 
tion with regret, when it was exchanged for the 
horrors that characterized the government of 
the Duke of Alva. 

Ferdinando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of 
Alva, was a man and a general after Philip's 
own heart. He was a Spaniard of the Span- 
iards. His early career had been marked by 
romantic valor, and in middle life he could be 
prompt and daring enough when occasion de- 
manded, as was shown by his famous passage 
of the Elbe at Miihlberg. But as he declined 
into the vale of years, the romantic elements in 
his character disappeared, leaving only the hard 
iron nature of the man remaining. He aspired 
to be a consummate general rather than a bold 
commander. His military profession was a 
means not an end. He studied it as a Jesuit 
studies casuistry, or as a lawyer pores over pre- 
cedents and statutes. He had none of the fiery 
enthusiasm which risks all upon the fate of a 
single action. A Marlborough, or a Frederick, 
or a Napoleon, would have annihilated him in 
a week. But his slow and methodical tactics 
were never opposed to the rapid combinations 
of a great military genius ; and he was justly 
regarded as the greatest captain of his day. 
His battles were won by delay rather than by 
fighting. No taunts from an enemy, no eager- 
ness of his troops ever forced him into battle. 
No great captain ever performed so few brilliant 
exploits, yet no one was ever more uniformly 
successful in his campaigns. His very vices 
were of a hard, ungenial sort. He was cruel, 
not luxurious, avaricious, not debauched. His 
early hatred against the Moors, who had slain 
his father, was in course of time transferred into 
hatred still more bitter against the heretics. 
He was an inquisitor in mail. Stern, implaca- 
ble, unbending, he was feared rather than loved 
by the troops whom he led to victory. The 
pencil of Titian has handed down to after ages 
his lineaments, and has so stamped the man upon 
the canvas as almost to supersede the task of 
analyzing his character. No enthusiasm lights 
up that stern brow ; no weakness relaxes the 
iron lines of that rigid mouth ; no gl/jam of pity 



shines from those haughty eyes. From the first 
he had counseled the severest measures for re- 
pressing revolt and heresy in the Netherlands. 
Long ago, Avhen Ghent had shown signs of in- 
subordination, he had urged Charles, with a 
grim play upon words, " to crush Ghent like a 
glove (gtint)" And now, after years of delay, 
he was sent thither to work his own will. In 
the three years of his administration he won 
for himself immortal infamy. So long as the 
world stands the name of Alva will be a syno- 
nym for unrelenting cruelty and ferocious big- 
otry. 

No resistance, it was presumed, could be at- 
tempted against the forces which Alva was to 
take with him to the Netherlands. The great 
armies of ancient and modern times were then 
unknown in Europe. The revenues of no mon- 
arch enabled him to keep a large standing army 
on foot. But little wealth had accumulated ; 
and the pay of a few thousand men for a few 
months exhausted the treasury of a kingdom. 
The army with which Alva was to crush all op- 
position in the Netherlands numbered barely 
ten thousand men. It was, however, a select 
body, made up from the picked regiments of 
those indomitable bands which had given to 
Charles V. the supremacy in Europe. They 
were all men trained to war, at a time when 
war was a distinct profession. These were to 
be led from Italy, where they were to rendez- 
vous, across the Alps, through Savoy, Burgundy, 
and Lorraine, along the very route — though in 
a reverse direction — by which, according to tra- 
dition, the great Carthaginian burst into Italy. 
It was a wonderful march — over rocky heights, 
through dense forests, and along perilous defiles. 
As the route led them within a few leagues of 
Geneva, the Pope wished Alva to turn aside 
and destroy that nest of heretics and apostates. 
But the Duke refused. His mission of venge- 
ance was to the Netherlands ; and till that was 
accomplished, he would seek no other victims. 
The strictest discipline was enforced during the 
perilous march. There were towns to be sacked 
and booty to be won in the Netherlands. But 
on the march thither no marauding was allowed. 
In only one instance was the order disobeyed. 
In passing through Lorraine three of the Span- 
ish troopers seized a couple of sheep from a 
flock. This was brought to the knowledge of 
Alva, and the culprits were sentenced to be 
hung. The intercession of the Duke of Lor- 
raine availed only to secure the pardon of two. 
The victim, appointed by lot, was executed upon 
the ground. 

In August, 15G7, the army entered the Neth- 
erlands. The inhabitants had a sure presenti- 
ment of the horrors that awaited them. In 
spite of the edicts that had been promulgated 
against emigration, every one who saw a possi- 
bility of escape from the doomed land thronged 
across the frontiers. In a few weeks a hundred 
and twenty thousand of the most industrious 
and wealthy inhabitants crossed the borders, 
and bore with them to other lands their indus- 



TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. 



779 



try and such of their wealth as they could se- 
cure. The foreign merchants deserted the great 
marts of commerce ; half the houses in Ghent 
were empty ; the towns became as still as though 
stricken by the plague. Deputations from the 
cities met the Duke, bidding him a trembling 
welcome, and deprecating his anger. He gave 
cold and guarded replies, which might mean 
any thing or nothing. He well knew how hol- 
low was the welcome, and lie cared nothing for 
the hatred of which he was the object. "I 
have tamed men of iron in my day," he said, 
" and shall I not easily crush these men of but- 
ter ? Here I am — so much is certain — whether 
I am welcome or not is to me a matter of little 
consequence." Among the foremost to meet the 
Duke was Egmont. His reception at first was 
cold ; but Alva soon remembered that he had a 
part to play for a few days, and became cordial 
and affectionate, passing his arm confidentially 
over the stately neck which he had already de- 
voted to the headsman. 

Upon his arrival at Brussels Alva at once as- 
sumed the virtual command in the country, to 
the sore grief and displeasure of Margaret, who 
thought it hard that she should be superseded 
after having so thoroughly pacified the country, 
and established the royal authority more firmly 
than ever before. But her remonstrances were 
unheeded by Philip, and the Duke proceeded 
to the execution of the work that had been 
marked out for him. Garrisons were placed in 
the principal towns to crush all resistance and 
overcome all opposition. 

Thus, in the early days of September, the 
prologue was closed, and the curtain fell. In a 
few days it was to be raised upon the opening 
scenes of that great tragedy which William of 
Orange had foreseen. "When the curtain is 
again lifted," says Mr. Motley, "scenes of dis- 
aster and of bloodshed, battles, sieges, execu- 
tions, deeds of unfaltering but valiant tyranny, 
of superhuman and successful resistance, of he- 
roic self-sacrifice, fanatical courage, and insane 
cruelty, both in the cause of the Wrong and the 
Right, will be revealed in awful succession — a 
spectacle of human energy, human suffering, 
and human strength to suffer, such as has not 
often been displayed upon the stage of the 
world's events." 

In another paper we propose to follow our 
author in his graphic details of the scenes of 
this great tragedy, of which William of Orange 
is the hero and the victim. 



TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. 
I. 

IN the year seventeen hundred and seventy- 
three, two young men took possession of the 
only habitable rooms of the old tumble-down 
rectory-house of Combe-Warleigh, in one of 
the wildest parts of one of the western coun- 
ties, then chiefly notable for miles upon miles 
of totally uncultivated moor and hill. The 
rooms were not many, consisting only of two 
wretched little bedchambers and a parlor of 



diminutive size. A small building which lean- 
ed against the outer wall served as a kitchen 
to the establishment; and the cook, an old wo- 
man of sixty years of age, retired every night 
to a cottage about a quarter of a mile from the 
parsonage, where she had occupied a garret for 
many years. The house had originally been 
built of lath and plaster, and in some places re- 
vealed the skeleton walls where the weather 
had peeled off the outer coating, and given the 
building an appearance of ruin and desolation 
which comported with the bleakness of the sur- 
rounding scenery. With the exception of the 
already-named cottage and a small collection 
of huts around the deserted mansion of the 
landlord of the estate, there were no houses in 
the parish. How it had ever come to the hon- 
or of possessing a church and rectory no one 
could discover; for there were no records or 
traditions of its ever having been more wealthy 
or populous than it then was ; but it was in fact 
only nominally a parish, for no clergyman had 
been resident for a hundred years ; the living 
was held by the fortunate possessor of a vicar- 
age about fifteen miles to the north, and with 
the tithes of the united cures made up a stately 
income of nearly ninety pounds a year. No 
wonder there were no repairs on the rectory, 
nor frequent visits to his parishioners. It was 
only on the first Sunday of each month he rode 
over from his dwelling-place and read the serv- 
ice to the few persons who happened to remem- 
ber it was the Sabbath, or understood the invi- 
tation conveyed to them by the one broken bell 
swayed to and fro by the drunken shoemaker 
(who also officiated as clerk) the moment he 
saw the parson's shovel hat appear on the as- 
cent of the Vaird hill. And great accordingly 
was the surprise of the population, and pleased 
the heart of the rector, when two young gentle- 
men from Oxford hired the apartments I have 
described — fitted them up with a cart-load of 
furniture from Hawsleigh, and gave out that 
they were going to spend the long vacation in 
that quiet neighborhood for the convenience of 
study. Nor did their conduct belie their state- 
ment. Their table was covered with books, and 
maps, and dictionaries ; and after their frugal 
breakfast, the whole day was devoted to read- 
ing. Two handsome, intelligent-looking young 
men as ever you saw — both about the same age 
and height, with a contrast both in look and 
disposition that probably formed the first link 
in the close friendship that existed between 
them. 

Arthur Hayning, a month or two the senior, 
was of a more self-relying nature and firmer 
character than the other. In uninterrupted 
effort he pursued his work, never looking up, 
never making a remark, seldom even answer- 
ing a stray observation of his friend. But when 
the hour assigned for the close of his studies 
had arrived, a change took place in his manner. 
He was gayer, more active, and inquiring than 
his volatile companion. The books were pack- 
ed away, the writing-desk locked up ; with a 



780 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



stout stick in his hand, a strong hammer in his 
pocket, and a canvas-bag slung over his shoul- 
ders, he started off on an exploring expedition 
among the neighboring hills; while Winning- 
ton Harvey, arming himself with a green gauze 
net, and his coat-sleeve glittering with a multi- 
tude of pins, accompanied him in his walk — 
diverging for long spaces in search of butter- 
flies, which he brought back in triumph, scien- 
tifically transfixed on the leaves of his pocket- 
book. On their return home, their after-dinner 
employment consisted in arranging their speci- 
mens. Arthur spread out on the clay floor of 
the passage the different rocks he had gathered 
up in his walk. He broke them into minute 
fragments, examined them through his magni- 
fying glass, sometimes dissolved a portion of 
them in aquafortis, tasted them, smelt to them, 
and finally threw them away : not so the more 
fortunate naturalist; with him the mere pursuit 
was a delight, and the victims of his net a per- 
petual source of rejoicing. He fitted them into 
a tray, wrote their names and families on nar- 
row slips of paper in the neatest possible hand, 
and laid away his box of treasures as if they 
were choicest specimens of diamonds and ru- 
bies. 

" What a dull occupation yours is I" said 
Winnington one night, "compared to mine. 
You go thumping old stones and gathering up 
lumps of clay, grubbing forever among mud or 
sand, and never lifting up your eyes from this 
dirty spot of earth. Whereas I go merrily over 
valley and hill, keep my eyes open to the first 
flutter of a beautiful butterfly's wing, follow it 
in its meandering, happy flight — " 

u And kill it — with torture," interposed Ar- 
thur Hayning, coldly. 

"But it's for the sake of science. Nay, as I 
am going to be a doctor, it's perhaps for the 
sake of fortune — " 

" And. that justifies you in putting it to 
death ?" 

"There you go with your absurd German 
philanthropies; though, by-the-by, love for a 
butterfly scarcely deserves the name. But think 
of the inducement, think of the glory of verify- 
ing with your own eyes the identity of a creat- 
ure described in books; think of the interests 
at stake ; and, above all, and this ought to be a 
settling argument to you, think of the enjoy- 
ment it will give my cousin Lucy to have her 
specimen-chest quite filled ; and when you are 
married to her — " 

"Dear Winnington, do hold your tongue. 
How can I venture to look forward to that for 
many years? I have only a hundred a year. 
She has nothing." Arthur sighed as he spoke. 

" How much do you require ? When do you 
expect to be rich enough ?" 

" When I have three times my present for- 
tune — and that will be — who can tell? I may 
suddenly discover a treasure like Aladdin's, 
and then, Winnington, my happiness will be 
perfect." 

"I think you should have made acquaintance 



with the magician, or even got possession of the 
ring, before you asked her hand," said Winning- 
ton Harvey, with a changed tone. " She is the 
nicest girl in the world, and loves you with all 
her heart ; but if you have to wait till fortune 
comes — " 

" She will wait also, willingly and happily. 
She has told me so. I love her with the fresh- 
ness of a heart that has never loved any thing 
else. I love you too, Winnington, for her sake; 
and we had better not talk any more on the 
subject, for I don't like your perpetual objec- 
tions to the engagement." 

Winnington, as usual, yielded to the superi- 
ority of his friend, and was more affectionate in 
his manner to him than ever, as if to blot out 
the remembrance of what he had recently said. 
They went on in silence with their respective 
works, and chipped stones, and impaled butter- 
flies till a late hour. 

" Don't be alarmed, Winnington," said Ar- 
thur, with a smile, as he lighted his bed-candle 
that night. "I am twenty-one and Lucy not 
nineteen. The genii of the lamp will be at our 
bidding before we are very old, and you shall 
have apartments in the palace, and be appoint- 
ed resident physician to the princess." 

" With a salary of ten thousand a year, and 
my board and washing." 

"A seat on my right hand, whenever I sit 
down to my banquets." 

"Good! That's a bargain," said Winning- 
ton, laughing, and they parted to their rooms. 

Geology was not at that time a recognized 
science — in England. But Arthur Hayning 
had been resident for some years in Germany, 
where it had long been established as one of 
the principal branches of a useful education. 
There were chairs of metallurgy, supported by 
government grants, and schools of mining, both 
theoretic and practical, established wherever 
the nature of the soil was indicative of mineral 
wealth. Hayning was an orphan, the son of a 
country surgeon, who had managed to amass 
the sum of two thousand pounds. He was left 
in charge of a friend of his father, engaged in 
the Hamburg trade, and by him had been early 
sent to the care of a Protestant clergyman in 
Prussia, who devoted himself to the improve- 
ment of his pupil. His extraordinary talents 
Avere so dwelt on by this excellent man, in his 
letters to the guardian, that it was resolved to 
give him a better field for their display than 
the University of Jena could afford, and he had 
been sent to one of the public schools in En- 
gland, and from it, two years before this period, 
been transferred, with the highest possible ex- 
pectations of friends and teachers, to ■ Col- 
lege, Oxford. Here he had made acquaintance 
with Winnington Harvey; and through him, 
having visited him one vacation at his home 
in Warwickshire, had become known to Lucy 
Mainfield, the only daughter of a widowed aunt 
of his friend, with no fortune but her unequaled 
beauty, and a fine, honest, open, and loving dis- 
position, which made an impression on Arthur, 



TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. 



781 



perhaps, because it was in so many respects in 
contrast with his own. 

For some weeks their mode of life continued 
unaltered. Study all the day, geology and nat- 
ural history in the evening. Their path led 
very seldom through the village of Combe-War- 
leigh ; but, on one occasion, having been a dis- 
tant range among the wilds, and being belated, 
they took a nearer course homeward, and pass- 
ed in front of the dwelling-house of the Squire. 
There was a light in the windows on the draw- 
ing-room floor, and the poetic Winnington was 
attracted by the sight. 

"I've read of people," he said, "seeing the 
shadows of beautiful girls on window-blinds, 
and dying of their love, though never knowing 
more of them — wouldn't it be strange if Squire 
Warleigh had returned, and with a daughter 
young and beautiful, and if I saw her form 
thrown clearly like a portrait on the curtain, 
and—" 

" But there's no curtain," interrupted Arthur. 
" Come along !" 

"Ha, stop!" cried Winnington, laying his 
hand on Arthur's shoulder. " Look there !" 

They looked, and saw a girl who came be- 
tween them and the light, with long hair falling 
over her shoulders, while she held a straw hat 
in her hand ; her dress was close-fitting to her 
shape, a light pelisse of green silk edged with 
red ribbons, such as we see as the dress of 
young pedestrians in Sir Joshua's early pic- 
tures. 

"How beautiful!" said Winnington, in a 
whisper. " She has been walking out. What 
is she doing? Who is she? What is her 
name ?" 

The apparition turned half round, and re- 
vealed her features in profile. Her lips seemed 
to move, she smiled very sweetly, and then sud- 
denly moved out of the sphere of vision, and 
left Winnington still open-mouthed, open-eyed, 
gazing toward the window. 

"A nice enough girl," said Arthur, coldly; 
" but come along, the old woman will be anx- 
ious to get home, and, besides, I am very hun- 

gry." 

" I shall never be hungry again," said Win- 
nington, still transfixed and immovable. "You 
may go if you like. Here I stay in hopes of 
another view." 

" Good-night, then," replied Arthur, and rap- 
idly walked away. 

How long the astonished Winnington re- 
mained I can not tell. It was late when he 
arrived at the rectory. The old woman, as Ar- 
thur had warned him, had gone home. Arthur 
let him in. 

"Well!" he inquired, "have you found out 
the unknown ?" 

"All about her — but for Heaven's sake some 
bread and cheese. - Is there any here ?" 

"I thought you were never to be hungry 
again." 

" It is the body only which has these require- 
ments. My soul is satiated forever. Here's 
Vol. XII.— No. 72.— 3D 



to Ellen Warleigh !" He emptied the cup at 
a draught. 

"The Squire's daughter?" 

"His only child. They have been abroad 
for some years ; returned a fortnight ago. Her 
father and slie live in that desolate house." 

"He will set about repairing it, I suppose," 
said Arthur. 

"He can't. They are as poor as we are. 
And I am glad of it," replied Winnington, go- 
ing on with his bread and cheese. 

"He has an immense estate," said Arthur, 
almost to himself. " Combe-Warleigh must 
consist of thousands of acres." 

" Of heath and hill. Not worth three hun- 
dred a year. Besides, he was extravagant in 
his youth. I met the shoemaker at the gate, 
and he told me all about them. I wonder if 
she's fond of butterflies," he added ; " it would 
be so delightful for us to hunt them together." 

"Nonsense, boy; finish your supper and go 
to bed. Never trouble yourself about whether 
a girl cares for butterflies or not whose father 
has only three hundred a year, and has been 
extravagant in his youth." 

" What a wise fellow you are," said Winning- 
ton, " about other people's affairs! How many 
hundreds a year had Lucy's father? Nothing 
but his curacy and a thousand pounds he got 
with aunt Jane." 

" But Lucy's very fond of butterflies, you 
know, and that makes up for poverty," said Ar- 
thur, with a laugh. " The only thing I see val- 
uable about them is their golden wings." 

The companions were not now so constantly 
together as before. Their studies underwent 
no change ; but their evening occupations were 
different. The geologist continued his investi- 
gations among the hills ; the naturalist seemed 
to believe that the Papilio had become a grega- 
rious insect, and inhabited the village. He 
was silent as to the result of his pursuits, and 
brought very few specimens home. But his 
disposition grew sweeter than ever. His kind- 
ness to the drunken shoemaker was extraordi- 
nary. His visits to several old women in the 
hamlet were frequent and long. What a good 
young man he was ! How attentive to the sick ! 
and he to be only twenty-one! On the first 
Sunday of the month he was in waiting at the 
door to receive the rector. He took his horse 
from him, and put it into the heap of ruins 
which was called the stable with his own hands. 
He went with him into the church. He looked 
all the time of service at the Squire's pew, but 
it was empty. He walked alongside the rector 
on his return ; he accompanied him as far as 
the village, and told him quite in a careless 
manner of the family's return. 

" I have done it," he said, when he got home 
again, late at night. " I know them both. The 
father is a delightful old man. He kept me 
and the clergyman to dinner — and Ellen ! there 
never was so charming a creature before ; and, 
Arthur, she's fond of butterflies, and catches 
them in a green gauze net, and has a very good 



782 



HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



collection — particularly of night-hawks. That's 
the reason she was out so late the night we 
saw her at the window. They were very kind; 
they knew all about our being here, and Ellen 
thanked me so for being good to her poor peo- 
ple. I felt quite ashamed." 

The young man's eyes were flashing with 
delight ; his voice trembled ; he caught the 
cold gaze of his friend fixed upon him, and 
blushed. 

" You look very much ashamed of yourself," 
said Arthur, " and I am sorry you have made 
their acquaintance. It will interfere with our 
object in coming here." 

"Ah! and I told her you were a perfect 
German ; and she understands the language, 
and I said you would lend her any of your books 
she chose." 

" What !" exclaimed Arthur, starting up ex- 
cited to sudden anger; "what right had you, 
Sir, to make any offer of the kind ? I wouldn't 
lend her a volume to save her life, or yours, or 
any one's in the world. She sha'n't have one— 
I'll burn them first." 

" Arthur !" said Winnington, astonished. 
"What is it that puts you in such a passion? 
I'm sure I didn't mean to offend you. I will 
tell her you don't like to lend your books ; I'm 
sorry I mentioned it to her ; but I will apolo- 
gize, and never ask you again." 

"I was foolish to be so hot about a trifle," 
said Arthur, resuming his self-command. " I'm 
very sorry to disappoint your friend ; but I real- 
ly can't spare a single volume ; besides," he said, 
with a faint laugh, " they are all about metal- 
lurgy and mining." 

" I told her so," said Winnington, " and she 
has a great curiosity to see them." 

" You did !" again exclaimed Arthur, flush- 
ing with wrath. "You have behaved like a 
fool or a villain — one or both, I care not which. 
You should have known, without my telling, 
that these books are sacred. If the girl knows 
German, let her read old Gotsched's plays. She 
shall not see a page of any book of mine." 

Winnington continued silent tinder this out- 
break ; he was partly overcome with surprise, 
but grief was uppermost. 

" I've known you for two years, I think, 
Hayning," -he said ; " from the first time we met 
I admired and liked you. I acknowledge your 
superiority in every thing; your energy, your 
talent, your acquirements. I felt a pleasure in 
measuring your height, and was proud to be 
your friend. I know you despise me, for I am 
a weak, impulsive, womanly-natured fellow; 
but I did not know you disliked me. I shall 
leave you to-morrow, and Ave shall never meet 
again." He was going out of the room. 

"I did not mean what I said," said Arthur, 
in a subdued voice. "I don't despise you. I 
don't dislike you. I 'beg your pardon — will you 
forgive me, Winnington ?" 

"Ay, if you killed me !" sobbed Winnington, 
taking hold of Arthur's scarcely extended hand. 
" I know I am very foolish ; but I love Ellen 



Warleigh, and would give her all I have in the 
world." 

" That's not much," said Arthur, still mood- 
ily brooding over the incident ; " and never will 
be, if you wear your heart so perpetually on your 
sleeve." 

"You forget that I don't need to have any 
riches of my own," said Winnington, gayly. " I 
am to be physician to the Prince and Princess 
in Aladdin's palace, and shall sit always on your 
right hand when you entertain the nobility. So, 
shake hands, and good-night." 

"But Ellen is not to have my books," said 
Arthur, sitting down to the table, and spread- 
ing a volume before him. "I wouldn't lend 
you for an hour," he said, when he was alone, 
cherishing the book, " no, not to Lucy Mainfield 
herself." 

II. 

August and September passed away, and Oc- 
tober had now begun. Arthur avoided the War- 
leigh's as much as he could ; Winnington was 
constantly at their house. The friends grew 
estranged. But, with the younger, the estrange- 
ment made no difference in the feeling of affec- 
tion he always had entertained for Arthur. He 
was hurt, however, by the change he perceived 
in his manner. He was hurt at his manifest 
avoidance of the society of the Squire and his 
daughter. He was hurt, also, at the total silence 
Arthur now maintained on the subject of his 
cousin Lucy. He saw her letters left unopened, 
sometimes for a whole day, upon the table, in- 
stead of being greedily torn open the moment 
the straggling and uncertain post had achieved 
their delivery at the door. He was hurt at 
some other things besides, too minute to be re- 
corded ; too minute perhaps to be put into lan- 
guage even by himself, but all perceptible to the 
sensitive heart of friendship such as his. With 
no visible improvement in Arthur's fortune or 
prospects, it was evident that his ideas were con- 
stantly on the rise. A strange sort of contempt 
of poverty mingled with his aspirations after 
wealth. An amount of income which, at one 
time, would have satisfied his desires, was looked 
on with disdain, and the possessors of it almost 
with hatred. The last words Winnington had 
heard him speak about Lucy were, that mar- 
riage was impossible under a thousand a year. 
And where was that sum to come from ? The 
extent of Lucy's expectations was fifty- — his own, 
a hundred — and yet he sneered at the War- 
leighs as if they had been paupers ; although in 
that cheap country, and at that cheap time, a 
revenue of three hundred pounds enabled them 
to live in comfort, almost in luxury. 

Winnington took no thought of to-morrow, 
but loved Ellen Warleigh, with no considera- 
tion of whether she was rich or poor. It is 
probable that Ellen had no more calculating- 
disposition than Winnington ; for it is certain 
her sentiments toward him were not regulated 
by the extent of his worldly wealth — perhaps 
she did not even know what her sentiments to- 
ward him were — but she thought him delight- 



TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. 



783 



fill, and wandered over the solitary heaths with 
him in search of specimens. They very often 
found none, in the course of their four hours' 
ramble, and yet came home as contented as if 
they had discovered an Emperor of Morocco on 
every bush. Baulked in their natural history 
studies by the perverse absence of moth and but- 
terfly, they began — by way of having something 
to do — to take up the science of botany. The 
searches they made for heath of a particular 
kind ! The joy that filled them when they came 
on a group of wild flowers, and gathered them 
into a little basket they carried with them, and 
took them back to the manor, and astonished 
Mr. Warleigh with the sound of their Latin 
names! What new dignity the commonest 
things took under that sonorous nomenclature! 
How respectable a nettle grew when called an 
urtica, and how suggestive of happiness and 
Gretna Green when a flower could be declared 
to be cryptogamic. 

" See what a curious root this piece of broom 
has," said Winnington, one night, on his return 
from the manor, and laid his specimen on the 
table. 

Arthur hardly looked up from his book, and 
made some short reply. 

" It took Ellen and me ten minutes, with all 
our force, to pull it up by the roots. We had 
no knife, or I should merely have cut off the 
stalk; but see, now that the light falls on it, 
what curious shining earth it grows in, with odd 
little stones twisted up between the fibres ! Did 
you ever see any thing like it?" Arthur had 
fixed his eyes on the shrub during this speech. 
He stretched forth his hand and touched the 
soil still clinging to the roots — he put a small 
portion to his lips — his face grew deadly pale. 

" Where did you get this ?" he said. 

"Down near the waterfall — not a hundred 
yards from this." 

" On whose land ? On the glebe ?" said Ar- 
thur, speaking with parched mouth, and still 
gazing on the broom. 

" Does Warleigh know of this ?" he went on, 
" or the clergyman ? Winnington ! no one must 
be told ; tell Ellen to be silent ; but she is not 
aware, perhaps. Does she suspect ?" 

"What? what is there to suspect, my dear 
Arthur ? Don't you think you work too much ?" 
he added, looking compassionately on the di- 
lated eye and pale cheek of his companion. 
"You must give up your studies for a day or 
two. Come with us on an exploring expedition 
to the Outer fell to-morrow; Mr. Warleigh is 
going." 

"And give him the fruits of all my reading," 
Arthur muttered angrily, " of all I learned at 
the Hartz ; tell him how to proceed, and leave 
myself a beggar. No !" he said, " I will never 
see him. As to this miserable little weed," he 
continued, tearing the broom to pieces, and 
casting the fragments contemptuously into the 
fire, "it is nothing; you are mad to have given 
up your butterflies to betake yourself to such a 
ridiculous pursuit as this. Don't go there any 



more — there !" Here he stamped on it with his 
foot. "How damp it is! the fire has little 
power." 

"You never take any interest, Arthur, in 
any thing J do. I don't know, I'm sure, how 
I've offended you. As to the broom, I know 
it's a poor common thing, but I thought the way 
its roots were loaded rather odd. Ellen will 
perhaps be disappointed, for we intended to 
plant it in her garden, and I only asked her to 
let me show it to you, it struck me as being so 
very curious. Come, give up your books and 
learning for a day. We must leave this for Ox- 
ford in a week, and I wish you to know more of 
the Warleighs before we go." 

" I am not going back to Oxford," said Ar- 
thur ; " I shall take my name off the books." 

Winnington was astonished. He was also 
displeased. " We promised to visit my aunt," 
he said, " on our way back to college. Lucy 
will be grieved and disappointed." 

" I will send a letter by you — I shall explain 
it all — I owe her a letter already." 

"Have you not answered that letter yet? it 
came a month ago," said Winnington. " Oh ! 
if Ellen Warleigh would write a note to me, 
and let me write to her, how I would wait for 
her letters ! how I would answer them from 
morn to night." 

"She would find you a rather troublesome 
correspondent," said Arthur, watching the dis- 
appearance of the last particle of the broom as 
it leaped merrily in sparkles up the chimney. 
"Lucy knows that I am better employed than 
telling her ten times over that I love her bet- 
ter than any thing else — and that I long for 
wealth principally that it may enable me to call 
her mine. I shall have it soon. Tell her to be 
sure of that. I shall be of age in three days ; 
then the wretched driblet my guardian now has 
charge of comes into my hands ; I will multiply 
it a thousand-fold, and then — " 

" The palace will be built," said Winnington, 
who could not keep anger long, "and the place 
at your right hand will be got ready for the res- 
ident physician — who in the mean time recom- 
mends you to go quietly to bed, for you have 
overstrung your mind with work, and your 
health, dear Arthur, is not at all secure." 

For a moment, a touch of the old kindness 
came to Arthur's heart. He shook Winning- 
ton's hand. " Thank you, thank you," he said, 
" I will do as you advise. Your voice is very 
like Lucy's, and so are your eyes — good-night, 
dear Winnington." And Winnington left the 
room ; so did Arthur, but not for bed. A short 
time before this a package had arrived from 
from Hawsleigh, and had been placed away in 
a dark closet under the stairs. He looked for 
a moment out into the night. The moon was 
in a cloud, and the wind was howling with a 
desolate sound over the bare moor. He took 
down the package, and from it extracted a spade 
and a pickax; and, gently opening the front 
door, went out. He walked quickly till ho came 
to the waterfall ; he looked carefully round and 



784 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



saw a clump of broom. The ground from the 
rectory to this place formed a gentle declivity ; 
where the river flowed there were high banks, 
for the stream had not yet been swelled by the 
rains, and he first descended into the bed, and 
examined the denuded cliffs. He then hur- 
ried toward the broom, and began to dig. He 
dug and struck with the pickax, and shovel- 
ed up the soil — weighing, smelling, tasting it, 
as he descended foot by foot. He dug to the 
depth of a yard ; he jumped into the hole and 
pursued his work — breathless, hot, untiring. 
The moon for a moment came out from the 
clouds that obscured her. He availed himself 
of her light, and held up a particle of soil and 
stone ; it glittered for an instant in the moon- 
beam. With an almost audible cry he threw 
it to the bottom of the excavation, and was 
scrambling out when he heard a voice. It was 
the drunken shoemaker returning from some 
distant merry-making. He lay down at the 
bottom of the hole, watching for the approach- 
ing footsteps. At a little distance from the 
waterfall the singer changed his path, and di- 
verged toward the village. The song died off 
in the distance. 

" That danger's past," said Arthur, " both for 
him and me. I would have killed him if he 
had come nearer. Back, back," he continued, 
while he filled up the hole he had made, care- 
fully shoveling in the soil — " no eye shall de- 
tect that you have been moved." He replaced 
the straggling turf where it had been disturbed, 
stamped it down with his feet, and beat it smooth 
with his spade. And then went home. 

"Hallo! who's there?" cried Winnington, 
hearing the door open and shut. "Is that you, 
Arthur?" 

" Yes ; are you not asleep yet ?" 
" I've been asleep for hours. How late you 
are. Weren't you out of the house just now ?" 
" I felt hot, and went out for a minute to see 
the moon." 

"Hot?" said Winnington. "I wish I had 
another blanket — good-night." Arthur passed 
on to his own room. 

" If he had opened his door," he said, " and 
seen my dirty clothes, these yellow stains on 
my knees, these dabbled hands, what could I 
have done ?" He saw himself in the glass as he 
said this ; there was something in the expres- 
sion of his face that alarmed him. He drew 
back. 

" He is very like Lucy," he muttered to him- 
self, " and I'm glad he didn't get out of bed." 

Meantime Winnington had a dream. He was 
on board a beautiful boat on the Isis. It seem- 
ed to move by its own force, as if it were a sil- 
ver swan ; and the ripple as it went on took the 
form of music, and he thought it was an old 
tune that he had listened to in his youth. He 
sat beside Ellen Warleigh, with his hand locked 
in hers, and they watched the beautiful scenery 
through which the boat was gliding — past the 
pretty Chcrwell, past the level meadows, past 
the Newnham woods — and ptill the melody went 



on. Then they were in a country he did not 
know; there were tents of gaudy colors on the 
shore, and wild-eyed men in turbans and loose 
tunics looked out upon them. One came on 
board; he was a tall, dark Emir, with golden- 
sheathed cimeter, which clanked as he stepped 
on the seat. Winnington stood up and asked 
what the stranger wanted: the chief answered 
in Arabic, but Winnington understood him per- 
fectly. He said he had come to put him to 
death for having dared to look upon his bride. 
He laid his grasp on him as he spoke, and tore 
him from Ellen's side. In the struggle Win- 
nington fell over, and found himself many feet 
in front of the fairy boat. The Arab sat down 
beside Ellen, and put his arm round her waist, 
and then he suddenly took the shape of Arthur 
Hayning. The boat seemed to flutter its wings, 
and come faster on. Winnington tried to swim 
to one side, but could not. On came the boat, 
its glittering bows flashed before his eyes — they 
touched him — pressed him down : he felt the 
keel pass over his head ; and down, down, still 
downward he went, and, on looking up, saw no- 
thing but the boat above him ; all was dark 
where he was, for the keel seemed constantly 
between him and the surface, and yet he heard 
the old tune still going on. It was a tune his 
cousin Lucy used to play ; but at last, in his 
descent through the darkened water, he got out 
of hearing, and all was silent. The music had 
died away, and suddenly he heard a scream, 
and saw Ellen struggling in the water. He 
made a dart toward her with arms stretched out 
— and overturned the candle he had left on the 
table at the side of his bed. 

in. 
Winnington's visits to the manor grew more 
constant as the day of his departure drew near. 
Early in the morning he passed through the vil- 
lage, and entered the dilapidated house, and 
only issued from it again, accompanied by El- 
len, to pursue their botanical pursuits upon the 
hills. Had he ever told her of any other pur- 
suit in which he was engaged ? Had he gone in 
a formal manner, as recommended in the "True 
Lover's Guide," to the father, and demanded his 
permission to pay his addresses to his daughter? 
Had he displayed to that careful gentleman the 
state of his affairs, and agreed on the sum to be 
settled during the marriage upon Ellen as pin- 
money, and as jointure in case of his death? 
No ; he had never mentioned the state of his 
heart to Ellen, or of his affairs to Mr. Warleigh. 
He had spoken, to be sure, a good deal about 
the future ; his plans when he had taken his de- 
gree ; the very street he should live in when he 
entered into practice, and somehow all these 
projects had reference to some one else. He 
never seemed to limit the view to himself; but 
in all his counselings about the years to come, 
he was like the editor of a newspaper, or the 
writer of a ponderous history, and used the dig- 
nified "We." We shall have such a pretty lit- 
tle drawing-room, with a great many roses on 
the paper, a splendid mirror over the mantle- 



TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. 



785 



piece, and a piano — such a piano ! against the 
wall. Who was included in the We? Ah! 
that was a secret between him and Ellen ; and 
I am not going to play the spy, and then let all 
the world know what I have discovered. It 
seemed as if the father was included too ; for 
there was a charming little room laid aside for 
a third individual, with a nice low fender and a 
nice warm fire, and a nice pipe laid all ready 
for him after dinner, and some delicious tobac- 
co procured from a patient of Winnington, a 
distinguished merchant in the Turkey trade, 
and kept in a beautiful bag of blue silk, which 
Ellen had sewed up with her own hands, with 
gold tassels, astonishing to behold. 

"And we must have a spare bedroom," he 
said; "it needn't be very large for my sister — 
she's not very tall yet, and a little crib would 
do." 

" But Dulcibel will grow," said Ellen ; " she's 
now seven, and by the time she requires the 
room she will be — who can tell how old she will 
be then, Winnington?" 

" I can. She will be ten at most." 
"I think," said Mr. Warleigh, "you had bet- 
ter bring her here : we can get Joe Walters 
to patch up another room ; and, with a prop or 
two under the floor, even the ball-room might 
be safe to occupy." 

" Oh ! no, father : the floor is entirely fallen 
in; and, besides, the ceiling is just coming 
down." 

"And London is such a noble field for ex- 
ertion," said Winnington; "and if I have a 
chance, I will so work and toil, and write and 
make myself known, that I shall be disappoint- 
ed if I am not a baronet in ten years — Sir Win- 
nington Harvey, Bart." 

"A very modern title," said Mr. Warleigh, 
"which I hope no one I care for will ever con- 
descend to accept. My ancestors had been 
knights of Combe-Warleigh for six hundred 
years before baronetcies were heard of; besides, 
as those pinchbeck baronies are only given to 
millionaires, where are you to get a fortune suf- 
ficient to support the dignity ?" 

A sudden flush came to Winnington's face. 
"I should like to owe every thing to you, Sir; 
and, perhaps — perhaps, there will be enough for 
any rank the king can give." 

"It strikes me," said Mr. Warleigh, with a 
laugh, " you are a great deal more hopeful even 
than I was at your time of life. Ah ! I remem- 
ber what day-dreams we had, Ellen's mother and 
I — how we expected to restore the old name, 
and build up the old house — " 

" I'll do both, Sir !" cried Winnington, stand- 
ing up. " I feel sure there is a way of doing so ; 
I have thought much over this for a week past, 
and before I go I'll prove to you — " 

" What ? Has a ghost come from the grave 
to point out some hidden treasure ?" 

Winnington was still standing up in the ex- 
citement of the new idea which filled his heart. 
He was just going to reply when a sudden crash 
alarmed them. Ellen screamed, and fled to 



Winnington for safety. The sound shook the 
whole house. At first they thought some of the 
outer wall had tumbled down. A cloud of dust 
soon filled the room, and neaiiy blinded them. 
" It is the ball-room ceiling," said Mr. War- 
leigh, as if struck with the omen. " The house 
is ruined beyond repair, and some time or other 
will bury us all in its fall. Young man, I ad- 
vise you to get out of its way ; for it will crush 
whatever stands near it." 

The interruption gave Winnington time to 
think, and he resolved not to make Mr. War- 
leigh the confidant of his hopes. That night he 
took his leave. It was the last night of his res- 
idence in the rectory, but he was to return next 
short vacation. The parting was long, and it 
was late when he got home. Arthur was busy 
writing. He had given up his geology for the 
last week, and seldom moved out of the house ; 
he looked up as Winnington came in, but said 
nothing in welcome. 

" I'm glad to find you up," said Winnington, 
" for I want to talk to you, Arthur, and take your 
advice, if you are not busy." 

Arthur laid aside the pen, and covered the 
sheet he was writing with blotting-paper. 

"About Ellen, I suppose?" he said; "love 
in a cottage, and no money to pay the butcher. 
Go on !" 

"It is about Ellen," said Winnington; "it 
is about love — a cottage also, probably — but 
not about poverty, but wealth, rank, magnifi- 
cence !" 

" Ha ! let us hear. You speak with sense at 
last — you'll give up this penniless fancy — you'll 
hate her in a month when you find yourself tied 
to penury and obscurity." 

" But I sha'n't be tied to penury and obscuri- 
ty ; I tell you she is the greatest heiress in En- 
gland, and it is I who will put her in possession 
of her wealth. It is this right hand which will 
lift up the vail that keeps her treasures con- 
cealed ! It is I who will hang pearls about the 
neck that would buy a kingdom, and plant the 
diamonds of India among her hair — and all 
from her own soil !" 

It is impossible to describe the effect of this 
speech upon the listener. He sat upright upon 
his chair ; his lips partly open, his face as pale 
as ashes, and his eye fixed upon the enthusiast- 
ic boy. 

"And you! you, dear Arthur, you shall help 
me in this — for your German residence gave you 
a knowledge of the appearances of a mineral 
bed — you have studied the subject here, for I 
have watched your experiments. I know this 
estate is filled with ore ; but how to work it, 
Arthur — how to begin — how to smelt — to clear 
■ — to cast ! these are the things you must help 
me in ; Ellen will be grateful, and so shall I." 
" Shall you ? You be grateful for what ?" 
" For your aid in bringing into practical effect 
the discovery I have made of the vast mineral 
resources with which all Combe-Warleigh is 
filled. You'll help us, Arthur — for Lucy's sake ! 
for my sake ! for all our sakes ! won't you !" 



786 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" How have you made this discovery ?" said 
Arthur, in a calm voice. 

" Do you remember the night you burned the 
broom-plant? I thought nothing of it at the 
time, but in the morning when I came down, 
the old woman was clearing out the grate. I 
stopped her, and grubbed about among the ash- 
es ; and see what I found ! a piece of solid 
metal, perfectly free from earth ! See, here it 
is ! How lucky I was to make the discovery ! 
It will make Mr. Warleigh richer than if his 
lands were filled with gold." 

The face of Arthur grew almost black. 

" I was of age," he said, " four days ago, and 
made an offer to Mr. Warleigh's agent for the 
manorial rights and heath-lands of his estate — 
which he is bound, to accept, for I give the sum 
they ask." 

"Arthur!" exclaimed Winnington, starting 
up ; " have you the heart to ruin the right own- 
ers of the soil ?" 

"By this time they have sold it; they are 
deep in debt." 

" But they shall not ! No ; this very moment 
I will go back to the manor and tell Mr. War- 
leigh what I know; he will not fulfill the bar- 
gain made by his attorney." 

" Oh ! no, you won't," said Arthur, knitting 
his brows ; I have toiled and struggled for many 
years for this, and you think I will now submit 
to beggary and disgrace, to see the wealth I 
have worked for formed into shape, called out 
of nothing into glittering existence, heaped upon 
another, and that other a dotard whose fathers 
for a thousand years have been treading on 
countless riches, and never heard the sound — 
the sound that reached my ears the moment I 
trod the soil. It shall not be !" 

Winnington looked at the wild eye of his 
companion. A suspicion again came into his 
mind of the state of Arthur's brain. He tried 
to soothe him. 

" But perhaps, after all," he said, " we may be 
both mistaken. It is very likely the friendliest 
thing I could do to hinder you from buying these 
unprofitable acres. If your expectations are de- 
ceived, you will be utterly ruined, and what will 
you do ?" 

"A man can always die," replied Arthur, 
sitting down; "and better that than live in 
poverty." 

" And Lucy— ?" 

" Eorever Lucy ! I tell you, Winnington, 
that when you look at me you grow so like 
her, that I almost hate the girl, as if the blow 
you strike me with just now were struck by 
her." 

"I strike no blow. I merely say that Lucy 
would give you the same advice I do. She 
would not wish to grow rich by the concealment 
of a treasure, and the impoverishment of the 
rightful owner." 

"The rightful owner is the man to whom the 
treasure belongs," said Arthur, not bursting 
forth into a fresh explosion as Winnington ex- 
pected, the moment his speech was uttered. 



"And if the bargain is concluded, the lands are 
mine." 

"Not all?" 

" No. I leave them the rich fields, the pas- 
ture ground in the valley, the farm upon the 
slope. I am modest, and content myself with the 
useless waste ; the dreary moor, the desert hill. 
It is, in fact, making Mr. Warleigh a free gift of 
fifteen hundred pounds, and with that he can 
give his daughter a portion, and rebuild his old 
ruin, with a wing in it for his son-in-law ; and the 
remaining five hundred of my stately fortune (that 
wretches should be found so low as to exist on 
two thousand pounds !) will erect a crushing- 
mill, and dig to the first lode. Then — then," 
he continued, as the picture rose to his imag- 
ination, " the land will grow alive with labor. 
There will be a town where the present hamlet 
shivers in solitude upon the wild. There will 
be the music of a thousand wheels, all disen- 
gaging millions from the earth. There will be 
a mansion such as kings might live in, and I — 
and I—" 

"And Lucy?" again interposed Winnington. 

" Ay ! and Lucy — when I have raised the an- 
nual income to ten thousand pounds — I could 
not occupy the house with less." 

Winnington looked upon his friend with pity. 
He sat down and was silent for some time. 
There was no use in continuing the conversa- 
tion. "You seem to forget," he said, at last, 
" that I go to-morrow to Oxford." 

" So soon ?" said Arthur, with a scrutinizing 
look. "You didn't intend to go till Satur- 
day." 

" I shall have a few days longer with my fam- 
ily. I want to see Dulcibel, who is home from 
school ; and besides," he added, with some em- 
barrassment, "I don't find our residence here 
so pleasant as it used to be. There was a time," 
he said, after a pause, " when it would have 
broken my heart to leave you ; but now — " 

There was a tremble in his voice, and he 
stopped. 

"And why?" said Arthur. "Whose fault is 
it that there is a change ?" 

"Ah! mine, I dare say. I don't blame any 
one," replied Winnington, checked in the flow 
of feeling by the coldness of Arthur's voice. 
" You will have your letter for Lucy ready. I 
shall start before you are up ; so you had better 
let me have it to-night." 

" There is plenty of time. I don't go to bed 
till late. I will walk ten or twelve miles with 
you on <your way to the post-wagon. The ex- 
ercise will do me good." 

"I start very early, for the wagon leaves for 
Exeter at ten in the morning. I have sent on 
my trunk by the shoemaker's cart. I have tak- 
en leave of — of people who have been kind to 
me, and shall walk merrily across the moor. It 
is only fifteen miles." 

"I shall see you as far as the Hawsleigh 
Brook," said Arthur ; " that is, if you don't ob- 
ject to the company of a friend. And why 
should we quarrel ?" 



TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. 



787 



Wilmington took the offered hand. " I knew | 
your heart could not be really so changed," he 
said, "as you tried to make it appear. You 
are ill, Arthur, your brain is too much excited. 
I will not let you get up so early, or take such 
exercise. It will put you into a fever. Let me 
feel your pulse, and you can owe me my first 
fee." 

The pulse was galloping ; the cheek altern- 
ately flushed and paled. 

"This is beyond my present skill," saidWin- 
nington, shaking his head. " You must apply 
to the nearest doctor for advice." 

"You are very kind, my dear Wilmington, 
as you always are ; but I don't think medicine 
will be of much avail." 

"But you will see the doctor?" 

"Whatever you like," replied Arthur, now 
quite submissive to his friend's directions. 

"And you will write to Lucy, quietly, sober- 
ly. She'll be alarmed if you give way to your 
dreams of wealth," said Winnington. 

" And Aladdin's Palace and the salary ?" re- 
plied Arthur, with a smile. "Well, I will be 
as subdued as I can, and the note shall be ready 
for you in time." 

He took the pen as he spoke, and commenced 
a letter. Winnington looked at him, but more 
in sorrow than in anger. There was something 
in the pertinacious offer of Arthur to accompany 
him which displeased him. " He watches me," 
he said, " as if afraid of my whispering a word 
of what I know to the Warleighs. I shall reach 
London in time, and carry a specimen of the 
ore with me." The clock struck one. "You 
don't seem very quick in writing, Arthur. Per- 
haps you will leave the letter on the table. I 
am going to bed." 

"No — just five minutes — and tell her, Win- 
nington — tell her that I am unchanged ; that 
riches, rank, position — nothing will alter my 
affection — " 

" And that you will come to see her soon ?" 

" Yes ; when I have been to London." 

Winnington started. " And when do you go 
there?" 

"In two days. I will come to Warwickshire 
on my return — perhaps before you have gone 
back to Oxford." 

" Ah ! that will put all right ! That will be 
a renewal of the old time." 

" Here's the letter ; put it carefully away. I 
have told her I am unchanged. You must tell 
her so too." 

Winnington shook his head, but said aothing. 
They joined hands. 

" And now," said Winnington, " farewell. I 
didn't think our parting would be like this. But 
remember, if we should never meet again, that 
I never changed ; no, not for a moment, in my 
affection to you." 

"Why shouldn't we meet qgain? Do you 
think me so very ill ?" inquired Arthur. 

"I don't know. There are thoughts that 
come upon us, we don't know why. It wasn't 
of your health I was thinking. But there are 



many unexpected chances in life. Farewell. 
You sha'n't get up in the morning." 

They parted for the night. Arthur, instead 
of going to bed, looked out up-m the moor. A 
wild and desolate scene it was, which seemed to 
have some attraction for him, for which it was 
difficult to account. When he had sat an hour 
— perhaps two hours, for he took no note of 
time — in perfect stillness, observing the stars, 
which threw a strange light upon the heath, he 
thought he heard a creaking on the rickety old 
stairs, as of some one slipping on tiptoe down. 
He stood up at his window, which commanded 
a view of the top of the wooden porch. Stealth- 
ily looking round, as if in fear of observation, 
he saw a man with a lantern cautiously held be- 
fore him emerge from the house and walk rap- 
idly away. He turned off toward the left. Over 
his shoulder he carried a pickax and a spade. 
They shone fitfully in the light. He passed 
down the declivity toward the waterfall, and 
then disappeared. 

Next morning, at six o'clock, the old woman, 
on coming to her daily work, found the door on 
the latch. On the table she saw a note, and 
took it up stairs. She knocked at Arthur's door. 

"Come in," he said. "Is that you, Win- 
nington ? I shall get up in a moment." 

"No, Zur, the young gentleman be gone, and 
I thought this here letter might be of conze- 
quence." 

Arthur took the letter, and, by the gray light 
of dawn, read as follows : 

"I am going to leave you, dear Arthur, and 
feel that I did not part from you so kindly as I 
wished. I don't like to show my feelings ; for 
in fact I have so little command of them, that 
I am always afraid you will despise me for my 
weakness. I will give your messages and your 
letter to Lucy. I will tell her you are coming 
soon, Even now the dawn is not far off, and I 
a*m going before the hour I told you ; for I will 
not allow you, in your present state of health, 
to accompany me to Hawsleigh. It is to Lon- 
don I am going. Oh ! pardon me for going. 
I think it my duty to go. You will think so 
too, when you reflect. If they are surprised at 
my absence (for I may be detained), explain to 
them where I am gone. I should have told 
you this last night, but did not dare. Dear 
Arthur, think kindly of me. I always think af- 
fectionately of you. — W. H." 

" He should have signed his name in full," 
said Arthur, and laid the letter under his pil- 
low. " To London — to the attorney — with spec- 
imens of the ore. I shall get to town before 
him, in spite of his early rising." 

There was a smile upon his face, and he got 
up in a hurry. 

" He can't have been long gone," he said to 
the old woman, " for the ink he wrote with was 
not dry." 

" I thought I saw him as I came," she replied, 
" a long way across the heath ; but p'raps it was 
a bush, or maybe a cow. I don't know, but it 
was very like him." 



788 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



After breakfast he hurried to the village. 
The drunken shoemaker was earning a farther 
title to that designation, and was speechless in 
bed, with a bandage over his head, which some 
one had broken the night before. The money 
Winnington had paid him for carting his lug- 
gage was answerable for his helpless condition. 
There was no other horse or vehicle in the 
place. So, moody and discontented, Arthur re- 
turned, put a shirt in each pocket of his coat, 
and proceeded on foot to Hawsleigh. He ar- 
rived there at one o'clock. The post-wagon had 
started at ten. The shoemaker had carefully 
instructed the driver to convey Winnington's 
luggage to Exeter ; and as he only jogged on at 
the rate of four miles an hour, and loitered be- 
sides on the way, he was not to wait for his pas- 
senger, who would probably walk on a few miles, 
and take his seat when he was tired. 

There was no conveyance in Hawsleigh rapid 
enough to overtake a vehicle which traveled 
even at so slow a pace as four miles an hour 
with the advantage of three hours' start; and 
once in the coach at Exeter, there was no pos- 
sibility of contending with such rapidity of loco- 
motion. It would take him to London in little 
more than five days. 

Arthur, however, discovered that a carrier's 
cart started at three o'clock for the village of 
Oakfield, twelve miles onward on the Exeter 
road. He was in such a state of excitement 
and anxiety to get on, that rest in one place was 
intolerable ; and though he knew that he was 
not a yard advanced in reality by availing him- 
self of this chance, as after all he would have to 
wait somewhere or other for the next morning's 
post-wagon, he paid a small fee for the carriage 
of a few articles he hastily bought and tied up 
in a bundle, and set off with the carrier. He 
seemed to be relieved more and more as he felt 
nearer to the object of his journey. With knit- 
ted brow and pressed lips he sat in the clumsy" 
cart or walked alongside. The driver, after 
some attempts at conversation, gave him up to 
his own reflections. 

"A proud fellow as ever I see," he muttered, 
" and looks like a lord. Well, he shouldn't travel 
by a cart if he didn't speak to cart's company." 

The cart's company increased as they got on. 
Women with poultry-baskets, returning from 
the neighboring hamlets and farms ; stray friends 
of the proprietor of the vehicle who were on 
their way to Oakfield ; and at last little village 
children, who had come out to meet the cart, 
and were already fighting as to who should have 
the privilege of riding the old horse to the wa- 
ter when he was taken out of the shafts ; it was 
a cavalcade of ten or a dozen persons when the 
spire of the church came into view. Arthur 
still walked beside them, but took no part in the 
conversation. There seemed something unusual 
going on in the main street as they drew near. 
There was a crowd of anxious-faced peasantry 
opposite the door of the Woodman's Arms ; they 
were talking in whispers and expecting some 
one's arrival. 



"Have ye seen him coming, Luke Waters?" 
said two or three at a time to the carrier. 

"Noa— who, then?" 

"The crowner; he ha' been sent for a hour 
and more." 

"What's happened, then? Woa, horse!" 

" Summat bad. He's there !" said a man, 
pointing to the upper window of the inn, and 
turning paler than before; "he was found in 
Parson's Meadow — dead — with such a slash !" 
The man touched his throat, and was silent. 

Arthur began to listen. " Who is it ? does 
any one know the corpse ?" 

" Noa ; he were a stranger, stripped naked all 
to the drawers — and murdered ; but here's the 
crowner. He'll explain it all." 

The coroner came, a man of business mind, 
who seemed no more impressed with the so- 
lemnity of the scene than a butcher in a shop 
surrounded by dead sheep. A jury was sum- 
moned, and proceeded up stairs. A few of the 
by-standers were admitted. Among others 
Arthur. He was dreadfully calm ; evidently 
by an effort which concealed his agitation. "I 
have never looked on death," he said, "and 
this first experience is very terrible." 

The inquest went on. Arthur, though in the 
room, kept his eyes perfectly closed ; but through 
shut lids he conjured up to himself the ghastly 
sight, the stark body, the gaping wound. He 
thought of hurrying down stairs without waiting 
the result, but there was a fascination in the 
scene that detained him. 

"The corpse was found in this state," said 
the coroner : " it needs no proof more than the 
wounds upon it to show that it was by violence 
the man died. But by whose hands it is im- 
possible to say. Can no one identify the 
body?" 

There was a long pause. Each of the spec- 
tators looked on the piteous spectacle, but could 
give no answer to the question. At last Arthur, 
by an immense exertion of self-command, open- 
ed his eyes and fixed them on the body. He stag- 
gered and nearly fell. His cheek became dead- 
ly pale. His eyeballs were fixed. " I — I know 
him!" he cried, and knelt beside his bed. "I 
parted from him last night : he was to come by 
the wagon from Hawsleigh on his way to Ex- 
eter, but left word that he was going to walk 
on before. He was my brother — my friend." 

"And his name?" said the coroner. "This 
is very satisfactory." 

Arthur looked upon the cold brow of the 
murdered man, and said, with a sob of de- 
spair, 

" Winnington Harvey !" 

The coroner took the depositions, went 
through the legal forms, and gave the proper 
verdict — " Murdered ; but by some person or 
persons unknown." 

It was a lawless time, and deeds of violence 
were very frequent. Some years after the per- 
petrators of the deed were detected in some oth- 
er crime, and confessed their guilt. They had 
robbed and murdered the unoffending traveler, 



TWO COLLEGE FKIENDS. 



789 



and were scared away by the approach of the 
post-wagon from Hawsleigh. Arthur caused a 
small headstone to be raised over his friend's 
grave, with the inscription of his name and 
fate. Callous as he sometimes appeared, he 
could not personally convey the sad news to 
Winnington's relations, but forwarded them the 
full certificate of the sad occurrence. It is 
needless to tell what tears were shed by the 
unhappy mother and sister, or how often their 
fancy traveled to the small monument and fresh 
turf grave in the churchyard of Oakfield. 
IV. 
When thirty years had elapsed, great changes 
had taken place in Combe-Warleigh. It was 
no longer a desolate village, straggling in the 
midst of an interminable heath, but a populous 
town — busy, dirty, and rich. There were many 
thousands of workmen engaged in mining and 
smelting. Furnaces were blazing night and day, 
and there were two or three churches and a 
town hall. The neighborhood had grown popu- 
lous as well as the town ; and a person standing 
on the tower of Sir Arthur Hayning's castle, 
near the Warleigh waterfall, could see, at great 
distances, over the level expanse, the juttings 
of columns of smoke from many tall chimneys 
which he had erected on other parts of his 
estate. He had stewards and overseers, an 
army of carters and wagoners, and regiments 
of clerks, and sat in the great house ; and from 
his richly-furnished library commanded, ruled, 
and organized all. Little was known of his 
early life, for the growth of a town where a man 
lives is like the lapse of years in other places. 
New people come, old inhabitants die out, or 
are lost in the crowd ; and very recent events 
take the enlarged and confused outline of re- 
mote traditions. The date of Sir Arthur's set- 
tlement at Warleigh was as uncertain to most 
of the inhabitants as that of the siege of Troy. 
It was only reported that at some period infin- 
itely distant, he had bought the estate, had lived 
the life of a miser — saving, working, heaping 
up, buying where land was to be had ; digging 
down into the soil, always by some inconceiv- 
able faculty hitting upon the richest lodes, till 
he was owner of incalculable extents of country, 
and sole proprietor of the town and mills of 
Combe-Warleigh. No one knew if he had ever 
been married or not. When first the popula- 
tion began to assemble, they saw nothing of him 
but in the strict execution of their respective 
duties ; he finding capital and employment, and 
they obedience and industry. No social inter- 
course existed between him and any of his 
neighbors : and yet fabulous things were report- 
ed of the magnificence of his rooms, the quanti- 
ty of his plate, the number of his domestic serv- 
ants. His patriotism had been so great that 
he had subscribed an immense sum to the Loy- 
alty Loan, and was rewarded by the friendship 
of the King, and the title that adorned his 
name. And when fifteen more years of this 
seclusion and grandeur — this accumulation of 
wealth and preservation of dignity — had accus- 



tomed the public ear to the sound of the mill- 
ionaire's surname, it was thought a natural re- 
sult of these surpassing merits that he should 
be elevated to the peerage. lie was now Lord 
Warleigh, of Combe-Warleigh, and had a coat 
of arms on the panels of his carriage, which it 
was supposed his ancestors had worn on their 
shields at the Battle of Hastings. All men of 
fifty thousand a year can trace up to the Nor- 
man Conquest. Though their fathers were 
hedgers and ditchers, and their grandfathers 
inhabitants of the poor-house, it is always con- 
solatory to their pride to reflect that the family 
was as old as ever ; that extravagance, politics, 
tyranny, had reduced it to that low condition ; 
and that it was left for them to restore the an- 
cient name to its former glory, and to re-knit 
in the reign of George or William the line that 
was ruthlessly broken on Bosworth Field. Lord 
Warleigh, it was stated in one of the invaluable 
records of hereditary descent (for which sub- 
scriptions were respectfully solicited by the dis- 
tinguished editor, Slaver Lick, Esquire), was 
lineally descended from one of the peerages 
which became extinct in the unhappy wars of 
Stephen and Matilda. It is a remarkable fact, 
that in a previous edition, when he was only a 
baronet, with a reputed income of fifteen or 
twenty thousand pounds, the genealogy had 
stuck at James the First. But whether his an- 
cestry was so distinguished or not, the fact of 
his immense wealth and influence was undoubt- 
ed. He had for some years given up the per- 
sonal superintendence of his works. Instead 
of extracting dull ore from the earth, he had 
sent up dull members to the House of Com- 
mons, got dull magistrates put upon the bench, 
and exercised as much sovereign sway and mas- 
terdom over all the district as if he had been 
elected dictator with unlimited power. But 
there is always a compensation in human af- 
fairs; and the malevolence natural to all people 
of proper spirit lying in the shade of so pre- 
ponderating a magnate, was considerably grati- 
fied by what was whispered of the depressed 
condition of his lordship's spirits. Even the 
clergyman's Avife — who was a perfect model of 
that exemplary character — looked mysteriously, 
and said that his lordship never smiled — that a 
housemaid who had at one time been engaged 
in the rectory, had told her extraordinary things 
about his lordship's habits ; about talks she had 
heard — the housemaid — late at night, in his 
lordship's library, when she — the housemaid — 
Avas mortally certain there could be no person 
in the room but his lordship's self; how she — 
the housemaid — had been told by Thomas the 
footman, that his lordship, when dining quite 
alone, freqently spoke as if to some person sit- 
ting beside him ; when he — Thomas — had sworn 
to her — the housemaid — that there was no per- 
son whatever at table with his lordship, no, not 
the cat; and then, she — the clergyman's wife — 
added, as of her own knowledge, that at church 
his lordship never listened to the sermon ; but 
after apparently thinking deeply of other things, 



790 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



hid himself from her observation, and pretend- 
ed to fall asleep. How sorry she was to say 
this, she needn't remark, for if there was a thing 
she hated it was tittle-tattle, and she never suf- 
fered a servant to bring her any of the rumors 
of the place ; it was so unlady-like ; and his 
lordship had been such an excellent friend to 
the church — for he had made an exchange of 
the wretched old glebe, and given a very nice 
farm for it in the vale of Hawsleigh, and had 
built a new personage-house where the old 
manor-house stood, and was always most liber- 
al in his donations to all the charities ; but it 
was odd, wasn't it? that he never saw any 
company — and who could he be speaking to in 
the library, or at dinner? Dr. Drowes can't 
make it out : he was never asked to the Castle 
in his life ; and tells me he has read of people, 
for the sake of getting rich, selling their souls 

to the . Isn't it dreadful to think of? His 

lordship is very rich, to be sure ; but as to sell- 
ing his soul to ! Oh ! it's a horrid suppo- 
sition, and I wonder Dr. Drowes can utter so 
terrible a thought. 

But Dr. Drowes had no great opportunity of 
continuing his awful innuendoes, for he was 
shortly appointed to another living of Lord War- 
leigh's in the northern part of the county, and 
was requested to appoint a curate to Warleigh 
in the prime of life, who would be attentive and 
useful to the sick and poor. To hear, was to 
obey — and the head of his College in Oxford 
recommended a young man in whom he had 
the greatest confidence ; and Mr. Henry Ben- 
ford soon made his appearance and occupied 
the personage-house. He was still under thirty 
years of age, with the finest and most delicate- 
ly cut features consistent with a style of mascu- 
line beauty which was very striking. He was 
one of the men — delicate and refined in expres- 
sion, with clear, light complexion and beautiful 
soft eyes — of whom people say it is a pity he is 
not a girl. And this feminine kind of look was 
accompanied in Henry Benford by a certain 
effeminacy of mind. Modest he was, and what 
the world calls shy, for he would blush on being 
presented to a stranger, and scarcely ventured 
to speak in miscellaneous company ; but per- 
fectly conscientious in what he considered the 
discharge of a duty ; active and energetic in 
his parish, and with a sweetness of disposition 
which nothing could overthrow. He had a 
wife and two children at this time, and a pleas- 
ant sight it was amidst the begrimed and hard- 
ened features of the population of Combe- War- 
leigh to see the fresh faces and clear complex- 
ions of the new-comers. 

A great change speedily took place in the 
relations existing between pastor and flock. 
Schools were instituted — the sick were visited 
— a weekly report was sent to the Castle, with 
accurate statements of the requirements of every 
applicant. Little descriptions were added to 
the causes of the distress of some of the work- 
men — excuses made for their behavior — means 
pointed out by which the more deserving could 



be helped, without hurting their self-respect by 
treating them as objects of charity ; and, in a 
short time, the great man in the Castle knew 
the position, the habits, 4he necessities of every 
one of his neighbors. Nothing pleased him 
more than the opportunity now afforded him 
of being generous, without being imposed on. 
His gifts were large and unostentatious, and as 
Benford, without blazoning the donor's merits, 
let it be known from what source these valuable 
aids proceeded, a month had not elapsed before 
kinder feelings arose between the Castle and 
the town — people smiled and touched their hats 
more cordially than before, when they met his 
lordship as he drove through the street; little 
girls dropped courtesies to him on the side of the 
road, instead of running aAvay when they saw 
him coming ; and one young maiden was even 
reported to have offered his lordship a bouquet 
— not very valuable, as it consisted only of a 
rose, six daisies, and a dandelion — and to have 
received a pat on the head for it, and half a 
crown. Lord Warleigh had had a cold every 
Sunday for the last year and a half of Dr. 
Drowes's ministrations ; but when Benford had 
officiated a month or six weeks he suddenly re- 
covered, and appeared one Sunday in church. 
His lordship generally sat in a recess opposite 
the pulpit, forming a sort of family pew which 
might almost have been mistaken for a parlor. 
It was carpeted very comfortably, and had a 
stove in it, and tables and chairs. In this re- 
tirement his lordship performed his devotions 
in the manner recorded by Mrs. Drowes — and 
when the eloquent Doctor was more eloquent 
than usual,* he drew a heavy velvet curtain 
across the front of his room, and must have 
been lulled into pleasing slumbers by the sub- 
dued mumble of the orator's discourse. On 
this occasion he was observed to look with curi- 
osity toward the new clergyman. All through 
the prayers he fixed his eyes on Benford's face 
— never lifting them for a moment — never 
changing a muscle — never altering his attitude. 
His hair, now silver white, fell nearly down to 
his shoulders, his noble features were pale and 
motionless. Tall, upright, gazing — gazing — 
the congregation observed his lordship with 
surprise. W r hen Benford mounted the pulpit— 
when he was seen in black gown and bands, and 
his clear rich voice gave out the text, suddenly 
his lordship's face underwent a strange contor- 
tion — he rapidly drew the curtain across the 
pew and was no more seen. The congregation 
were sorry that their new clergyman, who had 
apparently pleased the patron by his reading, 
was not equally fortunate in the sermon. The 
preacher himself was by no means offended. 
He kneAv Lord Warleigh was too clever a man 
to require any instruction from him, and he 
went on as usual and preached to the poor. In 
the vestry he was laying aside his official cos- 
tume when the door opened ; his cassock was 
off, his coat was not on, he was in his shirt 
sleeves, and the great man came in. Benford 
was overwhelmed with confusion. He had 



TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. 



791 



never spoken to a lord before — his face glowed 
as if on fire. With compressed lips, and his 
eyes fixed more than ever upon the discomfited 
curate, the old man thanked him for his dis- 
course. " I am Lord Warleigh," he said, " I 
have received your weekly statements as I de- 
sired — they are excellent — come to me for an 
hour to-morrow. I shall expect you at eleven." 
Before Mr. Benford had recovered his compo- 
sure, his lordship had gone. 

" He is very kind," said the curate, when he 
related the occurrence to his wife, " but I don't 
like him. His hand was like cold iron — I felt 
as if it had been a sword — and what a nuisance 
it is he found me in such a dress." 

But Mrs. Benford, also, had never seen a 
lord, and was devoted to the aristocracy. " His 
lordship is very kind, I am sure, to have asked 
you to the Castle. None of the doctors have 
ever been there, nor any of the attorneys." 

"That's only a proof," said Benford, a little 
tickled, it must be owned, with the distinction, 
" that his lordship is in good health and not 
litigious; but I shall judge of him better to- 
morrow." 

" He has many livings in his gift," said Mrs. 
Benford, thoughtfully. 

"And is most liberal to the poor," chimed in 
her husband. 

" What a handsome man, he is !" said the 
lady. 

"A fine voice," said the gentleman. 

"Truly aristocratic. He is descended from 
Otho the Stutterer." 

" And yet I don't like him. His hand is like 
a sword." With which repeated observation 
the colloquy ended, and Benford proceeded to 
the Sunday School. 

How the interview went off on the Monday 
was never known. Benford was not a man of 
observation, and took no notice of the peculiar 
manner of his reception, the long gaze with 
which Lord Warleigh seemed to study his coun- 
tenance, and the pauses which occurred in his 
conversation. He was invited to return on 
Tuesday ; on Wednesday ; and when the fourth 
visit within the week was announced to Mrs. 
Benford, there was no end of the vista of wealth 
and dignity she foresaw from the friendship of 
so powerful a patron. 

"And he has asked me to bring the children, 
too. His lordship says he is very fond of chil- 
dren." 

"What a good man he is!" exclaimed the 
wife. " They'll be so delighted to see the fine 
things in the house." 

" The girl is but three years old and the boy 
one. I don't think they'll see much difference 
between his lordship's house and this. I won't 
take the baby." 

" What ? Not the baby? the beautiful little 
angel! Lord Warleigh will never forgive you 
for keeping him away." 

But Benford was positive, and taking his 
little girl by the hand he walked to the Castle 
and entered the library. His lordship was not 



within, and Benford drew a chair near the 
table, and opened a book of prints for the 
amusement of his daughter. While they were 
thus engaged a side door noiselessly opened, 
and Lord Warleigh stepped in. He stood still 
at the threshold, and looked at the group before 
him. He seemed transfixed with fear. He 
held out his hand and said, "You — you there, 
so soon ? — at this time of the day ? And she ! 
—who is she?" 

" My lord," said Benford, " I came at the 
hour you fixed. This is my little daughter. 
You asked me to bring her to see you. I hope 
you are not offended." 

"Ah, now, I remember," said his lordship, 
and held out his hand. " I see visitors so rare- 
ly, Mr. Benford — and ladies — " he added, look- 
ing with a smile to the terrified little girl who 
stood between her father's knees and gazed 
with mute wonder on the old man's face — 
" ladies so seldom present themselves here, that 
I was surprised, but now most happy — " 

He sat down and talked with the greatest 
kindness. He drew the little girl nearer and 
nearer to himself; at last he got a volume from 
the shelf, of the most gorgeously colored en- 
gravings, and took her on his knee. He showed 
her the beautiful birds represented in the book ; 
told her where they lived, and some of their 
habits ; and pleased with the child's intelligence, 
and more with the confidence she felt in his 
good-nature — he said, "And now, little lady, 
you shall give me a kiss, and tell me your pretty 
little name." 

The child said, u My name is Dulcibel Ben- 
ford," and held up her little mouth to give the 
kiss. 

But Lord Warleigh grew suddenly cold and 
harsh. He put her from his knee in silence ; 
and the child perceiving the change, went trem- 
blingly to her father. 

"A strange name to give your child, Mr. 
Benford," said his lordship. 

"I'm very sorry, indeed, my lord," began 
Mr. Benford, but perceived in the midst of the 
profoundest respect for the peerage, how absurd 
it would be to apologize for a Christian name. 

" You have a son, I think ; what name have 
you given him?" 

" His name is Winnington, my lord — an un- 
com — " 

" What ?" cried Lord Warleigh, starting up. 
You come hither to insult me in my own room. 
You creep into my house, and worm yourself 
into my confidence, and then, when you think 
I am unprepared, for you — " , 

" As I hope to be saved, my lord — I give you 
my word, my lord — I never meant to insult you, 
my lord," said Benford; "but since I have had 
the misfortune to offend your lordship I will 
withdraw. Come, Lucy Mainfield. She has 
three names, my lord, Dulcibel Lucy Mainfield. 
I'm sorry she didn't tell you so before." 

" No — don't go," said Lord Warleigh, sinking 
into his chair; "it was nothing; it was a sud- 
den pain, which often puts me out of temper. 



792 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Is the little girl's name Lucy Mainfield ? You 
won't come back to me again, will you, Lucy ?" 

" Oh, yes, my lord — Lucy, go to his lordship 
— he will show you the pictures again." Ben- 
ford pushed her toward Lord Warleigh. But 
the girl blushed and trembled, and wouldn't go. 
She clung to her father's hand. 

"Don't force her," said the old man, in a 
mournful tone. "I knew she wouldn't. But 
you won't go in anger, Lucy ? Benford, you'll 
forgive me ?" 

" Oh, my lord," said the curate, immensely 
gratified, and sat down again. 

" Are these family names, Benford ?" inquired 
his lordship carelessly, but still looking sadly in 
Dulcibel's glowing face. 

"Yes, my lord. Dulcibel was my mother's 
name, and her brother's name Winnington Har- 
vey. You have heard, perhaps, of his melan- 
choly fate ? He was murdered." 

"You are Winnington Harvey's nephew?" 
said Lord Warleigh. 

"Yes, my lord, and they used to say I was 
very like him." 

" Who ? — who used to say so ? your mother, 
perhaps. Is she alive?" 

"Both father and mother died when I was 
three years old. ■ My grandfather in Yorkshire 
brought me up. It was dear old cousin Lucy, 
who died when I was tAvelve — Lucy Mainfield." 

" She dead— is she ?" 

" Oh, yes, my lord, and left me all the little 
money she had. She used to say I was very 
like my uncle." 

"And did she tell you any particulars of his 
end?" 

"No, my lord. She spoke very little of the 
past. She had been very unhappy in her youth 
— a disappointment in love, we thought; and 
some people said she had been fond of Uncle 
Winnington ; but I don't know — his fate was 
very horrible. He had been down in Devon- 
shire, reading with a friend, and was killed on 
his way home." 

" And you never heard the friend's name ?" 

" No. Cousin Lucy never mentioned it ; and 
there was no one else who knew." 

"And how do you know his fate?" 

"It was in the coroner's verdict. And do 
you know, my lord, he is buried not far from 
this." 

"Who told you that?" said Warleigh, start- 
ing up, as if about to break forth in another 
paroxysm of rage. "Who knows any thing 
about that ?" 

"Cousin Lucy told me, when I was very 
young, that if ever I went into the West I 
should try to find out his grave." 

"And for that purpose you are here; it was 
to discover this you came to Warleigh ?" His 
lordship's eyes flashed with anger. 

" Oh, no, my lord ; it is only a coincidence, 
that's all ; but the place is not far off. In fact, 
I believe it is nearer than cousin Lucy thought." 
" Go on — go on," cried Lord Warleigh, re- 
straining himself from the display of his un- 



happy temper. "What reason have you to 
think so ?" 

" The map of the county, my lord. Oakfield 
does not seem more than twenty miles off." 

" And your uncle is buried there ?" 

"Yes, my lord. I think of going over to 
see the grave next week." 

"I wish you good-morning, Mr. Benford," 
said Warleigh, suddenly, but very kindly. "You 
have told me a strange piece of family history. 
Good-morning, too, my little dear. What ! you 
won't shake the old man's hand? You look 
frightened, Lucy. Will you come and see me 
again, Lucy Mainfield?" He dwelt upon the 
name as if it pleased him. 

" No — never," said the little girl, and pushed 
Benford toward the door. "I don't like you, 
and will never come again." 

Benford broke out into apologies, and a cold 
perspiration : " She's a naughty, little child, my 
lord. Dulcibel, how can you behave so ? Chil- 
dren, my lord, are so very foolish — " 

" That they speak truth even when it is dis- 
agreeable ; but I expected it, and am not sur- 
prised. Good-day." 

Soon after this a series of miracles occurred 
to Mr. Benford, which filled him with surprise. 
The manager of the bank at Warleigh called 
on him one day, and in the most respectful 
manner requested that he would continue to 
keep his account, as heretofore, with the firm. 
Now, the account of Mr. Benford was not such 
as would seem to justify such a request, seeing 
it consisted at that moment of a balance of 
eighteen pounds seven and fourpence. How- 
ever, he bowed with the politeness which a cu- 
rate always displays to a banker, and expressed 
his gracious intention of continuing his patron- 
age to Messrs. Bulk and Looby, and the latter 
gentleman, after another courteous bow, retired, 
leaving the pass-book in the hands of the grati- 
fied clergyman. He opened it; and the first 
line that met his view was a credit to the Rev- 
erend Henry Benford, of the sum of twelve 
thousand six hundred pounds ! On presenting 
the amazing document to the notice of his wife, 
that lady at first was indignant at those vulgar 
tradespeople, Bulk and Looby, venturing to play 
such a hoax on a friend of Lord Warleigh. 
This was now the designation by which her 
husband was most respectable in the eyes of 
his helpmate ; and somewhat inclined to resent 
the supposed insult, Benford walked down to 
the bank and came to an explanation with both 
the partners in the private room. There could 
be no doubt of the fact. The money was paid 
in to his name, in London, and transmitted, in 
the ordinary course, to his country bankers. In 
fear and trembling — and merely to put his good 
luck to the test — he drew a check for a hun- 
dred and twenty pounds, which was immediate- 
ly honored ; and with these tangible witnesses 
to the truth of his banker's statement, he re- 
turned to the parsonage and poured the guineas 
in glittering array upon the drawing-room table. 
All attempts to discover the source of his riches 



TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. 



793 



were unavailing. Messrs. Bulk and Looby had 
no knowledge on the subject, and their corre- 
spondents in town were equally unable to say. 

Then, in a week after this astounding event, 
a new miracle happened, for Mr. Looby again 
presented himself at the rectory, and requested 
to know in whose names the money which had 
arrived that morning was to be held. 

"More money!" said Mr. Benford; "Oh, 
put it up with the other ; but really," added the 
ingenuous youth, "I don't think I require any 
more — " 

"It isn't for you, Sir, this time," said Mr. 
Looby. 

" I'm very glad to hear it," said Mr. Benford, 
and with perfect truth. 

"It's for the children ; and if you will have 
two trustees, the funds will be conveyed to them 
at once." 

Benford named two friends ; and then, quite 
in a careless, uninterested manner, said, "How 
much is it ?" 

" Twenty thousand pounds," replied Mr. Loo- 
by, " in the five per cents. — which are now at a 
hundred and two — say, twenty thousand four 
hundred pounds, if we sell at once. Our broker 
is Bochus of Crutched Friars." 

Miss Dulcibel was an heiress, and Master 
Winnington an heir ! The funds were to ac- 
cumulate till they were eighteen and twenty- 
one respectively, with two hundred a year for 
the maintenance and education of each. 

Then, in a fortnight more, came a gentleman 
whom Benford had never seen before — a little, 
fat, red-faced man, so choked up in a white 
neckcloth that it was evident he was determ- 
ined to look like a clergyman or perish in the 
attempt. He introduced himself in a gracious 
manner, and said he was a clerical agent. 

"More money?" inquired Benford, who now 
seldom saw any stranger without suspecting that 
he had just returned from paying large sums to 
his name at the bank. 

" No, Sir, not money," replied the agent. 

" Oh ! that's odd," said Benford ; " then, may 
I ask what your business is with me ?" 

" It is, perhaps, better than money," replied 
the little fat man, with a cough which was in- 
tended to represent a smile. " Sir Hildo Swilks 
of Somerset has heard of your great eloquence, 
Mr. Benford." 

" Sir Hildo is very good," said Mr. Benford, 
modestly; "plain common sense is what I aim 
at—" 

" The truest eloquence," rejoined the clerical 
agent ; " the rest is nought but ' lather and um- 
brellas,' as Pope says. He has also heard of 
your kindness to the poor, your charity, and 
many other good qualities, and he has done 
himself the honor to present you to the valua- 
ble living of Swilkstone Magna; it is a clear 
income of eight hundred a year, with a good 
parsonage-house, and two packs of hounds with- 
in — but, perhaps, you don't hunt, Mr. Benford 
— ah! very right; it is very unclerical — the 
bishops ought to interfere. 'Poor is the tri- 



umph o'er the timid hare,' as Thomson says, or 
fox as I say." 

"You have proofs, I suppose" ' said Benford, 
thinking it just possible that the plethoric gen- 
tleman before him might be an impostor about 
to end with asking the loan of a pound. 

"Here is the presentation, Sir, all ready, 
signed and sealed ; you have nothing to do but 
go to Wells — his lordship will institute you any 
day you like." 

The only other remarkable thing connected 
with this incident is, that about this time Sir 
Hildo Swilks paid off a mortgage of eight or 
nine thousand pounds, as if fortune had smiled 
on his benevolent action in favor of Mr. Ben- 
ford. 

But, in the mean time, all intercourse between 
the curate and the noble had ceased. The busi- 
ness of the parish was transacted by letter as 
before ; and it was only when the rector of 
Swilkstone Magna thought it his duty to an- 
nounce his approaching departure that he de- 
termined to go up to the Castle and wait on 
Lord Warleigh in person. Lord Warleigh was 
ill — he could see nobody — he kept his room ; 
and the confidential gentleman, who dressed in 
plain black, and spoke in whispers, couldn't 
name any day when his lordship would be like- 
ly to admit Mr. Benford. 

"Is he very unwell?" said the rector; "for 
if his lordship will not receive my visits as a 
neighbor, perhaps he will not object to seeing 
me in my professional character as a visitor of 
the sick." 

"We dare not tell his lordship he is ill, Sir; 
your presence would alarm him too much ; as 
it is, he is terribly out of spirits, and says cu- 
rious things — he never was fond of clergymen." 

" Mention my request to him if you have the 
opportunity. I don't wish to go without taking 
leave." 

The man promised, though evidently with no 
expectation of being able to comply with the 
request, and Benford returned to communicate 
to his wife that the animosity of the great man 
continued. 

"And all because poor little Dulcibella said 
she didn't like him. It was certainly very fool- 
ish in her to say so to a lord ; but she knows no 
better." 

" He can't bear malice for a mere infant's ob- 
servations," said Benford. "But I have some 
strange suspicions about his lordship which I 
would not divulge for the world except to you. 
I fear his lordship drinks." He almost shud- 
dered as he said the horrid word. 

"Drinks! — a nobleman!" — exclaimed Mrs. 
Benford : " impossible !" 

"I don't know," replied the rector of Swilk- 
stone. "Pie looked very odd and talked in a 
queer way, and fell into passions about nothing. 
I am not sorry, I assure you, to be going away. 
I told you from the first I did not like him. 
His hand felt as cold as a sword." 

"I never felt his hand," said Mrs. Benford, 
in so sad a voice that it was pretty clear she 



794 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



regretted the circumstance very deeply. "But 
we shall probably be more intimate with that 
excellent man Sir Hildo. He is only a baronet 
to be sure, but his title is older than LordWar- 
leigh's. How good in him to give you the liv- 
ing merely from the good reports he heard of 
your character!" 

It was now autumn. The middle of October 
was past, and an early winter was already be- 
ginning to be felt., The preparations for re- 
moval were completed, and on the following 
day the Parsonage was to be deserted, and pos- 
session of the new living entered upon. It was 
nine o'clock : the night was dark and windy; a 
feeble moon glimmered at intervals through the 
sky, and added to the gloom she could not dis- 
perse. Mrs. Benford retired to her room, as 
they had to rise early in the morning. Benford 
was sitting with his feet on the fender, looking 
into the fire, when he heard a knock at the front 
door. It was opened by the maid, and soon he 
perceived steps in the passage ; a tap came to 
the door of the parlor. 

"A gentleman to see you, Sir," and a fig- 
ure entered the room. Benford looked round 
amazed. The stranger stood near the door, 
and fixed his eyes on Benford's. Wrapped up 
against the cold, but with the cloak now droop- 
ing on his shoulders; with his hat still on his 
head, and his hand resting on a long staff, stood 
Lord Warleigh, pale, ghastly, with lips distend- 
ed, and uttering not a word. 

"Your lordship!" exclaimed Benford, spring- 
ing up. "What, in Heaven's name, has brought 
your lordship here, on this dreadful night, so ill 
as you are ?" 

"Speak low," said Lord Warleigh. "I've 
come to you — to see you again; to compare 
your features with — Helja ! set me down ; my 
head grows giddy." 

Benford helped him into a chair, drew it 
near the fire, and chafed his hand between his 
palms. 

" Can you touch it without a shudder?" said 
Lord Warleigh. "Don't you feel that it is not 
like other people's hands ?" 

Conscience kept Benford silent; he ceased 
to rub the hand, and let it fall. 

"There! again he interferes!" said the old 
man, in a broken voice. "I see him lifting 
your hand away." 

"Who?" said Benford. "There's no one 
here." 

" There is. There is some one here who has 
never left my side for fifty years. Nothing will 
soothe him, nothing will drive him away. At 
feasts he sits on my right hand ; alone, he sits 
opposite and stares into my face. Now he 
smiles — how like you are !" 

" Your lordship is very ill. Have you sent 
for Dr. Jones ?" 

"No — don't talk of doctors. I tell you they 
can do no good. I've come to you to-night. I 
couldn't bear the room I sat in — there were 
voices in it, and people all round me. He was 
there, and spoke to me of Aladdin's Palace and 



his salary as physician. Haven't I paid his fees 
to his relations ? But that's not sufficient. 
Well, more — I will pay more. He shakes his 
head, and perhaps it is enough — " 

" I do not know what your lordship allude? 
to, but I beg you to be composed." 

"Listen!" said old Lord Warleigh. "It 
was not his body — it was a stranger; and the 
thought came into my head to call the sufferer 
him. It lulled suspicion. I saw his sister, his 
mother, his cousin. They all seemed to have 
found me out. When I touched their hands, 
they drew them away. I was a pariah — a leper. 
No one looked kindly on me. When I spoke 
of our engagement, she turned away her head. 
When I said that when I had three thousand a 
year I would claim her promise, she said to me, 
' Arthur, if you had millions in your purse, I 
would not wed you now.' I saw Ellen. I told 
her of his fate. She was silent and looked into 
my eyes* I knew she saw my soul as it lay 
trembling, struggling, trying to hide itself under 
the shadow of that great fact. She pined and 
pined, and her father's heart broke ; and I was 
rich — I was Sir Arthur Hayning — I was Lord 
Warleigh, and what am I now ?" 

"You are Lord Warleigh, my lord. I be- 
seech you to be calm." 

"But you won't ask me to go back to the 
Broombank — it was there I built the castle. 
The library is above the very spot where the 
plant grew with the metal in its roots. I won't 
go there, for to-night — to-night is the anniver- 
sary of the time. The lantern shone upon the 
heath ; the pickax was plying in the hole ; there 
was a heap of earth thrown out, and six, eight, 
ten feet down, the busy laborer was at work ; 
the spade was on the heaped-up soil — I saw it 
flash in the light of the lantern as it flew into 
the air ; its edge went down — I saw it fall. 
There was silence then and forever in the pit. 
I filled it up with my feet — with my hands. I 
leveled it on the top. I beat it down. I built 
great halls above it; but it won't stay quiet. 
Sounds come from it up into my libraiy, night 
and clay ; and at ten o'clock I hear a step, I see 
a face, its eyes on mine ; and to-night, the worst 
of all the year. I can not go home !" 

"Your lordship is most welcome to remain. 
I will order a bed." 

"No, not a bed. I shall never lie in a bed 
again. See, he rises ! Give me your hand ; and 
look!" 

Lord Warleigh held Benford's hand, and 
looked to his right side. The fire was dull — 
the candles had burned nearly down. Benford 
was not a superstitious nor a timid man, but 
there was something in Lord Warleigh's man- 
ner that alarmed him. He looked Avhere he 
pointed ; and, straining his eyes in the direc- 
tion of his finger, he saw, or fancied he saw, a 
pale white face, growing palpable in the dark- 
ness, and fixing its calm, cold eyes upon his 
companion. For a moment the empty air had 
gathered itself into form, and he could have per- 
suaded himself that Lord Warleigh's descrip- 



THE STORY OF KARS. 



795 



tion of what he perceived was true. But the 
hand fell away, the head drooped down upon 
his breast, and his lordship was asleep. An 
hour passed away. A clock in the passage 
sounded two ; and Benford touched Lord War- 
leigh on the shoulder. 

"Your lordship," he said, "you must find it 
cold here. Your bed will soon be ready." 

But Lord Warleigh made no reply. Benford 
looked in his face; he spoke to him gently, 
loudly, but still no answering sign. No; not 
to the loudest trumpet-call that earthly breath 
can utter will that ear ever be open. Lord 
Warleigh had passed away, with all his wealth 
and all his miseries ; and nothing remained but 
a poor old figure propped up in an arm-chair, 
with the fitful flames of an expiring fire throw- 
ing their lights and shadows on his stiff and 
motionless face. 

Benford was greatly shocked, but a little 
honored, too. It isn't every parsonage parlor 
where a lord with fifty thousand a year conde- 
scends to die. He preached his lordship's fu- 
neral sermon to a vast congregation. He told 
of his charities — of his successful life ; touched 
lightly on the slight aberrations of a mind en- 
feebled by years and honorable exertion ; and 
trusted he had found peace, as he had died in 
the house, almost in the arms, of a clergyman. 
His lordship's estates were sold ; the sum real- 
ized was to be applied to the foundation of 
schools and hospitals, but not a school-room or 
a ward was ever built. The will was contested. 
Heirs-at-law sprung up in all ranks of life; law- 
yers flourished ; and finally Chancery swallowed 
up all. When the estate of Combe-Warleigh 
changed hands, the castle was converted into a 
mill ; the library was taken down, and a shaft 
sank where it had stood. When the workmen 
had descended about eight feet from the surface, 
they came to a skeleton, a lantern, and a spade. 
The curious thing was that the spade was deep- 
ly imbedded in the skull. Mr. Fungus the anti- 
quary read a paper at the Archaeological Socie- 
ty, proving with certainty that the body had 
been sacrificed by the Druids ; and a controversy 
arose between him and Dr. Toadstool, who clear- 
ly proved at the British Association that it was 
the grave of a suicide of the time of King Al- 
fred. I am of a very different opinion ; being 
a sensible man and not an antiquarian, I keep 
it to myself. 

THE STORY OF KARS. 

THE lion of the Eastern war has been Se- 
bastopol ; but it will be strange if a long 
period of time elapse before people see that 
neither in political importance nor in historic 
interest can the struggle in the Crimea vie with 
that at Kars. We have heard less about the 
latter because Kars is isolated ; because there 
were no daily mails to announce the hopes or 
the despondency of the garrison ; because the 
whole of Turkey in Asia is a comparatively un- 
known country ; because Pelissier and Gortscha- 
koff had their thousands where Mouravieff and 



Williams had hundreds. For all this, the fight 
of Sebastopol was decidedly less dramatic than 
that of Kars. Until the last moment, at the 
former place, it was all sledge-hammer work 
with heavy cannon; the only point of interest 
was whether a great ball or a ragged lump of 
shell would chance to hit this or that uncon- 
scious person, or so many hundred or thousand 
like unconscious persons, or not. At Kars it 
was a pictorial life-struggle from the beginning. 
It was with a thorough consciousness of their 
own weakness, and solely in reliance on the ar- 
rival of help, that the Kars garrison resisted; 
and the record, day after day, of their protract- 
ed hopes and their disappointments, of their 
haggard despair, and their angry surrender at 
last, is one of the most thrilling war-stories we 
have. Sebastopol, too, taken by the Allies, will 
be given back, and all will be forgotten ; but 
whatever becomes of Kars, it will be no easy 
matter to build up once more — in the midst of 
an anti-Moslem population — a system which led 
to its most disastrous fall. 

Thirty or forty years ago Kars was the strong- 
hold of an independent Deribey, named Selim. 
He defied the Sultan, pillaged Persians, Kurds, 
and Georgians ; led the life of a royal freeboot- 
er. At least a score of times the Sultan tried 
to subdue or make away with him. Open at- 
tacks Selim, in his castle, surrounded by a 
country without military roads, contemptuously 
defied ; secret assassins he always detected and 
punished without mercy. After many years of 
struggles, the Sultan compromised matters by 
offering him the Pashalik of Kars. The net 
effect of the compromise was that Selim now 
sent an annual tribute to Constantinople. Oth- 
erwise he lived as before, robbed and levied 
tribute as he pleased ; slept in armor, and al- 
lowed no one but his tried attendants to ap- 
proach his person. At his death, one of his 
sons, a new man from Constantinople with a 
firman from the Sultan, and a descendant of an 
old Deribey named Kutchuk, were all rival can- 
didates for the Pashalik. The man from Con- 
stantinople was quickly frightened into resign- 
ing and making his escape out of the country. 
Selim's son, Ahmed Pacha, then turned his at- 
tention to his remaining rival. Kutchuk scarce- 
ly ever stirred from his residence, and kept an 
armed band of faithful followers constantly on 
guard. After a time, however, this life of in- 
cessant watchfulness wearied him out, and he 
fled to Erzeroum. 

Ahmed was not satisfied. Kutchuk was rich 
and respected ; he might still harbor designs on 
the Pashalik, and find men at Erzeroum to ex- 
ecute them. Ahmed sent his brother to Erze- 
roum to solicit Kutchuk to return, promising 
him every guarantee for his safety. The wary 
chief was unmoved ; his life had been threaten- 
ed, he would not risk it again. To the reiter- 
ated representations of Ahmed, at last, was 
joined a written bond from the chief Armenian 
banker at Erzeroum, by which the latter became 
security for the Pasha, and on the strength of 



796 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



this Kutchuk returned. The rest of the story 
is soon told. Kutchuk was invited to dinner by 
his rival : after the meal he was civilly informed, 
with expressions of sympathy, that the Sultan 
had ordered his arrest. Hurried off on a horse 
too lame to admit of any chance of escape, he 
was conveyed to a village a few miles distant, 
and lodged in the best room of the village; 
cushions and bedding were brought him for his 
comfort, and every attention was paid him by 
his escort. As usual with the Turks, he lay 
down on the cushions after dinner, and soon 
fell asleep. The moment he began to snore, 
the cavasses who accompanied him stole softly 
to his bedside, plucked the cushions from under 
him, and smothered him. 

Ahmed has been succeeded by other Pashas, 
appointed by the Porte, all of whom grow rich 
in their office, while the province sinks lower 
and lower in poverty and vice year after year. 
The old systematic forays upon neighboring 
villages have ceased, but kidnapping is, or was, 
until lately, the chief occupation of the greater 
part of the male inhabitants. Kurds, Daghes- 
tanliS, Lazis, Karapapaks, and nearly all the 
other wild tribes which people the neck of land 
between the two seas, make a business of steal- 
ing each other's children for sale to the slave- 
traders. Some are more enterprising traders in 
this line than others; the Lazi are the most 
daring and successful, but each tribe does its 
little possible. 

The Lazi slave-hunts used to be famous. 
When a razzia was resolved upon, the chief 
sent word to all the leading families of the tribe 
to rendezvous at a certain point. The gather- 
ing usually took place in winter, and at the full 
moon. When all was ready, and a sufficient 
force armed and provisioned, a descent was 
made upon a devoted village, every house bro- 
ken open, fathers and brothers killed, and what- 
ever resistance was encountered overpowered. 
Each hunter then seized and bound a young 
boy or girl, and hurried off with his prey to the 
mountains. Sometimes, when the winter was 
unusually severe, or any unforeseen accident 
happened, the stock of provisions would be ex- 
hausted before the slave-mart was reached ; in 
this case the hunters starved themselves in pref- 
erence to their prizes. A couple of days' hun- 
ger might make a considerable difference in the 
value of these; whereas a stout Lazi might de- 
prive himself of a meal for several days without 
feeling it. 

The Russians have done something to sup- 
press this traffic ; and now that the maritime 
powers have so large a stake in Turkey, they 
have dictated several firmans to the Sultan on 
the subject. But the kidnapping goes on nearly 
as briskly as usual; and to this day a Lazi is 
never seen without a coil of rope at his back, 
" to tie a Ghiaour when he is caught," as they 
say, though the religion of their captives is the 
last thing they think of. 

The province of Erzeroum, with a fine soil, a 
wholesome climate, and a population about 



equal to Massachusetts (exact figures can not be 
given, for the Turks are too proud to allow a 
correct census to be taken), is a fine illustration 
of the effects of Turkish' rule. In the vicinity 
of Kars fine forests are standing, large enough 
to supply timber to all the shipyards and car- 
penters in Turkey for many years ; but the law- 
forbids it to be cut. In many districts valuable 
mines have been opened. Fifteen hundred 
years ago these mines were considered so valu- 
able that the Emperor Theodosius built Kars 
and Erzeroum to protect them. Now the mines 
are worked by Government; the peasants are 
forced to give their labor at a penny a day, and, 
lest they should starve, the farmers in the 
neighborhood are compelled to sell their corn 
much below its market value. In such dread 
of Government exaction do the people live, that 
when a corrupt official wants to make money, 
he will travel to a village, wander about in the 
neighborhood for a few days, and then announce 
that he has found a mine, congratulating the 
villagers on the promise of wealth from this new 
resource. A meeting of villagers is sure to be 
held directly, and a deputation is sent to the 
official to ask him how much he will take to say 
nothing about the mine ; his price is paid, and 
the villagers rejoice at having escaped the de- 
velopment of their supposed mineral wealth. 

The history of the coal mines, which have re- 
cently been opened near the ancient village of 
Heraclea on the Black Sea, is quite analogous. 
Twenty years ago, an English engineer discov- 
ered their value, raised a company to work 
them, and offered an enormous sum to the Sul- 
tan for the privilege of mining the coal. The 
Divan discussed the proposal, and decided at 
last that it was quite impossible that the compa- 
ny could afford to give so much for a mere min- 
ing right ; there must be some political scheme 
at the bottom of the project ; so the Englishmen 
were baffled, and a party of Belgian engin- 
eers hired by the Porte to examine the mines. 
The Belgians at once perceived their capacities 
and began to work them; but they met with 
such intolerable annoyances — the Government 
sometimes stopping the whole work for weeks 
together rather than vote twenty dollars for 
candles or tools — that they abandoned it in dis- 
gust. Shortly before the war it was resumed 
by an Englishman ; and now the mines bid fair 
to supply the Black Sea and the Levant with 
coal. 

Turkish navigation is on a par with Turkish 
industry. Trebizond ought to be a sea-port of 
the first class; it was once a flourishing city. 
For four hundred years, till quite recently, it 
has been a mere fishing village. Before the 
treaty of Adrianople, the Turks allowed no for- 
eign consuls in their Black Sea dominions; 
when the Russians extorted from them permis- 
sion to establish consulates at Trebizond and 
the other ports, good Mussulmans said that their 
glory had departed. They did what they could, 
however, to keep up their reputation. During 
winter, no Turkish vessel ventured out of port. 



THE STORY OF KARS. 



797 



When, in 1831, an English ship sailed in De- 
cember from Constantinople to Trebizond, the 
Turkish captains were overwhelmed. They 
called a council, and unanimously decided that 
the devil had prompted the Frank, and that he 
would be drowned on the way. As he was not 
drowned, but, on the contrary, made a profit- 
able voyage, and returned safely with a ship- 
load of goods and passengers, the captains met 
again to take counsel on so unparalleled an event. 

" Praise be to God !" cried an ancient mari- 
ner, after much discussion, " I think I have got 
at the secret of the Frank's success : it is rum — 
they drink rum, and then they can do any thing. 
Mashallah ! you don't know what rum is : let us 
drink rum and we shall beat these infidels." 

" God forbid !" said another old tar ; " wine 
is forbidden by the prophet of God — may God 
grant him peace and salvation ! and by drink- 
ing it we should become eaters of swine even as 
the Franks — may God curse them !" 

The ancient mariner replied that rum was 
not wine. This being satisfactorily proved by 
the evidence of a rum-dealer, a cask of the pre- 
cious liquor was purchased, and a Turkish ship, 
freighted therewith, set sail in mid- winter. 
The day after they had sailed they were hailed 
by a Greek skipper, who found every soul on 
board dead drunk, and the ship quietly drifting 
ashore. 

The existence of quarantines has doubtless 
injured the Armenian provinces very seriously. 
They were forced on the Turks by the ignorant 
prejudices of foreign nations, and now they af- 
ford too convenient berths for idle pashas to be 
abolished. In many places a fee satisfies the 
official, and the inconvenience is avoided ; but 
where no fee is offered, or the authorities hap- 
pen to be in a vigilant humor, travelers are shut 
up for ten days at a time, and any thing like an 
extensive trade is wholly out of the question. 

The most successful merchants of the inte- 
rior towns are the foreign consuls. Very few 
of these are natives of the country they repre- 
sent; the American consuls are generally Le- 
vantine Jews. Armed with the authority of 
their Government, they are magnates scarcely 
inferior to the pashas ; the more dreaded as 
very few of those who have to deal with them 
are rightly informed as to the extent of their 
power. A person of experience, after residing 
several years in Armenia, gave it as his opinion 
that a very short isolation in the interior drove 
any consul mad. They acquire all the vices of 
the pashas : and, having very little dread of 
punishment before their eyes, become the great- 
est tyrants in the Turkish dominions. Instances 
are not wanting in which British consuls have 
been among the best customers of the Lazi 
slave-hunters ; and have even resorted to still 
less justifiable means of supplying the harem 
which they doubtless deferred to Eastern usage 
in adopting. 

Their chief business is affording protection 
to Christians ; who, notwithstanding all the fir- 
mans we have heard so much of, are still perse- 
Vol. XII,— No. 72.— 3 E 



cuted by the Turks whenever they have an op- 
portunity. The recent cases of the two Mussul- 
mans who were executed for becoming Chris- 
tians, are fresh in every one'. 1 - memory. It is 
not at all improbable that similar cases are 
much more frequent than is suspected in Chris- 
tendom. 

Notwithstanding the Sultan's firman, which 
discreetly ordered that the "information" (not 
the oath) of Christians should be received in 
courts of justice, their evidence is commonly 
rejected in the Pashalik of Erzeroum. Quite 
recently an Armenian was swindled by a Turk 
of a sum of money. The Armenian appealed 
to the Mehkeme ; his adversary met him there, 
and swore on the Koran that he had not re- 
ceived value for the money. The Court refused 
to take the evidence of the Armenian or his 
witnesses, as they were not followers of the 
Prophet. Happily for him there happened to 
arrive at the place, shortly afterward, a British 
officer, whose ire was roused by his story. He 
begged the Pasha to summon the Mehkeme, as 
he had a communication to make to them. 
When they met the Englishman appeared, and 
after taking coffee, and smoking as usual, he 
asked the Mollah — a sleek, clean-looking man, 
with an immaculate turban, and a sanctified ap- 
pearance — whether he had not been appointed 
to administer justice to the Sultan's poor sub- 
jects ? The Mollah, in a nervous way, said he 
believed he had. "Then," said the English- 
man, turning fiercely upon him, " how dare you 
oppress these people because they are Chris- 
tians ? How dare you rob and plunder them 
when the nations of their faith are pouring out 
their blood in your service?" Continuing in 
this strain, while the members of the council 
cowered and lied at every pause in the English- 
man's speech, he called in the Armenian, made 
him give his evidence, and did not leave the 
council till he had been paid his money, and 
the Pasha had solemnly ordered that the Turk 
should " eat stick." 

The Protestant world was violently agitated 
some time since by the indignities offered to 
Protestant funerals by the Government of Spain. 
But what shall be said of Asiatic Turkey, Avhere 
Christians are begrudged any burial at all, and 
their bodies are only allowed to be laid under 
the sod when their relations have obtained from 
the Cadi a permit, which is couched in the fol- 
lowing terms ? 

"We certify to the priest of the Church of 
Mary that the impure, putrefied, stinking car- 
case of Saidch, damned this day, may be con- 
cealed underground. 

" El Said Mehemet Faizi. 
"A. II. 1271. Rejib 11, March 29, 1855." 

This certificate is given by Dr. Sandwith in 
his interesting book on the Siege of Kars ; a 
work upon which we are drawing largely for in- 
formation. 

Such being the treatment of the Christians 
in Turkey, it is not at all surprising that they 
were to a man in favor of Russia in the war. 



798 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Every Armenian prayed for the success of 
Mouravieff. Many who were in the Turkish 
array took the first opportunity of deserting to 
the Russians, and giving them information 
against their own countrymen. Not that they 
lacked patriotism. One is quite affected by the 
account of the interview between General Will- 
iams and the Christians of Kars. Williams 
appealed to them to aid in the defense of the 
place, and promised them perfect equality of 
rights with the Mussulmans. The aged archbish- 
op started up and cried, with tears, " Oh ! En- 
glish Pasha, we are your sacrifice. We will 
work, dig, fight, and die for you ; since we are 
no longer dogs, no longer Ghiaours, but, though 
Christians, fellow-citizens and free men." And 
most faithfully did they fulfill their promise. 
But still, as between the Turk and the Musco- 
vite, every Christian in Turkey is on the side 
of the latter; nor indeed, being sane, could 
he prove otherwise. 

According to all accounts the prime cause 
of the decay of Erzeroum, and all the other 
Turkish provinces both in Asia and Europe, is 
the systematic dishonesty which pervades every 
branch of the Turkish service. From his first 
start in life to his greatest elevation the official 
Turk lives, moves, and has his being by corrup- 
tion. Lying and cheating are the only accom- 
plishments he ever learns; they are all he needs. 
He begins by being the favorite — often the slave 
■ — of some Pasha high in authority; from him 
he gets an office or a rank in the army or navy. 
From thence he buys every step. There are 
Jew usurers at Constantinople who control 
more pashaliks than any member of the Divan. 
It is usual to use the word intrigue to designate 
the system by which patronage is distributed 
at Constantinople ; but it is far too mild for the 
reality. The extent to which the buying and 
selling of rank and power — and, as a necessary 
consequence, peculation and extortion' — are 
carried on at Constantinople, is without parallel 
even in the history of the Roman or Greek em- 
pires, and may fairly surpass the belief of Amer- 
icans. 

Recent experience has furnished a few strik- 
ing examples. 

In January, 1854, Ahmed Pacha, only known 
to fame as having been severely beaten by the 
Russians in a skirmish at Akiska, was appoint- 
ed Mushir, or commander-in-chief, of the army 
of Kars. Pie had, of course, bought his appoint- 
ment. When he arrived at Kars he found 
some 35,000 men under arms. His first, his 
only thought was how to plunder them. Huts 
were wanted ; he got the money for them, and 
stuffed the men into the burrows and under- 
ground hovels of Kars, which were soon so 
crowded that a pestilence broke out. Warm 
clothing Avas furnished, or money to procure it; 
Ahmed sold what clothing came, pocketed the 
money, and let the army go about in rags. 
Ample funds were supplied for the commissari- 
at; the soldiers absolutely starved, and the in- 
valids who went to hospital were so reduced, 



and their vital powers so enfeebled, that gangrene 
set in before death. Before spring twenty thou- 
sand men died, and the dogs and wolves de- 
voured their corpses. Ahmed was recalled. 
On his road home, in defiling through a narrow 
pass, one of his baggage mules slipped and fell, 
smashing the packages it bore, and out among 
the rocks rolled gold and silver pieces by the 
hundred. 

When Kars was taken, the cry of the Turks 
was, "«May God punish the Pashas !" A right- 
eous cry. There is no reason to suppose that 
Ahmed Avas an exception. The entire military 
department Avas banded together in a brother- 
hood of fraud. General Williams found the 
bread furnished to the troops Avholly uneatable. 
First the flour had been mixed with artificial 
substances to increase its weight and bulk. 
Then the bread itself A\ r as only half-baked, in 
order to Aveigh more and to save fuel. He 
found regiments counting, on paper, nine hun- 
dred men — for all of Avhom rations Avere drawn 
— Avhen the AAhole actual force did not exceed 
five hundred. Other foreign officers, less ex- 
perienced, Avere taken to revieAvs of troops, sev- 
eral thousand men at a time, Avhose fine stal- 
Avart forms and healthy look made an exceed- 
ingly favorable impression : they did not dis- 
cover till long aftenvard that three-fourths of 
the men revieAved had been hired by the day to 
be reviewed by the Pashas. The real soldiers 
had not received a cent of pay for twenty-four 
months. 

Dr. SandAvith tells a story Avhich throws light 
on the Turkish system. Riding to Erzeroum, 
he discovered, quite accidentally, that a French 
officer had been robbed and murdered only a 
feAv hours before at a A T illage Avhere he stopped. 
His first act on arriving at Erzeroum was to 
acquaint the French consul, Avho called forth - 
Avith on the Pasha, and, after the indispensable 
coffee-pipes and compliments, narrated the case. 

" Vai, vai I" exclaims the Pasha ; " these 
sons of dogs are heaping dirt on my beard ; 
but, Inshallah ! I will burn their fathers and 
mothers ; I Avill bring them to confusion. Leave 
it to me, Consolos Bey ; I am responsible." 

The Consul, not liking the security, insists 
on prosecuting the matter in person ; and after 
long entreaties, and plain threats, extorts from 
the Pasha an armed force with which he sets 
out to the scene of the murder. There he finds 
that the murderer was one Kara Mahmoud, a 
notorious Lazi chief, Avho had exercised the 
calling of a bandit for years without interfer- 
ence from the pashas. Kara Mahmoud has 
allies in high station, AH Pasha and Ali Bey, 
in Avhose houses he has slept since the murder: 
the Consul sends for them, and, finding them 
clearly implicated, arrests them. A Turkish 
officer, the Mudir of Isspir, comes to his assist- 
ance Avith a band of Bashi-bazouks ; they scour 
the country, storm a village or two — every one 
seems to take the part of the bandit, just as avc 
have seen in Ireland — recover the dead man's 
horses and a part of his baggage, but do not 



THE STORY OF KARS. 



799 



find the murderer. After a long chase the 
Consul returns to Erzeroum, and lays the whole 
case before the Pasha. He tells him that Ali 
Pasha and Ali Bey were at least accomplices 
after the fact, and proves it ; he mentions that 
the Mudir of Isspir had given him timely aid ; 
and he suggests, as the least the Turkish Gov- 
ernment can do, that the former be removed 
from their offices and the latter promoted. 

" Hai, hai !" says the old Pasha ; " Inshallah ! 
I will make the rascals eat dirt; by the holy 
Prophet I will! Fear not, Consolos Bey, I will 
leave nothing undone." 

A few weeks afterward the Consul learns 
that his friend the Mudir has been dismissed, 
and Ali Bey appointed to his office. 

Cowardice seems as natural to the Pashas as 
dishonesty. It is well known that there are no 
braver troops in the world than the Turks ; but 
such poltroons as their officers it would be dif- 
ficult to find out of Turkey. Many readers 
will doubtless remember the description given 
by the Times correspondent of the Battle of 
Kurekdere, where some 18,000 Russians defeat- 
ed 40,000 Turks. The Turkish commander— 
Zarif Pasha, who had been a barber's appren- 
tice, and had learned his strategy in the com- 
missariat service — once got within range. A 
shell burst over his head. With a face white 
as chalk he leaped up in his saddle, screamed 
"Allah!" dug his spurs into his horse, and 
never stopped till he was far out of range. Nor 
was he an exception. A Hungarian, who was 
sent, early in the action, to the rear to bring up 
ammunition, was strangely surprised to find 
nearly every field-officer busy about the bag- 
gage. In fact, one hour after the battle had 
begun, there was not a general, colonel, or ma- 
jor of the infantry or cavalry on the field. 

Of course Zarif lied. The Bashi-bazouks at 
Kars had a handsome Russian tent, which they 
called the "Two Thousand Tent." Once, it 
seems, while a small band of them were doing 
outpost duty, they watched a Russian convoy 
wind over the hills, two wagons lagging far be- 
hind the others ; and choosing their time, they 
fell suddenly on these two, and, the Russians 
running away, captured them. In one of these 
wagons was a tent, which the general gave to 
the Bashi-bazouks as their share of the plunder. 
Zarif Pasha immediately sat down and wrote a 
dispatch to the government, announcing a com- 
plete victory over the Russian army, and the 
capture of two thousand tents. The dispatch 
was duly published in the Jercdd Ilavadiss, the 
Turkish official paper; and, in course of time, 
reached the Bashi-bazouks, who, in compliment 
to the inventive genius of their leader, gave 
to their tent the name of the Two Thousand 
Tent. 

It was very fortunate — both for the reputa- 
tion of the Turks and for the renown of Mou- 
ravieff — that the commander at Kars when the 
Russians crossed the frontier was Williams, and 
not men of the stamp of Zarif. The name of the 
former, who is not the only native American who 



has earned fame during the war, now belongs 
to history — every body knows him. It was in 
June last he arrived at Kars ; found there some 
15,000 half-famished, discontented troops, a 
swarm of pilfering imbecile Pashas, and three 
days' stock of ammunition. He had no cavalry, 
and but a small quantity of provisions. In front 
of him were the Russians, in great force and 
perfect condition, under one of the ablest gen- 
erals Russia has ever produced : their inten- 
tion was no secret. Twenty-eight years be- 
fore Paskiewitch had contrived the plan of 
operations which Mouravieff was carrying out. 
Kars had been fortified by Colonel Lake, with 
some skill but in great haste ; huts had been 
erected for the men, to save them from the dan- 
ger of inhabiting the burrows in the side of the 
Mil in which the natives mostly live. The 
townsmen were in good spirit, however. One 
of them, an old man, frankly accosts the En- 
glish general with an " Inshallah, we will bring 
scores of Ghiaours' heads and lay them at your 
feet, Veeliams Pasha." The old man is dis- 
comfited by the commander's stern rebuke, and 
promises to spare the wounded and killed, since 
Veeliams Pasha has scruples on the point, but 
will take no pay for his services, as he and his 
friends " are Karslis, and fight for their religion 
and their harems." 

A few days after the arrival of the English 
Commissioner, Colonel Lake and a party who 
have taken a ride over the hills with the Ba- 
shi-bazouks, have a hard run for it. A dark 
group of Cossacks winds round just in sight 
of them ; they hardly notice it, till all at once 
the Bashi-bazouks set up a wild chattering, and 
put their horses to the gallop. The Cossacks 
are upon them, dealing desperate blows with 
sabre and lance, and not a few of the party re- 
main on the ground. As the survivors regain 
the cover of the works, the Bashi-bazouks turn 
round fiercely and fire their pistols at the Cos- 
sacks, who are about a thousand yards off. 

Just as the Russians are about to commence 
the siege, trouble arises. The Governor of 
Kars has discovered that Williams is a Ghiaour, 
and that no good Mussulman should obey him. 
Happily Williams hears the story ; sends for 
the Pasha, and tells him his mind. The Pasha 
splutters out a few lies and runs away. 

No one at Kars ever expected it to hold out 
in presence of Mouravieff's army. The only 
aim of the gallant defenders Avas to make a 
stand till relief should come. Dispatches were 
sent off weekly, almost daily, to Constantinople 
and to every other point where there was an 
officer in authority, praying for assistance. It 
is understood — though not officially — that Gen- 
eral Williams wrote sixty letters to Lord Strat- 
ford de Redcliffe, not one of which was ever 
answered. So June, July, August, and a part 
of September passed, the Russians drawing 
closer and closer round the place, the gar- 
rison slowly consuming their provisions; and 
men's hearts breaking from deferred hope. One 
day news comes that a large reinforcement is 



800 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



marching from Erzeroum. The next it is said 
that Omer Pasha has landed at Batoom. Time 
disproves all these stories, and after each disap- 
pointment the spirits of the troops sink. 

At last, on the twenty-ninth September, at 
four o'clock in the morning, General Kmety, 
with his ear on the ground, recognizes the rum- 
bling of artillery wheels and the tramp of infan- 
try. Soon the outposts come in with the omin- 
ous whisper — The infidel is coming! A dark 
mass is visible in the valley moving slowly up- 
ward ; a gun is fired — But we will not attempt 
to describe that memorable contest — already 
told by so many eloquent pens — the frantic and 
repeated charges of the Russians to the very 
muzzles of the guns ; the intrepid coolness of 
Williams ; the shining valor of Kmety with his 
light infantry ; the unerring practice of Tees- 
dale and the gunners : all this — the whole scene 
— is already famous, and it were a folly to at- 
tempt to mar the impression which the British 
newspaper correspondent's letters, copied as they 
have been by our own journals, have left on 
every memory. Suffice it to say, that after a 
fierce contest, which lasted from before day- 
light till past noon, the Russians retreated, hav- 
ing lost several thousand men. Turks, drunk 
with exultation, dance among the heaps of dead 
and dying; and the night, chill and cold, closes 
in before half the wounded are removed from 
the place where they fell. 

Then the close siege begins again. The Rus- 
sians remain quiet in their camp : Mouravieff 
politely sends in to the city, under a flag of 
truce, a bag of letters which he has intercepted, 
and of course opened, as in duty bound. Nor 
are the besieged less civil. The best houses in 
Kars are given to the wounded Russian officers ; 
and when one poor fellow, half of whose face 
has been shot away by a grape-shot, bemoans 
himself, and regrets beyond measure the loss 
of a ring bearing the name of Eloise, instant 
search is made for it ; it is found in the posses- 
sion of a soldier and restored to its owner, who 
dies pressing it to his lips. 

One week after the battle cholera begins to 
be severe in the city. Eorty deaths in the hos- 
pital in twenty-four hours. Simultaneously 
with this visitation the stock of animal food is 
exhausted, and each man is put upon a daily 
allowance of 100 drachms of bread, and a weak 
soup made of flour and wheat. Rumors of aid 
continue to come in, and loud prayers for Omer 
Pasha are offered up at every bivouac fire. 

Another week passes and the diet begins to 
tell on the troops. Some avaricious soldiers 
are induced, by the enormous prices of bread, 
to sell their rations ; they soon find their way 
into hospital. Roots of grass are eaten eager- 
ly by the townspeople. Round the lines the 
wild dogs have grown fat and sleek on the 
corpses, and a swarm of vultures never wanders 
far off. 

Another .week, and the glorious news arrives 
that Selim Pasha has landed at Trcbizond with 
a fine, well-appointed army. He will march 



for Kars at once, of course. Meanwhile the 
hospital fills up, and as the hospital stores were 
supplied on the regular Turkish plan, it hap- 
pens that the whole stock of a Constantinople 
perfumer was put into the medicine-chest — Cro- 
ton oil and perfumes, by the gallon, but nothing 
else — there is nothing that will answer as a stim- 
ulus, which is what the men need. 

More good news. The Russians are retreat- 
ing, it is said. On the strength of the relief 
produced by this announcement, the ration of 
bread is reduced to eighty-six drachms per day. 

November arrives, and no Selim Pasha or 
Omer Pasha either; and the Russians are still 
there. The physicians report that " an unusual 
number of soldiers are dying of starvation in 
hospital. The emaciation is wonderful, yet 
in most cases no diarrhea or other symptom 
of disease is observable. Their voices are ex- 
cessively feeble, a clammy, cold perspiration 
pervades the body, and they die without a 
struggle." The surviving horses are killed to 
make soup. 

As the cold increases, the men's sufferings in- 
crease in proportion. The sentries, benumbed 
and motionless, have just strength to cry "Long 
live the Sultan !" They are men who die, but 
never lose their loyalty. Another dispatch ar- 
rives, announcing the arrival of Selim Pasha 
within three days ; but the three days pass, and 
no troops are in sight but the Russians. The 
suffering of the townspeople from hunger is in- 
tense. People lie down crying at corners of 
streets, and some die there. The soldiers stand 
sentry over the provisions, and though they can 
hardly stand from exhaustion, there is no in- 
stance of a soldier touching a biscuit. 

As November advances the famine grows in- 
tolerable. Mothers, with gaunt faces, throw 
their famished children at the feet of Williams, 
saying, "There, take them, we can feed them 
no longer!" There is only seven days' provi- 
sion left. 

At last, on the 22d November, a dispatch 
arrives from an English officer with Selim Pasha 
to say that he, being a Turkish Pasha, will not 
advance. There is no hope for the Kars army 
but in themselves. Williams at once rides over 
to Mouravieff to arrange a capitulation. 

The terms are known to every one. All 
Christendom is praising the generosity of the 
gallant Russian, who, when his secretary wrote, 
" the officers and soldiers of the regular army 
shall surrender themselves prisoners of war — " 
exclaimed, "Write here, that in admiration of 
the noble and devoted courage displayed by the 
army of Kars, the officers shall be allowed to 
retain their swords as a mark of respect." 

When Williams returned to the town and an- 
nounced to the garrison that the place had ca- 
pitulated, the Turkish soldiers, staggering from 
famine, dashed their muskets against the rocks, 
exclaiming, " Thus perish our Pashas, and the 
curse of God be with them ! May their mothers 
be outraged !" Gray-bearded men sobbed aloud, 
and wished they had never been born, rather 



THE SENSES. 



801 



than see the infidel come, and the arms of the 
faithful fall from their hands. 

When Williams left Kars, the people crowd- 
ed around him, praying blessings on his head, 
aud begging leave to go with him. He replied 
that he was a prisoner, and must obey orders. 

The crowd watched him go, and an old man, 
gazing after him, exclaimed sententiously as 
Williams disappeared, " Veeliams Pasha chock 
adam dur !"— Pasha Williams is no end of a 
man ! 

THE SENSES. 

V. — SIGHT. 

THE fairest landscape and the noblest sea- 
view change their beauty alike with the 
brighter or dimmer light that illumines them 
in the day, and weaves strange spells over them 
during the twilight. When the pale rays of the 
moon break fitfully through dark clouds, even 
the most familiar scene assumes a new charac- 
ter; mountains loom up to unwonted heights, 
and buildings tower in gigantic grandeur. The 
early dawn reveals the fairy mists that hang in 
fantastic festoons over valley and hillside, fol- 
lowing here in broad silvery bands the fanci- 
ful course of a stream, and creeping there with 
stealthy steps, from crag to crag, up to the mount- 
ain's summit. The landscape has changed once 
more ; the very landmarks seem to have been 
removed ; the streams are broader, the fields are 
wider, and all distances greater. 

What light is in the landscape, that is the eye 
in the face of man. His look — the glance of 
his eye — is the first feature we mark in a new 
acquaintance, and as we become engaged and 
interested in our friend, we turn to it again and 
again, hoping, not without reason, there to read 
more clearly than any where else his soul's out- 
ward writing. For Ave feel, often unconsciously, 
that long ere the sound of his voice had reached 
our ear, long ere the words that fell from his 
lips can have bribed our judgment, his eye had 
been the beacon that led us to the still, dark 
waters within, where l}is mind dwells in silent 
seclusion. As the bright rays of the sun may 
throw floods of golden light over a dreary land- 
scape and lend it a beauty — nay, a splendor we 
had never hoped for — so the eye of man also 
can ennoble the least attractive- of features. Its 
glance of wrath is a flashing light, that rends 
from time to time the dark, silent clouds over 
which the thunder rolls in subdued fury, only 
to leave them again in deep and unfathomable 
darkness. The last look of the dying man is 
like the last ray of the setting sun, that glides 
gently in its farewell kiss over the world it is 
soon to leave — not to sink into the dark night 
of an eternal grave, as poor pagan Antiquity 
feared, but to rise brighter anew in another and 
a better world. 

Two-fold, therefore, are the high and noble 
duties of our eye ; it receives the finest impres- 
sions from the outer world, of which we can ever 
become conscious, and it gives back to the world 
the finest impressions from our innermost soul. 



From without, it receives the ever-changing, 
ever-restless life of Light and Color; it meas- 
ures the boundless limits of spaje, it guages the 
form and the shape of all that was made by the 
Lord, and reads there the signs of Man and of 
God. And^how simple, how wondrous this al- 
most magic power ! With a tiny lens, set deep 
in the head, we overlook the vast house of our 
Father in heaven, and the great globe to which 
he has sent us. The whole unmeasured ex- 
tent, with all its countless details, are in an in- 
stant reflected within the narrow opening of our 
eye ! With one glance we comprehend the 
sublime realm of the starry host, and drink in 
the light of suns uncounted. But what we are 
so apt to forget is the now well-established fact, 
that the power of the eye is itself not unbound- 
ed. We can but see a plane; the eye never 
conveys to the mind an idea of distance or ele- 
vation. Other handmaidens of the mind must 
lend the sense of sight their assistance, and 
Touch, above all, is ever in requisition. Dis- 
tances especially we learn but slowly and pain- 
fully to estimate — in fact, only to guess — by 
long-continued practice. The child stretches its 
tiny hand as confidently to the moon as if she 
were within reach, and the blind man whom 
our Saviour healed, saw "men as trees walk- 
ing." The pleasure Ave derive from a well- 
painted diorama rests simply upon this inabil- 
ity of our eye to measure distances, where we 
are without means to compare novel objects 
with those that are more familiar. It is almost 
impossible to determine the distance of a bright 
light in a dark landscape, or on the wide ocean. 
Even the experienced eye is liable to be sadly 
deceived in regions where the usual objects are 
wanting that serve us as standards for a com- 
parison. We know, in a general way, the size 
of a tree or a house, and thus we determine the 
distances in a landscape. But when we ascend 
lofty mountains, where the familiar pine-tree 
reaches but the height of perhaps twenty feet, 
the most massive rocks and mighty glaciers 
appear at first sight but small and diminutive, 
because Ave compare them, unconsciously, with 
the Avell-knoAvn trees. Who has not at times 
thought a midge, dancing up and doAvn before 
his eye, to be a large bird high up in the air ; 
or a church steeple afar off, a pole in a neigh- 
boring garden? Even the more acute eye of 
men Avhose life may depend on their accurate 
sight measures distances but by experience. 
The Alpine huntsman knoAvs that the chamois 
is not Avithin reach of his rifle until he can 
clearly distinguish both of her eyes. The rifle- 
men of our army also learn very soon that at 
certain distances the buttons of their enemies' 
uniform are no more seen ; then the pompon, 
and at last the epaulets on the officers' shoul- 
ders. The image reflected on our eye is not a 
bodily, substantial picture, but only a level sur- 
face, which our intellectual eye — the mind — 
must painfully learn to enliven. As distances 
can not be measured except by comparison — a 
strictly mental process — so elevation or de- 



802 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



pression also are only revealed to our sight by 
their shadows, and where these are too slight or 
entirely wanting, the eye can but give us an 
outline. 

But there is light in the eye also, that has its 
wondrous effects and a power as yet undefined. 
Long ago Empedocles, the Eleate, sang with al- 
most prophetic knowledge : 

"As when a man, bent on travel, kindles his torch, 

A ray of blazing fire in the stormy darkness of night ; 

He places it in his lantern, protected from wind and 
from weather, 

So that against the clear sides the furious tempest is 
broken. 

Out pours the light now and shines far into the dis- 
tance, 

Brightly illumines the path with unquenchable rays. 

Thus also, burning in lamps of fine membrane, an un- 
changing fire, 

Tenderly vailed, shines forth from the well-rounded 
eye, 

Carefully walled in around by deep and crystalline 
waters ; 

Out pours the light and shines far into the distance." 

Thus the eye sends out, from within, the 
thousand delicate changes that are ever agitat- 
ing man's inner life — the noblest enthusiasm, 
base thoughts, or the half-smouldered glare of 
hidden passions. In one man it shines in the 
soft twilight of gentle but faithful hope ; in 
another it flashes with lightning's speed, as high 
thoughts arise of a sudden, and lofty resolves 
are formed. Now and then only it glows with 
the clear, steady light of a God-loving heart 
and a well-balanced, high-toned mind. By the 
same mysterious power the eye rules in solemn 
silence over the masses ; it punishes and com- 
forts, it curses and blesses. 

We move the eye and it measures, by a 
glance, the vast space around us in all direc- 
tions ; Ave move it again, and it speaks our 
will, uttering words not heard, and yet fraught 
with soothing comfort or withering scorn. The 
thoughtful eye drinks in the light and the ra- 
diance of the world, not for its own pleasure 
only, but to please its great master, the mind, 
within, by the varied play of nature's bright col- 
ors, and to awaken a host of sensations in our 
heart. It pours back again light and radiance 
upon the world that gave them — now bright and 
brilliant from wide-open orbs, now softened and 
subdued by the shadow of a contracted brow and 
drooping eyelids, thus to reflect, unwittingly or 
upon purpose, the changing life of the soul. 

Unlike the ear, therefore, the eye is not con- 
tent merely with receiving gifts from without to 
awaken thoughts and sensations; but it has, 
moreover, the power to make known what pass- 
es in the sanctuary of our mind, its finest and 
most fleeting impressions. It speaks, and oh, 
with what eloquence ! when thoughts seek in 
vain for words, and subtle feelings can find no 
other expression. 

The inner life of the eye, also, so little known 
to the general observer, has two distinct and pe- 
culiar functions. These consist in its power to 
receive impressions of light from without, and 
in its marvelous unfettered motion. The first 



is familiar to all, the latter is hardly ever ob- 
served in its true and essential import. Freelv 
suspended in a well-rounded cavity, which is 
open in front, the eye can be turned with its 
axis in all directions. A number of powerful 
muscles, which are fastened to its circumfer- 
ence, obey with the speed of lightning our con- 
scious will or an imperceptible impulse. By 
this admirable mechanism, the marvel even of 
the anatomist, we are enabled to unite the sen- 
sations of both eyes into one, to let our looks 
roam freely from point to point, and to lessen 
the effect of bright light, or to increase its pow- 
er upon the eye by enlarging or contracting the 
pupil. This power to move so freely, so wholly 
unfettered, is a source of unceasing enjoyment. 
We move the eye, simply because the move- 
ment affords us pleasure ; Ave enjoy it, as we 
folloAv the outlines of material objects and call 
them the more beautiful, the more symmetrical 
and pleasing the movements of our eyes are 
Avhile they are tracing their profile. Thus oui 
kind mother, Nature, has given us a standard of 
beauty that never fails, in the shape of the in- 
strument itself, by which Ave behold it ; all the 
laAVS and rules that art professes to teach, and by 
which the beauty of form is described, are, after 
all, but based upon the unconscious impressions 
produced on the mind by the motion of our 
eyes ! 

But the free and harmonious movements of 
this organ do not merely acquaint us Avith vari- 
ous forms — the beauty of colors, their happy 
blending, their changes from lighter to deeper 
shades, all lie, in like manner, in us and not 
Avithout us. It is not a passing whim of fancy 
or of preA r ailing fashion among men that de- 
termines their countless variety, but the same 
mysterious source of life in the eye that rules 
also OA*er the beauty of forms. Wearied and 
Avorn out by seeing, for a time, but one and the 
the same color, the eye itself calls forth others 
that are not Avithout but Avithin us. The rest- 
less activity of the eye thus comprises within 
its OAvn tiny chamber the Avhole endless scale 
from bright light to utter darkness, and the 
AA r hole long list of the colors of the rainboAV. 
Even the man that never beheld the SAveet light 
of day, though born blind, has the same power. 
The gates of light only are closed, but the nerve 
that percei\ r es it in truth is still there. He sees 
not the golden rays of the sun, the soft light of 
the stars, or the pale, hazy sheen of the moon ; 
he sees not the bright colors of the butterfly as 
he Avings his Avay over the gay carpet of mead- 
oavs, nor the last gloAV of the evening light, Avhen 
shadoAvs silent and solemn cover the earth, and 
night sinks upon the peaceful fields. But he 
does see light, and darkness, and color, in the 
gay images of his fancy. Within the closed 
chambers of his mind the same marvelous play 
of bright-colored conceptions is ever rejoicing 
his imagination. The faint, feeble impressions 
Avhich the blind man rcceiA'es by the aid of 
Touch, fringe his ever-closed eye Avith its own 
light and its oavu colors, which the sense itself 



THE SENSES. 



803 



could not borrow from outward objects. In this 
respect he lacks nothing. The difference is only 
this, that he who sees beholds light and color 
apparently attached to the objects around him ; 
the blind man perceives them in the images of 
his fancy alone. Hence, also, the now well- 
known fact, that not all men are endowed alike 
with the power of enjoying the ever- varying 
change of colors. For the one, red does not 
exist ; the other sees no blue or no purple. Re- 
cent researches have made us acquainted with 
the astounding result, that not only a few indi- 
vidual men like John Dalton, M. Sismondi, 
and Dugald Stewart, were thus color-blind, but 
that probably in one out of every fifty persons 
the sense of sight is defective. The inability 
extends mostly to red and green only, but many 
are equally unable to distinguish other colors. 
Nor is it less strange, that comparatively few 
women are found to be color-blind — a fact as- 
cribed by some writers to a more careful culti- 
vation of the sense of color in women ; by oth- 
ers, to a more anxious concealment of the de- 
fect wherever it may be existing. 

When the natural power of the eye is not so 
impaired, it affords us a source of the highest 
enjoyment. Even the simple play of light 
around us is pleasing beyond all other gratifi- 
cation afforded us by our senses. Like the 
other organs of our wonderful body, the eye also 
needs, when not completely at rest in sleep, 
an ever-continued activity. The arm loses its 
power when long borne in a sling, and the eye 
becomes dim and blind if long excluded from 
light. It seeks light with intense eagerness. 
The tender plant does not turn its young leaves 
more longingly toward the sweet light of day. 
When we are in utter darkness how restlessly, 
how painfully does not the eye w r ander to and 
fro in anxious search of a faint ray of light ! 
With what inexpressible pleasure it greets the 
first star it discerns in the dark sky ! The wan- 
derer who at night sees here and there, by the 
wayside, a cheerful ray peep from door or win- 
dow, feels no longer alone and abandoned. 
The pleasure we derive from fire- works rests 
upon the unceasing desire of the eye for light 
in the midst of darkness. From an over-abund- 
ance of dazzling light it shrinks with pain, 
but over a well-lighted landscape it glides 
with ever-renewed enjoyment. It watches the 
golden rays of a summer sun as they fall, mer- 
rily twinkling, upon the restless leaves of the 
forest, leap from twig to twig, chase each other 
down the rugged bark of the trunk, and at last 
gild with brightening touch here a tiny, tender 
moss, and there a gaunt, grim rock. Nor are 
the charms of a moonlit night less attractive to 
the observant eye when her faint, fairy shim- 
mer lifts lofty trees and quaint gables high above 
the whitish gossamer light she has shed over the 
plain, when floods of molten silver flow together 
with the silent waters of a lake, or spread like 
a ghastly pall over a silent snow-field. 

Thus here also our great Father in heaven 
has made the noblest of senses an ever-welling 



spring of joy ; and as the sufferer on the sick 
bed drinks in with the morning light new hopes 
and new vigor, so all nature g - eets, day after 
day and age after age, the ri ing sun with an 
anthem of joy and thanksgiving. 

The pleasure derived from colors is both more 
intense and more varied ; it appeals not only to 
the senses, but even to deeper emotions. It is 
familiar to all that colors have a surprising ef- 
fect on the lifeless parts of creation — on stones 
and on plants ; but they affect in a much higher 
degree the great animal kingdom. Few ani- 
mals are without their favorite color ; many are 
strangely impressed with fear or with awe by 
one or the other. Red seems to exert the most 
powerful influence of this kind: it excites them, 
it irritates them, and often produces blind fury 
and uncontrollable madness. Turkeys are at 
first intimidated by red, and gradually only 
gather an unwonted courage, with which they 
express their objection. The use of small red 
flags in the bull-fights of Spain rests upon the 
same antipathy, for our horned cattle are ex- 
tremely sensitive with regard to red; and in 
the plains of Podolia, or on the sweet meadows 
of the Swiss Alps, it is actually dangerous to ap- 
proach grazing herds with a garment or even a 
handkerchief dyed in bright red. Red cows are 
themselves not rarely exposed to furious perse- 
cution by their intolerant sisters, who hate and 
despise them. Cranes are said to be equal- 
ly unwilling to let any thing black approach 
them, but their anger is not unmingled with 
terror. 

Even proud man is not quite exempted from 
such vague and mysterious effects produced by 
some colors. The ancients observed it, and fa- 
bled much of the wondrous influence that the 
colors of certain stones could have on the hu- 
man soul. The violet amethyst was to them a 
cause of dark melancholy ; while the warm glow 
of the ruby, and the brilliancy of the diamond, 
inflamed the warrior's courage to greater daring. 
The soothing effect of green, so grateful to the 
suffering eye, led them to ascribe to the soft 
beauty of the emerald the power to still the 
fiercest passions. Who among us is insensible 
to the pleasing impression produced by the green 
of meadows, or the quiet and peaceful enjoy- 
ment we derive from^pure white, or the instinct- 
ive sensitiveness with which we shrink from 
glaring scarlet or dazzling yellow ? 

This close and mysterious connection of col- 
ors with the emotions of our soul is an addi- 
tional proof that they exist not in external na- 
ture, but are only created by the nerves of the 
eye, and their strange, unexplained effect on 
the mind. Where there is no eye, there is 
neither light nor color. The causes of both, it 
is true, exist in nature, and are originally al- 
most the same, but only when they touch the 
organs of our sense of sight they become, to our 
perception, light and color. Until they reach 
the retina — that marvel of marvels in our body 
— they are simply most delicate waves of that 
invisible ether that dwells far and near, in the 



804 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



giant sun and in the tiny atom. These waves 
move in prescribed lines, and with varying 
swiftness. Slower waves of another kind reach 
the ear, and there become sound. The car has, 
however, its compensation in this, that we can 
hear nearly ten octaves, while we can see but a 
single one. The waves of light travel with a 
rapidity of which numbers convey no adequate 
idea to our mind. Suffice it to say that the 
whole difference of colors, like that of sounds, 
rests solely on the greater or lesser rapidity of 
these waves. What we call red, is the effect 
produced by waves that vibrate 458 billion times 
in the second; if they reach 727 billions they 
produce violet. Between these two shades lie 
all the other varieties of color, together with 
over six hundred lines of dark shadow ! 

Not in rapidity only, but in temperature also 
have colors been found to differ, and man has 
measured their warmth with marvelous ingenu- 
ity and great precision. Blue rays are the cold- 
est of all — a little over sixty-four degrees — the 
green are warmer, the red reach up to ninety 
degrees, and there are others even hotter, but 
they can not be seen. 

Sight, therefore, requires that there should 
be both an external cause, found in the vibra- 
tions of the ether, and a nerve that is suscepti- 
ble of such impressions. Only one single nerve 
in the whole wonderful structure of the body of 
man can serve for the purpose — the retina. No 
optical instrument, not the most perfect eye 
made by art can avail us where this tiny, but 
indispensable instrument is not to be found, as 
in incurable cataract. Here lie the nerves of 
the eye, and here we see. For light affects even 
plants : all of them turn, more or less, their 
leaves and blossoms toward the sun, and in 
darkness remain pale and sickly. But this is 
not sight ; in order to see, they would at least 
require nerves. It would, however, be an equal 
error to suppose that the nerves, by themselves, 
perceive light in the manner which we call see- 
ing. A common impression prevails among 
men that they are exquisitely sensitive. So far 
from that, they are utterly without feeling. We 
may touch, we may pinch and irritate the nerve 
of sight as we choose, and it shows no reaction. 
The great surgeon, Magendie, in performing a 
difficult operation upon the eye of a woman, 
once pushed his sharp needle far down to the 
very bottom of the eyeball, and touched the 
nervous surface of that delicate organ. The 
pupils around him were amazed, but the patient 
moved not ; and when asked about her supposed 
suffering, she simply replied, "It hurt not at 
all !" The only impression produced by such 
a mechanical contact Avith the nerve of sight is 
a flash of light, vague and indistinct, but no 
doubt in this instance most grateful to one who 
had been blind for a lifetime. To light, how- 
ever, the retina is of exquisite sensitiveness, and 
even manifests its gradual decay by splendid 
colors and flames ; by bright, brilliant images, 
that mock, as it were, the approaching death of 
the eye, conjuring up once more all its magic 



powers and marvelous beauties, before it is 
wrapt in eternal night. 

Upon this tender membrane, carefully secured 
in the innermost recesses" of the house of the eye, 
light paints with unceasing activity image after 
image. The retina thus answers all the pur- 
poses of the photographic sensitive silver plate ; 
the pictures of all that surrounds us are reflect- 
ed and engraven there in an instant, and pass 
away again, to make room for others. But if 
we fix our eye for a time upon a strongly-illu- 
mined object, we shall long retain the impres- 
sion on our eye, though we turn it away, and 
try with an effort to seize other images. The 
photography deeply marked on the retina can 
then not so easily be effaced, and only gradu- 
ally fades away from the beautiful mirror. An 
overwhelming flood of light is absolutely fatal. 
The unfortunate astronomer who forgot to place 
the dark glass before the ocular of his telescope, 
and then looked at the sun, paid with the loss 
of his eyesight for his momentary want of pre- 
caution. 

If such are the marvelous powers of the eye 
in connection with what it beholds in the outer 
world, its own importance in the human face is 
not less striking, and the beautiful symmetry of 
all: its parts surprises us even in that body that 
is so "fearfully and wonderfully made." The 
size of the whole organ, as it presents itself in 
the countenance, is, of course, not subject to 
general rules, its true beauty depending upon 
its harmony with the surrounding features. It 
must not be too large, for that is a characteris- 
tic of animals : in birds of prey the eye is lar- 
ger than the whole brain, and in most of the 
larger mammalia it exceeds by far the propor- 
tion of the human eye. In man, therefore, very 
large and prominent eyes are but too apt to re- 
mind us, unconsciously though it be, of lower 
beings ; they convey to us the idea of brutal 
strength and physical energy, but not of the 
superiority of the intellect. Nor is the other 
extreme more favorable in its expression ; only 
very few animals have their vision so stinted 
that the eyes lie half-hidden in their small cav- 
erns, as in the mole, and then it is because they 
are not allowed to behold the sweet light of 
heaven. To the human face they are apt to 
give a meagre and not unfrequently painful ex- 
pression ; it looks as if the bright light of the 
soul could not break forth in its fullness from 
the dark prison in which it is held captive. Still 
there are instances known of lofty minds and 
high-toned tempers that shone forth with flash- 
ing light from tiny orbs, glowing in radiant light 
under the dark shadow of heavy, overhanging 
brows. 

The peculiar effect produced by the size of 
the pupil depends on the relation its round out- 
line bears to the white part of the eye. The 
nerves that obey its commands cover all the 
visible part of the eyeball as far as the skin 
appears not transparent ; the more white can 
be seen, therefore, through the opening of the 
two eyelids, the more silent effect is produced 



THE SENSES. 



805 



upon the observer by the nervous surface. In 
animals, as in infants, the pupil is apt to be very 
large, and but little of the white is seen — hence 
their inferior expression. In the full-grown 
man, on the contrary, the pupil has become 
smaller from year to year, in proportion to the 
remaining part of the eyeball, and with the en- 
largement of the nerve-endowed white part that 
is visible, its influence also and its expression 
have constantly been increased. This prepon- 
derance of white in the eye forms thus a little 
observed but essential point of difference be- 
tween the animal eye and that of man. Only 
the great painters of earlier days, like Fiesole 
and his whole school, followed, perhaps uncon- 
sciously, the indications given by Nature. Slight- 
ly deviating from the true proportions, they gave 
to their saints and angels long, well-opened eyes, 
with a great abundance of white and but a small 
dark pupil in the centre. It never fails to strike 
the modern observer when he sees how much 
thus the spiritual expression of the eye is in- 
creased and enhanced. In actual life we find, 
moreover, that the same proportions of a small 
pupil to a large eye convey to us, almost inva- 
riably, an impression of delicate sensibility and 
great purity, while very large pupils impress us at 
once with a sense of vigor and physical strength. 
Hence, perhaps, also the custom of ancient 
Greek sculptors and poets to favor their ideal 
gods and heroes with very large eyes, and Ho- 
mer's fondness for his ox-eyed Juno and the 
calf-eyed Athene. The effect thus produced 
by the size of the pupil is still more increased 
by the strange and little known fact, that, in the 
eye of all parts of the body alone, the nerve it- 
self can be seen, and we are allowed thus to 
behold here a part of the central mass of nerves 
concealed in the dark and otherwise inaccessi- 
ble night of the brain or the spinal marrow, 
which science is fond of considering the home 
of the immortal spirit. Through the round, ap- 
parently black opening in the pupil, guarded in 
front by a clear, transparent membrane, we can 
look far back to the very curtain that separates 
the house of the eye from the innermost parts 
of man's body. There a silvery white point is 
discovered, and this is the nerve of sight, spread 
out in tiny, most delicate veins over the tissue 
of the retina. Here alone, therefore, the inner 
light of the body comes in actual contact with 
the outer light of the world ; and thus is ex- 
plained the marvelous truth that " the eye is 
the light of the body." And when the eye be- 
comes dim and loses its brilliancy, the body also 
is darkened, and dust returns to dust. 

Nor is the position of the eyes, in their rela- 
tion to other features, of less importance. In 
lower animals, it is well known, they are placed, 
as it were, much at random, because there the 
sense of sight is, if not quite absent, at least but 
very imperfect. Even in insects it seems but 
just to emerge from the sense of touch, that 
performs its duties in all simpler organizations. 
They can probably not yet distinguish colors, 
and only know light and darkness, not by spe- 



cial perception, but simply by feeling that their 
organs of sight are at rest or in action. In the 
higher animals the eyes have almost invariably 
an oblique inclination toward Jie nose; in man 
alone we find them horizontal. The Mystics 
derive no small satisfaction from the fact that 
this line, crossing the straight line that divides 
the face perpendicularly, forms thus a genuine 
cross — a symbol from which they obtain strange 
sympathies and wondrous relations. 

Portrait-painters and careful observers have 
noticed, however, that in most faces one eye 
stands a little above or below the straight line ; 
and what is peculiar in this apparent irregular- 
ity is this, that a serious deviation results, as a 
matter of course, in a painful defect and dis- 
figurement, but that a slight difference of ele- 
vation is found in almost all men distinguished 
by vigor of thought or unusual endowment and 
genius. If both eyes diverge from the strict 
horizontal, as is the case in whole races of men 
like the Chinese, the effect is very striking. 
Wherever an inclination of the inner corner 
occurs as an exception, it is said to betoken re- 
ligious enthusiasm, deep piety, or cunning hy- 
pocrisy. It always gives to the glance of the 
eye a magnetic fixedness, and great power over 
others. Grief and sorrow are apt to be read in 
eyes whose outer corner is lower than the inner, 
following thus, as we have seen, the drooping 
outline of the mouth ; but the idle dreamer and 
the vague transcendentalist are not less rarely 
characterized by the same feature. 

A wide and well-opened eye was, and is still, 
in the East considered a feature of special beau- 
ty ; the sons of the Orient admire the longing 
and yearning expression it gives to the counte- 
nance, and many a poor daughter of Georgia 
and Circassia has had her eyelids slit open in 
childhood to add to her beauty in time for the 
slave-market. The typical eye of the ancient 
Egyptians is almost unnaturally long and wide 
open ; thus showing the ancient taste bequeath- 
ed to the children of our day. Even among 
us very narrow eyes, especially if they are short 
at the same time, are looked upon with little 
favor; it can not be denied that they give to 
the face a heavy and sleepy appearance. 

Their proximity also is not unimportant, and 
eyes too far apart are almost as little liked as 
those that stand too near to each other. It is 
strange that the Jews as a nation should all be 
characterized by the latter peculiarity, and thus, 
especially in the later years of their life, as- 
sume a peculiar and not very pleasing expres- 
sion. Among animals, apes are endowed in 
like manner, and from this derive their air of 
odd cunning. 

What the frame is to the picture, that the 
eyelids are to the eye. These " gates of light" 
are all the more remarkable, as in the first stage 
of life they are jealously closed, and only after 
a while the delicate middle part is destroyed, 
and they open upon the world. In certain ani- 
mals, as in dogs and cats, this latter event takes 
place many days after their birth, and hence 



806 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



we speuk of their being born blind. They are 
movable shutters and blinds to the delicate win- 
dows of our body, and watchfully guard it against 
an excess of light and all other dangers. It is 
but natural that a well-shaped eye, with a brill- 
iant glance, should not be hid behind heavy, 
coarse curtains, and hence we expect, in search- 
ing for beauty, lids not filled with flesh and cells 
of fat, but thin and transparent. The former 
will give to the whole face a heavy, phlegmatic 
expression ; the latter at once prepossesses us 
in favor of the mind that loves light, even when 
sheltered for a while ; and that shows its own 
nature in the delicate texture of all, even the 
more insignificant features. How important 
are, however, the lids already in sleep — the only 
part of the body, as the eye is the only sense, 
that shows by outward signs the rest and repose 
of the inward soul ! 

Not all nations value the beauty of long eye- 
lashes as Ave do ; the Chinese, by nature but 
scantily gifted with hair, profess to like short 
ones the best ; and other nations go even the 
length of having them carefully pulled. We, 
on the contrary, fancy that as short, thin, or 
very light eyelashes give to the eye a weak and 
staring expression, so very long and dark lashes 
overshadow it well, increase its beauty, and en- 
hance the power of its glance. 

Of all the mere outward parts of the eye, the 
eyebrow, to w r hich " the lover, sighing like a 
furnace, made a woeful ballad," are the most im- 
portant. They are so significant, not on ac- 
count of their own beautiful outline only, but 
because they form the great boundary line be- 
tween the sensual region of our head below 
them, and the intellectual region that rises up- 
ward. It is a line formed at the upper edge of 
the countenance by retaining there a small part 
of that hair which in all animals, even those 
nearest to man, covers the entire face. When 
they are very thick, therefore, and spread out 
too far, they remind us instinctively of an ani- 
mal nature ; and in proportion as they rise in 
well-rounded arches, finely and delicately drawn, 
they convey to us a better and higher opinion. 
The arch, above all, is important ; for the high- 
er it reaches, the more the sensual region reach- 
es and enters into the realm of the higher fac- 
ulties of the mind, while a low, straight brow 
speaks of no such communion. Here also the 
mysterious sympathy that links feature to feat- 
ure may clearly be seen ; smiling lips, with 
slightly raised corners, are retraced above in 
arches that rise on the temple, but the drooping 
mouth of sorrow sees the eyebrow in like man- 
ner sink on the outside, and rise in the middle 
of the face with an expression akin to despair. 
The natural temper, and often repeated impres- 
sions leave, of course, their impress on this feat- 
ure also, and give it a fixed position. Cheer- 
full and open hearts will, therefore, show open 
and well-raised eyebrows, while the deep and 
studious thinker, as is seen in Newton's face, 
draws them down together in his continued ef- 
fort to see great truths and to fathom their 



depth. In restless persons of changeable tem- 
per they may even be seen, now and then, 
broken into a number of smaller curves, or act- 
ually scattered and torn by violent passions. 

Still greater importance is to be attached to 
the color of the eyeball and of its pupil. The 
former we love to see white, full of nervous ac- 
tivity, and yet conveying in its spotless purity 
an unconscious feeling of a chaste and stainless 
life within. A very different impression is pro- 
duced by a "subdued" white or more decided 
yellow. The bluish tint, so peculiar to chil- 
dren, and there in the order of nature, gives to 
grown persons an air of imperfect development 
or of obscured perception. We must, however, 
not forget that other influences may have pro- 
duced these effects. As the ear stands in close 
connection with the organs of respiration, so is 
the eye in direct intercourse with those of diges- 
tion, and its yellow color is often but a sign of 
a disordered liver, or perhaps of a melancholy 
temper. IF the eyeball be bloodshot, it speaks 
of a violent temper, as every excitement or pas- 
sionate outburst causes invariably more or less 
serious congestions. In the end, these repeat- 
ed outpourings of blood into the delicate vessels 
of the eye leave their traces behind, and mark 
the unfortunate owner with an unmistakable 
sign. 

The color of the pupil depends, as is well 
known, upon the clearness and transparency of 
the delicate curtain that hangs immediately be- 
fore the black inner curtain which forms the 
tiny camera obscura. The clearer it is the light- 
er will be the blue of the eye, which, it is claim- 
ed, shows from a certain physical clearness of 
form a corresponding clearness of mental vision. 
If the little curtain be tinged with yellow, the 
result of the mixture with the black behind 
will be an uncertain green ; and if it be filled 
with numerous tiny blood-vessels, and hence 
have a reddish hue, its color will appear to us 
brown. In Albinos the inner pigment, so in- 
dispensable to accurate vision, is more or less 
wanting, and hence their inability to endure a 
large mass of light. As a picture in oil obtains 
its final and full effect only by varnish, so the 
eye also is ever kept moist from inexhaustible 
springs in its own little dwelling. Erom the 
first moment of existence to that when it stiff- 
ens forever, the indescribably delicate surface 
is thus kept ever fresh and brilliant. This brill- 
iancy gives, after all, the eye its greatest effect, 
its most striking expression ; and certainly not 
without reason we are apt to measure by its 
brightness or dullness the activity and vigor of 
the inner life. 

This is most felt in what we call the peculiar 
look or glance of the eye. Every man on earth 
has a look that is exclusively his own. Anato- 
mists know it not, philosophers can not explain 
it, but we all feel and acknowledge it humbly. 
It is the result of the combined expression of 
all the parts of the eye, which by repeated ef- 
fects has at last become permanent, although 
each single effect can only be felt and produced 



THE SENSES. 



807 



when the eye is in motion. Thus it becomes 
the most characteristic feature of man — the 
very mirror of his inner life — the faithful inter- 
preter of all his thoughts and feelings. By it 
man is bound to man in that deep and mysteri- 
ous attraction which we call sympathy. We can 
not explain it — we can not demonstrate it ; and 
yet there is no son of man who does not feel it, 
and act under its silent but irresistible influence. 
Now it binds with bonds of sweet love, and now 
it parts, at a glance, in irreconcilable aversion. 
Its power is all the greater the less the intel- 
lect is developed and reason itself has learned 
to deal with the great questions of life. Not 
gratitude, not weakness, but a natural bond of 
such sweet sympathy binds the infant to the 
mother. Not speculation, not necessity lead 
the child to form friendships ; it follows an in- 
stantaneous impulse of feeling, and knows — 
who can tell how ? — where to look for a return 
of his love, and where for indifference or for 
antipathy. The more earnestly and heavily 
the great duties of life are felt, the more power- 
fully ambition, and pride, and selfishness affect 
our hearts, the more we suppress these early, 
inexplicable feelings, and act only by " reason." 
The touch of true love is extinguished by the 
cold blast of calculation. 

All that remains of it is the glance of the 
eye. Every great man especially has a look in 
his eye which nobody else can imitate ; it is 
his exclusive right, and peculiar to him and to 
his eye. Nature herself has placed this sign 
in his countenance ; it supersedes all other ad- 
vantages it may possess ; it overshadows all oth- 
er features, and thus it can make even a Socra- 
tes handsome. But who can count, who can 
explain the almost infinite variety of expres- 
sion? It has been said that "the style shows 
the man," but how much truer is this of the 
eye ! In general we notice that when the eye 
is enjoying its fullest, healthiest play of muscles, 
it moves ever in beautiful curved lines. The 
free glance of the free man follows an arch that 
rounds itself toward heaven; the modest and 
bashful glance of woman follows a like arch, 
but inverted with downcast- eyelids. Where the 
looks of the eye hasten hurriedly in straight 
lines from point to point, the uniformity of mo- 
tion shows almost always a corresponding uni- 
formity of thought, embarrassment, or even 
permanent dullness. A more animated glance 
speaks naturally of greater activity of mind, and 
of a higher degree of passionate excitement, 
while the slower motion betrays a sluggish or 
weary soul. But the free and playful motion 
of the eye may also transgress the limits of quiet 
beauty ; if too free, it becomes sensual ; if ap- 
parently uncontrolled and restless, it shows the 
sad rule of vile passions. Thus the cheerful 
glance may be changed into the fickle sport of 
the eye, or even degenerate into a sensual and 
seductive expression that strikes us, we hardly 
know why, with pain and with loathing. 

Willing, and often well pleased, we bear the 
quiet but kindly look of the neighbor; but the 



stare, though it be but directed at a part of our 
dress, we can not endure. Full of rigid censure 
or of silent condemnation glide.- the firm glance 
of the superior from head to f jot, while the eye 
of the envious measures by sidelong glances, in 
hurried haste, the size and the form of the ob- 
ject of his contemptible passion. The look of 
contempt is staring no longer ; it sees far be- 
yond, as if desirous to exclude the despised per- 
son forever from the field of vision. 

How often are we struck with the eye of a 
highly-endowed poet or artist, who seems ever to 
look beyond the things of this earth into the dis- 
tant future, or, as was claimed for the noble Swe- 
denborg, into the heavenly kingdom ! Youthful 
enthusiasm and excited fanaticism fix the look 
on higher regions — the groveling spirit of the 
covetous and the selfish is ever bound to the 
glebe at his feet, to the dust to which it clings 
with ill-placed affection. 

The hoary head and the infant show alike a 
vague and distant look ; the former is gradually 
and mercifully loosened from the ties that bound 
him to this life, and his eye turns more and 
more from the world around him to his im- 
mortal soul within. The child still lives in 
mere wondering stare, unable as yet to distin- 
guish minute details, and confounding the near 
and the distant. 

Thus we may read in the glance of the eye 
of man both what moves in passing his soul and 
what will determine its fate in the future. A 
certain look becomes fixed ; the eyes, when not 
immediately employed for a specific purpose, 
return to that position in which they have been 
most frequently used. This so-called distance 
of sigjit, which is the habitual state of the eyes, 
gives the most characteristic expression to our 
face, and hence is of paramount importance to 
painter and sculptor. Men who are ever busy 
with the material world, whose thoughts but 
rarely reach beyond the cares of the day, and 
who in the higher world of ideas also ponder 
only on what is given and the nature of actual 
realities — such men have always a short dis- 
tance of sight ; the axes of their eyes are close to 
each other, and their pupil is narrow. But the 
look of the thinker, whose spiritual eye turns to 
explore the far distance of the past or the future, 
who ever seeks the infinite and not the earthly, 
and who from a detail, which he perceives at 
once, enlarges his sphere of vision in all direc- 
tions — he will ever show parallel axes in his 
look, and he will have wide-open pupils. Who 
can for a moment mistake the vague look into 
the vacant distance of the surprised and amazed? 
The poet also, and the prophet, will show like 
features, for both forget all that is near and of 
this earth, earthy ; their look is ever bent on 
the infinite. 

Even the last look of the dying man, who 
leaves this world for a better, and before whose 
eyes all that surrounds him gradually fades 
into dim mist, shows in the same manner that 
his mind is in the future, and his soul no longer 
bent upon the things of this life. 



808 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 

THE late Samuel Rogers, who has been called 
the Nestor of modern literati, had the good 
fortune to write verses at a time when there 
was a sort of poetical interregnum. John- 
son, although little of a poet, could put strong 
thoughts into metrical order with great vigor. 
He had passed away, however, in 1786, when 
"An Ode to Superstition," by Samuel Rogers, was 
published. Goldsmith, whose "Deserted Village" 
evidently was Rogers's favorite model, also had 
departed. So had Shenstone, one of the feeblest 
of rhymesters; Gray, whose " Elegy" was quoted 
by our own Webster in his last moments ; Aken- 
side, who produced exquisitely modulated blank 
verse, feeble with its elaborate fret-work of re- 
dundant ornament ; Collins, the ode-writer of his 
era; Smart, whose best production was composed 
in a mad-house ; Mason, now chiefly known as 
the biographer of Gray ; Glover, whose " Leoni- 
das" was a bold attempt at the heroic ; and Chat- 
terton, " the wondrous boy who perished in his 
pride." When Rogers first published, the con- 
temporary verse-writers were few and far be- 
tween. Beattie had achieved a fair reputation 
by his "Minstrel," deficient though it be in inci- 
dent ; Crabbe had produced his earlier poems, 
chiefly remarkable for their promise ; Hayley 
was spinning words into didactic feebleness ; 
Wolcot was prostituting great talents by ex- 
pending them in personal satire ; the Wartons, 
by judicious criticism of early English litera- 
ture, rather than by their own poetical effu- 
sions, were preparing the public for a great 
revolution in letters ; Hannah More had shown 
her inability as a dramatic poet ; Darwin was 
giving the final touches to his vegetable epic ; 
Bloomfield had then only put together the first 
portions of his pastoral ; and Burns was cor- 
recting proof-sheets as they slowly reached him 
from the humble press of Kilmarnock. Thus, 
when Rogers first challenged fame, by what is 
called " rushing into print," he had scarcely a 
living competitor w r orthy of regard. Crabbe, 
having indicated what he yet might do, had re- 
tired into the privacy of a country curate's life. 
Cowper, addressing himself chiefly to the re- 
ligious, was not yet very widely known beyond 
their circle. The star of Burns, so soon to 
blaze like a comet in the empyrean of litera- 
ture, had not then arisen. 

At that time, when Rogers was already in 
his twenty-fourth year, Scott, Savage Landor, 
Southey, Wordsworth, Hogg, Campbell, Mont- 
gomery, Lamb, and Coleridge were at school. 
Leigh Hunt and John Wilson were infants in 
arms ; and Byron, Shelley, Keats, with the 
long line of poets of the present century, were 
unborn. Of the leading poets whose birth dates 
fifty years back, Rogers survived all except Lan- 
dor and Hunt. 

He started in the world of letters with the 
great advantage of not needing to live by his 
pen. The son of a London banker, he could 
afford to indulge in the luxury of publication, 



by paying down a sum of money to guarantee 
his publisher from loss. He wrote carefully, 
slowly, indeed painfully. But he could select 
his own subject, and tak<i time to it. He was 
nearly thirty when he published the "Pleasures 
of Memory," which introduced him to the ac- 
quaintance of Charles James Eox, and put him, 
in consequence, on those intimate terms with 
the Holland House coterie, which he continued 
to maintain almost to his last days. His wealth 
alone could not have introduced him to the po- 
litical and fashionable circles of London Whig- 
gery. His literary reputation was not suffi- 
ciently high to obtain such a position. But, 
once accepted at Holland House (we speak of 
the first five-and-thirty years of the present cen- 
tury), he was in a manner eligible for fashion- 
able life, which then more or less affected to 
be literary also, and he was proud of the fran- 
chise. By degrees he gathered around him 
what may be called the intellectual equipments 
of a rich bachelor-author's domicile — rare books, 
fine paintings, beautiful sculpture, curiously old 
china, and the valuable miscellaneous articles 
whose possession marks the virtuoso. In full- 
ness of time, too, as years gave him the status 
of age, he exercised the graceful duties of hos- 
pitality ; and while select friends enjoyed his 
excellent dinners and exquisite suppers, his 
Tuesday breakfasts enabled him, in greater 
numbers and with less critical selection, to re- 
ceive a succession of guests from all parts of 
the world. He was especially fond of his en- 
thusiastic American admirers. Casually meet- 
ing one with whose w r ritings they were acquaint- 
ed from earliest youth, they were excellent list- 
eners, and the anecdotes and remarks which 
his English friends had heard, over and over 
again, even to weariness, were novel and at- 
tractive to strangers. In England, Rogers may 
be said to have, even in his lifetime, settled 
down, as an author, into the position which his 
writings fairly entitle him to occupy — to have 
a bust rather than a full-length statue in the 
Temple of Fame ; but he yet continues to be 
regarded in this country with admiration not 
much less than thilt which he excited a long 
time ago. 

In deeds this man was kinder than in words. 
As the Scottish proverb says, " his bark was 
aye worse than his bite." He did many gener- 
ous actions, without ostentation, but he was 
fond of saying bitter things. After he had 
given up authorship, he got the ambition of 
shining as a conversationist, and, naturally sar- 
donic, took to satire very kindly (if we may so 
speak), certain that this would at least secure 
attention. This miserable ambition succeeded. 
Sharp sayings by Rogers got quoted in the 
clubs, and paragraphed in the newspapers, and 
he fell into the habit of being sarcastic. For 
several years past, when his mind became too 
feeble to invent, he fell into constant and an- 
noying repetition. The reminiscences of his 
youth, the experiences of his manhood, the ill- 
natured satire of his old age, were served up 



RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 



809 



again and again, to the distaste of those who 
often visited him. Strangers, meeting him once, 
thought him a wonderful old gentleman, over- 
flowing with anecdotes, but friends who often 
heard him were tired out. 

Such was the " Table-Talk," of which a vol- 
ume of "Recollections" has appeared in Lon- 
don, from the pen of the Rev. Alexander Dyce. 
It appears that this gentleman, with the full cog- 
nizance and permission of Rogers, had "booked" 
his chit-chat for 3'ears. "Erom my first intro- 
duction to Mr. Rogers," says he, " I was in the 
habit of writing down, in all their minutia?, the 
anecdotes, etc., with which his conversation 
abounded ; and once, on my telling him that I 
did so, he expressed himself pleased — the rather, 
perhaps, because he sometimes had the mortification 
of offending impatient listeners." In truth, the 
repetition of his anecdotes had become tire- 
some. 

Johnson was fortunate in finding such a 
chronicler as Boswell. But Samuel Rogers was a 
man very different from Samuel Johnson ; and 
Alexander Dyce following James Boswell, may 
be compared to small-beer coming after gen- 
erous wine. The fidelity of Boswell's relation 
is equaled only by its freshness and spirit. The 
Johnsonian " Why, Sir," brings the man be- 
fore you, and you read the record of his con- 
versation with a feeling as if you had almost 
heard it. On the contrary, Mr. Dyce has con- 
trived to make Rogers dull and prosy — which he 
certainly was not in his better days ; to report 
his "Table-Talk" minus the spirit (whether of 
manner or sarcasm) which gave it animation. 
He evidently had ample opportunity of record- 
ing what he heard ; the inference from his com- 
parative failure must be that he lacked the Bos- 
wellian facility, or that his acquaintance with 
Rogers did not commence until the old man's 
" wine of life was on the lees." 

Considering the times in which he lived, the 
persons whom he knew, the position he reached, 
the circle in which he moved, and the literature 
which had grown up around him, Samuel Rog- 
ers's personal experiences and recollections ought 
to have been full of interest and information. 
As presented through the medium of Mr. Dyce, 
they have been carefully filtered of much which 
would give them value. At least one half of 
the book has been forestalled — already told, and 
better told, in the lives of Byron, Scott, Moore, 
Crabbe, and other persons of note. There is 
no small share, also, of antique jokes of the Joe 
Miller family. Some few portions of the book 
are good — much in the proportion of Ealstaff's 
halfpenny worth of bread to the rest of his vi- 
ands. Of this smaller portion we shall string- 
together the most readable extracts : 

Of his literary efforts he says : 

" The first poetry I published was the ' Ode 
to Superstition,' in 1786. I wrote it while I was 
in my teens, and afterward touched it up. I 
paid down to the publisher thirty pounds to in- 
sure him from being a loser by it. At the end 
of four vears I found that he had sold about 



twenty copies. However, I was consoled by 
reading in a critique on the Ode that I was ' an 
able writer,' or some such expression." 

"People have taken the trouble to write my 
Life more than once ; and strange assertions 
they have made both about myself and my 
works. In one biographical account it is stated 
that I submitted ' The Pleasures of Memory' in 
manuscript to the critical revision of Richard 
Sharp : now, when that poem was first publish- 
ed, I had not yet formed an acquaintance with 
Sharp (who was introduced to me by the oldest 
of my friends, Maltby). The beautiful lines, 
'Pleasures of Memory! oh, supremely blest,' 
etc., which I have inserted in a note on Part 
Second, were composed by a Mr. Soame, who 
died in India in 1803, at which time he was a 
lieutenant in the dragoons. I believe that he 
destroyed himself. I had heard that the lines 
were in a certain newspaper, and went to Peel's 
Coffee-house to see that paper: there I first 
read them, and there I transcribed them." 

"During my whole life I have borne in mind 
the speech of a woman to Philip of Macedon : 
'I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.' 
After writing any thing in the excitement of 
the moment, and being greatly pleased with it, 
I have always put it by for a day or two; and 
then carefully considering it in every possible 
light, I have altered it to the best of my judg- 
ment; thus appealing from myself drunk to 
myself sober. I was engaged on 'The Pleas- 
ures of Memory' for nine years ; on ' Human 
Life' for nearly the same space of time ; and 
' Italy' was not completed in less than sixteen 
years." 

Mr. Dyce adds : 

"I was with Mr. Rogers when he tore to 
pieces, and threw into the fire, a manuscript 
operatic drama, 'The Vintage of Burgundy,' 
which he had written early in life. He told 
me that he offered it to a manager, who said, 
' I will bring it on the stage if you are determ- 
ined to have it acted ; but it will certainly be 
damned.'' One or two songs which now appear 
among his poems formed parts of that drama." 

Of Moore's early poems Rogers said, 

" So heartily has Moore repented of having 
published "Little's Poems," that I have seen him 
shed tears — tears of deep contrition — when we 
were talking of them." 

Here is an item which goes far to confirm the 
general impression (derived from his Diary) that 
Moore was extremely improvident and extrav- 
agant : 

"Moore is a very worthy man, but not a lit- 
tle improvident. His excellent wife contrives 
to maintain the whole family on a guinea a 
week ; and he, when in London, thinks nothing 
of throwing away that sum weekly on hackney- 
coaches and gloves. I said to him, 'You must 
have made ten thousand pounds by your mu- 
sical publications.' He replied, 'More than 
that.' In short, he has received for his various 
works nearly thirty thousand pounds. When, 
owing to the state of his affairs, he found it ne- 1 



810 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



cessary to retire for a while, I advised him to 
make Holyrood House his refuge; there he 
could have lived cheaply and comfortably, with 
permission to walk about unmolested every 
Sunday, when he might have dined with Walter 
Scott or Jeffrey. But he would go to Paris ; 
and there he spent about a thousand a year." 

Among the passing notices of Moore is the 
following : 

" Most people are ever on the watch to find 
fault with their children, and are afraid of 
praising them for fear of spoiling them. Now, I 
am sure that nothing has a better effect on 
children than praise. I had a proof of this in 
Moore's daughter ; he used always to be saying 
to her, 'What a good little girl !' and she con- 
tinued to grow more and more good, till she be- 
came too good for this world, and died." 

Rogers has not preserved many anecdotes of 
Scott. Here are a couple : 

"I introduced Sir Walter Scott to Madame 
D'Arblay, having taken him with me to her 
house. She had not heard that he was lame; 
and when he limped toward a chair, she said, 
'Dear me, Sir Walter, I hope you have not met 
Avith an accident?' He answered, 'An accident, 
madam, nearly as old as my birth.' " 

" One forenoon Scott was sitting for his bust 
to Chantrey, who was quite in despair at the 
dull and heavy expression of his countenance. 
Suddenly, Fuller (' Jack Fuller,' the then buf- 
foon of the House of Commons) was announced 
by a servant ; and, as suddenly, Scott's face was 
lighted up to that pitch of animation which the 
sculptor desired, and which he made all haste 
to avail himself of." 

Allan Cunningham, who was Chantrey's fore- 
man when the bust was taken, tells the story in 
a very different manner. 

Touching the Waverley Novels : 

" After dining at my house, Sir Walter (then 
Mr.) Scott accompanied me to a party given by 
Lady Jersey. We met Sheridan there, who 
put the question to Scott in express terms, 
' Pray, Mr. Scott, did you, or did you not, write 
Waverley V Scott replied, ' On my honor, I did 
not.' Now, though Scott may perhaps be justi- 
fied for returning an answer in the negative, 
I can not think that he is to be excused for 
strengthening it with ' on my honor.' " 

Wordsworth, we are told, thought little of 
any poetry except his own. Scott repeated to 
Wordsworth and his sister "a portion of his 
then unpublished ' Lay,' which Wordsworth, as 
might be expected, did not greatly admire." 
I'iogers said, 

"I once read Gray's 'Ode to Adversity' to 
Wordsworth ; and at the line, 

'And leave us leisure to be good,' 
Wordsworth exclaimed, 'I am quite sure that 
is not original; Gray could not have hit upon 
it.'" 

Here is a plausible reason for Wordsworth's 
mastery of the sonnet : 

"I never attempted to write a sonnet, be- 
cause I do not see why a man, if he has any 



thing worth saying, should be tied down to four- 
teen lines. Wordsworth perhaps appears to 
most advantage in a sonnet, because its strict 
limits prevent him from running into that word- 
iness to which he is somewhat prone." 

There is considerable mention of Byron in 
these pages, and in a kinder tone than might 
have been expected, when it is remembered 
how bitterly Byron satirized Rogers. The 
poem commencing 

" Nose and chin would shame a knocker, 
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker," 

of which Rogers was the subject, bears the date 
of 1818, and was first published in Fraser's 
Magazine for January, 1833. Written in Italy, 
it was sent to Murray in 1820, with the permis- 
sive sentence : " You have a discretionary power 
about showing." The circle of mutual friends 
who used to assemble at Murray's read the 
poem, and thus Rogers became aware of its 
existence. When it first saw the light, he made 
an angry complaint of Murray's perfidy. In 
fact, however, Byron gave a copy of the verses 
to Lady Blessington, at Genoa, in 1823, which 
she sold to Fraser. As originally printed, it 
consisted of seventy-six lines, as first written. 
Byron subsequently sent an additional quatrain 
to Murray, which comes in before the last coup- 
let. Following the line 

" Devil, with such delight in damning," 
the addition runs thus : 

" That if, at the resurrection, 
Unto him the free election 
Of his future could be given, 
'Twould be rather hell than heaven." 

The letter to Murray, inclosing these lines, 
bears date "Ravenna, 9bre. 9°, 1820;" and, 
speaking of Rogers having given him some prov- 
ocation, says : " Unfortunately I must be angry 
with a man before I draw his real portrait, and 
I can't deal in generals — so that I trust never 
to have provocation enough to make a gal- 
lery." 

In the "Table-Talk" before us there is no 
allusion to this satire, but there is evidence, in 
the manner in which Byron is spoken of, that 
Rogers was angry with him. There is an accu- 
sation that Byron had no ear for music, and a 
reference to his lameness. In the "English 
Bards" Rogers was one of the few authors 
complimented, which led to his acquaintance 
with Byron. The following account (though 
more tersely told by Moore) is not without in- 
terest : 

"Neither Moore nor myself had ever seen 
Byron when it was settled that he should dine 
at my house to meet Moore ; nor was he known 
by sight to Campbell, who, happening to call 
upon me that morning, consented to join the 
party. I thought it best that I alone should be 
in the drawing-room when Byron entered it ; 
and Moore and Campbell accordingly withdrew. 
Soon after his arrival, they returned ; and I in- 
troduced them to him severally, naming them 
as Adam named the beasts. When we sat down 
to dinner, I asked Byron if he would take soup? 



EECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL ROGERS. 



811 



k No ; he never took soup.' Would he take some 
fish ? ' No ; he never took fish.' Presently I 
asked if he would eat some mutton? 'No ; he 
never ate mutton.' I then asked if he would 
take a glass of wine ? ' No ; he never tasted 
wine.' It was now necessary to inquire what he 
did eat and drink; and the answer Avas, 'No- 
thing but hard biscuits and soda-water.' Unfor- 
tunately, neither hard biscuits nor soda-water 
were at hand ; and he dined upon potatoes 
bruised down on his plate and drenched with 
vinegar. My guests staid till very late, dis- 
cussing the merits of Walter Scott and Joanna 
Baillie. Some days after, meeting Hobhouse, 
I said to him, ' How long will Lord Byron per- 
severe in his present diet ?' He replied, ' Just 
as long as you continue to notice it.' I did not 
then know, what I now know to be a fact, that 
Byron, after leaving my house, had gone to a 
Club in St. James's Street, and eaten a hearty 
meat supper." 

Here is more, in the same vein : 

"Byron had prodigious facility of composi- 
tion. He was fond of suppers ; and used often 
to sup at my house and eat heartily (for he had 
then given up the hard biscuit and soda-water 
diet) ; after going home, he would throw off 
sixty or eighty verses, which he would send to 
press next morning." 

" In those days at least, Byron had no readi- 
ness of reply in conversation. If you happened 
to let fall any observation which offended him, 
he would say nothing at the time ; but the of- 
fense would lie rankling in his mind ; and per- 
haps a fortnight after, he would suddenly come 
out with some very cutting remarks upon you, 
giving them as his deliberate opinions, the re- 
sults of his experience of your character." 

" Latterly, I believe, Byron never dined with 
Lady B. ; for it was one of his fancies (or affec- 
tations) that ' he could not endure to see women 
eat.' I recollect that he once refused to meet 
Madame de Stael at my house at dinner, but 
came in the evening ; and when I have asked 
him to dinner without mentioning what com- 
pany I was to have, he would write me a note to 
inquire ' if I had invited any women.' " 

"My latest intercourse with Byron was in 
Italy. We traveled some time together ; and, if 
there was any scenery particularly well worth 
seeing, he generally contrived that we should 
pass through it in the dark. 

" As we were crossing the Apennines, he told 
me that he had left an order in his will that 
Allegra, the child who soon after died, his 
daughter by Miss C, should never be taught 
the English language. You know that Allegra 
wa3 buried at Harrow ; but probably you have 
not heard that the body was sent over to En- 
gland in truo packages, that no one might sus- 
pect what it was." 

"At this time we generally had a regular 
quarrel every night ; and he would abuse me 
through thick and thin, raking up all the stories 
he had heard which he thought most likely to 
mortify me — how I had behaved with great cru- 



elty to Murphy, refusing to assist him in his dis- 
tress, etc., etc. But next morning he would 
shake me kindly by both hands ; and we were 
excellent friends again." 

Touching Byron's burnt Memoirs, of which, 
more than one copy yet exists, Rogers said, 

" There were, I understand, some gross things 
in that manuscript ; but I read only a portion 
of it, and did not light upon them. I remem- 
ber that it contained this anecdote : On his 
marriage-night, Byron suddenly started out of 
his first sleep ; a taper, which burned in the 
room, was casting a ruddy glare through the 
crimson curtains of the bed ; and he could not 
help exclaiming, in a voice so loud that he 
wakened Lady B., ' Good God, I am surely in 
hell !' " 

From the miscellaneous Ana we select the 
following : 

" I can hardly believe what was told me long 
ago by a gentleman living in the Temple, who, 
however, assured me that it was fact. He hap- 
pened to be passing by Sir Joshua Reynolds's 
house when he saw a poor girl seated on the 
steps and crying bitterly. He asked what was 
the matter; and she replied that she was crying 
' because the one shilling which she had received 
from Sir Joshua for sitting to him as a model, 
had proved to be a bad one, and he would not 
give her another.' " 

"The head-dresses of the ladies during my 
youth were of a truly preposterous size. I have 
gone to Ranelagh in a coach with a lady who 
was obliged to sit upon a stool placed in the bot- 
tom of the coach, the height of her head-dress 
not allowing her to occupy the regular seat." 

" Sir George Beaumont once met Quin at a 
very small dinner-party. There was a delicious 
pudding, which the master of the house, push- 
ing the dish toward Quin, begged him to taste. 
A gentleman had just before helped himself to 
an immense piece of it. 'Pray,' said Quin, 
looking first at the gentleman's plate and then 
at the dish, ' which is the pudding ?' " 

" During my youth umbrellas were far from 
common. At that time every gentleman's fam- 
ily had one umbrella — a huge thing made of 
coarse cotton — which used to be taken out with 
the carriage, and which, if there was rain, the 
footman held over the ladies' heads, as they en- 
tered or alighted from the carriage." 

"One morning, when I was a lad, Wilkes 
came into our banking-house to solicit my fa- 
ther's vote. My father happened to be out, and 
I, as his representative, spoke to Wilkes. At 
parting, Wilkes shook hands with me ; and I 
felt proud of it for a week after. He was quite 
as ugly, and squinted as much as his portraits 
make him ; but he was very gentlemanly in ap- 
pearance and manners. I think I see him at 
this moment, walking through the crowded 
streets of the City, as Chamberlain, on his way 
to Guildhall, in a scarlet coat, military boots, 
and a bag-wig — the hackney-coachmen in vain 
calling out to him, 'A coach, your honor?' " 

"When Lord Erskine heard that somebody 



812 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



had died worth two hundred thousand pounds, 
he observed, ' Well, that's a very pretty sum to 
begin the next world with.' " 

"To all letters soliciting his 'subscription' 
to any thing, Erskine had a regular form of re- 
ply, viz., ' Sir, I feel much honored by your ap- 
plication to me, and I beg to subscribe' — here 
the reader had to turn over the leaf — 'myself 
your very ob* servant,' etc." 

" Eox used to read Homer through once every 
year. On my asking him, ' Which poem had 
you rather have written, the "Iliad" or the 
" Odyssey ?" ' he answered, 'I know which I had 
rather read' (meaning the ' Odyssey')." 

"Frequently, when doubtful how to act in 
matters of importance, I have received more 
useful advice from women than from men. 
Women have the understanding of the heart, 
which is better than that of the head." 

" One afternoon, at court, I was standing be- 
side two intimate acquaintances of mine, an old 
nobleman and a middle-aged lady of rank, when 
the former remarked to the latter that he thought 
a certain young lady near us was uncommonly 
beautiful. The middle-aged lady replied, 'I 
can not see any particular beauty in her.' ' Ah, 
madam,' he rejoined, 'to us old men youth al- 
ways appears beautiful!' a speech with which 
Wordsworth, when I repeated it to him, was 
greatly struck." 

"The Duchess of Gordon told this anecdote 
to Lord Stowell, who told it to Lord Dunmore, 
who told it to me: 'The son of Lord Corn- 
wallis [Lord Brome] fell in love with my daugh- 
ter Louisa; and she liked him much. They 
were to be married; but the intended match 
was broken off by Lord C., whose only objec- 
tion to it sprung from his belief that there was 
madness in my husband's family. Upon this I 
contrived to have a tete-a-tete with Lord C, and. 
said to him, "I know your reason for disap- 
proving of your son's marriage with my daugh- 
ter: now, I will tell you one thing plainly — 
there is not a drop of the Gordon blood in Louisa's 
body." With this statement Lord C. was quite 
satisfied, and the marriage took place.' The 
Duchess prided herself greatly on the success 
of this manoeuvre, though it had forced her to 
slander her own character so cruelly and so 
unjustly! In fact, manoeuvring was her de- 
light." 

" 'Burke,' observed Grattan, 'became at last 
such an enthusiastic admirer of kingly power, 
.that he could not have slept comfortably on his 
pillow, if he had not thought that the king had 
a right to carry it off from under his head.' " 

'"How I should like,' said Grattan one day 
to me, ' to spend my whole life in a small neat 
cottage ! I could be content with very little ; I 
should need only cold meat, and bread, and 
beer — and plenty of claret? " 

" When a lady, a friend of mine, was in Italy, 
she went into a church, and knelt down among 
the crowd. An Italian woman, who was pray- 
ing at some little distance, rose up, came softly 
to my friend, whispered in her ear, ' If you con- 



tinue to flirt with my husband, I'll be the death 
of you ;' and then, as softly, returned to her 
genuflections. Such things can not happen 
where there are pews." ., 

" Lord Ellenborough had infinite wit. When 
the income-tax was imposed, he said that Lord 
Kenyon (who was not very nice in his habits) 
intended, in consequence of it, to lay down — 
his pocket-handkerchief." 

" A man who attempts to read all the new 
publications must often do as a flea does — 
skip." 

" Southey used to say that 'the moment any 
thing assumed the shape of a duty, Coleridge 
felt himself incapable of discharging it.' " 

"A friend of mine in Portland Place has a 
wife who inflicts upon him every season two or 
three immense evening parties. At one of 
those parties he was standing in a very forlorn 
condition, leaning against the chimney-piece, 
when a gentleman, coming up to him said, ' Sir, 
as neither of us is acquainted with any of the 
people here, I think we had best go home.' " 

" Lamartine is a man of genius, but very af- 
fected. Talleyrand (when in London) invited 
me to meet him, and placed me beside him at 
dinner. I asked him, 'Are you acquainted with 
Beranger?' 'No; he wished to be introduced 
to me, but I declined it.' ' I would go,' said I, 
' a league to see him.' This was nearly all our 
conversation : he did not choose to talk. In 
short, he was so disagreeable, that, some days 
after, both Talleyrand and the Duchess di Dino 
apologized to me for his ill-breeding." 

" 'Did Napoleon shave himself?' I inquired. 
'Yes,' answered Talleyrand, 'but very slowly, 
and conversing during the operation. He used 
to say that kings by birth were shaved by oth- 
ers, but that he who has made himself Roi 
shaves himself.' " 

"At one time, when I gave a dinner, I used 
to have candles placed all round the dining- 
room, and high up, in order to show off the 
pictures. I asked Sydney Smith how he liked 
that plan. 'Not at all,' he replied; 'above, 
there is a blaze of light, and below, nothing but 
darkness and gnashing of teeth.' " 

" Speaking to me of Bonaparte, the Duke of 
Wellington remarked, that in one respect he was 
superior to all the generals who had ever exist- 
ed. 'Was it,' I asked, 'in the management and 
skillful arrangement of his troops?' 'No,' an- 
swered the Duke; 'it was in his power of con- 
centrating such vast masses of men — a most im- 
portant point in the art of war.' " 

To the "Table-Talk" of Samuel Rogers 
("banker, beau, and poet") are added anec- 
dotes of Richard Porson, the best Greek scholar 
of his time, perhaps ; but a man debased by 
habits of constant drunkenness. There is no- 
thing in the " Porsoniana" worthy of quotation, 
and the pages they fill have evidently been 
added to eke out the size of the volume. We 
conclude by stating our opinion that the really 
good materials in the book are extremely scanty. 
The " Table-Talk" of Rogers is a failure. 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



813 




BY CHARLES DICKENS. 



CHAPTER XV.— MRS. FLINTWINCH HAS ANOTH- 
ER DREAM. 

THE debilitated old house in the city wrapped 
in its mantle of soot, and leaning heavily on 
the crutches that had partaken of its decay and 
worn out with it, never knew a healthy or a cheer- 
ful interval let what would betide. If the sun 
ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and that 
was gone in half an hour ; if the moonlight ever 
fell upon it, it was only to put a few patches on 
its doleful cloak, and make it look more wretch- 
ed. The stars, to be sure, coldly watched it 
when the nights and the smoke were clear 
enough ; and all bad weather stood by it with a 
rare fidelity. You should alike find rain, hail, 
frost, and thaw lingering in that dismal inclos- 
ure, when they had vanished from other places; 
and as to snow, you should see it there for 
weeks, long after it had changed from yellow to 
black, slowly weeping away its grimy life. The 
place had no other adherents. As to street 
noises, the rumbling of wheels in the lane mere- 
ly rushed in at the gateway in going past, and 
rushed out again : making the listening Mistress 
Aflfery feel as if she were deaf, and recovered 
the sense of hearing by instantaneous flashes. 
So with whistling, singing, talking, laughing, 
and all pleasant human sounds. They leaped 
the gap in a moment, and went upon their way. 
The varying light of fire and candle in Mrs. 
Clennam's room made the greatest change that 
ever broke the dead monotony of the spot. In 
her two long narrow windows the fire shone sul- 
lenly all day, and sullenly all night. On rare 
occasions, it flashed up passionately, as she did; 
but for the most part it was suppressed, like her, 
and preyed upon itself evenly and slowly. Dur- 
ing many hours of the short winter days, how- 
ever, when it was dusk there early in the after- 
noon, changing distortions of herself in her 
wheeled chair, of Mr. Flintwinch with his wry 
neck, of Mistress Aflfery coming and going, 
would be thrown upon the house wall that was 
over the gateway, and would hover there like 
shadows from a great magic lantern. As the 
room-ridden invalid settled for the night, these 
Vol. XII.— No. 72.-3 F 



would gradually disappear: Mistress Affery's 
magnified shadow always flitting about, last, 
until it finally glided away into the air, as 
though she were off upon a witch-excursion. 
Then the solitary light would burn unchanging- 
ly, until it burned pale before the dawn, and at 
last died under the breath of Mistress Aflfery as 
her shadow descended on it from the witch-re- 
gion of sleep. 

Strange, if the little sick-room fire were in 
effect a beacon fire, summoning some one, and 
that the most unlikely some one in the world, to 
the spot that must be come to. Strange, if the 
little sick-room light were in effect a watch-light, 
burning in that place every night until an ap- 
pointed event should be watched out ! Which 
of the vast multitude of travelers, under the sun 
and the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toil- 
ing along the weary plains, journeying by land 
and journeying by sea, coming and going so 
strangely, to meet and to act and re-act on one 
another, which of the host may, with no suspi-^, 
cion of the journey's end, be traveling surely 
hither? 

Time shall show us. The post of honor and 
the post of shame, the general's station and the 
drummer's, a peer's statue in Westminster Abbey 
and a seaman's hammock in the bosom of the 
deep, the mitre and the workhouse, the wool- 
sack and the gallows, the throne and the guillo- 
tine — the travelers to all are on the great high- 
road; but it has wonderful divergences, and 
only Time shall show us whither each traveler 
is bound. 

On a wintry afternoon at twilight, Mrs. Flint- 
winch, having been heavy all day, dreamed this 
dream : 

She thought she was in the kitchen getting 
the kettle ready for tea, and was warming her- 
self with her feet upon the fender and the skirt 
of her gown tucked up, before the collapsed fire 
in the middle of the grate, bordered on either 
hand by a deep, cold, black ravine. She thought 
that as she sat thus, musing upon the question, 
whether life was not for some people a rather 
dull invention, she was frightened by a sudden 
noise behind her. She thought that she had 
been similarly frightened once last week, and 
that the noise was of a mysterious kind — a 
sound of rustling, and of three or four quick 
beats like a rapid step ; while a shock or trem- 
ble was communicated to her heart, as if the 
step had shaken the floor, or even as if she had 
been touched by some awful hand. She thought 
that this revived within her certain old fears of 
hers that the house was haunted ; and that she 
flew up the kitchen stairs, without knowing how 
she got up, to be nearer company. 

Mistress Affery thought that on reaching the 
hall, she saw the door of her liege lord's office 
standing open, and the room empty. That she 
went to the ripped-up window in the little room 
by the street door to connect her palpitating 
heart through the glass with living things be- 
yond and outside the haunted house. That she 



814 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



then saw on the wall over the gateway the shad- 
ows of the two clever ones in conversation above. 
That she went up stairs with her shoes in her 
hand, partly to be near the clever ones as a 
match for most ghosts, and partly to hear what 
they were talking about. 

"None of your nonsense with me," said Mr. 
Flintwinch. "I won't take it from you." 

Mrs. Flintwinch dreamed that she stood be- 
hind the door, which was just ajar, and most 
distinctly heard her husband say these bold 
words. 

" Flintwinch," returned Mrs. Clennam, in her 
usual strong, low voice, "there is a demon of 
anger in you. Guard against it." 

" I don't care whether there's one or a dozen," 
said Mr. Flintwinch, forcibly suggesting in his 
tone that the higher number was nearer the 
mark. "If there was fifty, they should all say, 
None of your nonsense with me, I won't take it 
from you. I'd make 'em say it, whether they 
liked it or not." 

"What have I done, you wrathful man?" her 
strong voice asked. 

"Done?" said Mr. Flintwinch. "Dropped 
down upon me." 

"If you mean, remonstrated with you — " 
" Don't put words in my mouth that I don't 
mean," said Jeremiah, sticking to his figurative 
expression with tenacious and impenetrable ob- 
stinacy, " I mean dropped down upon me." 

"I remonstrated with you," she began again, 
" because — " 

"I won't have it!" cried Jeremiah. "You 
dropped down upon me." 

" I dropped down upon you, then, you ill-con- 
ditioned man" (Jeremiah chuckled at having 
forced her to adopt his phrase), " for having 
been needlessly significant to Arthur that morn- 
ing. I have a right to complain of it as almost 
a breach of confidence. You did not mean it—" 
"I won't have it!" interposed the contradic- 
tory Jeremiah, flinging back the concession. "I 
did mean it." 

" I suppose I must leave you to speak in solil- 
oquy if you choose to," she replied, after a pause 
that seemed an angry one. " It is useless my 
addressing myself to a rash and headstrong old 
man, who has a set purpose not to hear me." 

"Now, I won't take that from you either," 
said Jeremiah. "I have no such purpose. I 
have told you I did mean it. Do you wish to 
know why I meant it, you rash and headstrong 
old woman ?" 

"After all, you only restore me my own 
words," she said, struggling with her indigna- 
tion. " Yes." 

"This is why, then. Because you hadn't 
cleared his father to him, and you ought to have 
done it. Because, before you went into any 
tantrum about yourself, who are — " 

"Hold there, Flintwinch!" she cried out in 
a changed voice, "you may go a word too 
far." 
The old man seemed to think so. There was 



another pause, and he had altered his position 
in the room, when he spoke again more mildly : 
" I was going to tell you why it was. Because 
before you took your own part, I thought you 
ought to have taken the part of Arthur's father. 
Arthur's father! I had no particular love for 
Arthur's father. I served Arthur's father's un- 
cle in this house when Arthur's father was not 
much above me — was poorer as far as his pocket 
went — and when his uncle might as soon have 
left me his heir as have left him. He starved in 
the parlor and I starved in the kitchen ; that was 
the principal difference in our positions ; there was 
not much more than a flight of break-neck stairs 
between us. I never took to him in those times ; 
I don't know that I ever took to him greatly at 
any time. He was an undecided, irresolute 
chap, who had had every thing but his orphan 
life scared out of him when he was young. And 
when he brought you home here, the wife his 
uncle had named for him, I didn't need to look 
at you twice (you were a good-looking woman at 
that time) to know who'd be master. You have 
stood of your own strength ever since. Stand 
of your own strength now. Don't lean against 
the dead." 

"I do not — as you call it — lean against the 
dead." 

"But you had a mind to do it, if I had sub- 
mitted," growled Jeremiah, "and that's why 
you drop down upon me. You can't forget that 
I didn't submit. I suppose you are astonished 
that I should consider it worth my while to have 
justice done to Arthur's father? Hey? It 
doesn't matter whether you answer or not, be- 
cause I know you are, and you know you are. 
Come, then, I'll tell you how it is. I may be a 
bit of an oddity in point of temper, but this is 
my temper — I can't let any body have entirely 
their own way. You are a determined woman, 
and a clever woman ; and when you see your 
purpose before you, nothing will turn you from 
it. Who knows that better than I do ?" 

"Nothing will turn me from it, Flintwinch, 
when I have justified it to myself. Add that." 
" Justified it to yourself! I said you were the 
most determined woman on the face of the earth 
(or I meant to say so), and if you are determined 
to justify any object you entertain, of course 
you'll do it." 

" Man ! I justify myself by the authority of 
these Books," she cried, with stern emphasis, 
and appearing from the sound that followed to 
strike the dead-weight of her arm upon the 
table. 

" Nevermind that," returned Jeremiah, calm- 
ly, "we won't enter into that question at pres- 
ent. However that may be, you carry out 
your purposes, and you make every thing go 
down before them. Now, I won't go down be- 
fore them. I have been faithful to you, and use- 
ful to you, and I am attached to you. But 1 
can't consent, and I won't consent, and I never 
did consent, and I never will consent, to be lost 
in you. Swallow up every body else, and wel- 



LITTLE DOKRIT. 



815 



come. The peculiarity of my temper is, ma'am, 
that I won't be swallowed up alive." 

Perhaps this had originally been the main- 
spring of the understanding between them. De- 
scrying thus much of force of character in Mr. 
Flintwinch, perhaps Mrs. Clennam had deemed 
alliance with him worth her while. 

" Enough, and more than enough of the sub- 
ject," said she, gloomily. 

"Unless you drop down upon me again," re- 
turned the persistent Flintwinch, "and then you 
must expect to hear of it again." 

Mistress AfFery dreamed that the figure of her 
lord here began walking up and down the room, as 
if to cool his spleen, and that she ran away; but, 
that as he did not issue forth when she had stood 
listening and trembling in the shadowy hall a 
little time, she crept up stairs again, impelled as 
before by ghosts and curiosity, and once more 
cowered outside the door." 

" Please to light the candle, Flintwinch," Mrs. 
Clennam was saying, apparently wishing to draw 
him back into their usual tone. "It is nearly 
time for tea. Little Dorrit is coming, and will 
find me in the dark." 

Mr. Flintwinch lighted the candle briskly, and 
said, as he put it down upon the table : 

"What are you going to do with Little Dor- 
rit? Is she to come to work here forever? To 
come to tea here forever? To come backward 
and forward here, in the same way, forever ?" 

" How can you talk about ' forever' to a maim- 
ed creature like me ? Are we not all cut down 
like the grass of the field, and was not I shorn 
by the scythe many years ago ; since when, I 
have been lying here, waiting to be gathered 
into the barn?" 

"Ay, ay! But since you have been lying 
here — not near dead — nothing like it — numbers 
of children and young people, blooming women, 
strong men, and what not, have been cut down 
and carried ; and still here are you, you see, not 
much changed after all. Your time and mine 
may be a long one yet. When I say forever, I 
mean (though I am not poetical) through all our 
time." Mr. Flintwinch gave this explanation with 
great calmness, and calmly waited for an answer. 

" So long as Little Dorrit is quiet, and indus- 
trious, and stands in need of the slight help I 
can give her, and deserves it, so long, I sup- 
pose, unless she withdraws of her own act, she 
will continue to come here, I being spared." 

"Nothing more than that?" said Flintwinch, 
stroking his mouth and chin. 

"What should there be more than that! 
What could there be more than that!" she ejac- 
ulated, in her sternly wondering way. 

Mrs. Flintwinch dreamed that for the space 
of a minute or two they remained looking at 
each other with the candle between them, and 
that she somehow derived an impression that 
they looked at each other fixedly. 

"Do you happen to know, Mrs. Clennam," 
Affery's liege lord then demanded in a much 
lower voice, and with an amount of expression 



that seemed quite out of proportion to the sim- 
ple purpose of his words, "where she lives?" 

"No." 

"Would you — now, would you like to know ?" 
said Jeremiah, with a pounce as if he had 
sprung upon her. 

"If I cared to know, I should know already. 
Could I not have asked her any day ?" 

"Then you don't care to know?" 

"I do not." 

Mr. Flintwinch, having expelled a long signifi- 
cant breath, said, with his former emphasis, 
"For I have accidentally — mind! found out." 

"Wherever she lives," said Mrs. Clennam, 
speaking in one unmodulated hard voice, and 
separating her words as distinctly as if she were 
reading them off from separate bits of metal 
that she took up one by one, "she has made a 
secret of it, and she shall always keep her secret 
from me." 

"After all, perhaps you would rather not have 
known the fact, any how ?" said Jeremiah ; and 
he said it with a twist, as if his words had come 
out of him in his own wry shape. 

"Flintwinch," said his mistress and partner, 
flashing into a sudden energy that made AfFery 
start, "why do you goad me? Look round this 
room. If it is any compensation for my long 
confinement within these narrow limits — not 
that I complain of being afflicted ; you know I 
never complain of that — if it is any compensa- 
tion to me for my long confinement to this room, 
that while I am shut up from all pleasant change, 
I am also shut up from the knowledge of some 
things that I may prefer to avoid knowing, why 
should you, of all men, grudge me that relief?" 

"I don't grudge it to you," returned Jere- 
miah. 

"Then say no more. Say no more. Let 
Little Dorrit keep her secret from me, and do 
you keep it from me also. Let her come and 
go, unobserved and unquestioned. Let me suf- 
fer, and let me have what alleviation belongs to 
my condition. Is it so much, that you torment 
me like an evil spirit ?" 

"I asked you a question. That's all." 

" I have answered it. So, say no more. Say 
no more." Here the sound of the wheeled chair 
was heard upon the floor, and Affery's bell rang 
with a hasty jerk. 

More afraid of her husband at the moment 
than of the mysterious sound in the kitchen, 
AfFery crept away as lightly and as quickly as 
she could, descended the kitchen stairs almost 
as rapidly as she had ascended them, resumed 
her seat before the fire, tucked up her skirt 
again, and finally threw her apron over her 
head. Then the bell rang once more, and then 
once more, and then kept on ringing ; in despite 
of which importunate summons, AfFery still sat 
behind her apron, recovering her breath. 

At last Mr. Flintwinch came shuffling down 
the staircase into the hall, muttering and call- 
ing "AfFery, woman !" all the way. AfFery still 
remaining behind her apron, he came stumbling 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




ME. AND MRS. FLINTWINCH. 



down the kitchen stairs, candle in hand, sidled 
up to her, twitched her apron off, and roused her. 

" Oh, Jeremiah !" cried Affery, waking. 
" What a start you gave me !" 

"What have you been doing, woman?" in- 
quired Jeremiah. "You've been rung for fifty 
times." 

"Oh, Jeremiah," said Mistress Affery, "I 
have been a-dreaming!" 

Reminded of her former achievement in that 
way, Mr. Flintwinch held the candle to her head, 
as if he had some idea of lighting her up for the 
illumination of the kitchen. 

"Don't you know it's her tea-time?" he de- 
manded, with a vicious grin, and giving Mistress 
Affery's chair a kick. 

" Jeremiah ? Tea-time ? I don't know what's 
come to me. But I got such a dreadful turn, 
Jeremiah, before I went — off a-dreaming, that 
[ think it must be that." 

"Yoogh! Sleepy-Head!" said Mr. Flint- 
winch, with great intensity, "what are you talk- 
ing about ?" 

" Such a strange noise, Jeremiah, and such a 
curious movement. In the kitchen here—just 
here." 

Jeremiah held up his light and looked at the 
blackened ceiling, held down his light and look- 
ed at the damp stone floor, turned round with 
his light and looked about at the spotted and 
blotched walls. 



"Rats, cats, water, drains," said Jeremiah. 

Mistress Affery negatived each with a shake 
of her head. "No, Jeremiah; I have felt it 
before. I have felt it up stairs, and once on the 
stair-case as I was going from her room to ours 
in the night — a rustle and a sort of trembling 
touch behind me." 

"Affery, my woman," said Mr. Flintwinch, 
grimly, after advancing his nose to that lady's lips 
as a test for the detection of spirituous liquors, "if 
you don't get tea pretty quick, old woman, you'll 
become sensible of a rustle and a touch that'll 
send you flying to the other end of the kitchen." 

This prediction stimulated Mrs. Flintwinch to 
bestir herself, and to hasten up stairs to Mrs. 
Clennam's chamber. But, for all that, she now 
began to entertain a settled conviction that there 
was something wrong in the gloomy house. 
Henceforth she was never at peace in it after 
daylight departed, and never went up or down 
stairs in the dark without having her apron over 
her head, lest she should see something. 

What with these ghostly apprehensions and 
her singular dreams, Mrs. Flintwinch fell that 
evening into a haunted state of mind, from 
which it may be long before this present narra- 
tive descries any trace of her recovery. In the 
vagueness and indistinctness of all her new ex- 
periences and perceptions, as every thing about 
her was mysterious to herself, she began to be 
mvsterious to others, and became as difficult to 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



817 



be made out to any body's satisfaction, as she 
found the house and every thing in it difficult 
to make out to her own. 

She had not yet finished preparing Mrs. Clen- 
nam's tea when the soft knock came to the door 
which always announced Little Dorrit. Mis- 
tress AfFery looked on at Little Dorrit taking 
off her homely bonnet in the hall, and at Mr. 
Flintwinch scraping his jaws and contemplating 
her in silence, as expecting some wonderful con- 
sequence to ensue which would frighten her out 
of her five wits or blow them all three to pieces. 

After tea there came another knock at the 
door, announcing Arthur. Mistress AfFery went 
down to let him in, and he said on entering, 
u AfFery, I am glad it's you. I want to ask you 
a question." Aftery immediately replied, "For 
goodness' sake don't ask me nothing, Arthur! 
I am frightened out of one half of my life and 
dreamed out of the other. Don't ask me no- 
thing ! I don't know which is which or what is 
what!" And immediately started away from 
him and came near him no more. 

Mistress AfFery having no taste for reading, 
and no sufficient light for needlework in the sub- 
dued room, supposing her to have the inclina- 
tion, now sat every night in the dimness from 
which she had momentarily emerged on the 
evening of Arthur Clennam's return, occupied 
with crowds of wild speculations and suspicions 
respecting her mistress, and her husband, and 
the noises in the house. When the ferocious 
devotional exercises were engaged in, these spec- 
ulations would distract Mistress AfFery' s eyes 
toward the door, as if she expected some dark 
form to appear at those propitious moments, and 
make the party one too many. 

Otherwise AfFery never said or did any thing 
to attract the attention of the two clever ones 
toward her in any marked degree, except on 
certain occasions, generally at about the quiet 
hours toward bed-time, when she would sud- 
denly dart out of her dim corner, and whisper, 
with a face of terror, to Mr. Flintwinch reading 
the paper near Mrs. Clennam's little table : 

" There, Jeremiah ! Now ! What's that 
noise !" 

Then the noise, if there were any, would have 
ceased, and Mr. Flintwinch would snarl, turn- 
ing upon her as if she had cut him down that 
moment against his will, "AfFery, old woman, 
you shall have a dose, old woman, such a dose ! 
You have been dreaming again !" 



CHAPTER XVI.— NOBODY'S WEAKNESS. 
The time being come for the renewal of his 
acquaintance with the Meagles family, Clen- 
nam, pursuant to contract made between him- 
self and Mr. Meagles within the precincts of 
Bleeding Heart Yard, turned his face on a cer- 
tain Saturday toward Twickenham, where Mr. 
Meagles had a cottage-residence of his own. 
The weather being fine and dry, and any En- 
glish road abounding in interest for him who 
had been so long away, he sent his valise on by 



the coach, and set out to walk. A walk was in 
itself a new enjoyment to him, and one that had 
rarely diversified his life afar off. 

He went by Fulham and Putney, for the pleas- 
ure of strolling over the heath. It was bright 
and shining there, and when he found himself 
so far on his road to Twickenham, he found him- 
self a long way on his road to a number of airier 
and less substantial destinations. They had risen 
before him fast, in the healthful exercise and 
the pleasant road. It is not easy to walk alone 
in the country without musing upon something. 
And he had plenty of unsettled subjects to med- 
itate upon, though he had been walking to the 
Land's End. 

First, there was the subject seldom absent 
from his mind, the question what he was to do 
henceforth in life ; to what occupation he should 
devote himself, and in what direction he had 
best seek it. He was far from rich, and every 
day of indecision and inaction made his inher- 
itance a source of greater anxiety to him. As 
often as he began to consider how to increase 
this inheritance, or to lay it by, so often his mis- 
giving that there was some one with an unsat- 
isfied claim upon his justice, returned ; and that 
alone was a subject to outlast the longest walk. 
Again, there was the subject of his relations 
with his mother, which were now upon an equa- 
ble and peaceful but never confidential footing, 
and whom he saw several times a week. Little 
Dorrit was a leading and a constant subject; for 
the circumstances of his life, united to those of 
her own story, presented the little creature to 
him as the only person between whom and him- 
self there were ties of innocent reliance on one 
hand, and affectionate protection on the other : 
ties of compassion, respect, unselfish interest, 
gratitude, and pity. Thinking of her, and of 
the possibility of her father's release from prison 
by the unbarring hand of death — the only change 
of circumstance he could foresee that might en- 
able him to be such a friend to her as he wish- 
ed to be, by altering her whole manner of life, 
smoothing her rough road, and giving her a 
home — he regarded her, in that perspective, as 
his adopted daughter, his poor child of the Mar- 
shalsea hushed to rest. If there were a last sub- 
ject in his thoughts, and it lay toward Twicken- 
ham, its form was so indefinite that it was little 
more than the pervading atmosphere in which 
these other subjects floated before him. 

He had crossed the heath and was leaving it 
behind, when he gained upon a figure which 
had been in advance of him for some time, and 
which, as he gained upon it, he thought he 
knew. He derived this impression from some- 
thing in the turn of the head and in the figure's 
action of consideration as it went on at a suffi- 
ciently sturdy walk. But when the man — for it 
was a man's figure — pushed his hat up at the 
back of his head and stopped to consider some ob- 
ject before him, he knew it to be Daniel Doyce. 

"How do you do, Mr. Doyce?" said Clen- 
nam, overtaking him; "I am glad to see you 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



again, and in a healthier place than the Cir- 
cumlocution Office." 

" Ha ! Mr. Meagles's friend !" exclaimed that 
public criminal, coming out of some mental com- 
binations he had been making, and offering his 
hand. "I am glad to see you, Sir. Will you 
excuse me if I forget your name ?" 

"Readily. It's not a celebrated name. It's 
not Barnacle." 

"No, no," said Daniel, laughing. "And now 
I know what it is. It's Clennam. How do you 
do, Mr. Clennam?" 

"I have some hope," said Arthur, as they 
walked on together, " that we may be going to 
the same place, Mr. Doyce." 

"Meaning Twickenham?" returned Daniel. 
" I am glad to hear it." 

They were soon quite intimate, and lightened 
the way with a variety of conversation. The 
ingenious culprit was a man of great modesty 
and good sense ; and, though a plain man, had 
been too much accustomed to combine what was 
original and daring in conception with what was 
patient and minute in execution, to be by any 
means an ordinary man. It was at first diffi- 
cult to lead him to speak about himself, and he 
put off Arthur's advances in that direction by 
admitting slightly, oh yes, he had done this, and 
he had done that, and such a thing was of his 
making, and such another thing was his discov- 
ery, but it was his trade, you see, his trade ; 
until, as he gradually became assured that his 
companion had a real interest in his account of 
himself, he frankly yielded to it. Then it ap- 
peared that he was the son of a north-country 
blacksmith, and had originally been apprenticed 
by his widowed mother to a lock-maker; that 
he had " struck out a few little things" at the 
lock-maker's, which had led to his being released 
from his indentures with a present, which pres- 
ent had enabled him to gratify his ardent wish 
to bind himself to a working engineer, under 
whom he had labored hard, learnt hard, and 
lived hard, seven years. His time being out, he 
had "worked in the shop" at weekly wages sev- 
en or eight years more, and had then betaken 
himself to the banks of the Clyde, where he had 
studied, and filed, and hammered, and improved 
his knowledge, theoretical and practical, for six 
or seven years more. There he had had an 
offer to go to Lyons, which he had accepted; 
and from Lyons had been engaged to go to 
Germany, and in Germany had had an offer to 
go to St. Petersburg, and there had done very 
well indeed — never better. However, he had 
naturally felt a preference for his own country, 
and a wish to gain distinction there, and to do 
whatever service he could do there rather than 
elsewhere. And so he had come home. And 
so at home he had established himself in busi- 
ness, and had invented and executed, and worked 
his way on, until, after a dozen years of constant 
suit and attendance, he had been enrolled in the 
Great British Legion of Honor, the Legion of 
the Rebuffed of the Circumlocution Office, and 



had been decorated with the great British Or- 
der of Merit, the Order of the Disorder of the 
Barnacles and Stiltstalkings. 

"It is much to be regretted," said Clennam, 
"that you ever turned your thoughts that way, 
Mr. Doyce." 

"True, Sir, true to a certain extent. But 
what is a man to do ? If he has the misfortune 
to strike out something serviceable to the na- 
tion, he must follow where it leads him." 

" Hadn't he better let it go?" asked Clennam. 

"He can't do it," said Doyce, shaking his 
head with a thoughtful smile. "It's not put 
into his head to be buried. It's put into his 
head to be made useful. You hold your life on 
the condition that to the last you shall struggle 
hard for it. Every man holds a discovery on 
the same terms." 

" That is to say," said Arthur, with a grow- 
ing admiration of his quiet companion, "you 
are not finally discouraged even now?" 

"I have no right to be," returned the other, 
" if I am. The thing is as true as it ever was." 

When they had walked a little way in silence, 
Clennam, at once to change the direct point of 
their conversation and not to change it too ab- 
ruptly, asked Mr. Doyce if he had any partner 
in his business to relieve him of a portion of its 
anxieties ? 

"No," he returned, "not at present. I had 
when I first entered on it, and a good man he 
was. But he has been dead some years, and 
as I could not easily take to the notion of an- 
other when I lost him, I bought his share for 
myself, and have gone on by myself ever since. 
And here's another thing," he said, stopping for 
a moment with a good-humored laugh in his 
eyes, and laying his closed right hand, with its 
peculiar suppleness of thumb, on Clennam' s arm, 
"no inventor can be a man of business, you 
know." 

"No?" said Clennam. 

"Why, so the men of business say," he an- 
swered, resuming the walk and laughing out- 
right. "I don't know why we unfortunate creat- 
ures should be supposed to want common sense, 
but it is generally taken for granted that we do. 
Even the best friend I have in the world, our 
excellent friend over yonder," said Doyce, nod- 
ding toward Twickenham, "extends a sort of 
protection to me, don't you know, as a man not 
quite able to take care of himself?" 

Arthur Clennam could not help joining in the 
good-humored laugh, for he recognized the truth 
of the description. 

" So I find that I must have a partner who is 
a man of business and not guilty of any inven- 
tions," said Daniel Doyce, taking off his hat to 
pass his hand over his forehead, " if it's only in 
deference to the current opinion and to uphold 
the credit of the Works. I don't think he'll 
find that I have been very remiss or confused in 
my way of conducting them ; but that's for Lira 
to say — whoever he is — not for me." 

"You have not chosen him vet, then?" 



LITTLE DORPJT. 



819 



"No, Sir, no. I have only just come to a de- 
cision to take one. The fact is, there's more to 
do than there used to be, and the Works are 
enough for me as I grow older. What with the 
books and correspondence, and foreign journeys 
for which a Principal is necessary, I can't do 
all. I am going to talk over the best way of ne- 
gotiating the matter, if I find a spare half hour 
between this and Monday morning with my — 
my nurse and protector," said Doyce, with 
laughing eyes again. "He is a sagacious man 
in business, and has had a good apprenticeship 
to it." 

After this, they conversed on different subjects 
until they arrived at their journey's end. A 
composed and unobtrusive self-sustainment was 
noticeable in Daniel Doyce — a calm knowledge 
that what was true must remain true, in spite 
of all the Barnacles in the family ocean, and 
would be just the truth and neither more nor 
less when even that sea had run dry — which 
had a kind of greatness in it, though not of the 
official quality. 

As he knew the house well, he conducted 
Arthur to it by the way that showed it to the 
best advantage. It was a charming place (none 
the worse for being a little eccentric) on the road 
by the river, and just what the residence of the 
Meagles family ought to be. It stood in a gar- 
den, no doubt as fresh and beautiful in the May 
of the year as Pet now was in the May of her 
fife ; and it was defended by a goodly show of 
handsome trees and spreading evergreens, as 
Pet was by Mr. and Mrs. Meagles. It was made 
out of an old brick house, of which a part had 
been altogether pulled down, and another part 
had been changed into the present cottage ; so 
there was a hale elderly portion to represent Mr. 
and Mrs. Meagles, and a young picturesque, 
very pretty portion to represent Pet. There was 
even the later addition of a conservatory shel- 
tering itself against it, uncertain of hue in its 
deep-stained glass, and in its more transparent 
portions flashing to the sun's rays, now like fire 
and now like harmless water drops ; which might 
have stood for Tattycoram. Within view was 
the peaceful river and the ferry-boat, to moral- 
ize to all the inmates, saying: Young or old, 
passionate or tranquil, chafing or content, you, 
thus runs the current always. Let the heart 
swell into what discord it will, thus plays the 
rippling water on the prow of the ferry-boat ever 
the same tune. Year after year, so much al- 
lowance for the drifting of the boat, so many 
miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here 
the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or 
unquiet, upon this road that steadily runs away ; 
while you, upon your flowing road of time, are 
so capricious and distracted. 

The bell at the gate had scarcely sounded 
when Mr. Meagles came out to receive them. 
Mr. Meagles had scarcely come out, when Mrs. 
Meagles came out. Mrs. Meagles had scarce- 
ly come out, when Pet came out. Pet had 
scarcely come out, when Tattycoram came out. 



Never had visitors a more hospitable recep- 
tion. 

" Here we are, you see," said Mr Meagles, 
"boxed up, Mr. Clennam, within our own home- 
limits, as if we were never going to expand — 
that is, travel — again. Not like Marseilles, eh ? 
No allonging and marshonging here ?" 

"A different kind of beauty, indeed!" said 
Clennam, looking about him. 

"But, Lord bless me!" cried Mr. Meagles, 
rubbing his hands with a relish, "it was an un- 
commonly pleasant thing being in quarantine, 
wasn't it? Do you know, I have often wished 
myself back again ? We were a capital party." 

This was Mr. Meagles's invariable habit. Al- 
ways to object to every thing while he was trav- 
eling, and always to want to get back to it when 
he was not traveling. 

"If it was summer-time," said Mr. Meagles, 
"which I wish it was on your account, and in 
order that you might see the place at its best, 
you would hardly be able to hear yourself speak 
for birds. Being practical people, we never al- 
low any body to scare the birds ; and the birds, 
being practical people too, come about us in 
myriads. We are delighted to see you, Clen- 
nam (if you'll allow me, I shall drop the Mister) ; 
I heartily assure you, we are delighted." 

"I have not had so pleasant a greeting," said 
Clennam — then he recalled what Little Dorrit 
had said to him in his own room, and faithfully 
added, "except once — since we last walked to 
and fro, looking down at the Mediterranean." 

" Ah !" returned Mr. Meagles. " Something 
like a look out, that was, wasn't it? I don't 
want a military government, but I shouldn't 
mind a little allonging and marshonging — just 
a dash of it — in this neighborhood sometimes. 
It's Devilish still." 

Bestowing this eulogium on the retired char- 
acter of his retreat with a dubious shake of the 
head, Mr. Meagles led the way into the house. 
It was just large enough and no more ; was as 
pretty within as it was without, and was per- 
fectly well-arranged and comfortable. Some 
traces of the migratory habits of the family were 
to be observed in the covered frames and furni- 
ture, and wrapped-up hangings ; but it was easy 
to see that it was one of Mr. Meagles's whims 
to have the cottage always kept in their absence 
as if they were always coming back the day aft- 
er to-morrow. Of articles collected on his va- 
rious expeditions, there was such a vast miscel- 
lany that it was like the dwelling of an amiable 
Corsair. There were antiquities from Central 
Italy, made by the best modern houses in that 
department of industry; bits of mummy from 
Egypt (and perhaps Birmingham) ; model gon- 
dolas from Venice ; model villages from Switz- 
erland; morsels of tasselated pavement from 
Herculaneum and Pompeii, like petrified mineed 
veal ; ashes out of tombs, and lava out of Ve- 
suvius ; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, Moor- 
ish slippers, Tuscan hair-pins, Carrara sculpture, 
Trastaverini scarfs, Genoese velvets and filagree, 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva jew- 
elry, Arab lanterns, rosaries blest all round by 
the Pope himself, and an infinite variety of lum- 
ber. There were views, like and unlike, of a 
multitude of places; and there was one little 
picture-room devoted to a few of the regular 
sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, 
hair like Neptune's, wrinkles like tattooing, and 
such coats of varnish that every holy personage 
served for a fly-trap, and became what is now 
called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. 
Of these pictorial acquisitions Mr. Meagles spoke 
in the usual manner. He was no judge, he said, 
except of what pleased himself; he had picked 
them up, dirt-cheap, and people had considered 
them rather fine. One man, who at any rate 
ought to know something of the subject, had de- 
clared that Sage, Reading (a specially oily old 
gentleman in a blanket, with a swan's-down tip- 
pet for a beard, and a pattern of cracks all over 
him like rich pie-crust), to be a fine Guercino. 
As for Sebastian del Piombo there, you would 
judge for yourself ; if it were not his later man- 
ner, the question was, Who was it? Titian, 
that might or might not be — perhaps he had 
only touched it. Daniel Doyce said perhaps he 
hadn't touched it, but Mr. Meagles rather de- 
clined to overhear the remark. 

When he had shown all his spoils, Mr. Meagles 
took them into his own snug room overlooking 
the lawn, which was fitted up in part like a dress- 
ing-room and in part like an office, and in which, 
upon a kind of counter-desk, were a pair of brass 
scales for weighing gold, and a scoop for shovel- 
ing out money. 

"Here they are, you see," said Mr. Meagles. 
"I stood behind these two articles five-and-thir- 
ty years running, when I no more thought of 
gadding about than I now think of — staying at 
home. When I left the Bank for good, I asked 
for them, and brought them away with me. I 
mention it at once, or you might suppose that I 
sit in my counting-house (as Pet says I do) like 
the king in the poem of the four-and- twenty 
black birds counting out my money." 

" Clennam' s eyes had strayed to a natural 
picture on the wall of two pretty little girls with 
their arms entwined. "Yes, Clennam," said 
Mr. Meagles, in a lower voice, " there they 
both are. It was taken some seventeen years 
ago. As I often say to Mother, they were ba- 
bies then." 

" Their names ?" said Arthur. 

" Ah, to be sure ! You have never heard any 
name but Pet. Pet's name is Minnie ; her sis- 
ter's, Lillie." 

"Should you have known, Mr. Clennam, that 
one of them was meant for me ?" asked Pet her- 
self, now standing in the doorway. 

" I might have thought that both of them were 
meant for you, both are still so like you. In- 
deed," said Clennam, glancing from the fair 
original to the picture and back, " I can not even 
now say which is not your portrait." 

" D'ye hear that, Mother?" cried Mr. Meagles 



to his wife, who had followed her daughter. 
"It's always the same, Clennam; nobody can 
decide. The child to your left is Pet." 

The picture happened to be near a looking- 
glass. As Arthur looked at it again, he saw, 
by the reflection of the mirror, Tattycoram stop 
in passing outside the door, listen to what was 
going on, and pass away with an angry and con- 
temptuous frown upon her face that changed its 
beauty into ugliness. 

"But come!" said Mr. Meagles. "You have 
had a long walk, and will be glad to get your 
boots off. As to Daniel here, I suppose he'd 
never think of taking his boots off, unless we 
showed him a boot-jack." 

"Why not?" asked Daniel, with a significant 
smile at Clennam. 

"Oh! You have so many things to think 
about," returned Mr. Meagles, clapping him on 
the shoulder, as if his weakness must not be left 
to itself on any account. "Figures, and wheels, 
and cogs, and levers, and screws, and cylinders, 
and a thousand things." 

"In my calling," said Daniel, amused, "the 
greater usually includes the less. But never 
mind, never mind! Whatever pleases you, 
pleases me." 

Clennam could not help speculating, as he 
seated himself in his room by the fire, whether 
there might be in the breast of this honest, af- 
fectionate, and cordial Mr. Meagles, any micro- 
scopic portion of the mustard-seed that had 
sprung up into the great tree of the Circumlo- 
cution Office. His curious sense of a general 
superiority to Daniel Doyce, which seemed to 
be founded, not so much on any thing in Doyce's 
personal character, as on the mere fact of his 
being an originator and a man out of the beat- 
en track of other men, suggested the idea. It 
might have occupied him until he went down 
to dinner an hour afterward, if he had not had 
another question to consider, which had been in 
his mind so long ago as before he was in quar- 
antine at Marseilles, and which had now return- 
ed to it, and was very urgent with it. No less 
a question than this : Whether he should allow 
himself to-fall in love with Pet ? 

He was twice her age. (He changed the leg 
he had crossed over the other, and tried the 
calculation again, but could not bring out the 
total at less.) He was twice her age. Well! 
He was young in appearance, young in health 
and strength, young in heart. A man was cer- 
tainly not old at forty, and many men were not 
in circumstances to marry, or did not marry, 
until they attained that time of life. On the 
other hand, the question was, not what he 
thought of the point, but what she thought of it. 
He believed that Mr. Meagles was disposed 
to entertain a ripe regard for him, and he knew 
that he had a sincere regard for Mr. Meagles 
and his good wife. He could foresee that to re- 
linquish this beautiful only child, of whom they 
were so fond, to any husband, would be a triaJ 
of their love, which perhaps they never yet had 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



821 



had the fortitude to contemplate. But the more 
beautiful, and winning, and charming she, the 
nearer they must always be to the necessity of 
approaching it. And why not in his favor as 
well as in another's ? 

When he had got so far, it came again into 
his head, that the question was, not what they 
thought of it, but what she thought of it. 

Arthur Clennam was a retiring man, with a 
sense of many deficiencies ; and he so exalted 
the merits of the beautiful Minnie in his mind 
and depressed his own, that when he pinned 
himself to this point, his hopes began to fail 
him. He came to the final resolution, as he 
made himself ready for dinner, that he would 
not allow himself to fall in love with Pet. 

They were only five, at a round table, and it 
was very pleasant indeed. They had so many 
places and people to recall, and they were all so 
easy and cheerful together (Daniel Doyce either 
sitting out like an amused spectator at cards, or 
coming in with some shrewd little experiences 
of his own, when it happened to be to the pur- 
pose), that they might have been together twen- 
ty times and not have known so much of one 
another. 

"And Miss Wade," said Mr. Meagles, after 
they had recalled a number of fellow-travelers. 
" Has any body seen Miss Wade ?" 

"I have," said Tattycoram. 

She had brought a little mantle, which her 
young mistress had sent for, and was bending 
over her, putting it on, when she lifted up her 
dark eyes, and made this unexpected answer. 

"Tatty!" her young mistress exclaimed, "You 
seen Miss Wade ? — where ?" 

" Here, Miss," said Tattycoram. 

"How?" 

An impatient glance from Tattycoram seemed, 
as Clennam saw it, to answer " With my eyes !" 
But her only answer in words was : "I met her 
near the church." 

" What was she doing there I wonder !" said 
Mr. Meagles. " Not going to it, I should think." 

"She had written to me first," said Tatty- 
ccra-m. 

" Oh, Tatty !" murmured her mistress, " take 
your hands away. I feel as if some one else 
was touching me !" 

She said it in a quick, involuntary way, but 
half playfully, and not more petulantly or disa- 
greeably than a favorite child might have done, 
who laughed next moment. Tattycoram set her 
full red lips together, and crossed her arms upon 
her bosom. 

"Did you wish to know, Sir," she said, look- 
ing at Mr. Meagles, "what Miss Wade wrote to 
me about?" 

"Well, Tattycoram," returned Mr. Meagles, 
"since you ask the question, and we are all friends 
here, perhaps you may as well mention it, if you 
are so inclined." 

"She knew when we were traveling where 
you lived," said Tattycoram, " and she had seen 
me not quite — not quite — " 



"Not quite in a good temper, Tattycoram?'' 
suggested Mr. Meagles, shaking his head with a 
quiet caution at the dark eyes. "Take a little 
time — count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram." 

She pressed her lips together again, and took 
a long, deep breath. 

" So she wrote to me to say that if I ever felt 
myself hurt," she looked down at her young mis- 
tress, "or found myself worried," she looked 
down at her again, "I might go to her, and be 
considerately treated. I was to think of it, and 
could speak to her by the church. So I went 
there to thank her." 

"Tatty," said her young mistress, putting her 
hand up over her shoulder that the other might 
take it, " Miss Wade almost frightened me when 
we parted, and I scarcely liked to think of her 
just now as having been so near me without my 
knowing it. Tatty, dear!" 

Tatty stood for a moment, immovable. 

"Hey?" cried Mr. Meagles. " Count another 
five-and-twenty, Tattycoram." 

She might have counted a dozen, when she 
bent and put her lips to the caressing hand. It 
patted her cheek, as it touched the owner's 
beautiful curls, and Tattycoram went away. 

"Now, there," said Mr. Meagles, softly, as he 
gave a turn to the dumb-waiter on his right hand, 
to turn the sugar to himself. "There's a girl 
who might be lost and ruined if she wasn't among 
practical people. Mother and I know, solely 
from being practical, that there are times when 
that girl's whole nature seems to roughen itself 
against seeing us so bound up in Pet. No fa- 
ther and mother were bound up in her, poor 
soul. I don't like to think of the way in which 
that unfortunate child, with all that passion and 
protest in her, feels when she hears the Fifth 
Commandment on a Sunday. I am always in- 
clined to call out, at that time, Count five-and- 
twenty, Tattycoram." 

Besides his dumb-waiter, Mr. Meagles had 
two other not dumb waiters, in the persons of 
two parlor-maids, with rosy faces and bright eyes, 
who were a highly ornamental part of the table 
decoration. "And why not, you see?" said 
Mr. Meagles, on this head. "As I always say 
to Mother, why not have something pretty to 
look at, if you have any thing at all?" 

A certain Mrs. Tickit, who was Cook and 
Housekeeper when the family were at home, 
and Housekeeper only when the family were 
away, completed the establishment. Mr. Mea- 
gles regretted that the nature of the duties in 
which she was engaged rendered Mrs. Tickit. 
unpresentable at present, but hoped to introduce 
her to the new visitor to-morrow. She was an 
important part of the cottage, he said, and all 
his friends knew her. That was her picture up 
in the corner. When they went away, she al- 
ways put on the silk gown and the jet-black row 
of curls represented in that portrait (her hair 
was reddish-gray in the kitchen), established her- 
self in the breakfast-room, put her spectacles be- 
tween two particular leaves of Dr. Buchan's Do^ 



822 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



mestic Medicine, and sat looking over the blind 
all day until they came back again. It was sup- 
posed that no persuasion could be invented which 
would induce Mrs. Tickit to abandon her post at 
the blind, however long their absence, or to dis- 
pense with the attendance of Dr. Buchan : the 
lucubrations of which learned practitioner Mr. 
Meagles implicitly believed she had never yet 
consulted to the extent of one word in her life. 

In the evening they played an old-fashioned 
rubber, and Pet sat looking over her father's 
hand, or singing to herself by fits and starts at 
the piano. She was a spoilt child; but how 
could she be otherwise? "Who could be much 
with so pliable and beautiful a creature, and not 
yield to her endearing influence? Who could 
pass an evening in the house, and not love her 
for the grace and charm of her very presence 
in the room? This was Clennam's reflection, 
notwithstanding the final conclusion at which 
he had arrived up stairs. 

In making it, he revoked. "Why, what are 
you thinking of, my good Sir?" asked the as- 
tonished Mr. Meagles, who was his partner. "I 
beg your pardon. Nothing," returned Clennam. 
"Think of something next time; that's a dear 
fellow," said Mr. Meagles. Pet laughingly be- 
lieved he had been thinking of Miss Wade. 
"Why of Miss Wade, Pet?" asked her father. 
" Why, indeed !" said Arthur Clennam. Pet 
colored a little, and went to the piano again. 

As fhey broke up for the night, Arthur over- 
heard Doyce ask his host if he could give him 
half-an-hour's conversation before breakfast in 
the morning? The host replying willingly, Ar- 
thur lingered behind a moment, having his own 
word to add on that topic. 

" Mr. Meagles," he said, on their being left 
alone, "do you remember when you advised me 
to go straight to London ?" 

" Perfectly well." 

"And when you gave me some other good 
advice, which I needed at that time ?" 

" I won't say what it was worth," answered 
Mr. Meagles; "but, of course, I remember our 
being very pleasant and confidential together." 

" I have acted on your advice, and having 
disembarrassed myself of an occupation that 
was painful to me for many reasons, wish to 
devote myself and what means I have to anoth- 
er pursuit." 

" Right ! You can't do it too soon," said Mr. 
Meagles. 

"Now, as I came down to-day, I found that 
your friend, Mr. Doyce, is looking for a partner 
in his business — not a partner in his mechanical 
knowledge, but in the ways and means of turn- 
ing the business arising from it to the best ac- 
count." 

"Just so," said Mr. Meagles, with his hands 
in his pockets, and with the old business expres- 
sion of face that had belonged to the scales and 
scoop. 

"Mr. Doyce mentioned incidentally, in the 
course of our conversation, that he was going 



to take your valuable advice on the subject of 
finding such a partner. If you should think our 
views and opportunities at all likely to coincide, 
perhaps you will let him know my available po- 
sition. I speak, of course, in ignorance of the 
details, and they may be unsuitable on both 
sides." 

"No doubt, no doubt," said Mr. Meagles, 
with the caution belonging to the scales and 
scoop. 

"But they will be a question of figures and 
accounts — " 

"Just so, just so," said Mr. Meagles, with the 
arithmetical solidity belonging to the scales and 
scoop. 

" — And I shall be glad to enter into the sub- 
ject, provided Mr. Doyce responds, and you 
think well of it. If you will at present, there- 
fore, allow me to place it in your hands, you will 
much oblige me." 

" Clennam, I accept the trust with readiness," 
said Mr. Meagles. "And, without anticipating 
any of the points which you, as a man of busi- 
ness, have of course reserved, I am free to say 
to you that I think something may come of this. 
Of one thing you may be perfectly certain. 
Daniel is an honest man." 

"I am so sure of it, that I have promptly 
made up my mind to speak to you." 

"You must guide him, you know; you must 
steer him ; you must direct him ; he is one of a 
crotchety sort," said Mr. Meagles, evidently 
meaning nothing more than that he did new 
things and went new ways; "but he is as hon- 
est as the sun, and so good-night !" 

Clennam went back to his room, sat down 
again before his fire, and made up his mind that 
he was glad he had resolved not to fall in love 
with Pet. She was so beautiful, so amiable, so 
apt to receive any true impression given to her 
gentle nature and her innocent heart, and make 
the man who should be so happy as to communi- 
cate it, the most fortunate and enviable of all 
men, that he was very glad indeed he had come 
to that conclusion. 

But as this might have been a reason for com- 
ing to the opposite conclusion, he followed out 
the theme again a little way in his mind. To 
justify himself, perhaps. 

" Suppose that a man," so his thoughts ran, 
" who had been of age some twenty years or so ; 
who was a diffident man from the circumstances 
of his youth ; who was rather a grave man from 
the tenor of his life ; who knew himself to be de- 
ficient in many little engaging qualities which 
he admired in others, from having been long in 
a distant region, with nothing softening near 
him ; who had no kind sisters to present to her; 
who had no congenial home to make her known 
in ; who was a stranger in the land ; who had 
not a fortune to compensate in any measure for 
these defects ; who had nothing in his favor but 
his honest love and his general wish to do right 
— suppose such a man were to come to this 
house, and were to yield to the captivation of 



LITTLE DOPJUT. 



823 



this charming girl, and were to persuade him- 
self that he could hope to win her; what a 
weakness it would be !" 

lie softly opened his window, and looked out 
upon the serene river. Year after year so much 
allowance for the drifting of the ferry-boat, so 
many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, 
here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncer- 
tain or unquiet. 

Why should he be vexed or sore at heart? 
It was not his weakness that he had imagined. 
It was nobody's, nobody's within his knowledge, 
why should it trouble him? And yet it did 
trouble him. And he thought — who has not 
thought for a moment, sometimes — that it might 
be better to flow away monotonously, like the 
river, and to compound for its insensibility to 
happiness with its insensibility to pain. 



CHAPTER XVII.— NOBODY'S RIVAL. 

Before breakfast in the morning, Arthur 
walked out to look about him. As the morning 
was fine, and he had an hour on his hands, he 
crossed the river by the ferry, and strolled along 
a footpath through some meadows. When he 
came back to the towing-path, he found the ferry- 
boat on the opposite side, and a gentleman hail- 
ing it and waiting to be taken over. 

This gentleman looked barely thirty. He was 
well dressed, of a sprightly and gay appearance, 
a well-knit figure, and a rich dark complexion. 
As Arthur came over the stile and down to the 
water's edge, the lounger glanced at him for a 
moment, and then resumed his occupation of 
idly tossing stones into the water with his foot. 

There was something in his way of spurning 
them out of their places with his heel and get- 
ting them into the required position that Clen- 
nam thought had an air of cruelty in it. Most 
of us have more or less frequently derived a 
similar impression from a man's manner of do- 
ing some very little thing: plucking a flower, 
clearing away an obstacle, or even destroying 
an insentient object. 

The gentleman's thoughts were preoccupied, 
as his face showed, and he took no notice of a 
fine Newfoundland dog, who watched him at- 
tentively, and watched every stone too, in its 
turn, eager to spring into the river on receiving 
his master's sign. The ferry-boat came over, 
however, without his receiving any sign, and 
when it grounded his master took him by the 
collar and walked him into it. 

"Not this morning," he said to the dog. 
"You won't do for ladies' company, dripping 
wet. Lie down." 

Clennam followed the man and the dog into 
the boat, and took his seat. The dog did as he 
was ordered. The man remained standing, with 
his hands in his pockets, and towered between 
Clennam and the prospect. Man and dog both 
jumped lightly out as soon as they touched the 
other side, and went away. Clennam was glad 
to be rid of them. 

The church clock struck the breakfast hour 



as he walked up the little lane by which the 
garden-gate was approached. The moment he 
pulled the bell a deep loud barking assailed him 
from within the wall. 

"I heard no dog last night,'' thought Clen- 
nam. The gate was opened by one of the rosy 
maids, and on the lawn were the Newfoundland 
dog and the man. 

"Miss Minnie is not down yet, gentlemen," 
said the blushing portress as they all came to- 
gether in the garden. Then she said to the 
master of the dog, "Mr. Clennam, Sir," and 
tripped away. 

" Odd enough, Mr. Clennam, that we should 
have met just now," said the man. Upon which 
the dog became mute. "Allow me to introduce 
myself — Henry Gowan — a pretty place this, and 
looks wonderfully well this morning!" 

The manner was easy, and the voice agree- 
able ; but still Clennam thought that if he had 
not made that decided resolution to avoid fall- 
ing in love with Pet, he would have taken a dis- 
like to this Henry Gowan. 

" It's new to you, I believe ?" said this Gowan, 
when Arthur had extolled the place. 

" Quite new. I made acquaintance with it 
only yesterday afternoon." 

"Ah! Of course this is not its best aspect. 
It used to look charming in the spring before 
they went away last time. I should like you to 
have seen it then." 

But for that resolution so often recalled, Clen- 
nam might have wished him in the crater of 
Mount Etna, in return for this civility. 

"I have had the pleasure of seeing it under 
many circumstances during the last three years, 
and it's — a Paradise." 

It was (at least it might have been, always 
excepting for that wise resolution) like his dex- 
terous impudence to call it a Paradise. He only 
called it a Paradise because he first saw her 
coming, and so made her out within her hear- 
ing to be an angel, Confusion to him ! 

And ah, how beaming she looked, and how 
glad! How she caressed the dog, and how the 
dog knew her! How expressive that height- 
ened color in her face, that fluttered manner, 
her downcast eyes, her irresolute happiness! 
When had Clennam seen her look like this? 
Not that there was any reason why he might, 
could, would, or should have ever seen her look 
like this, or that he had ever hoped for himself 
to see her look like this ; but still — when had 
he ever known her do it ! 

He stood at a little distance from them. This 
Gowan, when he had talked about a Paradise, 
had gone up to her and taken her hand. The 
dog had put his great paws on her arm, and 
laid his head against her dear bosom. She 
had laughed and welcomed them, and made far 
too much of the dog, far, far too much — that 
is to say, supposing there had been any third 
person looking on who loved her. 

She disengaged herself now, and came to 
Clennam, and put her hand in his and wished 



824 



HAKPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 




him good-morning, and gracefully made as if 
she would take his arm and be escorted into 
the house. This Gowan had no objection. No, 
he knew he was too safe. 

There was a passing cloud on Mr. Meagles's 
good-humored face when they all three (four, 
counting the dog, and he was the most objec- 
tionable but one of the party) came in to break- 
fast. Neither it nor the touch of uneasiness on 



Mrs. Meagles, as she directed her eyes toward 
it, was unobserved by Clennam. 

"Well, Gowan," said Mr. Meagles, even sup- 
pressing a sigh, "How goes the world with you 
this morning?" 

" Much as usual, Sir. Lion and I being de- 
termined not to waste any thing of our weekly 
visit turned out early, and came over from 
Kingston, my present head-quarters, where I 



LITTLE DOREIT. 



825 



am making a sketch or two." Then he told 
how he had met Mr. Clennam at the ferry, and 
they had come over together. 

"Mrs. Gowan is well, Henry?" said Mrs. 
Meagles. (Clennam became attentive.) 

" My mother is quite well, thank you." (Clen- 
nam became inattentive.) " I have taken the 
liberty of making an addition to your family 
dinner-party to-day, which I hope will not be 
inconvenient to you or to Mr. Meagles. I 
couldn't very well get out of it," he explained, 
turning to the latter. " The young fellow wrote 
to propose himself to me ; and as he is well con- 
nected, I thought you would not object to my 
transferring him here." 

" Who is the young fellow ?" asked Mr. Mea- 
gles, with peculiar complacency. 

" He is one of the Barnacles. Tite Barnacle's 
son, Clarence Barnacle, who is in his father's 
Department. I can at least guarantee on his 
behalf that the river shall not suffer from his 
visit. He won't set it on fire." 

"Ay, ay?" said Meagles. A Barnacle is 
he ? We know something of that family, eh 
Dan By George, they are at the top of the 
tree, though ! Lee me see. What relation will 
this young fellow be to Lord Decimus now? 
His Lordship married, in seventeen ninety- 
seven, Lady Jemima Bilberry, who was the 
second daughter by the third marriage — no! 
There I am wrong ! That was Lady Seraphi- 
na — Lady Jemima was the first daughter by 
the second marriage of the fifteenth Earl of 
Stiltstalking with the Honorable Clementina 
Toozellem. Very well. Now this young fel- 
low's father married a Stiltstalking, and his fa- 
ther married his cousin four times removed, 
who was a Barnacle. The father of that father 
who married a Barnacle, married a Joddleby. 
— I am getting a little too far back, Gowan ; I 
want to make out what relation this young fel- 
low is to Lord Decimus." 

"That's easily stated. His father is nephew 
to Lord Decimus." 

"Nephew — to — Lord — Decimus," Mr. Mea- 
gles luxuriously repeated, with his eyes shut, 
that he might have nothing to distract him from 
the full flavor of the genealogical tree. "By 
George, you are right, Gowan ! So he is." 

"Consequently, Lord Decimus is his great- 
uncle." 

"But stop a bit!" said Mr. Meagles, opening 
his eyes with a fresh discovery. "Then, on the 
mother's side, Lady Stiltstalking is his great- 
aunt." 

" Of course she is." 

" Ay, ay, ay ?" said Mr. Meagles, with much 
interest. "Indeed, indeed? We shall be glad 
to see him. We'll entertain him as well as we 
can in our humble way, and we shall not starve 
him, I hope, at all events." 

In the beginning of this dialogue Clennam 
had expected some great harmless outburst from 
Mr. Meagles, like that which had made him 
burst out of the Circumlocution Office, holding 



Doyce by the collar. But his good friend had a 
weakness which none of us need go into the next 
street to find, and which no amour t of Circum- 
locution experience could long sibdue in him. 
Clennam looked at Doyce, but Doyce knew all 
about it beforehand, and looked at his plate, 
and made no sign, and said no word. 

"I am much obliged to you," said Gowan, to 
conclude the subject. " Clarence is a great ass, 
but he is one of the dearest and best fellows that 
ever lived !" 

It appeared before the breakfast was over that 
every body whom this Gowan knew was either 
more or less of an ass, or more or less of a 
knave ; but was notwithstanding the most love- 
able, the most engaging, the simplest, truest, 
kindest, dearest, best fellow that ever lived. The 
process by which this unvarying result was at- 
tained, whatever the premises, might have been 
stated by Mr. Henry Gowan thus: "I claim to 
be always book-keeping, with a peculiar nicety, 
in every man's case, and posting up a careful 
little account of Good and Evil with him. I do 
this so conscientiously, that I am happy to tell 
you I find the most worthless of men to be the 
dearest old fellow too ; and am in a condition to 
make the gratifying report that there is much 
less difference than you are inclined to suppose 
between an honest man and a scoundrel." The 
effect of this cheering discovery happened to be, . 
that while he seemed to be scrupulously finding 
good in most men, he did in reality lower it 
where it was, and set it up where it was not ; 
but that was its only disagreeable or danger- 
ous feature. 

It scarcely seemed, however, to afford Mr. 
Meagles as much satisfaction as the Barnacle 
genealogy had done. The cloud that Clennam 
had never seen upon his face before that morn- 
ing, frequently overcast it again, and there was 
the same shadow of uneasy observation of him 
on the comely face of his wife. More than once 
or twice when Pet caressed the dog, it appeared 
to Clennam that her father was unhappy in see- 
ing her do it ; and in one particular instance, 
when Gowan stood on the other side of the dog, 
and bent his head at the same time, Arthur fan- 
cied that he saw tears rise to Mr. Meagles's eyes 
as he hurried out of the room. It was either 
the fact, too, or he fancied, farther, that Pet her- 
self was not insensible to these little incidents ; 
that she tried with a more delicate affection than 
usual to express to her good father how much 
she loved him ; that it was on this account that 
she fell behind the rest, both as they went to 
church and as they returned from it, and took 
his arm. He could not have sworn but that as 
he walked alone in the garden afterward, he had 
an instantaneous glimpse of her in her fathers 
room, clinging to both her parents with the 
greatest tenderness, and weeping on her father's 
shoulder. 

The latter part of the day turning out wet, 
they were fain to keep the house, look over Mr. 
Meagles's collection, and beguile the time with 



82G 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



conversation. This Gowan had plenty to say for 
himself, and said it in an off-hand and amusing 
manner. He appeared to be an artist by pro- 
fession, and to have been at Rome some time ; 
yet he had a slight, careless, amateur way with 
him — a perceptible limp, both in his devotion to 
art and his attainments — which Clennam could 
scarcely understand. 

He applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they 
6tood together, looking out of window. 

"You know Mr. Gowan?" he said, in a low 
voice. 

" I have seen him here. Comes here every 
Sunday when they are at home." 

"An artist, I infer from what he says?" 

" A sort of a one," said Daniel Doyce, in a 
surly tone. 

" What sort of a one ?" asked Clennam, with 
a smile. 

"Why, he has sauntered into the Arts at a 
leisurely Pali-Mall pace," said Doyce, "and I 
doubt if they care to be taken quite so coolly." 

Pursuing his inquiries, Clennam found that 
the Gowan family were a very distant ramifica- 
tion of the Barnacles; and that the paternal 
Gowan, originally attached to a legation abroad, 
had been pensioned off as a Commissioner of 
nothing particular somewhere or other, and had 
died at his post with his drawn salary in his 
hand, nobly defending it to the last extremity. 
In consideration of this eminent public service, 
the Barnacle then in power had recommended 
the Crown to bestow a pension of two or three 
hundred a year on his widow, to which the next 
Barnacle in power had added certain shady and 
sedate apartments in the Palace at Hampton 
Court, where the old lady still lived, deploring 
the degeneracy of the times, in company with 
several other old ladies of both sexes. Her son, 
Mr. Henry Gowan, inheriting from his father, 
the Commissioner, that very questionable help 
in life, a very small independence, had been diffi- 
cult to settle ; the rather as public appointments 
chanced to be scarce, and his genius during his 
earlier manhood was of that exclusively agricul- 
tural character which applies itself to the cultiva- 
tion of wild oats. At last he had declared that he 
would become a Painter ; partly because he had 
always had an idle knack that way, and partly 
to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief who 
had not provided for him. So it had come to 
pass successively, first, that several distinguished 
ladies had been frightfully shocked ; then, that 
portfolios of his performances had been handed 
about o' nights, and declared with ecstasy to be 
perfect Claudes, perfect Cuyps, perfect phenome- 
na ; then, that Lord Decimus had bought his 
picture, and had asked the President and Coun- 
cil to dinner at one blow, and had said, with his 
own magnificent gravity, "Do you know, there 
appears to me to be really immense merit in 
that work?" and, in short, that people of condi- 
tion had absolutely taken pains to bring him into 
fashion. But, somehow, it had all failed. The 
prejudiced public had stood out against it ob- 



stinately. They had determined not to admire 
Lord Decimus's picture. They had determined 
to believe that in every service, except their 
own, a man must qualify himself, by striving 
early and late, and by working heart and soul, 
might and main. So now Mr. Gowan, like that 
worn-out old coffin which never was Moham- 
med's nor any body else's, hung mid-way be- 
tween two points : jaundiced and jealous as to 
the one he had left : jaundiced and jealous as to 
the other that he couldn't reach. 

Such was the substance of Clennam's discov- 
eries concerning him, made that rainy Sunday 
afternoon and afterw r ard. 

About an hour or so after dinner time, Young 
Barnacle appeared, attended by his eye-glass ; 
in honor of whose family connections Mr. Mea- 
gles had cashiered the pretty parlor-maids for 
the day and placed on duty in their stead two 
dingy men. Young Barnacle was in the last de- 
gree amazed and disconcerted at sight of Arthur, 
and had murmured involuntarily, "Look here! 
Upon my soul, you know!" before his presence 
of mind returned. 

Even then, he was obliged to embrace the 
earliest opportunity of taking his friend into a 
window, and saying, in a nasal way that was a 
part of his general debility : 

"I want to speak to you, Gowan. I say. 
Look here. Who is that fellow ?" 

" A friend of our host's. None of mine." 

"He's a most ferocious Radical, you know," 
said Young Barnacle. 

' ' Is he ? How do you know ?" 

"Egod, Sir, he was Pitching into our people 
the other day in the most tremendous manner. 
Went up to our place and Pitched into my fa- 
ther to that extent that it was necessary to order 
him out. Came back to our department and 
Pitched into me. Look here. You never saw 
such a fellow." 

"What did he want?" 

"Egod, Sir," returned Young Barnacle, "he 
said he wanted to know, you know ! Pervaded 
our department — without an appointment — and 
said he wanted to know !" 

The stare of indignant wonder with which 
Young Barnacle accompanied this disclosure 
would have strained his eyes injuriously but for 
the opportune relief of dinner. Mr. Meagles 
(who had been extremely solicitous to know how 
his uncle and aunt were) begged him to conduct 
Mrs. Meagles to the dining-room. And when 
he sat on Mrs. Meagle's right hand, Mr. Mea- 
gles looked as gratified as if his whole family 
were there. 

All the natural charm of the previous day 
was gone. The eaters of the dinner, like the 
dinner itself, were lukewarm, insipid, over-done 
— and all owing to this poor little dull Young 
Barnacle. Conversationless at any time, he was 
now the victim of a weakness special to the oc- 
casion and solely referable to Clennam. He 
was under a pressing and continual necessity of 
looking at that gentleman, which occasioned his 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



827 



eye-glass to get into his soup, into his wine-glass, 
into Mrs. Meagles's plate, to hang down his back 
like a bell-rope, and be several times disgrace- 
fully restored to his bosom by one of the dingy 
men. Weakened in mind by his frequent losses 
of this instrument and its determination not to 
stick in his eye, and more and more enfeebled 
in intellect every time he looked at the mysteri- 
ous Clennam, he applied spoons to his eye, forks, 
and other foreign matters connected with the 
furniture of the dinner-table. His discovery of 
these mistakes greatly increased his difficulties, 
but never released him from the necessity of 
looking at Clennam. And whenever Clennam 
spoke, this ill-starred young man was clearly 
seized with a dread that he was coming, by 
some artful device, round to that point of want- 
ing to know, you know. 

It may be questioned, therefore, whether any 
one but Mr. Meagles had much enjoyment of 
the time. Mr. Meagles, however, thoroughly 
enjoyed Young Barnacle. As a mere flask of 
the golden water in the tale became a full fount- 
ain when it was poured out, so Mr. Meagles 
seemed to feel that this small spice of Barnacle 
imparted to his table the flavor of the whole 
family tree. In its presence his frank, fine 
genuine qualities paled; he was not so easy, he 
was not so natural, he was striving after some- 
thing that did not belong to him, he was not 
himself. What a strange necui'arity on the 
part of Mr. Meagles, and where should we find 
such another case ! 

At last the wet Sunday wore itself out in a 
wet night ; and Young Barnacle went home in 
a cab, feebly smoking; and the objectionable 
Gowan went away on foot, accompanied by the 
objectionable dog. Pet had taken the most 
amiable pains all day to be friendly with Clen- 
nam, but Clennam had been a little reserved 
since breakfast — that is to say, would have been 
ii' he had loved her. 

When he had gone to his own room and had 
apr.in thrown himself into the chair by the fire, 
Mr. Doyce knocked at the door, candle in hand, 
to ask him how and at what hour he purposed 
returning on the morrow? After settling this 
question he said a word to Mr. Doyce about 
this Gowan — who would have run in his head a 
good deal, if he had been his rival. 

"Those are not good prospects for a painter," 
said Clennam. 

"No," returned Doyce. 

Mr. Doyce stood, chamber- candlestick in 
hand, the other hand in his pocket, looking 
hard at the wick of his candle, with a certain 
quiet perception in his face that they were go- 
ing to say something more. 

"I thought our good friend a little changed 
and out of spirits after he came this morning?" 
said Clennam. 

"Yes," returned Doyce. 

"But not his daughter?" said Clennam. 

"No," said Doyce. 

There was a pause on both sides. Mr. Doyce, 



still looking fixedly at his candle, leisurely re- 
sumed : 

"The truth is, he has twice taken his daugh- 
ter abroad, in the hope of separating her from 
Mr. Gowan. He rather thinks she is disposed 
to like him, and he has painful doubts (I quite 
agree with him, as I dare say you do) of the 
hopefulness of such a marriage." 

"There — " Clennam choked, and coughed, 
and stopped. 

" Yes, you have taken cold," said Daniel 
Doyce.' But without looking at him. 

— "Thfere is an engagement between them, 
of course ?" said Clennam, airily. 

"No. As I am told, certainly not. It has 
been solicited on the gentleman's part, but none 
has been made. Since their recent return, our 
friend has yielded to a weekly visit, but that is 
the utmost. Minnie would not deceive her fa- 
ther and mother. You have traveled with them, 
and I believe you know what a bond there is 
among them, extending even beyond this pres- 
ent life. All that there is between Miss Minnie 
and Mr. Gowan I have no doubt we see." 

"Ah! We see enough !" cried Arthur. 

Mr. Doyce wished him good-night, in the 
tone of a man who had heard a mournful, not 
to say despairing, exclamation, and who sought 
to infuse some encouragement and hope into 
the mind of the person by whom it had been ut- 
tered. Such tone was probably a part of his od- 
dity as one of a crotchety band, for how could 
he have heard any thing of that kind without 
Clennam' s hearing it too? 

The rain fell heavily on the roof and pattered 
on the ground, and dripped among the ever- 
greens, and the leafless branches of the trees. 
The rain fell heavily, drearily. It was a night 
of tears. 

If Clennam had not decided against falling in 
love with Pet ; if he had had the weakness to do 
it ; if he had, little by little, persuaded himself 
to set all the earnestness of his nature, all the 
might of his hope, and all the wealth of his ma- 
tured character on that cast ; if he had done this, 
and found that all was lost, he would have been 
that night unutterably miserable. As it was — 

As it was, the rain fell heavily, drearily. 



CHAPTER XVIII.— LITTLE DORRIT'S LOVER. 

Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty- 
second birthday without finding a lover. Even in 
the sallow Marshalsea the everyoung Archer shot 
off a few featherless arrows now and then from 
a mouldy bow, and winged a Collegian or two. 

Little Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Col- 
legian. He was the sentimental son of a turn- 
key. His father hoped in the fullness of time 
to leave him the inheritance of an unstained 
key, and had from his early youth familiarized 
him with the duties of his office and with an 
ambition to retain the prison-lock in the family. 
While the succession was yet in abeyance, he 
assisted his mother in the conduct of a snug to- 
bacco business round the corner of Ilorscmonger 



828 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Lane (his father being a non-resident turnkey), 
which could usually command a neat connec- 
tion within the College walls. 

Years agone, when the object of his affections 
was wont to sit in her little arm-chair by the 
high Lodge-fender, Young John (family name, 
Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed 
her with admiring wonder. When he had played 
with her in the yard, his favorite game had been 
to counterfeit locking her up in corners, and to 
counterfeit letting her out for real kisses. When 
he grew tall enough to peep through the keyhole 
of the great lock of the main door, he had di- 
vers times set down his father's dinner or sup- 
per to get on as it might on the outer side there- 
of, while he stood taking cold in one eye by dint 
of peeping at her through that airy perspective. 

If Young John had ever slackened in his truth 
in the less penetrable days of his boyhood when 
youth is prone to wear its boots unlaced and is 
happily unconscious of digestive organs, he had 
soon strung it up again, and screwed it tight. 
At nineteen his hand had inscribed in chalk on 
that part of the wall which fronted her lodging, 
on the occasion of her birthday, "Welcome 
sweet nursling of the Fairies !" At twenty- 
three, the same hand falteringly presented ci- 
gars on Sundays to the Father of the Marshal- 
sea, and Father of the queen of his soul. 

Young John was small of stature, with rather 
weak legs and very weak light hair. One of his 
eyes (perhaps the eye that used to peep through 
the keyhole) was also weak, and looked larger 
than the other, as if it couldn't collect itself. 
Young John was gentle likewise. But he was 
great of soul. Poetical, expansive, faithful. 

Though too humble before the ruler of his 
heart to be sanguine, Young John had consid- 
ered the subject of his attachment in all its 
lights and shades. Following it out to blissful 
results, he had descried, without self-commen- 
dation, a fitness in it. Say things prospered, 
and they were united. She the child of the 
Marshalsea; he the lock-keeper. There was a 
fitness in that. Say he became a resident turn- 
key. She would officially succeed to the cham- 
ber she had rented so long. There was a beau- 
tiful propriety in that. It looked over the wall 
if you stood on tiptoe; and with a trellis-work 
of scarlet beans and a canary or so, would be- 
come a very bower. There was a charming 
idea, in that. Then, being all in all to one an- 
other, there was even an appropriate grace in 
the lock. With the world shut out (except that 
part of it which would be shut in); with its 
troubles and disturbances only known to them 
by hearsay, as they were described by the pil- 
grims who tarried with them on their way to the 
I nsolvent Shrine ; with the Bower above, and 
the Lodge below, they woul<f%iide down the 
stream of time in pastoral domestic happiness. 
Young John drew tears from his eyes by finish- 
ing the picture with a tombstone in the adjoin- 
ing church-yard, close against the prison wall, 
hearing the following touching inscription : " Sa- 



cred to the Memory of John Chivery, Sixty 
years Turnkey, and fifty years Head Turnkey, 
Of the neighboring Marshalsea, Who departed 
this life, universally respected, on the thirty-first 
of December, One thousand eight hundred and 
eighty-six, Aged eighty-three years. Also of 
his truly beloved and truly loving wife, Amy, 
Whose maiden name was Dorrit, Who sur- 
vived his loss not quite forty-eight hours, And 
who breathed her last in the Marshalsea afore- 
said. There she was born, There she lived, 
There she died." 

The Chivery parents were not ignorant of 
their son's attachment — indeed it had on some 
exceptional occasions thrown him into a state 
of mind that had impelled him to conduct him- 
self with irascibility toward the customers, and 
damage the business — but they, in their turns, 
had worked it out to desirable conclusions. Mrs. 
Chivery, a prudent woman, had desired her hus- 
band to take notice that their John's prospects 
of the Lock would certainly be strengthened by 
an alliance with Miss Dorrit, who had herself a 
kind of claim upon the College, and was much 
respected there. Mrs. Chivery had desired her 
husband to take notice that if their John had 
means and a post of trust, Miss Dorrit had Fam- 
ily ; and that her (Mrs. Chivery's) sentiment 
was, that two halves made a whole. Mrs. Chiv- 
ery, speaking as a mother, and not as a diplo- 
matist, had then, from a different point of view, 
desired her husband to recollect that their John 
had never been strong, and that his love had 
fretted and worritted him enough as it was, 
without his being driven to do himself a mis- 
chief, as nobody couldn't say he wouldn't be if 
he was crossed. These arguments had so pow- 
erfully influenced the mind of Mr. Chivery, who 
was a man of few words, that he had, on sundry 
Sunday mornings, given his boy what he termed 
" a lucky touch" on the shoulder, signifying that 
he considered such commendation of him to 
Good Fortune, preparatory to his that day de- 
claring his passion and becoming triumphant. 
But Young John had never taken courage to 
make the declaration; and it was principally 
on these occasions that he had returned excited 
to the tobacco-shop, and flown at the customers. 

In this affair, as in every other, Little Dorrit 
herself was the last person considered. Her 
brother and sister were aware of it, and attain- 
ed a sort of station by making a peg of it on 
which to air the miserably ragged old fiction of 
the family gentility. Her sister asserted the 
family gentility by flouting the poor swain as 
he loitered about the prison for glimpses of his 
dear. Tip asserted the family gentility and his 
own by coming out in the character of the aris- 
tocrat brother, and loftily swaggering in the lit- 
tle skittle-ground respecting seizures by the scruff 
of the neck, that there were looming probabili- 
ties of some gentleman unknown executing on 
some little puppy not mentioned. These were 
not the only members of the Dorrit family who 
turned it to account. No, no. The Father of 



LITTLE DORRIT. 



829 



the Marshalsea was supposed to know nothing 
about the matter, of course ; his poor dignity 
could not see so low. But he took the cigars on 
Sundays, and was glad to get them, and some- 
times even condescended to walk up and down 
the yard with the donor (who was proud and 
hopeful then), and benignantly to smoke one in 
his society. With no less readiness and conde- 
scension did he receive attentions from Chivery 
Senior, who always relinquished his arm-chair 
and newspaper to him when he came into the 
Lodge during one of his spells of duty, and who 
had even mentioned to him that if he would like 
at any time after dusk, quietly to step out into 
the fore-court and take a look at the street, there 
was not much to prevent him. If he did not 
avail himself of this latter civility, it was only 
because he had lost the relish for it ; for he took 
every thing else he could get, and would say at 
times, "Extremely civil person, Chivery; very 
attentive man, and very respectful. Young Chiv- 
ery, too ; really, almost with a delicate percep- 
tion of one's position here. A very well-con- 
ducted family indeed, the Chiveries. Their be- 
havior gratifies m^." 

The devoted Young John all this time regard- 
ed the family with reverence. He never dream- 
ed of disputing their pretensions, but did hom- 
age to the miserable Mumbo Jumbo they pa- 
raded. As to resenting any affront from her 
brother, he would have felt, even if he had not 
naturally been of a most pacific disposition, that 
to wag his tongue, or lift his hand against that 
sacred gentleman would be an unhallowed act. 
He was sorry that his noble mind should take 
offense; still he felt the fact to be not incom- 
patible with its nobility, and sought to propitiate 
and conciliate that gallant soul. Her father, a 
gentleman in misfortune — a gentleman of a fine 
spirit and courtly manners, who always bore with 
him — he deeply honored. Her sister he consid- 
ered somewhat vain and proud, but a young 
lady of infinite accomplishments, who could not 
forget the past. It was an instinctive testimony 
to Little Dorrit's worth and difference from all 
the rest, that the poor young fellow honored and 
loved her for being simply what she was. 

The tobacco business round the corner of 
Horsemonger Lane was carried on in a rural 
establishment one story high, which had the 
benefit of the air from the yards of Horsemonger 
Lane Jail, and the advantage of a retired walk 
under the wall of that pleasant establishment. 
The business was of too modest a character to 
support a life-size Highlander, but it maintained 
a little one on a bracket on the door-post, who 
looked like a fallen Cherub that had found it 
necessary to take to a kilt. 

From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday 
after an early dinner of baked viands, Young 
John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand ; 
not empty-handed, but with his offering of cigars. 
He was neatly attired in a plum-colored coat, 
with as large a collar of black velvet as his fig- 
ure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked 
Vol. XII.— No. 72.-3 G 



with golden sprigs ; a chaste neckerchief much 
in vogue at that day, representing a preserve of 
lilac pheasants on a buff ground ; pantaloons so 
highly decorated with side-stripes that each leg 
was a three-stringed lute ; and a hat of state, 
very high and hard. When the prudent Mrs. 
Chivery perceived that in addition to these 
adornments her John carried a pair of white 
kid gloves and a cane like a little finger-post, 
surmounted by an ivory hand marshaling him 
the way that he should go ; and when she saw 
him in this heavy marching order turn the cor- 
ner to the right, she remarked to Mr. Chivery, 
who was at home at the time, that she thought 
she knew which way the wind blew. 

The Collegians were entertaining a consider- 
able number of visitors that Sunday afternoon, 
and their Father kept his room for the purpose 
of receiving presentations. After making the 
tour of the yard, Little Dorrit's lover with a 
hurried heart went up stairs and knocked with 
his knuckles at the Fathers door. 

"Come in, come in!" said a gracious voice. 
The Father's voice, her father's, the Marshal- 
sea's father's. He was seated in his black vel- 
vet cap, with his newspaper, three-and-sixpence 
accidentally left on the table, and two chairs 
arranged. Every thing prepared for holding 
his Court. 

"Ah, Young John ! How do you do, how do 
you do?" 

"Pretty welL I thank you, Sir. I hope you 
are the same." 

" Yes, John Chivery ; yes. Nothing to com- 
plain of." 

"I have taken the liberty, Sir, of — " 

"Eh?" The Father of the Marshalsea al- 
ways lifted up his eyebrows at this point, and 
became amiably distraught and smilingly absent 
in mind. 

" — A few cigars, Sir." 

"Oh !" (For the moment excessively sur- 
prised.) "Thank you, John, thank you. But 
really, I am afraid I am too — No? Well, 
then, I will say no more about it. Put them on 
the mantel-shelf, if you please, John. And sit 
down, sit down. You are not a stranger, John." 

"Thank you, Sir, I am sure. Miss" — here 
Young John turned the great hat round and 
round upon his left hand, like a slowly twirling 
mouse-cage — "Miss Amy quite well, Sir?" 

"Yes, John, yes ; very well. She is out." 

"Indeed, Sir?" 

" Yes, John. Miss Amy is gone for an air- 
ing. My young people all go out a good' deal, a 
good deal. But at their time of life, it's nat- 
ural, John." 

"Very much so, I am sure, Sir." 

"An airing. An airing. Yes." He was 
blandly tapping his fingers on the table, and 
casting his eyes up at the window. "Amy has 
gone for an airing on the Iron Bridge. She has 
become quite partial to the Iron Bridge of late, 
and seems to like to walk there better than any 
•vhere." He returned to conversation. "Your 



830 



HAEPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



father is not on duty at present, I think, 
John?" 

"No, Sir, he comes on later in the afternoon." 
Another twirl of the great hat, and then Young 
John said, rising, " I am afraid I must wish you 
good-day, Sir." 

"So soon? Good-day, John. Nay, nay," 
with the utmost condescension, "never mind 
your glove, John. Shake hands with it on. You 
are no stranger here, you know." 

Highly gratified by the kindness of his recep- 
tion, Young John descended the staircase. On 
his way down he met some Collegians bringing 
up visitors to be presented, and at that moment 
Mr. Dorrit happened to call over the banisters 
with great distinctness, "Much obliged to you 
for your little testimonial, John!" 

Little Dorrit's lover very soon laid down his 
penny on the toll-plate of the Iron Bridge, and 
came upon it looking about him for the well- 
known and well-beloved figure. At first he 
feared she was not there, but as he walked on 
toward the Middlesex side, he saw her standing 
still, looking at the water. She was absorbed in 
thought, and he wondered what she might be 
thinking about. There were the piles of city 
roofs and chimneys, more free from smoke than 
on week-days ; and there were the distant masts 
and steeples. Perhaps she was thinking about 
them. 

Little Dorrit mused so long, and was so en- 
tirely preoccupied, that although her lover stood 
quiet for what he thought was a long time, and 
twice or thrice retired and came back again to 
the former spot, still she did not move. So, in 
the end, he made up his mind to go on, and 
seem to come upon her casually in passing, and 
speak to her. The place was quiet, and now or 
never was the time to speak to her. 

He walked on, and she did not appear to hear 
.his steps until he was close upon her. When 
he said " Miss Dorrit !" she started, and fell back 
from him with an expression in her face of fright 
and something like dislike that caused him unut- 
terable dismay. She had often avoided him be- 
fore — always, indeed, for a long, long while. She 
had turned away and glided off, so often when she 
had seen him coming toward her, that the un- 
fortunate Young John could not think it acci- 
dental. But he had hoped that it might be 
shyness, her retiring character, her fore-knowl- 
edge of the state of his heart, any thing short 
of aversion. Now, that momentary look had 
said, "You, of all people! I would rather have 
seen any one on earth than you!" 

It was but a momentary look, inasmuch as 
she checked it, and said, in her soft little voice, 
"Oh, Mr. John! Is it you?" But she felt 
what it had been, as he felt what it had been ; 
a,nd they stood looking at one another equally 
confused. 

"Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by 
speaking to you." 

"Yes, rather. I — I came here to be alone, 
and I thought I was." 



"Miss Amy, I took the liberty of walking this 
way because Mr. Dorrit chanced to mention 
when I called upon him just now that you — " 

She caused him more- dismay than before by 
suddenly murmuring, " Oh, father, father !" in a 
heart-rending tone, and turning her face away. 

" Miss Amy, I hope I don't give you any un- 
easiness by naming Mr. Dorrit. I assure you I 
found him very well, and in the best of spirits, 
and he showed me even more than his usual 
kindness ; being so very kind as to say that I 
was not a stranger there, and in all ways grati- 
fying me very much." 

To the inexpressible consternation of her lover, 
Little Dorrit, with her hands to her averted face, 
and rocking herself where she stood, as if she 
were in pain, murmured, " Oh, father, how can 
you ! Oh, dear, dear father, how can you, can 
you, do it!" 

The poor fellow stood gazing at her, overflow- 
ing with sympathy, but not knowing what to 
make of this, until having taken out her hand- 
kerchief and put it to her still averted face, she 
hurried aAvay. At first he remained stock still ; 
then hurried after her. 

"Miss Amy, pray! Will you have the good- 
ness to stop a moment. Miss Amy, if it comes 
to that, let me go. I shall go out of my senses 
if I have to think that I have driven you away 
like this." 

His trembling voice and unfeigned earnest- 
ness brought Little Dorrit to a stop. "Oh, I 
don't know what to do," she cried, "I don't 
know what to do !" 

To Young John, who had never seen her be- 
reft of her quiet self-command, who had seen 
her from her infancy ever so reliable and self- 
suppressed, there was a shock in her distress 
and in having to associate himself with it as its 
cause, that shook him from his great hat to the 
pavement. He felt it necessary to explain him- 
self. He might be misunderstood — supposed to 
mean something, or to have done something, 
that had never entered into his imagination. He 
begged her to hear him explain himself, as the 
greatest favor she could show him." 

" Miss Amy, I know very well that your family 
is far above mine. It were vain to conceal it. 
There never was -a Chivery a gentleman that 
ever I heard of, and I will not commit the mean- 
ness of making a false representation on a sub- 
ject so momentous. Miss Amy, I know very 
well that your high-souled brother, and likewise 
your spirited sister, spurn me from a heighth. 
What I have to do is to respect them, to wish to 
be admitted to their friendship, to look up at 
the eminence on which they are placed, from my 
lowlier station — for whether viewed as tobacco 
or viewed as the lock, I well know it is lowly — 
and ever wish them well and happy." 

There really was a genuineness in the poor 
fellow, and a contrast between the hardness of 
his hat and the softness of his heart (albeit, per- 
haps, of his head, too) that was moving. Little 
Dorrit entreated him to disparage neither him- 



MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 



831 



self nor his station, and, above all things, to di- 
vest himself of any idea that she supposed hers 
to be superior. This gave him a little comfort. 

"Miss Amy," he then stammered, "I have 
had for a long time — ages they seem to me — 
Revolving ages — a heart-cherished wish to say 
something to you. May I say it?" 

Little Dorrit involuntarily started from his side 
again, with the faintest shadow of her former 
look ; conquering that, she went on at great 
speed half across the bridge without replying. 

"May I — Miss Amy, I but ask the question 
humbly — may I say it ? I have been so unlucky 
already in giving you pain, without having any 
such intentions, before the holy Heavens ! that 
there is no fear of my saying it unless I have your 
leave. I can be miserable alone, I can be cut up 
by myself; why should I also make miserable 
and cut up one that I would fling myself off that 
parapet to give half a moment's joy to ! Not that 
that's much to do, for I'd do it for twopence." 

The mournfulness of his spirits, and the gor- 
geousness of his appearance, might have made 
him ridiculous, but that his delicacy made him 
respectable. Little Dorrit learned from it what 
to do. 

"If you please, John Chivery," she returned, 
trembling, but in a quiet way, " since you are so 
considerate as to ask me whether you shall say 
any more — if you please, no." 

"Never, Miss Amy?" 

"No, if you please. Never." 

" O Lord !" gasped Young John. 

"But perhaps you will let me, instead, say 
something to you. I want to say it earnestly, 
and with as plain a meaning as it is possible to 
express. When you think of us — I mean my 
brother and sister, and me — don't think of us 
as being any different from the rest ; for, what- 
ever we once were (which I hardly know) we 
ceased to be long ago, and never can be .any 
more. It will be much better for you, and much 
better for others, if you will do that, instead of 
what you are doing now." 

Young John dolefully protested that he would 
try to bear it in mind, and would be heartily 
glad to do any thing she wished. 

" As to me," said Little Dorrit, "think as lit- 
tle of me as you can ; the less the better. When 
you think of me at all, let it but be as the poor 
child you have seen grow up in the prison, with 
one set of duties and one small field of action 
always occupying her ; as a weak, retired, con- 
tented, unprotected girl. I particularly want 
you to remember that when I come outside the 
gate I am unprotected and solitary." 



He would try to do any thing she wished. But 
why did Miss Amy so much want him to re- 
member that ? 

" Because," returned Little Dorrit, I know I 
can then quite trust you not to forget to-day, and 
not to say any more to me. You are so gener- 
ous that I know I can trust to you for that ; and 
I do, and I always will. I am going to show you 
at once that I fully trust you. I like this place 
where we are speaking "better than any place I 
know ;" her slight color had faded, but her lover 
thought he saw it coming back just then ; "and 
I may be often here. I know it is only neces- 
sary for me to tell you so, to be quite sure that 
you will never come here again in search of me. 
And I am — quite sure !" 

She might rely upon it, said Young John. He 
was a miserable wretch, but her word was more 
than a law for him. 

"And good-by, John," said Little Dorrit. 
" And I hope you will have a good wife one da}-, 
and be a happy man. I am sure you will de- 
serve to be happy, and you will be, John." 

As she held out her hand to him with these 
words, the heart that was under the waistcoat 
of sprigs — mere slop-work, if the truth must be 
known — swelled to the size of the heart of a 
gentleman ; and the poor common little fellow 
having no room to hold it, burst into tears. 

"Oh, don't cry," said Little Dorrit, piteously. 
" Don't, don't ! Good-by, dear John. God bless 
you!" 

" Good-by, Miss Amy. Good-by !" 

And so he left her: first observing that she 
sat down on the corner of a seat, and not only 
rested her little hand upon the rough wall, but 
laid her face against it too, as if her head were 
heavy, and her mind were sad. 

It was an affecting illustration of the fallacy 
of human projects, to behold her lover with the 
great hat pulled over his eyes, the velvet collar 
turned up as if it rained, the plum-colored but- 
toned tO' conceal the silken waistcoat of golden 
sprigs, and the little direction-post pointing in- 
exorably home, creeping along by the worst back- 
streets, and composing as he went the following 
new inscription for a tombstone in Saint George's 
Church-yard : 

' ' Here lie the mortal remains of John Chivery, 
Never any thing worth mentioning, Who died 
about the end of the year one thousand eight 
hundred and twenty-six, Of a broken heart, Re- 
questing with his last breath that the word Amy 
might be inscribed over his ashes, Which was 
accordingly directed to be done, By his afflicted 
Parents." 



ftlmttjihj Itara nf Current Cntute 

THE UNITED STATES. Messrs. Whitfield and Reeder. The report of the 

THE Kansas question, in its various aspects, has majority represents that the Legislature which 

during the past month engrossed a large share passed the election law under which Mr. Whitfield 

of the attention of Congress. In the House two was chosen, was imposed upon the people of the 

reports from the Committee on Elections have Territory by a foreign invading force, by whom 

been presented in reference to the seat, claimed by the people have been kept in a state of subjection. 



832 



HARPEE'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



It urges the necessity of a thorough investigation 
into all the facts in dispute, and maintains that, as 
the people of the Territory are the real contestants, 
their rights can not be prejudiced by the action of 
Mr. Reeder in issuing certificates of election to the 
members of the Territorial Legislature. The com- 
mittee therefore asked to be empowered to send for 
persons and papers. The report of the minority 
of the committee urged that such a course would 
make the House judge not only of the qualifica- 
tions of its own members, but also of those of the 
members of the Territorial Legislature, and conse- 
quently of the State Legislatures, which would 
establish a dangerous precedent. If, however, the 
House should determine upon making such an in- 
vestigation, the end would be better attained by 
dispatching a commission to Kansas to take testi- 
mony, than by sending for persons and papers. 
Accompanying this report was a document from 
Mr. Whitfield, denying that Mr. Reeder had any 
right to be heard in the matter, as he was not a 
candidate at any election authorized by law ; and 
furthermore, as the members of the Legislature 
took their seats under certificates from Mr. Reeder 
himself, acting as Governor, he is estopped from 
calling in question the validity of their election. 
These reports gave rise to a debate, protracted 
from the 7th to the 19th of March. A proposition 
was submitted by Mr. Dunn, of Indiana, to appoint 
a special committee of three members to proceed to 
Kansas, with full powers to inquire into any fraud 
or force alleged to have been practiced in any of 
the elections held since the passage of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act, and to make a thorough investiga- 
tion into the circumstances of the troubles and out- 
rages that have occurred in the Territory. By a 
vote of 111 to 81 this proposition was substituted 
for that submitted by the majority of the Com- 
mittee on Elections; and was then adopted by a 
vote of 102 to 93. The committee, as finally ap- 
pointed by the Speaker, consist of Messrs. Sherman 
of Ohio, Howard of Michigan, and Oliver of Mis- 
souri. The first twe members of the committee 
belong to the party opposed to the Nebraska Bill, 
while Mr. Oliver was the choice of those in favor 
of it.— —In the Senate Mr. Douglass presented a 
report in relation to Kansas from the majority of 
the Committee upon Territories. The report main- 
tains that the power of Congress to organize Terri- 
torial Governments does not include the right of 
regulating or interfering with the domestic institu- 
tions and internal concerns of a Territory, or of 
imposing any other limitations upon its sovereignty 
than those imposed by the Constitution upon all 
the States. New States have therefore the right 
to come into the Union, with any domestic laws 
and institutions which do not conflict with the 
Constitution of the United States — which is the 
principle embodied in the Nebraska Bill. The re- 
port affirms that since the majority of the members 
of the Territorial Legislature received their com- 
missions from Governor Reeder, the alleged ille- 
gality of a portion of the votes which were cast 
does not invalidate that election, nor are the acts 
of the Legislature vitiated by the removal of the 
seat of government. The measures of the Emi- 
grant Aid Societies are animadverted upon with 
great severity, and the proceedings of the Free 
State Convention at Topeka are pronounced illegal 
and treasonable. The committee propose a bill 
authorizing the inhabitants of Kansas, when it 
shall appear that the population of the Territory 



amounts to the number (93,340) requisite to entitle 
them to a representative in Congress, to hold a 
Convention for the purpose of forming a State 
Government. Instead of this Mr. Seward has sub- 
mitted a substitute, admitting Kansas at once into 
the Union as a State. Mr. Collamer presented a 
report from the minority of the Territorial Com- 
mittee, controverting all the main points in the 
majority report ; defending the action of the Emi- 
grant Aid Societies ; reiterating the charges of vio- 
lence, fraud, and illegality in respect to the Terri- 
torial Legislature ; and defending the action which 
resulted in the formation of the Constitution of 
October, 1855, and the elections held under that 
Constitution. The report recommends, as the 
easiest and most direct way of meeting all the 
difficulties in the case, that Kansas be at once re- 
ceived into the Union, with the present Constitu- 
tion.' Among the leading measures now under 

consideration of Congress are bills for establishing 
a uniform system of natm*alization, for building a 
railroad to the Pacific, for modifying the tariff, and 
for increasing our naval and military efficiency. 
This last measure is advocated mainly upon grounds 
wholly apart from any apprehension of immediate 
hostilities. Mr. Cass in speaking in favor of it, 
however, took the ground that the probable term- 
ination of the war in Europe would leave England 
with a large unemployed army and navy, which 
might render her less disposed for a peaceful solu- 
tion of the questions in dispute between the two 
governments. It was therefore proper that we 
should not be found unprepared. He trusted that 
there would be no war ; still there was danger, and 
this would not be diminished by shutting our eyes 
to it. He saw no reason to suppose that the En- 
glish Government would recede from its position 
respecting the Clayton and Bulwer treaty. And 
even should an arbitration be proposed, we could 
hardly accept it, as the whole matter turns upon 
the meaning of the word "occupy." The treaty 
says that neither party shall occupy or possess any 
dominion in Central America, except in a single 
case specially provided for. If any other occupa- 
tion is retained, the treaty is violated, and we 
knoAv what constitutes "occupation" without re- 
sorting to the lexicographical knowledge or good 
offices of friend or foe.< The new Tariff Bill, in- 
troduced in the Senate by Mr. James, of Rhode 
Island, is designed to reduce the duties to a reve- 
nue standard. All articles of import are divided 
into four classes. Class A., consisting of spirituous 
liquors, is to pay 80 per cent. Class B., consisting 
mainly of articles of taste and luxury, pays 30 per 
cent. It includes ales, wines, iron, and manufac- 
tured goods of silk, cotton, linen, and woolen, with 
the exception of a few of the coarser sorts. Class 
C. is to be admitted free of duty. It is made up 
of tea, coffee, cocoa, drugs and medicines, and raw 
materials not produced in the United States. In 
order to deprive the foreign producer or merchant 
of any undue advantage in invoicing goods, the 
value of the articles is to be taken at their actual 
worth in the principal markets of the United States. 
Stringent provisions are also made against fraud. 
It is proposed that the new tariff, as finally modi- 
fied, shall go into effect on the 30th of June, 1857. 
The State Legislature (Free Soil) of Kansas met 
at Topeka, on the 4th of March, and subsequently 
adjourned to Lawrence. Mr. Minard, formerly of 
Iowa, was elected Speaker of the House. Mr. 
Roberts, the Lieutenant-Governor, was formerly 



MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. 



838 



of Pennsylvania. The Message of Governor Rob- 
inson, in addition to various local recommendations, 
goes into a detail of the history of the Territory 
and the state of affairs which led to the formation 
of the State Constitution under which the Legisla- 
ture was convened. In the event of the threat of 
arrest against the members being carried out, he 
dissuades them from offering any resistance. Gov- 
ernor Reeder and General Lane were elected to the 
United States Senate. The proceedings of this 
body are in effect merely provisional, their validity 
depending wholly upon the action taken by Con- 
gress in relation to them. In the mean while 
spirited exertions are making both at the North 
and the South to push forward a large emigration 
to Kansas, with a special view to influence its 
future government. Large amounts of money and 
arms have been raised in New York and New En- 
gland for this purpose. Two hundred Sharpe's 
rifles and two cannon, on their way to Kansas 
were seized on board a steamer going up the Mis- 
souri. They were packed in boxes, marked " Car- 
penters' Tools/' Somehow the contents of the boxes 
became known, the arms were seized by a commit- 
tee, who determined to hold them subject to the 
order of Governor Shannon. The "loading appara- 
tus" of the rifles, without which they cannot be used, 
had, however, been forwarded by another convey- 
ance. The Legislature of Utah has passed an Act 

which has been approved by Governor Brigham 
Young, ordering an election to be held to obtain an 
expression of the popular will in respect to a Con- 
vention to frame a State Constitution, preparatory to 
applying for admission into the Union. The rev- 
enue of the Territory, as assessed, for the past year, 
was $17,348 87, of which $11,0G9 77 were still un- 
paid, while the outstanding treasury warrants ex- 
ceed the sum still due by about $1100, which must 
be met by future assessments. At the late elec- 
tion in Wisconsin, Mr. W. A. Barstow, Democrat, 
was declared by the canvassers to have been cho- 
sen Governor by a majority of 157. His opponent, 
Mr. Coles Bashford, Republican, claimed that the 
canvass was fraudulent, and that he had received 
a majority of at least 800. He brought an action 
before the Supreme Court of the State in order to 
oust Mr. Barstow. A very complicated series of 
proceedings ensued, in the course of which Mr. 
Barstow denied the jurisdiction of the Court, and 
threatened to resist its orders ; he also addressed 
a Message to the Legislature demanding aid to 
sustain him in this course. The Court, however, 
affirmed its jurisdiction, and Mr. Bashford proved 
that he was elected by a decided majority. Before 
judgment was rendered, Mr. Barstow sent in his 
resignation, whereupon it was claimed that the 
office devolved upon Mr. M c Arthur, the Lieuten- 
ant-Governor. The Court, disregarding the resig- 
nation, pronounced Mr. Bashford to be the legal 
Governor ; he thereupon took possession of the ex- 
ecutive apartments, and, as Governor, addressed a 
Message to the Legislature. The Senate received 
this document, thus acknoAvledging the claim of 
Mr. Bashford ; but the House, by a vote of 38 to 
34, declined to receive it, thus refusing to recog- 
nize him as Governor. At the State election in 

New Hampshire, held March 11, the contest for 
Governor was very close between Messrs. Metcalf, 
Opposition, and Wells, Democrat, each receiving 
about 32,000 votes ; about 2500 votes were cast for 
Goodwin, Whig, so that there was no election by 
the people. The vacancy will be filled by the Leg- 1 



islature, both branches of which are strongly Anti- 
Administration. The Court of Appeals in New 

York has decided against the constitutionality of 
the seizure clause in the Liquor-T aw of that State, 
upon the ground that it both deprives the citizen 
of the right of trial by jury, and takes away his 
property without due process of law. The Gen- 
eral Assembly of Virginia has enacted a very strin- 
gent law to prevent the carrying off of slaves. 
Any free person convicted of carrying away, or at- 
tempting to carry away, a slave is to be punished 
by imprisonment not less than five or more than 
ten years ; to forfeit to the owner twice the value 
of the slave ; and may besides be publicly whipped 
at the discretion of the jury. If a slave be found 
by night, without the written consent of his mas- 
ter, on board any vessel owned or commanded by 
any person not a resident or citizen of the State ; 
or if he be carried beyond the limits of any coun- 
ty, on board a vessel bound without the State, it 
is to be presumed that he has been received on 
board by the master of the -vessel, with the design 
of carrying him off. Whenever the person who 
carries off a slave is attached to any vessel, it is to 
be forfeited to the Commonwealth. The penalty 
for aiding or advising a slave to escape is likewise 
imprisonment in the penitentiary from five to ten 
years, with the liability to be publicly whipped as 
often as the jury shall direct. 

We have accounts of renewed hostilities between 
the whites and the Indians in Florida and Texas. 
In California a very serious outbreak has occurred 
near Rogue Biver, where some 300 Indians are 
iinder arms. In an attack on the 23d of February 
twenty or thirty whites were killed, and many 
dwellings have been burned. Serious apprehen- 
sions were entertained for the safety of Crescent 
City. In Oregon, the disturbances are still more 
general. It would seem that almost the entire 
Indian population is in arms. The Legislative 
Assembly have forwarded a memorial asking for 
the removal of General Wool from the military 
command of the Territory. They allege that he 
has refused to furnish arms and ammunition to the 
volunteers, or to send the United States troops to 
their assistance. General Wool defends his con- 
duct, and lays the blame of the disturbances, to a 
great extent, upon the white settlers. 

The month over which our Record extends has 
been marked by an unusual number of disasters 
and accidents by sea and land. On the 20th of 
February the packet ship John Rutledge was struck 
by an iceberg and went down. The passengers 
and crew numbered 13G persons, who took to the 
boats. One of these was picked up on the 28th ; 
but of the thirteen persons who went on board, the 
only survivor was Thomas W. Nye, a young sailor. 
The others had sunk under their sufferings and 
privations. The fate of the four remaining boats 
is as yet unknown. No tidings of the Pacific hav- 
ing yet (April 3) been received, it is presumed that 
she has been totally lost ; the passengers numbered 
45, the officers and crew 141, making 185 souls on 
board. Lists have been published of more than 
sixty vessels which have been due for a sufficient 
time to occasion serious apprehensions of their loss. 
On the 22d of March the ferry boat Nero Jersey 
took fire in the Delaware River between Camden 
and Philadelphia. Before the boat could reach 
the shore, the wheel-house fell in, the vessel be- 
came unmanageable, and the tide swept it away 
from the wharf. About fifty persons lost their 



834 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



lives. A severe earthquake-shock was felt in 
San Francisco, on the 15th of February, doing 
considerable damage to buildings. No lives were 
lost. A far moi'e terrible earthquake occurred in 
Japan on the 11th of November, by which the city 
of Jeddo is reported to have been almost wholly de- 
stroyed, with a loss of life loosely stated at 30,000. 
SOUTHERN AMERICA. 

In Mexico the Government appears at present 
to be making head against the insurgents. Con- 
gress has confirmed the decree nominating Comon- 
fort to the Presidency. The force under Uraga, 
stated to have amounted to six thousand men, sur- 
rendered without a blow to Iturbide near Tulan- 
cingo. Another body suffered defeat at Chantla ; 
and the rising in Chiapas has been put down. 
The latest accounts represent Haro y Tamariz as 
closely shut up in Puebla by Comonfort, at the 
head of a superior force. In Nicaragua the Gov- 
ernment has annulled the Charter of the Accessa- 
ry Transit Company on the ground of an alleged 
breach of contract in failing to construct a canal 
or railway from ocean to ocean, and in neglecting 
to make the payments stipulated in their charter. 
All the property belonging to the Company with- 
in the limits of Nicaragua has been seized as se- 
curity for the payments demanded. The privi- 
leges of the Company, including the sole right of 
transporting passengers across the Isthmus, and 
of navigating by steam the waters of the Republic, 
has been granted to Edmund Randolph and his 
associates for the space of twenty-five years, upon 
condition of paying one dollar for each passenger 
carried across, and performing certain services to 
the State, and complying with certain prescribed 
conditions. It is reported that the Government 
has made a definite arrangement with Great Brit- 
ain for the settlement of the Mosquito question, 
without regard to the United States. The Mos- 
quito King is to be put on the same footing as 
other native chiefs. The reports of a projected 
alliance between the other States of the Isthmus 
against Nicaragua, are confirmed, although its ex- 
tent is yet a matter of uncertainty. The Govern- 
ment of San Salvador has made peaceful overtures, 
though protesting against the presence in Nicara- 
gua of so many foreigners. Costa Rica refused to 
receive Colonel Schlessinger, who had been sent as 
envoy from Nicaragua, and ordered him to leave 
the country. On the 10th of March, a formal dec- 
laration of war by Costa Rica against Nicaragua 
reached Granada, which was answered by a cor- 
responding declaration. General Walker, who has 
recently received considerable additions to his 
forces, immediately set out to carry the war into 
the enemy's country. The Government of Costa 
Rica has issued an address, summoning all the 
States of Central America to unite and destroy the 
invaders from the North. A proclamation from 
Walker states that he was invited into the country 
by the Democratic party, whose principles he had 
endeavored to carry out ; but that the Legitimists 
having repelled all his efforts at conciliation, war 
was the only alternative left. No actual encounter 
had taken place, up to the 21st of March. 
EUROPE. 

Intelligence from England relates wholly to 
matters of mere local interest. An attempt on the 
part of Government to make an innovation upon 
the constitution of the House of Peers, by appoint- 
ing Mr. Pai'ke, an eminent lawyer and judge, to a 
peerage for life, met with such strenuous opposition 



from the Lords, that the project was withdrawn. 
A motion in the Commons to open the British Mu- 
seum and the National Gallery on Sunday Avas 
rejected by a large majority. A commission ap- 
pointed to inquire into the alleged misconduct of 
the commissariat affairs in the Crimea, presented 
a report strongly condemning the course of a num- 
ber of prominent officers. A Board of officers has 
been appointed to report upon this report of the 
commission. General Sir de Lacy Evans made a 
severe attack in the House upon the conduct of 
Lords Raglan, and Cardigan, the Duke of Cam- 
bridge, and General Simpson. Mr. John Sadlier, 
a Member of Parliament from Ireland, committed 
suicide in consequence of pecuniary frauds in which 
he had been for some time engaged. Covent Gar- 
den Theatre has been destroyed by fire ; the loss is 
estimated at half a million of dollars. Mr. Dallas, 
the new Minister from America, has arrived in En- 
gland. The apprehensions of a rupture with the 
United States appear to have almost wholly sub- 
sided. A dinner has been given by the Lord May- 
or of Londqn to Mr. Buchanan, in which our late 
minister made a highly concilatory speech, which 
was received with great favor. 

The negotiations at Paris are in progress ; but 
beyond the fact of the conclusion of an armistice, 
nothing definite has transpired, or is likely to 
transpire, until the Conference has concluded its 
work. The general opinion is, that peace Avill re- 
sult ; but in spite of all assurances to the contrary 
from official sources, there is a vague apprehension 
that the conditions will be less favorable to the 
Allies than the English people demand. This ap- 
prehension is strengthened by the sudden determ- 
ination to invite Prussia to take a share in the de- 
liberations ; it being considered that this power is 
in reality the ally of Russia. The session of the 
Legislative Bodies was opened on the 4th of March 
by the Emperor, with a speech in which he briefly 
reviews the events of the year. He alludes to the 
change in the public feeling in Europe consequent 
upon the successes before Sebastopol ; the facility 
with which the late loan was negotiated ; and the 
cordial amity between France and England, shown 
by the visit of the Queen to France, and the warm 
reception with which she was greeted. Though 
France had sent 200,000 men to the scene of hostil- 
ities, the war was yet merely an episode in her his- 
tory, her main strength being devoted to the arts 
of peace. The Emperor of Russia, he says, "the 
inheritor of a situation which he had not brought 
about," had, after the honor of his arms was vindi- 
cated, shown a laudable desire to accede to the 
wishes of Europe for a peace. The good fortune 
which has heretofore attended the Emperor has 
been crowned by the birth of a son and heir on the 
14th of March. He received the name of Napo- 
leon-Louis-Eugcne-Jean-Joseph. Elaborate prep- 
arations have been for some time made in anticipa- 
tion of this event; the birth of a prince having 
been almost tacitly assumed. Great rejoicings 
have been held in Paris. The title of the prince 
is King of Algeria. The negotiations have put a 
stop to all active hostilities in the Crimea. There 
is considerable sickness among the troops, more 

especially the French.. The Sultan has issued a 

decree granting equal rights to his subjects of every 
creed. All are to be eligible to posts of honor, and 
to be allowed to bear arms. All insulting official 
designations of Christian subjects are to be aban- 
doned. 



ICtortj 



Sketches and Adventures in Madeira, Portugal, and 
the Andalusias of Spain. By the Author of " Dan- 
iel Webster and his Contemporaries." (Harper 
and Brothers.) In this record of frolicsome ad- 
venture, Mr. Charles March lives over again the 
scenes in which he fully verifies the old proverb of 
when in Rome doing as the Romans do. His tour 
seems to have been exclusively devoted to enjoy- 
ment. He becomes one of the people among whom 
he temporarily loiters, and oblivious of the fact 
that he is a free and virtuous republican by birth, 
adapts himself to the humor of the moment like a 
native, and thus bears away a singularly racy ex- 
perience of every soil over which he wanders. At 
Madeira he plunges, like a wild school-boy, into 
the pleasures of the vintage, which reminded him 
of the gayeties of a New Hampshire husking. In 
Cadiz he became enamored of the famous national 
dish — the olla podrida — in spite of the shrugging 
of English shoulders at his expense. This odorif- 
erous viand is composed of carrots, peas, carabansa 
beans, onions, garlic, lettuces, celery, and long 
peppers, with slices of beef and ham, all boiled to- 
gether, and served in one dish. Mr. March com- 
pares its charms to those of virtue, with which the 
better you become acquainted, the more you are 
attached to them. The pungent garlic with which 
it was seasoned, and the rancid oil with which it 
was accompanied, became a second nature to him, 
so that if deprived of it for a single dinner, he 
thought with the Roman Emperor, " I have lost a 
day." With equal abandon, he yielded to the so- 
cial enchantments of Cadiz. The beauty of the 
city pours itself out at the hour of vespers on the 
Alameda. The effect on the susceptible American 
was truly bewildering. It even haunted him in 
his dreams, and his room seemed illuminated by 
the bright eyes of Spanish maidens. In Andalu- 
sia he dons the Andalusian costume. Behold our 
Yankee adventurer in his new garb. A short 
jacket of olive cloth, with sleeves slashed with 
crimson velvet, and with pendant tassels of silver 
to be thrown over the shoulder — breeches of the 
same material, decorated with double rows of sil- 
ver buttons from waist to knee — a waistcoat of 
broadcloth glittering with silver — and a sash of 
richest silk completes his astonishing outfit. Nor 
did he fail to act in character with his assumed 
position, though the color of his hair and complex- 
ion were not suggestive of Andalusia, nor his 
Spanish redolent of Old Castile. The reckless 
abandonment with which he rushes into the scenes 
of the passing hour gives a peculiar richness and 
unction to his descriptions of Spanish life. No pre- 
vious traveler has painted the manners of the peo- 
ple with more freshness and picturesque effect. 
His pencil, it must be confessed, is sometimes au- 
daciously free, and a trifle less of luxurious color- 
ing in his portraitures of Spanish beauty would 
have better suited the demands of a rigid taste. 
Few books of modern travel, however, combine so 
much novel information with such an insinuating 
nonchalance of manner, or present the countries 
which they describe in such a fascinating light. 
The author leaves the enchantments of Spain with 
regrets softened by the hope of a speedy return, 
and his readers are almost tempted to wish that 
they might meet him among scenes to which he 
has lent the attractions of his pen. 

Life of Schamyl, by J. Milton Mackie. (John 
P. Jewett and Co.) The main subject of this 



volume is the Circassian War against Russia, of 
whose celebrated leader, Schamyl, a minute biog- 
raphy is related. He was born in the year 1797, 
in a village called Heniri, belonging to a territory 
on the Caspian Sea. Of his parents no certain in- 
formation exists. In the education of his boyhood, 
the practice of horsemanship came before the study 
of books. Riding and shooting with the bow, the 
gun, and the pistol are exercises for Circassian 
youth, instead of spelling the lessons of the primer 
and the catechism. In these athletic sports the boy 
Schamyl must have passed the first dozen years of 
his life. The society of which, on reaching manhood, 
he became a member was a free democracy. Pre- 
viously to the establishment of his system of gov- 
ernment, the chief of the State was the one who, by 
consent of the warriors of his tribe, led them against 
the enemy. This office continued but for a single 
foray or campaign. In peace, all the tribe were 
brothers, free and equal before the law, with no 
distinctions but of natural gifts. The best and 
bravest person was in fact a chieftain, without the 
formality of election ; a king in authority though 
not in title, combining the natural and divine right 
to govern in his own person. The name of Scha- 
myl appears in the annals of the Circassian war 
of independence some time after he had taken his 
place in society as a warrior of full age. He had 
attained the age of thirty-seven when he was first 
made a leader of the tribes. At that time he was 
a warrior no less distinguished for his masculine 
beauty than for his intellectual supremacy. He 
impressed with awe all who came into his presence. 
Regarding himself as the instrument of a higher 
power, under the immediate inspiration of Allah in 
all his thoughts and decisions, his manner was free 
from excitement, and his mind almost as impassive 
and impersonal as fate itself. When arrayed in 
the military trappings of his race, Schamyl pre- 
sented a spectacle worthy of admiration : " Murat 
was not a gayer horseman, Bayard not a better 
knight, nor is the Apollo Belvidere more like a 
god." Such is the noble chief whose extraordinary 
career is narrated in the volume before us. The 
subject is replete with attractions, and in the hands 
of the author is made to assume a romantic inter- 
est. The peculiar life of the Circassians among 
their native mountains is described with a vivid- 
ness that presents a perpetual excitement to the 
imagination. The pictures of fresh pastoral life 
in these remote fastnesses are not without a certain 
idyllic charm, recalling the halcj^on days of Gre- 
cian antiquity. Though not forsaking the line of 
historic facts, the author has thrown a poetical 
glow around his descriptions, which often gives 
his narrative the fascination of a fairy tale. In 
this style of composition he is emphatically at 
home, and the present work will enhance the rep- 
utation which he has honorably won by his former 
brilliant productions. 

A Ladfs Second Journey Round the World, by 
Ida Pfeiffer. (Harper and Brothers.) Of all 
travelers from Herodotus to Bayard Taylor, for 
the union of quietness with energy, simplicity with 
shrewdness, masculine persistence with feminine 
curiosity, conciliatory manners with an unprepos- 
sessing exterior, the venerable Ida bears away the 
palm. Imagine a plain, weather-beaten, little old 
woman — with features showing the wear and tear 
of hard luck in many lands — a complexion colored 
with as deep a brown as that of any ancient mar- 



S3G 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



im -r by frequent battling with the elements — a 
dress of rustic homelinen in all its details — a gen- 
eral air of earnest, but perplexed curiosity — tones 
of voice that betray a rough experience of practical 
life, rather than the culture of polished society — and 
the complete absence of every thing like presump- 
tion, pretense, or affectation — and you will have a 
tolerable picture of the renowned lady-traveler as 
she appeared when Ave took her by the hand, on 
her recent visit to New York. Her book is a faith- 
ful transcript of herself. It affords the best illus- 
tration that could be given of her character. In- 
deed, its interest depends quite as much on the 
sympathy it awakens with her adventurous per- 
sonal career, as on the freshness or importance of 
its information. Ida, to external view, is always 
meek as a Quaker — patient, long-suffering, non- 
resistant — but when she gets provoked, as it must 
be owned she sometimes does, the fire of the flint 
comes out, and she shows how bravely a peaceful 
woman may defend herself from impertinence or 
insult. Her courage is equal to her perseverance, 
and her good common sense is a match for either. 
If she attempts no high flights of speculation or 
description in her simple narrative, she never falls 
into the absurd platitudes into which the Honor- 
able Miss Murray so incontinently plunges. Errors 
of observation and of memory are, of course, inev- 
itable in the record of such a widely-extended tour, 
but she never blunders through stupidity, and rare- 
ly, if ever, we fancy, through a verdant reliance on 
the myths of those mischievous wags who love to 
throw dust in the eyes of a conceited or silly for- 
eign traveler. 

The book commences with an account of the 
author's experience in London, where she arrived 
on the 10th of April, 1851. Her first impressions 
were not of the most agreeable character. She was 
bewildered by the busy throng of life in the crowd- 
ed streets. The rush and hurry of the vehicles was 
as frightful to her nerves as the dire confusion of 
Broadway amidst a conglomeration of omnibuses. 
Not without a sense of gladness, as of one escaped 
from imminent peril, she at last found herself safe 
in her room. On further acquaintance with Lon- 
don, she misses the warm stoves to which she had 
been accustomed at home. The open fire-places in 
which the English delight are not at all to her 
taste. Still more does she miss the frank, open- 
hearted society which prevails in the south of 
Europe. The numerous dinners and evening par- 
ties are a poor substitute for the genial gayety of 
the social circle. They do not draw people to- 
gether in an unconstrained, agreeable manner. 
She found the life of the women of the middle class 
especially monotonous. In this respect they pre- 
sent a parallel to domestic society nearer home. 
The good Ida complains that they are mostly alone 
all day, and that when their husbands return in the 
evening from their business they are too tired to 
talk, and have no love of being disturbed by vis- 
itors, but sit down in an arm-chair by the fire, take 
a newspaper, and now and then fall asleep. This 
Dutch picture of an interior has many prototypes 
out of London. Sunday in England was abso- 
lutely intolerable to the lively temperament of the 
excitable Austrian. The laws of etiquette were no 
less onerous. 

Leaving England but with faint admiration of 
its people or its institutions, our traveler embarks 
in the month of May for the Cape of (Jood Hope. 
Her voyage was one long misery. The captain 



of the vessel was a regular skin-flint. The table 
was so meanly supplied that Ida came little short 
of starvation. The bill of fare was the briefest 
known in the annals of gastronomy. For break- 
fast, weak coffee without milk, and salt meat — for 
dinner, pea-soup and salt meat — for supper, tea and 
salt meat. This monotonous diet was now and 
then varied by a tough chicken, or an insipid lump 
of dough, fortified with a few stray raisins, but 
ham, eggs, and even cheese, were forbidden luxu- 
ries. The company was worse than the fare. The 
only passenger beside herself was a rude young 
man without education, who passed his time in 
smoking, whistling, bawling among the sailors, 
With the occasional diversion when the poultry 
were killed of being in at the death. The tedious 
voyage lasted for seventy-five days, and happy in- 
deed w r as Ida to land at Cape Town. She passed 
four weeks there, but saw little worthy of remark. 
From Cape ToAvn she proceeded to Singapore, 
Borneo, Batavia, Sumatra, and the wild country 
of the Battakers. These gentry, after becoming 
subject to the Dutch Government, have been 
obliged to renounce their favorite table delicacy of 
human flesh. 

Previously to intrusting herself to their hospi- 
tality she received many friendly warnings of the 
danger of the attempt. She was referred to the 
horrid fate of two American missionaries who were 
killed and eaten while passing through the coun- 
try. But she was reassured by the information 
that in case of falling a victim to the Battakers, 
she would not be subjected to slow tortures. She 
had been told that it was their custom to tie the 
sufferers living to the stake, and instead of putting 
them out of their pain at once, to hack pieces off 
their bodies, and consume them by degrees with 
tobacco and salt. But this was incorrect. Such 
doom was reserved only for criminals of the deep- 
est dye. Prisoners of Avar are tied to a tree and 
beheaded at once, but their blood is preserved as 
a grateful beverage, and is sometimes used to 
moisten a favorite kind of rice-pudding. The body 
is then divided among the official heirs of such a 
precious inheritance. The Rajah claims the palms 
of the hands, the soles of the feet, the flesh of the 
head, the li\ r er, and the heart, which are regarded 
as esculents of peculiar delicacy. The flesh in gen- 
eral is roasted and seasoned Avith salt. Madame 
Pfeiffer Avas informed by those avIio had tasted 
this infernal banquet, that the Aiands were of ex- 
cellent flavor. The Avomcn, luckily, are not allow- 
ed to take part in these grand public festivals. 

After a pretty thorough exploration of the prin- 
cipal Dutch East India settlements, where she 
finds innumerable objects of curious and novel 
interest, which she describes with graphic sim- 
plicity, our indomitable traveler takes passage 
for California, and arrives early in the autumn. 
Her impressions of the Golden State are frankly 
recorded, and Avill serve as an authentic landmark 
from which to reckon the subsequent progress of 
that miraculous commonwealth. Having visited 
Oregon and the chief South American cities on the 
Pacific coast, she takes a steamer at Aspinwall for 
Ncav Orleans, and lands at that city in the sunny 
month of June. The condition of the slaves Avas 
one of her first objects of inquiry. She according- 
ly visited several plantations in Louisiana. With 
no disposition to look with favorable eyes on the 
institution of slavery, she found the blacks in a 
less unhappy position than she had imagined. On 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



837 



an estate in Donaldsonville, where she staid for 
some time, she saw nothing to violate her sense of 
humanity. The slaves were "well cared for. They 
lived in cottages standing apart from each other, 
and containing a large room, occupied either by a 
family or two or three unmarried people. Their 
beds were good, provided with pillows and blank- 
ets, and even mosquito-nets. A large cottage in 
the middle of the village is used as a nursery, where 
the children are attended while their mothers are 
at work. Ida often Avent by herself to visit the 
negro village, and always found the people looking 
very comfortable. Many were sitting before their 
doors with a famous lump of Avhite bread in their 
hands, and occasionally feasting on hot roast pork. 
At six in the evening they left off work, and came 
home to supper in a merry mood. This consisted 
of palatable Indian corn cake, and when the meal 
was over they went from one hut to another, joking 
and gossiping with proverbial Ethiopian careless- 
ness. Compared with the serfage of Russia, or 
even with the fate of many of the work-people and 
peasantry of Europe, Madame Pfeiffer considered 
slavery in Louisiana, as it came under her view, as 
a lenient system. The Russian peasant is not only 
the slave of his master, but of the government, and 
of every petty official. He gives his labor without 
pay to the owner of the land, pays taxes to the 
government, submits to all kinds of ill-treatment 
from the underlings of authority, and is obliged to 
earn his own living into the bargain. Nobody 
gives him a new garment when the old one is worn 
out, nor pays his taxes for him, nor offers him a 
morsel of bread if his patch of ground fails to yield 
its produce. He is bound to the soil on which he 
is born, but has no master who, having bought 
him at a high price, is responsible at least for his 
physical subsistence. The laws of the Slave States, 
however, appeared to the traveler worse than those 
of the Dutch authorities in India. 

From New Orleans she steams it up the Missis- 
sippi to Minnesota, crosses the country to Niagara 
Falls, and, after a brief excursion in Canada, makes 
her way to the city of New York, arriving in the 
month of August. Here she meets with a friendly 
reception from some of her own countrymen, and 
at once finds herself at home. The bustle of life 
in Broadway and Wall Street was even greater 
than that which she saw in London, and it is 
strange enough, she remarks, that "it is just dur- 
ing the most hurried business-hours that the ladies 
choose to show themselves in full promenade dress- 
es on the pavement of Broadway, where they add 
very seriously to the obstructions of the street." 
In Boston, the worthy Ida was disgusted with a 
specimen of the moneyed aristocracy, to whom she 
had brought a letter of introduction from New 
York. Upon delivering her missive, the gentle- 
man to whom it was addressed cast a suspicious 
eye on her plain apparel, and gave her a decided 
cold shoulder. After poring a long time over the 
brief letter, he at length inquired of the traveled 
heroine what she wanted, as if she were a beggar 
for alms. Her blood was up at once, and she re- 
plied that she wanted nothing, she had not sought 
the letter, and had only delivered it from a sense 
of duty. The Boston Croesus mumbled out some 
apology, and thus the not divine colloquy ended. 
Moralizing on the occasion, Ida makes some whole- 
some remarks on the plutocracy not only of Bos- 
ton, but of the world in general. Their pride and 
arrogance to her are far more insupportable than 



that of the real aristocratic class who usually have 
at least the grace of deportment that is often want- 
ing to the former. In Boston, she is informed 
that these purse-proud people hold together more 
than any where else — they scarcely associate with 
any but their own class, many among themselves, 
and live almest all together in one street, namely, 
Beacon Street. 

On the whole, Madame Pfeiffer leaves the coun- 
try with an exalted opinion of American institu- 
tions. She found many things different from what 
j she had expected, many things inconsistent with 
the principles of freedom and equality, which are 
the boast of the nation, but still she concludes that 
" the United States stand alone in the world, and 
well, indeed, would be it be for humanity if others 
were formed after their model." Her reflections, 
however, are less valuable than her descriptions. 
She always brings away sharp and clear impres- 
sions of whatever she sees with her own eyes, and 
with her insatiable thirst for novelty, her daunt- 
less curiosity, and her frank simplicity of expres- 
sion, she is one of the most entertaining of mod- 
ern travelers. 

A new edition of The Teacher, by Jacob Abbott, 
will be welcomed by the numerous practical educa- 
tors in this country who appreciate the merits of the 
author as an expounder of the most efficient meth- 
ods of juvenile instruction. The work details a 
system of arrangements for the management of a 
school on the principle of moral influence, and em- 
bodies a variety of valuable suggestions for the 
benefit of teachers who are commencing the ardu- 
ous duties of their profession. This edition is il- 
lustrated by several engravings. (Harper and 
Brothers.) 

In fulfillment of her design to arouse the atten- 
tion of the public to the alarming neglect of phys- 
ical education and the consequent deterioration of 
the national health in this country, Miss Cathar- 
ine Beecher has put forth another volume en- 
titled Physiology and Calisthenics for Schools and 
Families, presenting a comprehensive practical sys- 
tem of instruction on the subjects to which they 
are devoted. It is intended to be studied by young 
people, and to be read by all classes. In matter, 
it consists of a judicious digest of elementary prin- 
ciples, and in style is characteristic of the author, 
clear, decided, and forcible. (Harper and Broth- 
ers.) 

Daniel Verified in History, by A. M. Osbox, 
D.D., is an attempt to explain the predictions 
in the Book of Daniel by a comparison with the 
events of civil history prior to the close of the 
fifth century. Without following in the wake of 
any previous expounder of prophecy, the author 
has marked out a track of his own, and presented 
the fruits of personal reflection and research in a 
lucid form. The conclusions at which he has ar- 
rived suggest many interesting questions to the 
theologian, who may admire the ingenuity with 
which they are illustrated, without being con- 
vinced by the arguments alleged in their support. 
On so recondite a theme there is room for great 
difference of opinion. The volume is introduced 
by some remarks from the pen of the Rev. Dr. 
Wnedon, who justly commends the popular style 
of its execution, and its freedom from literary pre- 
tense and ostentation. (Carlton and Phillips.) 

Contributions to Literature, by Samuel Oilman*, 
D.D. (Crosby, Nichols, and Co.) Bare literary 
attainments, an active poetical fancy, a pungent 



838 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



quaintuess of expression, a vein of quiet humor, 
and a serene and sunny temperament, are the en- 
viable characteristics of the author of this volume. 
As a scholar, he has carried the most refined cul- 
ture of New England to a distinguished sphere of 
professional duty at the South ; as a writer, he has 
for a long series of years graced the periodical lit- 
erature of the country by the productions of his 
versatile and active pen. The collection now pub- 
lished comprises his principal efforts both in prose 
and verse. Among them, the early readers of the 
North American Review will recognize several of 
their old favorites, and will rejoice to renew their 
acquaintance with them in the present form. 

At Home and Abroad, by Margaret Fuller 
Ossoli. (Crosby, Nichols, and Co.) The con- 
tents of this volume include the " Summer on the 
Lakes" and the "European Correspondence," which 
have heretofore appeared in print, together with 
several private letters written abroad to friends at 
home, an account of the last voyage, and some po- 
etical tributes to the memory of the writer. They 
are suited to enlarge the interest in the genius and 
character of Margaret Fuller, which has been con- 
stantly on the increase since her disastrous end. 
With the defects in clearness and symmetry of 
expression which she was never able to overcome, 
they are marked by the deep earnestness of feeling 
which was the predominant trait of her character, 
and are always richly suggestive of thought, wheth- 
er they repel or attract the sympathies of the reader. 
Her account of the events of the Italian Revolu- 
tion forms an important chapter in the history of 
that memorable struggle. 

The Island of Cuba, by Alexander Humboldt, 
translated from the Spanish, by J. S. Thrasher. 
(Derby and Jackson.) Humboldt's Personal Nar- 
rative continues to be a leading authority on every 
thing relating to Spanish America. The portion 
of that work which treats of the island of Cuba is 
here published in a separate form, accompanied 
with copious notes, and a preliminary essay by the 
translator. It contains a store of statistical and 
topographical information, which can scarcely be 
obtained with so great facility from any other 
source. The political speculations of the trans- 
lator, which are interwoven with numerous topics 
of discussion, are adapted to awaken controversy, 
although they do not diminish the interest with 
which the work must be read, in the present rela- 
tion of the United States to Cuba and to the ques- 
tion of Slavery. 

Parry and M'Millan have issued a reprint of 
Cumberland's Memoirs of Himself, a book famous 
in its day, and well worthy of perusal, even amidst 
the crowd of literary novelties which beset the 
public from every quarter, on account of its profu- 
sion of anecdotes concerning the celebrities of a 
past age, as well as the naive recital of the person- 
al experience of the writer. Cumberland was the 
author of several dramas and poems of slender in- 
trinsic merit, but his antecedents and position gave 
him access to many of his contemporaries superior 
to himself, of whom he gives a garrulous, but not 
disagreeable, collection of reminiscences. Among 
the distinguished persons who figure in his pages 
are Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Garrick, of 
the circle immortalized by Boswell, with many 
literary and political characters of a later date. 
The edition is illustrated with notes by Henry 
Flanders, the biographer of the " Chief Justices of 



the United States," but a complete index of names 
would have been a more valuable service to the 
American reader. 

The Panorama and other Poems, by J. G. Whit- 
tier. (Ticknor and Fields.) This volume is chiefly 
composed of Tyrtaean lyrics in praise of freedom. 
They are impassioned and vigorous, and have a 
certain exhilerating trumpet-voice. Several quiet 
domestic poems, in the best manner of the author, 
give a pleasing variety to the contents. The ad- 
mirable ballads, " Maud Muller," " Mary Garvin," 
and " The Ranger," are among the most felicitous 
productions of the author, and breathe the soul of 
true poetry. They will reward an attentive study. 



The literary intelligence from Paris is not very 
extensive. The third and fourth volumes of the 
Works of Napoleon III. have appeared, complet- 
ing the collection. They contain his speeches, 
messages, proclamations, public letters, and a por- 
tion of a treatise " On the Past and Future Condi- 
tion of the Artillery." George Sand, whose latest 
extravaganza is "Le Diable aux Champs," in the 
Revue de Paris (in which birds and beasts figure 
among the dramatis personal), has a new feuilleton, 
in La Presse, called " Evena and Lucippe." M. de 
Maupas, formerly French Minister of Police, who 
took a prominent part in the coup-diktat of Decem- 
ber, 1851, is writing a history of that revolution. 

A rumor that the fifth volume of Macaulay's His- 
tory of England was not only finished, but actually 
in the press, has been contradicted " on authority." 

The late Samuel Rogers is said to have left five 
volumes of "Recollections — Personal, Political, 
and Literary," which his nearest relative (Mr. 
Sharpe, the banker) has not yet determined to 
give to the world. The gossip about the banker- 
poet possessing immense wealth (there was one 
story of his having a Bank of England note for 
£1,000,000, neatly framed, always hanging over his 
breakfast-parlor chimney-piece !) is incorrect. He 
had parted with his interest in the bank years ago, 
receiving a liberal annuity for his share ; and his 
personal property, under his will, has been sworn to 
as under £40,000. About as much more Avill prob- 
ably be realized by the sale of his pictures, articles 
of virtu, and other effects, including a great many 
of Turner's sketches, with a large collection of 
Stothard's drawings. 

Lady Morgan, whose age may be stated as " be- 
tween eighty and ninety," is engaged in writing 
her Life and Times. About sixty-five years ago, 
she first attracted public attention by her ballad of 
" Kate Kearney." She has a literary pension of 
£300 a year.— R. H. Home, author of " Orion" 
(the epic poem, which was first published for one 
farthing), not having succeeeded as a gold-digger 
in Australia, has subsided into dramatic critic of 
the Melbourne Argus. — Lord Brougham has col- 
lected his Edinburgh Review articles, among which 
is not the celebrated critique on Byron's juvenile 
poems. — Macaulay has found time to contribute a 
charming biography of Oliver Goldsmith to the 
new edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." — 
Samuel Lover, author of " Rory O'More" (song, 
novel, and play), has received a life-pension of 
£100 a year ; and a pension of £200 has been given 
to Mr. Francis P. Smith, "for services rendered to 
his country, as the first proposer and fitter of the 
screw to the mercantile marine and fleet of Great 
Britain." 



CMtnfH €Mt 



THE AMERICAN PULPIT.— The genius of 
Bulwer, after following the fortunes of "Ri- 
enzi, the Last of the Tribunes," and depicting the 
dramatic aspects of his character and life, closes 
the history by presenting a scene in which the 
homage of a Roman multitude was rendered to the 
power of eloquence. Standing before the excited 
crowd, himself the calmest of them all, and point- 
ing to the republican arms and motto of Rome, 
Rienzi challenged the memory of their proud tradi- 
tions by exclaiming, " I, too, am a Roman and a 
citizen : hear me !" But a cry of bitter indigna- 
tion answered, " Hear him not ; hear him not : his 
false tongue can charm away our senses !" The 
scornful words were eagerly caught up by the fu- 
rious populace, and " Hear him not !" was the only 
answer to his dying appeal. " No changing mus- 
cle," says the writer, " betokened fear. His per- 
suasion of his own wonderful powers of eloquence, 
if he could but be heard, inspired him yet with 
hope. He stood collected in his own indignant, 
but determined thoughts ; but the knowledge of 
that very eloquence was now his deadliest foe. 
The leaders of the multitude trembled lest he 
should be heard; and, "doubtless," says the con- 
temporaneous biographer, " had he but spoken, he 
would have changed them all, and the work been 
marred !" 

" If he could but be 7ieard" suggests to the thought- 
ful reader the numerous occasions, in the history of 
the world, when one voice, fitted to control and 
inspire, might have given a new direction to the 
movements of mankind. Eventful periods have 
there been when such a voice, speaking in tones 
that swelled with the fullness of the heart, might 
have availed more than the force of arms. The 
most of men hold their thoughts and passions at 
the mercy of others. The laws of sovereignty and 
subjection are constantly repeated, in forms with- 
out number ; and hence it is the prerogative of el- 
oquence, whenever it suits the hour, to execute a 
noble task in the leadership of the woi^d. It is a 
power born with man, for great and beneficent 
purposes. Acknowledging no hereditary descent, 
and derived from no artificial circumstances, it ex- 
erts an authority that vindicates its claims by the 
simple conditions of its exercise. Its truth is its 
w r arrant. Its strength lies in what others are, no 
less than what it is in itself; and men yield to it 
in glad submissiveness, because obedience ennobles 
them. There is in all minds a profound faith in its 
wisdom, justice, and excellence. None have to be 
taught that it ought to be reverenced, for popular 
instinct knows its office, and rejoices in its fulfill- 
ment. It is older than any government, higher 
than all other forms of influence, and more sacred 
than any earthly trust. Not the offspring of one 
faculty, nor the outward shape of one attribute; 
not the impulse of a moment, nor the creature of 
passing events ; it is our nature, developed in ma- 
ture wholeness, and blending truth, love, aspira- 
tion, heroism, in perfected unity. Men feel it 
to be a human thing, and yet, quickened by its 
call, they rise into a loftier and purer conscious- 
ness, wondering at the mysteries that open within 
themselves, and catching glimpses of a glory they 
had not learned to contemplate. There is no kind 
of power like it, because it is the select represent- 



ative of all the myriad shapes < f agency. It is 
kindness in its gentlest spirit — courage in its bold- 
est daring — affection in its intensest fervor. It is 
philanthropy in its widest reach, and patriotism in 
its most impassioned vigor. It is reason in its 
wisest mood. It is the mighty heart that throbs 
through every artery, feeds every muscle, and 
speeds the hidden stream of electric fire along every 
nerve. Heaven has given it the charm of com- 
pletest intellect, and ordained it to be its chief in- 
strument in the progress of the world. 

If the gift of language is one of the most distin- 
guishing attributes of our race, it is eloquence, as 
the perfection of the expressional mind, that ele- 
vates this idea to its highest point. Language, as 
the common inheritance of mankind, marks their 
inherent superiority in the scale of earthly creation, 
but language as eloquence — language as the truest, 
deepest, grandest embodimentof intellect, heart,and 
soul — is essential to the full realization of its place in 
the economy of the world. The rudest artisanship 
suggests the prophecy of Architecture and Sculp- 
ture ; the tool of the mechanic speaks of the chisel of 
Genius ; and just so the mere utilities of language, 
as a means of intercourse, indicate a work beyond 
the limits of business and society. Not more surely 
does heat, after warming the globe, struggle to reas- 
cend ; not more faithfully does the dew yield to the 
law of evaporation, and seek the air that formed it, 
than does language, if true to its ancient inspiration, 
labor to return to its immortal source. For earthly 
objects only it was never designed. Language 
looks to much more than our secular relations. 
Important as is its province in the affairs of trade 
and commerce, in developing and maintaining 
brotherhood among men, in transferring one's be- 
ing to another by the associations of friendship and 
love, it is far more impressive when viewed as the 
outshining of the soul itself, illuminated by the 
light of a higher existence. It is man, as the image 
of God — man, as the redeemed creature of Christ, 
and the heir of an awaiting immortality, on whom 
this wonderful bestowment has been conferred. 
And hence, it is only as his regenerated sympathies 
come forth into action that his language attains its 
true import, and moves to that harmonious meas- 
ure which marks the heart-throbs of angels. It is, 
therefore, a perpetual witness to the religious sen- 
timent underlying his whole nature. Fallen and 
corrupt as that nature is, it has not merely the 
record of a lost estate in its instincts and hopes, but 
there *is a voice in its language — a voice in its 
thoughts and feelings — that speaks evermore of the 
woe of sin and the want of redemption. Without 
religion, language would be impossible. If piety 
were excluded from the theory of the universe, lan- 
guage would not exist. It is founded in the out- 
goings of the soul ; it is an offering of the soul itself 
in sentiment and affection ; it is the law of com- 
munion and interchange ; and it is beyond our 
power to conceive that this union and intercourse 
could be sustained between man and man except 
as the result of ties that had originally bound man 
to God. Agreeably to this fact, the great lan- 
guages of the world have always exhibited a pos- 
itive religious element, in some form or other ; and 
the interchangeableness of their most expressive 
ordinary terms with the words used in sacrifice and 



840 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



worship shows the spirit that has animated them. 
If the language that Christianity created "were to be 
swept away from us, the cultivated mind of the age 
■would be instantly bankrupt. The great works of 
our literature would become as unintelligible as the 
fossils of the globe to the savage. Paradise Lost 
would sink to the level of the bewildering hiero- 
glyphics of the Nile, and Burke's magnificent rea- 
soning convey no more meaning than the chatter- 
ing of magpies. 

If eloquence is the highest expression of mind, it 
can not be doubted that the eloquence of Christian- 
ity transcends every other form of persuasive speech. 
Such, at least, is the ideal that conies before us 
whenever we attempt to realize its excellence. 
Dealing with topics peculiar to itself, and having 
at command resources that are shared with no sci- 
ence or philosophy ; its language select and specif- 
ic ; its motives, impulses, and aims all of heavenly 
birth; and withal, promised the efficient aid of the 
Holy Spirit, it ought to be, and must be, if true to 
itself, the noblest utterance that mortal lips can 
make. No throne of power on this earth can com- 
pare with a Christian pulpit, where the sentiments 
of divine revelation are designed to be brought in 
contact with the hearts of men. It is an intellect- 
ual station that is not only impregnable in itself, 
but affords a vantage-ground lifted high above all 
rivalry, whence may issue the conquering forces of 
the moral world. Neither nature nor grace has any 
where made such provision for plenitude of influ- 
ence as has been shed upon the pulpit. Tried by 
the standard of mere intellect, it is an institution 
fitted above all others to diffuse the wisest and best 
thoughts ; but when regarded as the chosen instru- 
ment of Heaven to recover its moral authority over 
a rebellious race, and bring it back to the honored 
companionship of the elder spirits of the universe, 
it rises to a position of grandeur that can not be 
adequately appreciated. On this account we have 
no hesitation in declaring that the pulpit presents 
the finest field for true, genuine, lofty eloquence. 
Nor can we believe that all successful preaching is 
otherwise than eloquent. It may not be so con- 
sidered if tested by conventional art ; but that its 
simple and direct earnestness — its close and tena- 
cious grappling with the mighty elements of our 
nature — its vivid appeals to conscience — its tre- 
mendous summons of the whole man into the pres- 
ence of those dread realities which fill eternity — are 
never faithfully exhibited without conforming to 
the just conditions of eloquence, must be admitted. 
Such preaching may not be marked by the gor- 
geous imagery of imagination, nor may it announce 
principles that strike conviction into the scientific 
intellect, but nevertheless, it is eloquence of the 
most emphatic sort. It is eloquence, because it 
combines truth and emotion in their intensest de- 
gree. 

The bare fact that the pulpit is a pulpit — a place 
for teaching the sublime truths of Christianity and 
enforcing them upon the consciences and hearts of 
men — ought to secure its competency for effective 
action on the human mind. But the American 
pulpit is favored Avith peculiar advantages for its 
great work. Not, indeed, that it has a fuller or 
better form of Christianity, or that it can lay claim 
to any special excellence in its interpretation of the 
Holy Scriptures. It has, however, a freedom from 
false restrictions, a position of independence, a con- 
tact with the public mind, a general acknowledg- 
ment of its integrity, and an appreciation of its 



utility and value, that give it an attitude of com- 
manding interest. Viewed in this light, it is sur- 
rounded by circumstances that allow it the unfet- 
tered exercise of its power. It can discharge its 
office in its own spirit and by means of those agen- 
cies that are appropriate to its nature and ends. 
It is free to deal with men in those relations that 
connect their being with immortal objects. It has 
the welcome of the fireside and the cheerful homage 
of our domestic sentiments. It is intimately united 
with all the great benevolent and educational in- 
terests of the country, and its influence is felt in 
every movement designed to advance the welfare 
of humanity. The true idea of the pulpit is theo- 
retically found in its relations to Christianity, to 
the preacher, and to the congregation ; and it is 
obvious that the American pulpit is based on a cor- 
rect conviction of the obligations that spring from 
this three-fold aspect of its rights and duties. A 
man who enters it, alive to the sanctity of its work 
and with such abilities as its intellectual and spir- 
itual requirements demand, selects a field in which 
the best opportunities for personal growth and act- 
ive usefulness are constantly presented to him. If 
he can not be a man here — a man of the highest 
Christian type — a man abreast with the age, and 
yet strictly and thoroughly conservative — a man 
of peaceful progress and fresh, ardent, glowing im- 
pulses — it must be from some unyielding infirmity 
or obstinate fault of his nature. As a thinker, his 
range of thought embraces all those subjects which 
have engaged the study of ages ; as a Avorker, his 
"field is the world ;" and therefore, Avhether medi- 
tating or acting, there is a momentous pressure on 
his spirit that ought to rouse its faculties to their 
utmost strength. The vast resources which Heav- 
en holds in reserve for the success of the pulpit are 
accessible to him ; and if he realize the holy voca- 
tion before him, it will be his ceaseless effort so to 
see, feel, and proclaim the truth of Christianity, as 
to be eloquent in the Scriptures. The Christian 
preacher will appear to his eye as the truest, no- 
blest, and most majestic of all speakers. To be 
such a speaker — a tender, persuasive, resistless or- 
ator for God — will enlist the ambition and endeav- 
ors of his life. It will be the supreme charm, and 
all else will be subordinate. WhateA r er may be 
done in humbler Avays, by the sendee of the pen 
or the ministry of benevolence, will occupy a trib- 
utary relation, Avhile to preach "pure religion and 
undefiled" will stand out before him as incompara- 
bly superior to every other department of activity 
and labor. First of all, he must be "mighty in 
Avord," and to attain that simple but sublime elo- 
quence Avhich scorns all unsanctified art and dis- 
dains the trickery of rhetoric, he will labor Avith 
untiring assiduity. 

It is not, hoAvever, the pulpit as a field for elo- 
quence that Ave are noAv anxious to consider it, but 
simply as a moral and religious poAver, occupying 
a most prominent place in the economy of Provi- 
dence, and foremost among those instrumentalities 
that advance the A\ r elfare of the Avorld. Taken in 
this connection, it is a divine institution for divine 
ends. It is a specific thing for a specific purpose. 
The decree of God has set it apart for a special 
Avork, and no man has any right to extend it be- 
yond its limitations, or pervert it to extraneous ob- 
jects. To unfold the distinctive doctrines of Chris- 
tianity as they centre in Jesus Christ, the Lord and 
Redeemer of our nature ; to conA-ict man of his ut- 
ter helplessness, and lead him to the source of all 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



841 



strength ; to excite his slumbering conscience, and 
bring him to the cross as a lost and ruined sinner ; 
to form within him the virtues of faith and holi- 
ness, and thus fit him for heaven, is its great mis- 
sion. If the pulpit devote itself to this task, it 
will fulfill the aim for which it has been estab- 
lished. A minister of the Gospel must feel that he 
is consecrated to a select vocation, and he must re- 
strict himself to its duties if he accomplish the 
work committed to his care. Outside of the pul- 
pit there are departments of moral and religious 
effort open to his exertions, and into these broad 
fields he may enter whenever the spirit of his sacred 
ministry may accompany him. There are such 
scenes of labor, and they are perfectly sympathetic 
with his office. But even here a wise caution is 
necessary. Generally they are the mere incidents 
of his work. A minister magnifies his office by 
earnest devotion to it, and, if faithful to its su- 
preme claims, he will find its immediate duties 
altogether sufficient to exhaust his time and his 
strength. Let him keep within his own appointed 
sphere, and he will find that he can do more just 
there to rectify the errors of public opinion, to 
awaken the spirit of moral and Christian philan- 
thropy, to educate the sentiments of mankind and 
promote the progress of society, than in all other 
ways. It should, therefore, be his constant and 
prayerful effort to make the pulpit a mighty pow- 
er, so that it may create and sustain every kind 
of secondary agency in the world. Here he should 
stand in the full panoply of divine strength ; here 
he should be himself in the best and noblest sense 
of a redeemed and anointed man ; here he should 
do all that human agency can do to send abroad 
the restorative influences that God has ordained to 
save a fallen race. For nothing is more certain 
than if the pulpit supports its true character and 
answers its peculiar ends, every other benificent 
institution will flourish. The first and main thing 
is to keep the pulpit in its right place and at its 
right work. Other instrumentalities will take its 
tone and diffuse its spirit. No truth is more clear- 
ly defined in the New Testament, none more fully 
illustrated and confirmed in all history, than that 
the pulpit is God's chosen means- to communicate 
religious thought and impulse to the world. To 
it we must look for the life of all divine benevo- 
lence ; it is the fountain, and all other agencies are 
but reservoirs. 

It is just here that the American pulpit is ex- 
posed to its greatest danger. Our national mind 
is so intensely active ; our interest in philanthropic 
and reformatory schemes is so deep and earnest ; 
our susceptibility to moral excitements is so quick 
and lively, that the pulpit is easily diverted from 
its peculiar work. The demands of the age are 
pressing upon it, and from every quarter there are 
invitations that solicit its assistance. No one can 
indiscriminately condemn these calls. Not a few 
of them are in perfect harmony with the ministerial 
calling, and deserve the warmest countenance and 
support. But there are many of them that can 
not profitably occupy its zeal, and others there are 
that, under a false guise, delude the ministry into 
pernicious paths. The present tendency of the 
ministry to engage in literary and scientific pur- 
suits — to be known as amateurs in art — to cultivate 
the fashionable elegancies of intellect, may not be 
so directly injurious as some other evils, and yet it 
is easy to see that they are acting as counter-ex- 
citements to the specific business of ministerial 



life. Literature affords them a most interesting 
and refreshing exercise, and, within due bounds, 
ought to enlist their attention. The names of 
Barrow, Berkeley, Hall, and Chal ners are sufficient 
to show that literature of an elevated and enno- 
bling kind may have a share of their regards. And 
yet, such are the impulses of our day, no small pro- 
portion of ministerial time and ability are consumed 
in this sort of wasting service. Any diversion from 
their exclusive office is deplorable, but especially 
those forms of popular effort which lead them off 
into ambitious ways and stimulate the less spiritual 
instincts are to be deeply lamented. A minister 
needs a large and liberal intercourse with the world, 
and his social sympathies require full gratification, 
but his intellect is sacred to his divine vocation. 
Such intellectual sacredness is the primary element 
of his morality. It is the emphasis of his official 
vow. It is the badge of his high position. And 
hence he can not without detriment allow himself 
to use his mind habitually and earnestly in other 
relations, without impairing his own intellectual 
tone and dissipating that strength which ought to 
be reserved for the mighty warfare between sin and 
holiness. 

The effect of this intellectual secularization be- 
gins tobe mournfully apparent in the American Min- 
istry. Every man of religious observation knows 
that the Gospel is not generally preached in this 
country as it was thirty years since. It has not 
that single-sightedness, that clear and unmistaka- 
ble directness, that distinct and definite purpose, 
which once characterized its exhibitions. We 
miss much of the preaching spirit and manner 
that our fathers employed with signal success. A 
generation of preachers is rapidly crowding our 
pulpits who fight no more with the single weapon 
of the Gospel — they must furnish themselves with 
sundry small-arms, and flourish short swords of 
earthly steel. One calls the champions of "Nat- 
ural Vestiges of Creation" into the field, and en- 
joys the luxury of an unresisting fight. Another 
leaps full-armed into a museum of Megatheria 
and ancient Fossils, and scatters bones right and 
left in terrible dismay. A third is profound in 
Ontology ; a fourth spices his sermons with Fichte, 
Carlyle, and Strauss ; a fifth honors the Bible by 
taking a text, and supplies the rest from the West- 
minster Review. The variety of such discourses 
is beyond classification. Of all eclecticists these 
modern preachers whom Ave describe are the most 
omnivorous. The poet no longer holds his realm 
intact, and the staid philosopher hears the hurry 
of black cloth past him. The merchant is mi- 
nus his statistics, and the ledger is spread out in 
the pages of the Sunday sermon. And the poli- 
ticians, long left to their stumps and platforms iii 
unrivaled solitude, wonder what next, when they 
find their arts departing for cushioned pulpits. 
With a change of topics has come a corresponding 
change of language, figurative illustration, and 
style. The short, abrupt, torpedo sentence — the 
playful suspense and the sudden surprise — the 
sharp, angular turns — the wit that arms a thought 
like a protruding sting, or the piercing satire that 
comes like a serpent's fang with a serpent's hiss — 
all these are admired and coveted as the intellect- 
ual and moral forces of the new school of dexterity. 
And it must be confessed that these rampant inno- 
vators have been quite successful in their achieve- 
ments. They have caught, in somelnstances, the 
popular ear, and carried the popular voice. But 



842 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



they have mistaken rashness for strength, novelty 
for freshness, and popularity for usefulness. The 
nakedness of the soul is not laid bare by such min- 
istrations, nor are these frolicsome pages that wait 
in the court of intellect, the attending ushers that 
lead you into the royal presence of truth. 

Such egregious errors as those just noticed may 
be comparatively rare in the American pulpit ; 
nevertheless the tendency toward a degenerate 
taste, a lax logic, and a bad moral temper, are un- 
fortunately but too obvious. The faults of former 
days, when preachers spun metaphysical cobwebs, 
that hung from church-rafters and caught the float- 
ing dust — the days, when the origin of evil and 
the mysteries of free-will formed the stamina of 
discussions — have indeed passed away; but why 
substitute other evils for them ? If the intellect 
slumbered under such deadening treatment, no- 
thing surely is gained, when it is roused for a the- 
atrical entertainment or a menagerie exhibition. 
Preaching is not to open men's eyes, but to pierce 
their hearts. It is not to play upon their ears, but 
to seize their consciences. Preaching is mind and 
soul, animated and sanctified by God's truth and 
Spirit. It is reason, imagination, feeling, utter- 
ance, all alive with the divine presence, hallowed 
by divine purity, and chastened by divine peace. 
It is humility in its lowliest prostration ; courage 
in its fearless fervor; unconsciousness in its sub- 
limest insensibility to all selfishness. It is the 
man hidden in the splendors of his theme — so ab- 
sorbed with its momentous realities — so lost in its 
encircling glory, that his voice is silenced in the 
summons, now stern and now melting, that breaks 
from the throne of Jehovah, and translates the hear- 
er into another state of existence. It is Christ cru- 
cified as Christ crucified really and truly appeared. 
But what a mount is this modern Calvary ! What 
ludicrous fire-works are these that mimic the earth- 
quake by which the graves of old Judea hurled out 
their startled dead ! The women retire from this 
cross not to find spices and moisten them with their 
tears, but to indulge in gay ecstasies, and circle 
aloft in drawing-room raptures. And the centu- 
rions and their soldiers walk exultingly forth in 
their armor and triumph in the faith that this is 
not the Son of God. One of the worst features of 
the present mode of popular preaching in the Amer- 
ican pulpit is the false treatment of the great car- 
dinal doctrine of Christianity. If this vast truth 
■ — a truth that gives significance to the whole Chris- 
tian system, and draws after it, as in a processional 
train, the issues of eternity — if this truth gain the 
entire ascendency of the intellect, and create its 
own thoughts, emotions, and eloquence ; if the eye 
take its lustre, the cheek its glow, the tone its fire, 
the power of Almighty God will be in the preach- 
ing, and the audience will tremble beneath its sway ; 
but where rhetoric and art manufacture sentiment 
and feeling, tone and trope, look and gesture, the 
theme will not redeem the oratory. There is a 
falsehood in the man. There is a falsehood in his 
intellect and heart. There is a falsehood in his 
logic and in his love, and Christ crucified will mere- 
ly fee a cold and soulless symbol in the High Mass 
of his Pulpit Literature. 

Another aspect in which the American pulpit 
comes before us, is its relation to the spirit of the age, 
as manifested in our country. The views advanced 
in the former portion of this article have partly an- 
ticipated this branch of our subject, and yet we 
are unwilling to pass over it without fuller notice. 



There is certainly a profound meaning in the phrase 
— spirit of the age. Applied to the great diversity 
of commercial, political, and social interests, that 
form the outside life of the world — to the opinions 
circulating through its intellect, and to the excite- 
ments that intensify its passions and strain its ac- 
tivity — it has a signification that can not be mis- 
understood. It is a spirit that has suddenly awaked 
to the consciousness of powers that have hitherto 
been dimly apprehended, and that feels itself to 
be the lawful heir of an inheritance long denied to 
its use and enjoyment. It is a spirit of restless 
struggle and boundless aspiration. Not insensible 
to the lessons of the past nor reckless of the con- 
servative safeguards of society, it nevertheless 
shows a strong disposition to question the old faith 
of humanity, and to establish a neAv creed for its 
guidance. No one can wonder that such a spirit 
should have been developed, or that it should ex- 
hibit occasional irregularities calculated to alarm 
the sober and meditative mind. It is the neces- 
sary effect of civilization, whenever civilization 
becomes a movement of personal and collective 
agency. Restore to men the right to choose their 
own institutions and ordain their own laws, and 
such a spirit must be quickened into action. The 
danger lies in its excess. If, content with its own 
legitimate scope, it is directed by prudence, it has 
a vast work to do ; but departing from its just 
sphere, and entering on forbidden ground, it may 
easily be converted into a machinery of ruin. The 
institutions of government, international relations, 
and even the ecclesiastical polity of churches, may 
be fairly open to the inquiring and reforming spirit 
of the age. But it can not be too frequently or 
emphatically stated, that Christianity was deliv- 
ered to our world as a perfect system. It was 
committed to man not to be amended or changed, 
but simply to be preserved and perpetuated in its 
original and integral excellence. Guarded from 
all the approaches of an innovating philosophy as 
well as from the assaults of temporizing passions, 
it was invested with final and complete authority 
over man in his nature, circumstances, and condi- 
tion. The spirit of the age is consequently subor- 
dinate to its supreme law. It must cherish the 
faith and practice the obedience that Christianity 
requires. Sacrificing its vain and foolish preten- 
sions, it must bow before the instructions of this 
omniscient teacher, and, in the simplicity of trust- 
ing childhood, learn to think and act in the light 
of its wisdom. 

There is just here a necessity for careful dis- 
crimination. In one sense, Christianity may be 
considered as a religion of progress. Not only does 
it move in advance of all social institutions, and 
quicken the best mind of the age to follow its lead, 
but it is constantly throwing light on its own prin- 
ciples, and unfolding yet more clearly its admira- 
ble adaptations to the higher w r ants of man. In 
accordance with this law, the modern pulpit has 
done much to infuse a more Christian spirit into 
the usages and movements of the present century. 
It has penetrated, to some extent, the science, phi- 
losophy, and government of the age — reforming 
abuses, defining rights, encouraging brotherhood, 
and stimulating virtues that cast a beautiful light 
over the path of humanity. Heaven has kindly 
permitted the American pulpit to share the honor 
and enjoy the benefits of this great work. It has 
done much to awaken and foster this noble spirit. 
To its intelligence and piety we owe no small share 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



843 



of our liberal culture and philanthropic zeal. It 
has been mainly instrumental in exciting and 
maintaining those praiseworthy sentiments which 
the American people cherish in the warmest blood 
of their hearts on the sanctity of law, the import- 
ance of education, and the necessity of morality to 
the permanence of republican institutions. Nor 
must we overlook the fact that in other connections 
the American pulpit has been a mighty auxiliary 
in our progress. It has been a domestic power of 
incalculable magnitude. It has made its ministry 
an apostleship at the fireside, and gathered the 
childhood of the land beneath its potent influence. 
It has impressed itself on the statesmanship of 
the country. It has interposed its moral checks on 
the commercial ambition of the age, taught the re- 
ligious uses of money, and aroused men to feel the 
momentous truth of stewardship. The past history 
of the American pulpit records these triumphs, and 
no right-minded man can dispute its claim to them. 
Turning, however, from that bright page in the 
annals of the American pulpit, it is sad to think 
that, of late years, its influence over the minds of 
our countrymen has been threatened with diminu- 
tion, if not indeed with decay. We say, threat- 
ened, for the evil has not yet progressed far enough 
to assume a portentous shape. The confidence of 
thousands of our fellow-citizens is disturbed, and 
the ministry of the churches is looked upon with 
some distrust. We can not hide this fact from our 
eyes. It meets us every where. Our newspapers, 
our literature, our conversation and public address- 
es, indicate it too clearly for any honest man to 
deny or to disguise it. Allowing, as we must, that 
this feeling is exaggerated, and that the ministry 
as a class have to bear, in an undue measure, the 
foibles and faults of individuals, it can not be ques- 
tioned that there is some reason for the dissatisfac- 
tion which is spreading over the country. There 
is just ground for complaint. Confess we must that 
our pulpit is forgetting, in numerous instances, its 
peculiar mission, and descending from its exclusive 
work to embroil its spirit and soil its garments in 
contact with the world. It is diverting its talents 
to false issues — issues aside from its own definite 
line of action. It is guilty of partisanship. It is 
pandering to unhealthy passions, and stirring up 
wicked strife among brethren. We repeat, that, 
in many cases, it is obnoxious to this charge. Its 
own acts have awakened a sentiment of hostility, 
and not a few of the best men of the country are 
affected by it. The evil is now in its incipient 
stage, and it can be remedied. One course must 
be pursued, and matters will come right again, viz., 
the American pulpit must banish every thing from 
its discussions and appeals except the simple pro- 
clamation of the Gospel as Jesus Christ taught it. 
The power of the minister is in that Gospel alone ; 
the character of the minister is derived solely from 
his relation to Christ as his representative. If he 
will preach that Gospel in conformity with the New 
Testament model, he will preach the truth that will 
purify public opinion — the truth that will follow 
the merchant to his counting-room, the statesman 
to the halls of legislation, the sovereign to his seat 
of authority — the truth that will encircle all inter- 
ests in its protective embrace, and sanctify all rela- 
tions by its heavenly presence. Standing in his 
serene attitude beside the cross, patriotism will 
learn of him its lessons of devotion, forbearance, 
and integrity; philanthropy will bow its head to 
catch the anointing that has consecrated him ; elo- 



quence will light its torch at the Pentecostal flame 
that yet burns about his brow; and piety will go 
forth with his benediction to emulate the angel-host 
in ministering service to the world. Compare such 
a position — its high and hallowed motives, its eter- 
nal aims, its vast resources, and immeasurable re- 
sults — with the low, paltry, disgusting conduct of 
men who lower the pulpit to the level of the hust- 
ings, and pollute the air of the sanctuary with the 
cant of demagogism. What a universe of breadth 
and space is between them ! Side by side place 
Judas kissing Christ into the arms of his murder- 
ers, and John watching through his death-scene 
for the last token of affection, and the extremes of 
character are not more vividly impressive. 

The present position of the American pulpit, 
owing to the causes enumerated above, is calcu- 
lated to awaken the solicitude of all patriots and 
Christians. Believing that a pure and powerful 
pulpit is the noblest inspiration to a nation's intel- 
lect, and the surest guarantee of its conservative 
virtues; believing yet further, that it is the leader 
of its intercessions in the hour when danger invokes 
the special aid of Heaven, and the appointed chan- 
nel through which the blessings of Christianity 
ordinarily flow to men, we can not be otherwise 
than sensitive to its moral and spiritual condition. 
No people are more ready than our countrymen to 
respect and honor the pulpit so long as it maintains 
its true character, and none are more jealous of it if 
the taint of priestcraft infects it. A state of things 
is now beginning to exist in connection with the 
the pulpit that demands attention, and hence the 
propriety of the question — What shall be done? 
The peculiarities of the age as related to religious 
movements must first be carefully considered, if 
this question, " What shall be done?" be properly 
answered. Christianity has given birth to a large 
class of semi-religious institutions, that are work- 
ing effectually for the improvement of mankind. 
Indeed, of late years, no small degree of its power 
has appeared in the moralization of society rather 
than in its absolute Christianization. In this way 
ministers have been brought into close contact with 
the world on its own grounds. A Vast amount of 
good has been thus effected. But we must not lose 
sight of the dangers that lie in ambush along these 
popular paths. A religious worldliness is easily 
generated in the midst of these influences, and ere 
he is aware, the minister of the sanctuary is led 
into a secular temper of mind, that soon becomes 
apparent in his style of treating religious subjects, 
and in his pulpit demeanor. Apart from this sort 
of exposure to a worldly atmosphere, a pulpit of 
any mark is now a matter of newspaper notoriety. 
The patronage of the press is bestowed on the fine 
preacher, and his discourses are reported for break- 
fast-table chat. Criticism has its eyes and ears 
open, and hard it is for the preacher, who ought to 
be the most disinterested and unconscious of speak- 
ers, to avoid the temptation of being an actor in the 
sight of the great public. Then, too, is the vitiat- 
ing method of constant advertising sermons on this 
or that topic — a catchpenny sj'stem, that deserves 
a hearty rebuke. The famous horn of the mock 
Angel Gabriel is ludicrous enough, but these small 
tin trumpets that every Saturday squeak a thin 
stream of clerical vanity into the public ear, is a 
violation of all ministerial modesty and dignity. 
In brief, the desire for popularity is misleading 
some and corrupting others. " What, then, shall be 
done?" The remedy is simple, viz., to correct 



844 



PIARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



these bad habits — to reform all abuses, and to re- 
store the pulpit to its original office of evangeliz- 
ing the world by the simple, honest, faithful pro- 
clamation of Christ's Gospel, in Christ's spirit, for 
Christ's glory. Above every thing else, there is 
now wanted a profound and earnest faith in the 
power of Christianity to create a noble race of men 
and women — a race that shall repeat the wonders 
of apostolic piety, and move the world to reverence 
and love. 

Amidst the dangers that now threaten the de- 
cline of ministerial usefulness, let us think of those 
ancient days when Christianity went forth, fresh 
and free, to subdue the nations of the earth. Not 
then did it seek an alliance with any attractive 
worldliness. Not then did it covet the testimonials 
of philosophy and art to seal its pretensions. The 
magnificent possessions of Croesus, the fame of Per- 
icles, the renown of Cleopatra, the achievements of 
Ccesar — what were they to a religion that preached 
poverty of spirit, self-denial, tribulations, and 
death as the badge of discipleship and the prepa- 
ration for immortal rewards? It then relied on 
God's presence. It was content to speak in God's 
name. It was satisfied with God's approbation. 
The strength of man could not help it. The an- 
cestral honors of Judea availed nothing in its be- 
half ; and the pride of Grecian wisdom was hum- 
bled beneath its scorn. The mighty eagle that 
had swept the world gave not a single feather to 
the champions of the cross. The friends of Chris- 
tianity then felt that it was competent to create its 
own nobility, in the persons of regenerated men and 
women, and in this trust it conquered. The same 
law yet stands. Christianity is a divine witness 
to each generation, and it must rule in God's right. 
Authority may offer its aid, but it will retire from 
its presence, rebuked for its follies and abashed by 
its crimes. Intellect may come and report, through 
Newton, its triumphs in the far heavens ; through 
Cook, its explorations of the sea; through Davy, 
the discoveries of chemistry ; through Humboldt, 
the harmonies of a vast Cosmos. It may sing the 
great oratorio of the world's sadness in the strains 
of Milton, or inspire a loftier eloquence than has 
yet entranced the world. But these all are insig- 
nificant compared with the doctrine of Christ cruci- 
fied as the wisdom and power of God. It is this doc- 
trine that gives an emphasis to all thought — a sub- 
lime import to all life. It is this doctrine that lifts 
up the humblest struggle to the height of a grand 
warfare. Out from fishers'-huts and rude forest- 
homes this doctrine brings the chosen men whose 
battle-ax cleaves the heart of the world. It is to 
this doctrine that we are indebted for ourLuthers, 
our Knoxes, our Whitfields, and Wesleys ; and if 
the pulpit of to-day were baptized by the out- 
pouring of its spirit, this morbid, restless, turbu- 
lent age would find its perfect peace in the bosom 
of God. 



€ Mtnf (fetj Cjmir. 

IT seems only yesterday that we gazed upon the 
fiery funeral pyre of our old Easy Chair ; only 
yesterday that the mails came to our hands opu- 
lent with pleasanter letters than w r e usually re- 
ceive — words of sympathy and encouragement, and 
kindly offers of aid. Was it longer ago than last 
week that we setup again the charred frame of our 
critical throne, and sat in Beekman Street for a 



season, meditating the ways of Providence and the 
chances of affairs ? 

Few Easy Chairs have ever had a harder time 
for a little while. But when^ after the long months 
of inconvenience and delay, our Chair was brought 
again into the stately iron and fire-defying struc- 
ture where now it stands secure, we settled our- 
selves again to the work which, in our transient ex- 
ile from our old haunts, we had also been diligently 
driving, and sought to find newer and fresher ways 
to interest and instruct and amuse our friends. 

Certainly we were held to that effort bj' grat- 
itude. Certainly our friends were not summer 
friends. Certainly they had done all that good 
friends could do to secure the easiness of our Chair, 
and certainly we were and are grateful. But we 
must also be a little proud. We can not sit in the 
midst of so vast a crowd of friends and witnesses, 
chatting about the daily events and minor morals 
and manners, without congratulating ourselves 
upon our constituency. Turn to the cover of the 
present Number, and you will see that now, at the 
close of the sixth year of the Magazine, the num- 
ber of copies issued amounts to one hundred and 
sixty thousand. 

Of course no literary constituency ever approach- 
ed this in numbers and diversity. Of course there 
was never such a marvelous whispering gallery in 
the world as this of ours, whereby we sit in our 
comfortable Easy Chair, which is stationed in the 
very centre of life and civilization, and quietly 
"say our say," upon what we see and hear, to at 
least ten times one hundred and sixty thousand 
people. 

May we be proud of it as well as grateful ? Can 
we help being grateful as well as proud? 

At the time we write the Pacific has not ar- 
rived. There has been hoping against hope. 
Kind people have written to the newspapers that 
ships have often been longer unheard from. There 
was the Atlantic to remember, until her time of ab- 
sence was surpassed. Alas ! there was the Arctic, 
too, to remember. 

We resign ourselves sadly to these dispensations 
of Providence, as we coolly call them, when there 
is not the slightest doubt that the great accidents 
at sea — the tragedies over which we all quiver and 
turn palp — are the direct results of the grossest 
carelessness. It is blasphemy to talk of " the 
ways of the Lord," when the accident is nothing 
but the necessary consequence of the ways of a 
reckless sea-captain. Here, while we are all shud- 
dering to hear the fate of the Pacific, the Arabia, 
Captain Stone, leaves Boston, and a passenger 
writes : 

"Reaching the Banks, we took southeasterly 
winds, and encountered thick fogs, and thus we 
were running, during Sunday forenoon, the 17th, 
heading southeasterly, carrying maintop-sail, reef- 
ed foretop-sail, and all fore-and-aft sails, with a 
fair, strong wind, and going very rapidly, fourteen 
miles an hour, I believe, b}' the log — the fog all the 
time so dense that vision of the sea extended seldom so 
far as the ship's own length before us." 

Having, by the good providence of God, reached 
England safely, the devout passengers 1 nimbly re- 
turn thanks to Captain Stone, for various great 
qualities of a sea-commander, of which the above 
proceeding is a specimen. 

A peasant being pursued by a mad bull, fortu- 
nately escaped over a fence, and turning, fell on 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



84^ 



his knees and piously thanked the animal that he 
had not succeeded in tossing him upon his horns. 

That is the relative position of Captain Stone 
and the passengers on the Arabia. 

Suppose this had not been the fortunate issue, 
and the passengers had been gored by the horns of 
this mad carelessness; suppose the Arabia had 
dashed upon the iceberg which the same corre- 
spondent describes : 

" While I was in this position I heard an ex- 
clamation, and raising my head, beheld the most 
frightful object that in more than fifty thousand 
miles' sea-sailing I ever encountered — right abreast 
of us, and not a hundred yards distant, yet spectral 
in the fog, a dead, ghastly, and unblemished white ice- 
berg, just about as large above water as the City Hall 
in New York" 

We should all have shaken our heads a few 
weeks hence, saying, " What do you think has be- 
come of the ArabiaV The newspapers would 
have teemed with moral improvements of the oc- 
casion, and have printed lists of the passengers. 
The accounts from Europe would have been head- 
ed, " No News of the Arabia !" and doubt 
would have sickened into fear, and fear died into 
despair ; and a ghastly horror of drowned parents, 
children, husbands, and wives have haunted many 
a heart and wasted many a life forever. 

Nor this only ; but we should have had sermons 
upon the danger of those who go down to the sea 
in ships, and comments upon the inscrutability of 
Providence working in a mysterious way to per- 
form his wonders. All the commonplace plati- 
tudes would have been paraded ; and simply be- 
cause a willfully-careless captain, upon whose soul 
would rest the blood of hundreds, chose to run, in 
a dense fog, which made the bows of his ship invis- 
ible from the stern, at such a rate that, when he 
hit the rock or the iceberg, which he could not see 
until he was on it, ship and crew went down in a 
moment in the remorseless abyss of ocean. We 
may now be very sure, when we read a letter of 
thanks to a captain, that there has been some great 
peril into which he has done his best to plunge his 
ship and passengers, but from which a good Prov- 
idence has saved them. And if he succeeds, and 
neither are heard of more, then the same good 
Providence is said to have permitted the cata- 
strophe. So it has permitted it, but only as it per- 
mits drunkenness when a man pours rum into 
his stomach ; only as it permits murder, and theft, 
and arson, and every other form of sin. Is society 
contented to say of drunkenness that God permits 
it ? Does that dispose of the whole question ? or 
of forgery ? or of treason ? Why, then, should it 
be a sop in our mouths against denouncing this 
enormous waste of human life occasioned by the 
loss of a single sea-steamer ? 

Is there the slightest possible excuse for the loss 
of the Arctic? Is any individual man so silly as 
to run as rapidly as possible in the dark, when he 
knows that he may hit his nose against a door, or 
run against a post? and can there be any excuse 
for the insanity of urging a ship through the denser 
darkness of a fog at a rate which precludes all hope 
of safety if any of the obstacles likely to be en- 
countered are encountered? 

Or, sadly enough, look at the Pacific. Let us 
hope that in the safe lee of some Western island she 
rocks upon a gentle sea. Let us believe that, shat- 
tered by unavoidable disaster, she drifts southward 
into softer airs, until some rescuing ship cemes fiv- 
Vol. XLL— No. 72.-3 H 



ing with bright stretches of sail over the horizon, 
like a good angel with outspread wings. Let us 
try to remember that somewhere, at some time, 
somebody recalls an emigrant sb-p that was not 
heard of for three months. Take hope, if you can, 
O heavy-hearted mourners ! and believe that the 
summer, which brings sunshine to the fields, will 
also shine, with the light of longed-for and return- 
ing eyes, into your hearts ! Let us pray that these 
things may be so : that the aching apprehension 
of those who loved two hundred men, women, and 
children shall have a happy issue. 

But if she comes no more, and the black list of 
the President, the Arctic, the City of Glasgow, and 
how many more! is increased by the name of the 
Pacific, then all experience justifies this theo- 
ry, among others, that, racing with the Persia, 
the Pacific, in a fearful winter sea, full of ice, 
came smashing, at twelve or fourteen knots an 
hour, upon an iceberg, and immediately went 
down. 

If this were accurately proved, what would be 
done ? The papers would say, in the blackest cap- 
itals : "Inhuman Slaughter!" and that would be 
the end of it. Fool-hardiness is either beatified by 
us, or called the mysterious way .of Providence. 
The more timid would not go to sea. Those who 
felt that they must see Europe, and could afford 
the expense, would go with a solemn sense of the 
danger, and envying Englishmen who have only 
to cross the Channel. The thoughtful would see 
that civilization and the march of mind cost im- 
mensely to the human race, and would refuse to. 
be consoled for the willful murder of two hun- 
dred men by the statistical proof that steam slays, 
in proportion, less than any motive power of 
travel. 

Sitting in this most comfortable and most critical 
Chair, we do not need to be reminded that history 
advances by tragedies. The general deductions 
and observations have no bearing upon the ques- 
tion. It would be a poor plea for a murderer that 
God had used crimes to his own good purposes. 
Manning could hardly have justified himself by 
appealing to the example of Cain. 

We do not croak, nor mean to foment discom- 
fort in the minds of advanced females. We have 
also seen too much of the way things in general 
are managed to suppose that there are not to be 
other Norwalk bridges left open and engulfed 
trains, and a long, long list of Arctics and Presi- 
dents. But we are not to be bamboozled any lon- 
ger with the twaddle about "enterprise." For 
enterprising let us read fool-hardy. Suppose that 
to a passage from New York to England there 
should be three or four days or more added, by 
going with decent caution in heavy fogs, could 
you — for instance, you, dear old Gunnybags — sub- 
mit to such a shocking waste of time? But sup- 
pose that, in the lapse of twenty years, one soli- 
tary vessel were lost by the want of care and the 
determination of saving those three or four or more 
days, would you be willing to be in that vessel ? 
Are you then willing to risk having every vessel 
that one ? 

The remedy is evident. You, the Honorable 
Mr. Gunnybags; or Gunnybags, Esquire; or the 
Messrs. Gunnybags; or Gunnybags Brothers; or 
Twine, Gunnybags, and Osnaburgs ; or the Gun- 
nybags Steamship Company, can issue your orders 
to your captains — and have it publicly understood 
that tkey are issued — that no ship of yours shall 



846 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



be run faster than a specified rate in fogs, and that 
signals shall be sounded. Also, that during cer- 
tain months, when ice abounds at sea, the running 
course of the ships shall be out of the "way of the 
probable encounter of ice. 

Or try this plan to settle your minds : 
Advertise that the steamer Steady, Captain 
Ready, will sail for Liverpool, on May 1, with 
orders to proceed not more than four miles, or less 
or more, an hour, with bell constantly sounding, 
through the fogs upon the banks, and to consult 
goneral security rather than speed in the voyage ; 
and also advertise that the steamer Smasher, Cap- 
tain Dasher, will sail the same day for Liverpool, 
and be put through the fog upon the banks at the 
rate of fourteen knots an hour and no signal — and 
then let the Gunny bags Steamship Company com- 
pare the passenger lists, and the freight lists, and 
the insurance charges. 

You smile serenely, Gunny bags, Esquire. Well, 
every steamship that sails for Liverpool is the 
steamer Smasher, and not the steamer Steady. 
(Boy, beneath the window, " Extra — Three Days 
Later from Europe; no news of the Pacific!"^) 



We, democrat of this Easy Chair, have been 
assailed as monarchical in our views, because we 
would not allow that indecency was democracy, 
and rudeness republicanism. To express disgust, 
also, at entering a railroad-car crowded with men 
who not only claim to be men but, as democratic, 
better men than any others, and finding it reeking 
with a mingled odor of cheese, apple-parings, and 
toasted woolen trowsers ; this, also, has been de- 
nounced as prejudicial to the democratic founda- 
tion of this Union. 

Now, we will not be bullied. Whereas every 
man is born with an inalienable right to his own 
nose, we will not have our olfactories assailed by 
the fumes of toasted breeches without protesting. 
We will not sit in a long room which can just hold 
sixty men, and have six of those men frying their 
saliva upon a red-hot stove, without crying " Un- 
clean !" just as much as we please; and we will 
not hesitate to declare that, if faith in good man- 
ners, and general decency, and consideration of 
others, be aristocratic, we are aristocratic to the 
very marrow. 

Can't democracy smell sweet ? Is it aristocratic 
to blow your nose ? Is a hog your only republican ? 

Or, let White Waistcoating, who pays such heavy 
taxes and wears such heavy watch-seals, answer, 
can we not be tolerably governed in New York, 
for instance, because we govern ourselves ? Oh ! 
for a good rousing despotism, just one w r eek. Not 
— astute friend and observant traveler in Naples 
and Cairo — such a despotism as Bomba's or the 
Egyptian, but such as that of the Parisian Police. 
Let us have Louis Napoleon mayor for one week ! 
How w.e should go to the opera, and find our car- 
riages upon coming out, instead of struggling in 
that intricate knot of horses, coachmen, and coach- 
es, all tugging and swearing different ways, while 
Lucy's foot goes into the gutter, and an independ- 
ent elector tears Lucinda's skirt, and a free-and- 
equal carriage-pole strikes Amelia's back ; and so 
we all reach home grateful for many mercies, re- 
signed to ruined dresses and colds, because we 
have escaped with sound limbs, and with a pro- 
found consciousness, not that we have enjoyed the 
septett in Lucia, but that we have survived the 
assault at Sebastopol. How we should be able to 



see across the street in those dear despotic days, 
without the Himalaya of frozen snow-mud, to heap 
which was the favorite occupation of the street- 
commissioner!* How we shouldn't totter across 
uncertain planks stretched before buildings going 
up ! How a single property-holder wouldn't be al- 
lowed to incommode the entire public for his pri- 
vate advantage ! How, when somebody snatched 
our wives' purses from their hands, there would be 
somebody else to call upon for assistance! How 
we should have general decency and public order 
if we had a rousing despotic city government for 
a week ! 

The truth is that we pay a certain price for the 
advantages of a Republic. If you think that there 
are no good things in a Despotism, or that you get 
all these good things because you are a Republic, 
you make a very great mistake. 

Why do we have a chaos of carriages and gen- 
eral Pandemonium at the coming out of the opera, 
for instance ? Why was Broadway shrunk for 
more than a fortnight to a third of its size by a 
heap of mud and snow two or three miles long ? 
Why is every thing municipal at odds and ends, 
and why is the city government of New York a 
by-word throughout the country? Here is New 
York, a great metropolitan braggart, boasting that it 
is really the foremost city of the time, and if of this 
time, then of history, and you could not get across 
its great thoroughfare in the month of February, 
1856, without the greatest danger to life and limb. 
These are details, but then it is in details that 
•governments press upon the individual. Upon the 
whole, and as it w'ere in the high-cockalorum ab- 
stract, no two grave men can differ about the essen- 
tial superiority of our form of government. But 
see how freely life is squandered ! Think what a 
chance it is in traveling, if you get into the right 
car or reach the right place. We generally do it, 
but at what expense of doubt and concern. Think 
of the almost universal insolence of officials of every 
kind, and that your boot-black does not feel that 
he has asserted his equality with you until he 
has spattered the blacking upon your shirt collar. 
Think of all the unnecessary annoyances which 
arise from this same desire of a fellow-citizen to 
show you that he is as good as any body. You loftily 
assert that such things are trifles. True; corns and 
slack-baked bread, and the fumes of sissled spittle, 
and hundreds of similar things are undoubtedly 
trifles, measured by the importance of political and 
religious liberty; but then let us ask ourselves 
whether this universality of petty squabbling and 
inconvenience, this rushing and swearing and sweat- 
ing, this paying heavy taxes for filthy streets, and 
large prices for the incommodation of railroad-cars, 
is an integral part of the price we pay for our gen- 
eral principle of self-government. 

If it be, so profound is our faith in the neces- 
sity of that principle to human progress, that we 
shall submit without a murmur. 

But if it be not fully proved, we shall not sub- 
mit. We shall still insist that a decent share of 
good city government, and a moderate degree of 
national good manners, is entirely compatible with 
the rights of man and republican institutions. Un- 
til it is fully proved, we shall persist in believing, 
for instance, that a government of the people might 
insist upon posting a mounted police, if necessary, 



* This municipal term is a civic joke, merely signify- 
ing a person who for a heavy commission renders the 
streets impassable. — Ei>. 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIE. 



847 



to maintain order at the coming out of all the great 
popular places of amusement. The end of govern- 
ment is individual well-being. If that is less pro- 
moted by the rule of the people, why do we bite our 
thumbs at kings so indignantly ? 

And echo savagely answers the Easy Chair, 
"You old aristocrat !" 

The spring not only brings out the flowers in 
the fields and the gay dresses in the streets, but 
the pictures upon the Academy walls. When you 
hold a lily or a rose in your hand do you think of 
the dark, cold ground, full of various decay, out of 
wbich all that loveliness has sprung ? The picture 
is like the flower. Out of sorrow and poverty and 
disappointment and despair, how often comes the 
pretty picture at which you idly gaze as you idly 
smell the flower. Even the poorest picture may 
have that kind of interest. Remember, when you 
buy your ticket to the exhibition, how much hope 
and doubt and ambition, how much self-sacrifice 
and heroism and noble endeavor have gone into 
each picture upon the walls, and be gentle, you who 
live at ease and could have painted such superior 
pictures had you been so inclined. 

The crowded shelves of a book-store and the 
walls of an exhibition of paintings have a secret 
sympathy of this kind. Yet how easy is criticism, 
how fatally easy is sarcasm and innuendo. Wit, 
humor, and humane satire, listless dawdler be- 
fore the pictures, are not so fatally easy. 

For how many of us outsiders going into a gal- 
lery have any clear idea as to what a picture really 
is? We wisely call it "snuffy," or "gaudy," or 
"hard," or "leathery," or "cut up," or "woolly," 
or any thing else that happily occurs to a fluent 
tongue. What regulates our remarks ? what prin- 
ciples have we ? 

" Art appeals to all and is not intended for a 
few." That is very true. " The artist is the in- 
terpreter between the spectator and nature." That 
is also very true. But there are certain conditions 
in art, and those conditions are sternly respected 
by the artist. "Art is an imitation of nature." 
True again, to a certain extent. But put j r our own 
hand by the best hand in the best portrait ever 
painted. Is there any such striking resemblance 
that you would mistake the painted hand for the 
real hand, or vice versa? Then the imitation is 
under certain limitations. The question is not — 
does that look like my hand, as my left resembles 
my right, but within the relations and power of 
pigments and general harmony of light and shade, 
is the painted hand a true transcript of the fleshly 
one. 

In this admirable humor we were wheeled up to 
the annual exhibition of the National Academy of 
Design. Glancing benignly around we were at 
once persuaded that we were not in the Pitti, nor 
the Vatican, nor even in the Louvre. But we felt 
ourselves to be in the midst of lovely landscapes 
and good people. They were a little "funny," 
perhaps, as the young lady found the Coliseum, 
but in the wild, blustering March da} r , it was re- 
freshing to look upon tropical and summer scenes 
and upon beautiful ladies in low-necked dresses. 

There was certainly nothing that indicated that 
another Raphael or Titian had broken loose. There 
was nothing, even, that arose in unquestioned 
prominence above every thing else. Every thing 
ascended by easy gradations from the indifferent 
or bad to the most excellent. People stood about 



full of admiration, or fun, or ignorance, or sym- 
pathy. Yet whatever they missed, they must 
have derived a great deal of pleasure from what 
they saw. Some were skeptical ar d hard to please, 
like Flint. 

"Ah! the same old story, I see," said Flint, 
" there's Leatherhead's favorite pink cloud upon a 
green sky, and yellow woods in a blue abyss. Is 
Leatherhead never going to do any thing else? 
Why, I can show you that picture twenty years 
ago in the Exhibition." 

Yes, Flint, and so you can be shown Claude's 
trees and Salvator's rocks in all the pictures 
of those masters, and Raphael's Madonnas in 
all stages of his career. You can not show, in 
what you call the same picture of Leatherhead's 
twenty years ago, the easy handling, the softer 
color, the more natural treatment that you find 
now. It is only a mare's nest which you have dis- 
covered with your supercilious eyebrows, good 
Mr. Flint. It is only the Shakspearianism of 
Shakspeare, and the Miltonism of Milton, and the 
Phidianity of Phidias, excellent observer. You 
have found in Leatherhead the inevitable manner- 
ism which you will find in every great work of 
every great worker. You think that " Little Dor- 
rit" is only the old Dickens over again ? If it be 
so, it is only as Beethoven's ninth symphony is his 
second. They are both Beethoven's, indeed. They 
have both the qualities of the individual which 
makes all his work what we call Beethovenish, but 
that, of course in a lesser degree, is what you have 
found in Leatherhead, and always will find in him, 
until some evil ambition shall lead him to paint in 
somebody else's way, and in a manner foreign to 
his sympathy ; which will make our favorite and 
popular Leatherhead as unlike himself as Wilkie 
was unlike Wilkie when he took to painting Holy 
Families, or as Burns would have been had he tried 
his hand at Marmions or Childe Harolds. 

A man's speciality both in composition and treat- 
ment soon reveals itself. Would even you, Flint, 
have been guilty of the bold stupidity of saying an- 
nually at the London Exhibition, " Ah ! there are 
Turner's vapors again." Turner's love and study 
lay much in that direction. Have you forgotten 
those purely impossible scenes of Claude which yet 
do the heart good to look upon and to remember? 
Those palaces upon seas forever calm ; those ships 
sailing out of an eternal sunset ; those lovely Ar- 
cadian bits of graceful bridges, and piping swains, 
and dancing nymphs. The great Ruskin pooh- 
poohs at Claude. But then we can pooh-pooh at 
the great Ruskin. It requires a prodigious pooh- 
pooh to put out the soft, penetrating lustre of 
Claude. The very name of the painter has a 
sweet music — Claude Lorraine. It is a chance 
that he was born in Lorraine ; but all chances count 
in the fate of genius. 

Leave Leatherhead his clouds, and t|?es, and 
blue abysses unassailed. While you h&ve been 
cutting up the picture to your select party, there 
was a boy stood watching it, and far over those 
blue abysses his heart flew home, and he wiped a 
tear as you turned your last joke. Now is the val- 
ue of the picture to be measured by your sneer, dis- 
criminating Flint, or by the boy's tear? That 
other picture which seems to you a lacquered tea- 
tray, seems to this Easy Chair rich, poetic, and 
suggestive. Are we both right or both wrong: or 
is one right and the other wrong ; and if so, which ? 

You see how perplexing it is to look at pictures 



848 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



if you are also going to say fine or sharp things 
ahout them. The wretched daub in a village tav- 
ern parlor may give a thrill of joy to some rough 
heart, and the touch of genius burns through all 
kinds of crudities. There is an exhaustless amount 
of fame and commendation, and there is the same 
of excellence also. As many heroes go unsung 
since Agamemnon as before him. A lovely little 
sketch in our last Number, " The Story of Emile 
Roque," shows how much delight a man may have 
in Watteau's and Vanloo's pictures. But the great 
Ruskin knocks them all into cocked hats. Then 
the moral is, that it is better not to be a great Rus- 
kin, but to enjoy the lovely conceits of the paint- 
ers. A great deal of knowledge, it seems, may be 
as dangerous as a little. 

Flint naturally left us, and we rolled around the 
room enjoying the pictures. By a happy constitu- 
tion we are inclined, if any thing strikes us as 
wrong or impossible in a picture, to accuse our own 
ignorance, or to believe that the resources of art 
do not allow a nearer resemblance to Nature. Be- 
sides this, having privately taken several artists 
into counsel at different times, and finding that 
their views were as fundamentally different as 
those of us of the laity, we feel a singular respect 
for our resolution to enjoy. Sometimes we make 
great mistakes, and are moved to tears or laughter, 
or to some more moderate emotion, b} r pictures that 
are called unpardonable in all the papers ; and, on 
the other hand, gaze unconsciously and unadmir- 
ingly upon the greatest "gems of the collection." 

But then, fortunately, Flint never makes those 
mistakes, and we, weak Easy Chair that we are ! 
look wise and conceal ours. 



It is not our fault if the friends of the Easy 
Chair have not been reading " Little Dorrit" for 
the last four months. It is not too late to begin 
now, but it will soon be so. And however the " in- 
telligent reader" may dislike stories printed in se- 
rials, yet since the great novelists choose to print 
so, and find their account in it, it would be better 
to surrender the prejudice and enjoy the story. 
When it is printed altogether at the end of twenty 
months, it is such a huge volume, or pair of vol- 
umes, that many a reader is repelled who could 
have easily mastered the whole by short spells of 
reading every month. 

" Little Dorrit" is already full of the peculiar 
excellences of its author. Indeed, the first number 
showed clearly enough the handling of a master. 
The concluding scene of that number, between 
Flintwinch and his wife, is eminently characteris- 
tic of that fearful suggestion of tragedy, of a whole 
complicated mass of villainy, w r hich Dickens so 
loves to unravel. No sooner have you read a few 
pages than you seem to be in the midst of the 
the world and daily life, with all its infinite varie- 
ties andapurrents. No novelists in English litera- 
ture have this power of putting the reader into the 
world, and interesting him in the characters as a 
part of the world, so much as Fielding, Thackeray, 
and Dickens. Their novels are not so much the 
story of the isolated fortunes of individuals, as vast 
panoramas of great masses of the world. In this 
way they have a kind of cosmopolitan interest. It 
is not a thin thread of story that you pursue, so at- 
tenuated often that it is not strong enough to sus- 
tain attention, but you move, live, laugh, and cry 
with a crowd. 

There is, already, in " Little Dorrit," plenty of 



that pungent satire with which Dickens always 
bears down upon great national abuses. Nothing 
in all his writings is better in its way than the 
Circumlocution Office. It is broad satire, yet how 
cuttingly true, and how purely English ! The 
stupid confusion of the impotent young official, 
who lives in precedents and an agonized and re- 
verend chaos, when he drops his eye-glass — which 
is symbolical of the entire humbug of the system 
of which he is a cipher — is admirably drawn and 
severely dramatic. That peculiar kind of thick- 
headed dullness is essentially British. The very 
awkwardness which is satirized is a point of na- 
tional manners. Clumsiness, clownish ness, and 
apparent idiocy, are cardinal points of a good En- 
glish manner. If a man enters a drawing-room 
with self-possession, as if he were used to drawing- 
rooms, it is pert and parvenu. If he stumble 
over the sofa, bow with consummate awkwardness, 
and stutter out the commonplaces of greeting, he 
is well-bred, and has " the air." The covert fling 
at this in young Barnacle, the state official, is very 
neat and trenchant. 

The other clerks are not less good in their kind ; 
and, on the other hand, to preserve the fair bal- 
ance — for Arthur Clennam is an Englishman, too — 
his resolute pertinacity to find out what it so sur- 
prises young Barnacle that he "wants to know," 
is most skillfully done. The whole scene is mas- 
terly. 

So, also, the Marshalsea, and the Father of the 
Marshalsea. Not only is the sad, strange life of 
the prison painted in the most memorable and im- 
pressive way, but the character of the old debtor, 
royal by the melancholy right of longer suffering, 
is so affectionately touched, that your heart pities 
him, without any contempt or disapprobation, even 
while you know him to be a willing though nega- 
tive beggar. This is an extremely difficult and- 
delicate success. The old man retains a kind of 
self-respect, and hides from himself his own weak- 
ness, so that your tears willingly blind your eyes, 
and you see only the pathetic dignity of sorrow. 
Thus far the Father of the Marshalsea is the most 
interesting character of the story. 

"Little Dorrit" herself is one of the dear little 
Impossibles whom Dickens so loves, and makes al? 
the world love with him. She has as yet betrayed 
no human weaknesses ; but you can not quarrel, 
because you know that if human nature were to be 
just so good, it would be under just such circum- 
stances. It would be "the child of misery bap- 
tized in tears" who would have all the thoughtful 
wisdom of a saint, the patient endurance of a mar- 
tyr, and the sweet innocence of a child. All these 
" Little Dorrit" has. She shoots like a sunbeam 
through the story. Yet it is a beam of sad autumn 
light. The melancholy shadow of the prison life 
has fallen upon her, so that her youth is young 
only in its purity and sweetness. It is her good- 
ness that makes its sunniness, that makes her a 
beam of light. 

Maggie is the Miss Mowcher and Miss Flite of 
the tale. Mrs. Clennam is one of the exasperating 
characters of real life, who wear, over the icicle 
where the heart should be, a mantle of virtuous 
phrase which is transparent enough, so that you 
are not deceived, }^et without a hole, so that yeu 
are a little perplexed by it. She acts as a paraly- 
sis upon Arthur, the easy, dreaming, saddened 
man, who has been defrauded of his youth, too, 
and of his love. 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



849 



The scene in the last number (for Api-il), at the 
house of the knobby-headed Patriarch, who wears 
bottle-green broadcloth, although the patriarchs 
did not wear bottle-green broadcloth, is inimitable. 
The little puffy steam-tug of an agent, who is con- 
stantly taking the Patriarch in tow, is a striking 
illustration of Dickens's fondness for a symbol 
which expresses his idea of a character. It is 
elaborated with copious humor, as is the crazy 
aunt of the Patriarch's widowed daughter. But 
what a tragedy is the meeting between that daugh- 
ter and her old lover Clennam ! He used to love 
her. Good Heaven ! as a boy he loved her, and 
lay awake at night thinking, hoping, longing, de- 
spairing. And for her ! For this vain chatter-box, 
this silly, simpering, fat mass of affectation ! No 
wonder Arthur Clennam was light-headed as he sat 
and talked with her. No wonder that he doubted 
his own identity, and would not, could not stay. 
This is a stroke of tragical fidelity to actual expe- 
rience worthy of the greatest artist. It is another 
of the many and increasing indications that the 
novelists are drawing from life, and teaching men 
by human weakness and the undeniable course of 
human history. 

One thing must forcibly strike every American 
reader of this and other stories of Dickens. It is 
the intense Englishism of the tale. There are cer- 
tain conditions imperative upon a novel, which it 
seems almost impossible to attain in America, a 
kind of picturesque perspective, a romantic associ- 
ation of place and systems, which are entirely un- 
known to us. Thus the scene of " Little Dorrit" is 
London, and all the local painting is, doubtless, 
strictly true. But how would it be possible to treat 
New York, or any American city, in that way ? We 
have no romantic setting for novels. What are you 
to do with Broadway, with the Park, with Avenue 
B ? Of course there are plenty of characters and 
life enough, but there are no mellow distances, no 
grimed and venerable buildings and places. All 
those must be renounced in the American novel. 
Are they essential to a novel ? Is it because they are 
essential, that there is, as yet, no American novel ? 

So, friendly reader, do not lose these things 
while they are to be had. Remember that what 
you read in series was Avritten to be read in series. 
Remember that if you read it as it is written you 
have time to follow each delicate hint, to brood 
over each hidden excellence. Remember how it 
enriches your life for a year to bear about in your 
heart, unsolved, the riddle of these destinies. Do 
you pish because they are not actual people ? Ah ! 
the story is only too true. They are real people. 
It is a real life, in its import and power. And 
what is your observation of life worth ? Do you 
really suppose you see, only because you have 
eyes? No. Genius is eyes for us all. That looks 
where we look, and where we saw a bank of vapor 
or a smoke-wreath, genius sees the splendid pavil- 
ions of the sunset, the bright portals of the morn- 
ing, sees the abyss that yawns around us, and the 
cloudy steps that ascend to heaven. 



So much for " Little Dorrit," and now a word 
for Dickens. 

He asked for an invitation to the ball given by 
some American residents in Paris on Washington's 
birth-day, and it was refused. At least this is the 
statement, and we proceed upon its probable truth. 
If the rumor is false, the spirit of our remarks will 
still remain true. 



Lord Clarendon, who in his published corre- 
spondence with Mr. Marcy prevaricated, and was 
guilty of the most unfair conduC", which might 
easily have plunged the countries into war, was 
there, announced in the largest capitals, and with 
the loudest trumpets blown before him. 

The members of the Congress of Paris, and sun- 
dry French dukes and noblemen were there. The 
Russian diplomat sent a letter full of sympathy 
and admiration for our great country and her noble 
institutions. 

The Princess Mathilde, who is a notoriously dis- 
solute woman, was there, by express invitation. 

Charles Dickens, one of the great ornaments of 
English literature, the most famous living writer 
of the English language, expresses a wish to be 
present, or asks for an invitation, and asks in 
vain. 

This is not a private affair, but a public matter, 
and it is not to be supposed for a moment that 
honorable and self-respecting American gentlemen 
in Paris could be guilty of such an indecency. 

What, then, is the explanation ? 

Is it true that there are certain persons long 
resident in Paris, who always take the lead on 
occasions of this kind, and who most emphatic- 
ally do not represent the spirit of America, which 
is generous and democratic ? Is it true, as is fre- 
quently alleged in public letters from Paris, that 
such persons are, practically and in spirit, ex- 
patriated from their country, by the profoundest 
sympathy with aristocratic institutions, and that, 
although so long resident in Paris, they have got 
no nearer certain French customs, such, for in- 
stance, as the eating of frogs, than toad-eating? 

Now any person has the largest liberty to go 
and live where and how he chooses, if he obeys the 
laws. A gentleman has certainly the right to se- 
lect his guests in his own house, and the managers 
of a private ball have the same right. But in 
a fete of a national, and, to a certain extent, a 
public character, given in a foreign city by Amer- 
icans, have not Americans at home a profound 
interest and pride ? If Americans, individually, 
in Europe choose to associate with Princess Ma- 
thildes, they may do so, nor fairly be spoken of 
in public ; yet collectively, as Americans associat- 
ing to do honpr to an American occasion, ought 
they deliberately to insult a man who is dear to 
the hearts of thousands of Americans, without 
learning that those Americans do not see with- 
out shame and pain an act of such signal dis- 
courtesy ? 

Some other aspects of this ball belong to our 
over-water sketches, which follow. 



OUR FOREIGN GOSSIP. 

It is late to speak of a February ball ; but yet 
we do so. We graft the gossamer and gas-lights 
of a Paris salon of winter upon the flowers and 
sunshine of a May that lingers. On Washington's 
birth-day, the Americans resident in Paris hired 
the dining saloon of the new hotel over against 
the palace of the Louvre, employed a company of 
good musicians under the leadership of Strauss, 
commanded a bountiful supper, invited a great 
many nice people, and honored the occasion with 
a series of waltzes and cotillions which lasted till 
morning. 

We have purposely recorded the affair in a very 
matter-of-fact way, for the sake of contrast with 
the exuberant (and what seems to us ridiculous) 



850 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



descriptions which come to us through many of 
the American letter-writers from Paris. 

Let us quote a few sample paragraphs : 

" Last year the celebration in honor of Wash- 
ington's birth-day was undertaken by the commit- 
tee of management with many misgivings as to 
the result. They did not know precisely in what 
light the authorities would view the enterprise; 
how far they would lend it their patronage; or 
whether their own countrymen would give it the 
required support. But the name of Washington, 
and perhaps the reputation of the people who were to 
be the hosts on the occasion, afforded, to a certain 
extent, a guarantee of its success. 

" The fete was a success ; so complete that even 
the most sanguine were astonished. It was the 
event of the season. The anniversary of this year 
was organized in the same way as that of last year, 
and it eclipsed in every particular its predecessor. 
The Annual Washington Ball has become one of 
the institutions of the country. If it was not re- 
peated next year, Paris society would be disap- 
pointed ; there would be a want unsatisfied. 

"The number in attendance was about eight 
hundred; three hundred and twenty -one Ameri- 
can subscribers, and three hundred and sixty- 
seven invited persons." 

The writer proceeds to give a careful catalogue 
of the titled guests, the members of His Imperial 
Majesty's household who were present, and of the 
distinguished officers of the navy and army. 

" Mr. Dickens," he tells us, " would have been 
pleased to have received an invitation, but the 
committee did not see fit to invite him. The 
' American Notes' are not yet forgotten. 

"Messrs. Lamartine, Guizot, and De Tocqueville 
pleaded their feeble health, and the necessity they 
felt under of denying themselves all such pleas- 
ures, as an excuse for declining the committee's 
invitation. 

" The Emperor, there is reason to believe, would 
have attended had it not been for the occupations 
of the moment. 

" Count de Morny, half-brother of the Emperor, 
President of the Corps Legislatif, came in early, 
and paid much attention during the course of the 
evening to one of the Misses Hutton, of New York. 
. . . The two sisters are very ycmng, and, be- 
sides having an ample fortune, are very hand- 
some. The Count will never do better. 

" The anxiety to get to the ball was intense 
among English and French people. Thousands 
of tickets might have been sold, but the committee 
were determined not to depart from the rule, to 
sell only to Americans. I heard of one ticket- 
merchant, however, who had got hold of three 
tickets by some means, and who held them at two 
hundred francs. 

" The principal feature of this ball was that, al- 
though in some sense it might be called a public 
ball, it yet had the air of a private party. It was 
more select even than the balls of the Tuileries, 
and there was an air of quiet elegance and good 
breeding about it that one does not often see." 

So, it would appear, that the managers of the 
Washington Ball of Paris are to be classed, for 
successful endeavor, with the Goodyears and the 
M'Cormicks. Americans every where may felici- 
tate themselves with the reflection that the late 
Paris board of managers (who were agreed among 
themselves to foot up all fiscal deficiencies) have 
succeeded, with the promise of a supper and a 



dance, in drawing together a more considerable 
body of titled men and women, under the Amen* 
can flag, than ever paid honor in that direction be- 
fore. A New York girl, and " handsome," actual- 
ly became party to a conversation with a " half- 
brother of the Emperor !" 

The excitement was intense. 

In ludicrous contrast with the report we have 
given of this fete, we cite the mention of it, which 
appears under the telegraphic head of the great 
journal of Northern Europe. The date of the pa- 
per is Sunday, the 24th February. " Yesterday" 
it says, " the anniversary of Washington was cel- 
ebrated by the Americans in Paris, with great so- 
lemnity, at the Hotel of the Legation. The minis- 
ters of foreign states assisted." 

We have made a note of this matter only to 
serve as text for the preachment of a short sermon 
against a very odious form of American folly. 

Are we all growing to. be tuft-hunters ? Is it a 
proud thing to read how the Duchess of Faineant, 
or His Highness the Prince of Monplaisir consent- 
ed to accept the American Minister's invitation (as 
steward of the committee) to a grand ball in honor 
of Washington's birth-day ? Is it ennobling, to 
be told by a delighted observer, how, on that oc- 
casion, a half-brother of the Emperor actually ad- 
dressed his distinguished remarks to a "handsome" 
American girl (whereat rumor sniffs a marriage) ? 

Do we find sturdy and manly Republicanism 
asserting the honor and the glory of its great apos- 
tle in any such title-encumbered fete ? Is the odor 
of it (so much as comes over to us in paragraphs) 
healthy and bracing? Do we recognize the quiet 
assertion and maintenance of American and Repub- 
lican dignity? 

Do those managers, who took upon themselves to 
foot the bills, seem to say for us — for every proud 
American — " This 22d of February is a day we cher- 
ish ; let us honor it worthily, and, in the eye of Eu- 
rope, let us rally to our festivity those who, like 
ourselves, love and revere the memory of the great 
Republican ?" 

Is there not rather something about it all (as re- 
port comes to us) which smacks of the moneyed 
snob ? Is not Washington, and Washington's great 
doctrine, which he taught with a sword-point, sunk 
deftly under the petticoats of Madame la Comtesse 
de So-and-so and the fracs of the gentlemen of Vir- 
ginia ? Is not the strain after a good notice of the 
feuilletonistes, and a matter to be buzzed about in 
the salons of St. Germain, rather than a lifting up 
of the memory and deeds of Washington — even as 
the brazen serpent was lifted up — for a healing to 
the suffering Israelites ? 

Was there any thing in that splendid ball at- 
mosphere to quicken republican sympathies, wheth- 
er in natives or in those born over-seas ? Is it not 
slightly noticeable that those two good men and 
true, Lamartine and De Tocqueville, were too in- 
disposed on that particular evening ? 

Indisposed for what ? 

It happens to be within our knowledge that 
Lamartine was also indisposed upon the 22d Feb- 
ruary, 1855; and he pleaded his indisposition in 
somewhat this way : He yielded to none in his ven- 
eration of the name and memory of Washington ; 
yet he must respectfully decline the invitation, 
since his presence at the ball would bring him into 
ungrateful contact with those (other French guests 
of distinction} whose sympathies differed so widely 
from his own. 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



851 



Again, it appears, he is indisposed. Again, per- 
haps, he will be reckoned impertinent. 

Mr. Dickens, too, as before said, "would have 
been glad of an invitation," but received none. Mr. 
Dickens was a snob ; Mr. Dickens did not visit with 
Miss Smeacl ; Mr. Dickens (with his earnest and 
sterling humanity warming the hearts of millions 
on this side who never heard of Mr. Corbin or Mr. 
What-not) Avas in no sense a representative of the 
splendid humanity which was needed to set off the 
fete of Washington ! 

This is very queer ; and brings us to the middle 
of our sermon upon American snobbery. 

When an individual, born in Boston, born in 
Virginia, or born in Goshen, with a full purse and 
a liberal heart, chooses to take up residence in one 
or other of the European capitals, and to draw 
about his supper or dinner tables very splendid 
and very tasteful people ; when he chooses to warm 
himself, by such means, in the air of distinction, 
and to cultivate familiarity with titles ; when he 
entreats the notice of my Lord So-and-so, and is 
charmed to receive a personal slight from those of 
distinction — we may wonder at his turn of mind ; 
possibly we may pity ; we may even acquiesce in 
the entire fitness of the thing : j'et we never allow 
ourselves to remark upon it — it is no business of 
ours. 

But when we hear of a great national fete pros- 
tituted to similar ends, and learn that all its na- 
tionality and all its spirit is sunk in a pitiful decoy 
for titled people — people who had never expressed 
one single earnest sympathy either for the nation 
or the memory to whom the fete belonged, then — 
we blush for the managers ! Then, even this old 
Easy Chair, that has witnessed so much of folly, 
and borne it stoutly — that has seen mania on ma- 
nia worrying our fast American blood, and record- 
ed them all — that has heard rifles praj'ed for in 
pulpits, and Kossuth, in his velvet coat, prayed 
for by ladies — even this old Easy Chair feels the 
red mantling deeper than ever in back and elbows, 
in memory of a Washington fete made tribute to 
the underlings of the imperial and princely houses 
of Europe ! 

Where was that brave Manin, President of the 
Venetian Republic of 1848 — sacrificing property, 
place, peace, and family, to his dear idol of emanci- 
pated Italy ? Not at the Washington Ball ; no : 
he is not in favor with the imperial masters of the 
household ; he is under surveillance ; worse yet — 
he is poor — very poor; he gives lessons in Italian. 

You may be very sure he was not asked ; but if 
asked, could he have come? Would he have 
caught heart or hope there? Would the memory 
of the great Protector of national dignities with us 
have warmed upon him from that splendid Wash- 
ington management? 

Where was good old Beranger? any ticket for 
him amidst the " intense excitement ?" Any ticket, 
or place in a corner, out of sight, under the tabic, 
in the lobby, for the old songster, whose sight any 
where along Paris streets makes the police watch- 
ful, and earnest ones more hopeful ? 

You may be sure Beranger was not there ; but 
in place of him the changeful, tricky Dupin, who 
(if the power lay in him) would, for an estate, give 
us an Emperor to-morrow. 

Where was Cremieux? Not there; but in his 
stead the Baron de Rothschild. 

Where was Cavaignac, who, if any man in 
France might have hearty sympathy with the 



memories which seemed to belong to such a fete, 
was eminently the one ? 

Where was the eloquent Cormenin, whose voice, 
through all the tempestuous debates which followed 
upon the events of 1848, advocated the principles 
and the example of Washington ? 

We are not among those fast Republicans who 
believe it is our mission to go propagandizing 
through the length and breadth of Europe, scat- 
tering incendiary placards, and ignoring all forms 
of courtly etiquette ; but we do believe it is our 
mission to assert, by a quiet dignity and a manly 
self-respect, the virtues of our Republican inherit- 
ance : above all, it is our mission to show no shame 
by which others may be made faint of heart ; and 
to show no worship of those titular vanities, which, 
if we are true to ourselves and our professions, we 
count as valueless. 

The man who is ashamed of being a Republican 
had best be ashamed of being an American. Yet 
there are many living abroad who boast the last 
title, and drink the first. They win, too, what 
they most wish to win by the counterfeit. They 
win courtly toleration. 

This old Easy Chair, in its office quietude, with 
only a cob-Webbed window of look-out, and a creak 
in its oaken joints, has no envy of those Americans 
who live (socially and joyfully) on the miserable 
crumbs of favor which they pick up in the outer 
courts of European princes. 

We have a respect for nobles who are true to 
their name and lineage ; we have a respect for Re- 
publicans Avho are true to theirs. 

Mr. Marcy's law of black coats will not save us. 
No law will. There must be the dignity of a man 
under the black coat or the blue ; or embassadors, 
residents, or travelers will make us blush again — 
back and elbows. 



Our sermon being done, and the improvement 
made, we whip in here a few paragraphs from a 
descriptive lady letter, bearing on the same topic. 
We yield our Easy Chair seat to the lady — though 
it has been ours for a good many stations back. 

Little thanks we get ! 
"My dear Lilly — 

"Such a ball! I wore white crape with four 
skirts, caught up here and therewith ivy (artificial, 
of course), sprinkled over with gold dust. It was 
one of Madame Gauthier's — one of her prettiest. 
The Viscomtesse of Renneville says Madame Gau- 
thier intended the design for blonde beauties, meL 
ancholiques et reveuses : what do you think of that 
for me ? 

" There were more expensive dresses (old Mrs. 

wore one, worth, I am sure, fifteen hundred 

francs in Valenciennes), but prettier — no. 

" Well, there was a queue (I don't know how to 
spell that word, so let it go), just as at the Tuiler- 
ies' balls, and the Hotel de Ville, but not so long. 
We were in good season, and the rooms were 
splendid. j 

" You don't know what handsome men the man- 
agers all were, and Americans too. I felt proud 
of my country. Mr. C , for instance, is a per- 
fect gem of a man ! Why don't they run him for 
President, or something. He would make such a 
handsome figure. He knows every body too. Do 
you know I heard him talking with Lord Cowley, 
and saying, ' my lord — my lord,' just as easy as 
nothing. Oh, it was great. 

"And then such a quantity of lords — at least 



852 



PIARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



counts; for there were onl}' two or three lords, 
now I think of it. I don't know as I think so much 
of lords, now I have seen them ; they are not so 
very, very genteel. I think one of our managers 
is genteeler. 

" The Count de Morny is a most charming man ; 
he reminds me somewhat of W. C. — his figure and 
height. He spoke to me several times during the 
evening ; he had very much to say of the beauty 
of American women — and so prettily said, too ! 
He is one of the richest speculators of France (papa 
says), besides being a half-brother of the Emperor. 
There's a bon parti ! And let me tell you that Amer- 
ican girls are finding distinguished husbands now- 
adays ; there was Miss L , who married, only 

the other day, a German Baron ; and Miss G , 

who married a Count Somebody ; and Miss D , 

who all but married a Duke. To be sure the girls 
were rich, and the men poor, and not very young; 
but, after all, one is so little dependent on a hus- 
band here, for society or amusement, that age is not 
of much consequence. 

" Have you heard the story (I suppose you have, 
for all such things go into your papers at home) 
about a pretty lady in black, five-and-forty past, 
who has been making a. furore latterly? Not be- 
cause she is pretty, for she is not ; not because she 
is spirituelle even, for she has lived too long in the 
country for that. (Esprit only grows in the 
city.) 

" But she is talked about because she is a widow, 
and a queer story hangs to her marriage. 

" She married to be a widow ! Widows are so 
gay and so free in France. She was rich, and 
pretty, the story goes, and through a friend of hers, 
somewhere in the provinces, opened marriage ne- 
gotiations with an old gentleman, a Count, who 
seemed just ready to totter out of the world, and 
asked no more than a quiet household, and the 
promise that his young wife would take care of him 
till he died. So they married, and went to live at 
a crazy old chateau, somewhere in Normandy, I 
think. But the old Count lived, and lived — most 
provokingly. The young wife (twenty-two when 
she was married) was past forty when the tie end- 
ed, and she won her freedom. 

" Of course she indulges it now in a way to 
make up for lost time. 

" I wonder the managers had not invited her to 
the ball. She would have been a star. 

" Miss Smead was there, who is not nearly so 
pretty as they represent her. She has a fine figure, 
to be sure, and striking-looking, but there is no- 
thing we should call ' pretty' about her. Of course 
she "was prodigiously admired, for the Emperor has 
called her beautiful, and besides which, she is to 
marry a Howard! Wouldn't this set on edge 
American admiration of her ? 

" Apropos of our Republican spirit; we were 
talking of it the other night, C. L. and I, and we 
both agreed that the Americans in the ball-room 
were more anxious to appear like counts than the 
titled people themselves. I should say they were 
far more difficult of approach than De Morny or 
Lord Cowley. 

"A young countryman of ours appeared at the 
ball with two sisters; and I suppose he had sub- 
scribed out of good feeling, and to give his sisters 
a pleasant evening. Unfortunately they were not 
very well known to the American management, 
and the result was, I am afraid, a very sorry time. 
They were not, it is true, in toilets of Gauthier, but 



were in the last New York or Philadelphia mode 
which you know is about six months behindhand. 
Yet they had pretty faces, and received attentions 
from the French guests. 

" But I could not observe that the American 
gentlemen made any effort to relieve their awk- 
wardness, or to contribute to their pleasure. 

u The brother was one of those who thought, 
American-like, that if he had paid his money 'he 
was as good as any body.' The foreigners present 
evidently admitted him to be so; but, as I told 
you, the Americans who could boast the priv- 
ilege of a word or two with Remusat or 'my Lord 
Cowley,' quite snubbed him. 

" I quite pitied his poor little sisters. Yet, of 
course, they will go away and say what a splendid 
ball it was ; and how many grand people were 
there ; and how a Duke Somebody paid them a 
most graceful compliment; and how the only dis- 
agreeable people there were some of the managers 
and their wives, who were terribly stuck-up. 

"Hoity-toity, so we go! We are queer, we 
Americans, about some things. Don't we love 
titles, though! 

" I forgot almost to tell you that it was a Wash- 
ington Ball." 

Mons. Jules Janin, of the Debats newspaper, 
who not long ago affronted us all, by telling us 
how incapable we were of appreciating the great 
tragedienne Rachel, and how all our genius lay 
in monej'-getting, and in nothing more spiritual, 
has now had the pleasure of welcoming back 
the queen of tragedy with another bray of his 
trumpet. 

Aside from this noisy greeting, Rachel has made 
her entry into the great capital almost noiselessly, 
and has gone back to her little Trudon boudoir 
(rumor says), to make ready for a marriage ; the 
rumored husband being an oldish gentleman, with 
graj r plentifully sprinkled on his head, and a purse 
that has been filled over and over with his manu- 
facturing ventures in the country. Of course, 
Madame Rumor hints that it is an old affection, 
quickened into maturity by a certain princely 
slight to the tragedienne. 

For it was known to all Paris, and in many oth- 
er-wheres, that before the American escapade of 
the Felix family, Rachel drew at her chariot wheels 
(while they rolled from the French Theatre to the 
Rue Trudon), no less splendid a lover than the heir 
apparent to the Imperial throne. It was even 
said that the camp fever of the Prince, when he 
dallied in the Crimea, was heightened by the 
memory of his Jewish love, and that the pale face 
and dark eyes which (in public) had made conquest 
of Maurice de Saxe, had (in private) bedeviled 
the listless nephew of the Emperor. Certain it is, 
that one of the first visits of the returning veteran 
was paid at the boudoir of the Rue Trudon. 

But even princely lovers have their vagaries; 
and during the long absence of the great actress 
who first set up a real shrine of tragedy upon this 
side of the water, the Imperial heir pined into 
comedy. A certain Madame Plessy became a star 
at the French Theatre, and a star upon the bosom 
of the princely trifler. And now, the old dame 
rumor we cite, declares that the returning Rachel 
is punishing the delinquent by a holy marriage 
with an old and constant lover of the Provinces. 

Another grief stared Rachel in the face. Ris- 
tori has come back to Paris, and promises to make 



EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR. 



853 



her fame and her presence perennial in the metro- 
politan city. She has even given a new sting to 
her renown, by adding Phedre to her Italian re- 
pertoire. 

There is a trail to the American visit of Rachel ; 
the trail is in the hands and head of one Beauval- 
let ; not very much heard of as yet, nor much more 
to be heard of from the noise he makes, and the 
dust, as he sits upon the Felix train through the 
"States." 

We give a characteristic bit of his observations 
on his arrival in New York : " What calls attention 
soonest, in the young capital of America, is the 
immense number of gigantic sign-boards which 
cover the houses from top to bottom. Advertise- 
ments red, yellow, and blue ; masses of canvas cov- 
ered with griffins and monsters ; nothing else from 
roof to cellar ; you would imagine yourself at the 
entrance of some great tent of rope-dancers or a 
puppet-show. 

" Nor indeed is there lack of these things. Broad- 
way (the Boulevard of these provincials) is filled 
with them. Such a din ! 

" You are crazed with the uproar of songs, laugh- 
ter, and oaths. Street-performers deafen you with 
the bray of trumpets ; boys scream in your ear 
' Xtra 'Erald !' asses (attached to the railway car- 
riages that glide in every direction) add their mu- 
sical notes ; omnibuses clash together ; coachmen 
swear hoarsely ; ladies scream for fright ; and the 
miserable painted and flat-bosomed 'street-walk- 
ers' flaunt their ribbons in your eye at noon." 

Of the St. Nicholas Hotel, this philosopher 
speaks thus : " Very splendid, by my faith, and 
situated on Broadway (every thing is situated on 
Broadway !). 

"There is every thing in the St. Nicholas — 
billiards, hot and cold water, wash-house, salon de 
coiffure, electric telegraph. 

" I said there was every thing : unfortunately 
there is one thing lacking — that is, attention to 
one's wants. There is a never-ending rush ; hun- 
dreds are coming and going; the servants count 
by hundreds, but to which shall you address your- 
self? or if to one, will you ever see him again ? 

" In short, it is all so splendid and so grand that 
once, there, you think of nothing but — how you can 
escape. It was this thought which Mademoiselle 
Rachel revolved through all the first night of her 
stay; the next day she left." 

As for the smaller hangers-on to the tragic 
skirts, they sought refuge in the Hotel Mondon, 
far down Broadway (always Broadway !), where 
a Spanish hostess used oil in her cuisine, and did 
not waste her resources upon soaps and Croton 
supplies. 

" It was a ten-minutes' ride thither," says our 
pleasant chronicler, "and we were nine in the 
coach : the fare was one dollar each ! — pas cker." 

No wonder that poor Beauvallet is seriously out 
of temper ; indeed our grand hotels, and our street- 
carriages are not good curatives of home-sickness 
in those bred in Paris. 

Even good and learned Miss Murray, who has 
told us some rarely good things about the pale 
faces of our ladies, and the life-long be.dizzenment 
of their beauties — even stout Miss Murray has her 
outcry against the extravagance and outsidedness 
of our hotels. And, of course, it is very impertinent 
and unpatriotic in us not to admire the mirrors, 
the Axminsters, the bridal chambers, and the ban- 



quet-halls, where a thousand will discuss a dinner 
to the wonderful mechanism of a steward with a 
bell ; we do admire them ; we wonder still more at 
those who find comfort and shufP-j their meals un- 
der such appliances. 

We hope the Beauvallets and Murrays will con- 
tinue to preach against that absurd hotel-splendor 
of ours, which buries us in velvets, and brocades, 
and bills, and which leaves us the smallest residu- 
um of wholesome quiet and comfort. 



Our readers will remember that we introduced 
to their notice, on two occasions, the book of a cer- 
tain Madame Manoel de Grandfort, wherein that 
personage allowed herself very free speech upon 
the habits and character of Americans. It appears 
that the lady has now another volume in press, 
entitled " Amour aux Stats Unis." 

The publishing-house of the Libraire Nouvelle, 
which gave to the French world her first book, has 
refused her second. What with her native piquan-- 
cy, and her theme, she has made too bold and bad 
a book. Even the Presse has declined any issue 
of its sample chapters; and our unfortunate friend 
Manoel de Grandfort, who enjoyed the rare oppor- 
tunity of witnessing more cock-fights, negro-hunts, 
and revels among the Bloomers, than any woman 
before her, must look for patrons upon our side of 
the water. 

Let us revive her attractions by excerpting a 
dainty morsel or two from her first essay : 

" I find, then, that there is an aristocracy in the 
United States — an aristocracy of tallow and cod- 
fish — more proud, more unyielding than even the 
proudest aristocracy of Europe. Even in those 
days, when European rank was best established, 
it had bounds to its indulgences, and incitements 
to heroism and generosity, in the renown of its 
name, in its ancestral inheritance, and in the re- 
gard of the world. 

" But as for these princes of America — they have 
no ancestry ; pride of family is unheard of; and as 
for the generosity which comes of a good heart, it 
is a merchandise in which they have no dealing. 
It is, in short, a despicable aristocracy, with no 
bounds to pride but its own selfish indulgence. An 
Englishman, whom I fell in with at a ' boarding ' 
of New York, told me he would rather be the lack- 
ey of a European nobleman than chief clerk of an 
American parvenu. 

" If a poor devil of a Frenchman (sic) finds him- 
self in New York, without the wit to go into trade, 
either as counter-boy or clerk, so much the worse 
for him. All time spent in America, without 
money-making, is lost time (for a Frenchman). 
One lives there — not for enjoyment or repose, but 
to accumulate. Philosophic abstraction is utterly 
lost ; every thing which does not tend to the great 
end of money-getting is worse than useless. Byron 
would be sneered at in such a country. Donizetti 
would rank below a house-carpenter, and Vernet 
would die of hunger. Talent and genius is not 
predicated of those who make bold discoveries in 
science, or who write well, or who have an influence 
in the world of art, or of intellect. It is far nobler 
to make money — no matter how — no matter how 
much at first ; provided the possessor have the gen- 
ius to go on doubling it, tripling it, quadrupling 
it." 

Shall we not look out for her exhibit of the 
" Loves in America ?" 



854 



HAKPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



itnfs Jtoxflax. 

" TVELIVEK me from my friends!" a certain cor- 
\J pulent and very eminent Brooklyn divine 
might have exclaimed, on the occurrence of the 
following incident, which is related to us on relia- 
ble authority. 

As the Rev. Dr. B entered the crowded cab- 
in of a Fulton ferry-boat, he was immediately ad- 
dressed by a gentlemanly-looking man, but unfor- 
tunately under the influence of liquor, who very 
ceremoniously insisted upon giving him his seat. 

"T-t-take my seat. D-d-doctor," stuttered the 
man, "take my seat; I have a great respect for 
you, D-d-doctor: you're a very good, and a, a, a 
very great man." 

But before the polite offer could be accepted, an 
Irish woman slipped into the vacant place, and 

the late occupant turning again to Dr. B , 

went on : 

" Well, never m-mind, D-doctor, you must take 
the will for the deed ; but I have great respect for 
you, Doctor. You're a man above the common 
run ; you've got a good church in Brooklyn ; hope 
you won't leave us, Doctor. Heard you had a 
call to Ninth Street the other day — nine thousand 
dollao^s salary ; but you wouldn't go ; no, Doctor, 
you told them you'd see 'em d d first.'" 

The Doctor is quite as celebrated for his wit 
as his eloquence, but this time it failed him so de- 
cidedly that he had not a word to say in reply. 



About as equivocal a compliment was paid to 
Paul, the Apostle, and to an excellent preacher 
on a Mississippi steamer. A tipsy and talkative 
Western man came up to the clergyman and de- 
livered himself on this wise, grasping his hand, 
and bowing ludicrously : 

" How d'ye do, Doctor? glad to see you ; you're 
the preacher for me ; you're a true disciple of the 
'postle Paul. I like Paul very much, very much 
indeed — 'cause you know as soon as he got ashore 
he went to three taverns /" 



away the stool. I will return in about an hour, 
when you will be unmarried, and out of all your 
troubles!'" 



To help those uneasy men and women who wish 
to escape the noose of matrimony, we copy the fol- 
lowing from an English record of many years back : 

" A certain lewd fellow of the baser sort came 
from a long way off out of the shires, and married 
a woman who had been whipped round our town 
more than once. The parish officers w r ere her 
bridesmaids, and her husband was not afraid of 
receiving curtain-lectures, for their sole bed was 
of dirty straw on the dirty ground; nevertheless 
he wearied soon of his life, and went to the parish 
clerk, seeking to be rid of his crooked rib. Solo- 
mon was sly, and replying to his inquiry if the 
parson could unmarry them, said : ' Why need ye 
trouble his reverence ? Have not I, man and boy, 
been his clerk forty years come all-hallow-tide? 
I can do it as well as e'er a parson of them ail, 
and as sure as there is now a good tap of ale at the 
" Bell." Let us go there — you stand two pots, and 
I will do all right for you.' So, after drinking out 
his fee, Solomon took the fellow into the church by 
the priest's door. ' Now,' said he, ' ye were mar- 
ried here ; so put off your jacket, and kneel at con- 
fession, for 'tis a solemn business.' Then they went 
into the belfry, and, bidding him take off his shoes, 
and stand on a stool, he gave him the longest bell- 
rope. ' Tie that tightly, my lad, round your throat,' 
said Solomon, ' and as soon as I am gone, kick 



A Keokuk correspondent sends us a story of 
the Rev. Julius Caesar, a colored preacher of Mis- 
souri, which he thinks goes to show that some of 
the sable brethren are quite as 'cute as any of the 
Hard Shells of whom we have heard so much of 
late. 

Mr. Caesar had made an appointment to preach 
about twenty miles from his master's plantation, 
and there he made his appearance with his saddle- 
bags on his arm, and gave out at once that he had 
come to preach the Gospel to the niggers there- 
abouts. 

"Yah ! yah !" responded a hundred voices ; but 
one of the negroes, more bold but not worse than 
the rest, sung out: "Well, now, look a-here, nig- 
ger, if you jis brung a pack o' cards wid you, you 
mout dun sumfin, but preachin' is a little too slow 
for dis congregation." 

Caesar remonstrated with them, as they all 
seemed to fall in with the old fellow's ideas ; but 
they told him to go home, and " de nex time he 
come to bring de cards." Caesar started off w T ith 
his saddle-bags on his arm, but halted, opened 
them, and turning about as he said, " If dat's what 
you must have, why, den, you must !" and pulling 
out a greasy old pack sat down on the grass. 

" Dat's de talk : O de laud, jis look ! dat nigger 
got some little senses left arter all: sensibul to 
de last !" they cried out one after another. The 
preacher commenced operations, and after some 
five or six hours' playing had skinned every thing 
around, cleaning them out of all the loose silver 
they had picked up in many a day ; Caesar shoved 
the documents into the bags, and starting off again, 
told them, by way of a parting benediction, that 
whenever they had a little more money to support 
the Gospel in that way, just to let him know. 



Father M'Iver, who made such a stir among 
the Presbyterians on the Wife's Sister question, 
has had two or three stories told of him in the 
Magazine, but the best one is the following, not 
yet published. It will be now. 

Mr. M'Iver, for years to the contrary whereof 
the memory of none of us runneth back, was stated 
Clerk of the Synod of North Carolina, and he was 
proud of the honor, magnifying his office always 
and every where. As he was journeying and drew 
nigh to the place where the Synod was to hold its 
annual meeting, he lost his way among the pine 
woods that abound in that tar and turpentine State. 
Once off the road, he became more and more con- 
fused, and soon plunged into a swamp that was 
just back of the town where the Synod had assem- 
bled. Night had come on, as dark as the native 
pitch that there abounds, and the reverend body 
had gathered in the church, wondering much that 
Colin MTver, the most punctual of them all, was 
not on hand to call the roll. Poor Mr. MTver, 
fairly frightened at his prospect of a night in the 
swamp, began shouting at the top of his voice, 
" Help ! help ! Colin MTver, Stated Clerk of the 
Synod of North Carolina is lost, lost, lost!" His 
cries reached the ears of a negro, who ran to his 
master, but he and all the village were at the 
church, to which Cuffy hastened, and called out to 
his master that a man was lost down in the swamp, 
and says he's the greatest sinner in North Carolina! 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



855 



A few minutes more, and Father M'lver was 
rescued from his perils, and the Synod received 
him as one who was lost and found. 



A Kentucky friend writes us a very amusing 
sketch of Old Uncle Davy — a fair specimen of that 
class of negroes whose wit shows itself in making 
an excuse for neglect of duty quite equal to that 
of a Patlander. Davy's mistress sent him to mark- 
et for some salsify, a delightful vegetable not much 
known at the North. He returned with a bundle 
of sassafras roots. "Why, Davy, I told you to 
get me salsify, and you have brought sassafras!" 
Davy scratched his head, and stammered out, 
" Missus, me think sassifas and sassify pretty much 
two things /" 

Uncle Davy, some time afterward, came to his 
master, who lived a few miles out of Louisville, 
and asked him to allow him to go and live in the 
city, at which his master was very much sur- 
prised. 

" Why, Davy, what on earth do you want to go 
and live in town for ?" 

" De church wants me, Sir." 

" What can the church want of you, Davy?" 

" Well, massa, me will explain. De church has 
sent away down to Virginny for my pedigree, and 
dey say I'm one of the fus families in Old Virgin- 
ny, and dey wants to buy me for a pastune or a 
sextune, or some such thing : let me go, massa ?" 

Davy's master thought he had better stay on 
the farm a while longer before taking orders. 



" Your story of the farmer who would not have 
his hired men called from their work to take a saw- 
log off from him, reminds me," says a New Bedford 
correspondent, "of a wealthy ship-owner of this 
place, a member of the Society of Friends, and now 
deceased, who was very remarkable for economiz- 
ing the time of his hired men. He had one of his 
ships hove down at the wharf to repair and copper. 
It was a cold winter's day, and there was a plank 
extending from the wharf to the floating stages 
around the ship, on which the carpenters and caulk- 
ers were at work. Among the men was one by 
the name of John, a man-of-all-work, a man of 
color, and on free-and-easy terms with his master. 
John was carrying matters and things up and down 
a slippery plank to the workmen, when he slid of 
a sudden, and shot, heels over head, into the water. 
The old Quaker saw him, and as John came up to 
blow called out to him, ' Don't make a noise, John, 
you'll stop the men in their work ; keep quiet, and 
I'll help thee out.' 

"As good or bad luck would have it, the same 
day, the kind Quaker was coming down the plank, 
and away he went into the briny deep. But John 
was close by, and as his master rose to the surface, 
and looked the image of despair, the wicked negro 
put on a long face, and cried : ' Master, don't make 
a noise, to call off the men : I'll help thee out.' 
And so he did, while the men looked on and laugh- 
ed at the fun." 



Many a down East man has made a good sea- 
captain, while he was a poor hand at spelling. 
Captain Ezekiel Jenkins was one of these men ; he 
knew the ropes well, but writing letters was not 
his forte. He sailed the ship Jehu from Boston to 
South America while the republics were in a dis- 
turbed condition, and the port he designed to make 
was blockaded ; he could not enter, and his cargo 



Nothing can excel the classic puns of last 
month's Drawer ; but the following is not bad : 

A tobacconist of a town in Kentucky, pressed by 
clamorous creditors, ran away between two days. 
A wag in the morning chalked upon his door the 
following interrogatory for his disconsolate cred- 
itors : 

" Quid Fles ?" 

The pathetic inquiry of Horace can not be more 
happily parodied than in this inquiry addressed to 
the weeping creditors of a fleeing tobacconist. 



could find no market. He informed his owners of 
the state of things in a letter, so remarkably con- 
densed as to incline toward the obscure. It was in 
these words : 

" Sir — Own to the blockhead the vig is spilt." 
The owners could not make it out, but a friend 
of the captain, more familiar with his laconic style, 
read it thus : 

" Sir — Owing to the blockade, the voyage is 
spoilt." 

A strange effect on foolish woman wrought, 
Bred in disguises, and by custom taught ; 
Fashion, that prudence sometimes overrules, 
But serves instead of reason for the fools; 
Fashion, which all the world to slavery brings, 
The dull excuse for doing silly things. 



The Rev. D. D. Field, D.D., of Berkshire Coun- 
ty, Massachusetts, has a double share of titular 
ornaments to his name, the prefixes and suffixes 
being the same in substance, if not in significance. 
We know of but one instance of a similar coinci- 
dence, and it is of that divine that a Wisconsin 
correspondent sends us the following capital an- 
ecdote : 

" The Rev. D. D. Burt, D.D., a very prominent 
Western divine, was preaching one Sabbath morn- 
ing in the beautiful village of Appleton, from the 
familiar text, " A well of water springing up into 
everlasting life." It so happened that he number- 
ed among his hearers a notable mother in Israel, 
who had the misfortune to be a little crazed, so 
that she could not be relied on to keep silence when 
it was quite desirable that she should hold her 
tongue. The landlord of whom she hired the small 
tenement in which she dwelt would not have a 
well dug on the premises, but made her get water 
from a spring on his land, for which he charged her 
the additional, but very moderate sum of one dol- 
lar per year. As Dr. Burt waxed eloquent in his 
discourse, and spoke of the water of life as offered 
freely, without money and without price, the old 
lady warmed up also, and at length started in her 
seat, fixed her eye on the man who had exacted the 
cruel water-tax, and then cried out at the top of 
her voice, 'Dr. Burt, Dr. Burt, there's a man now 
in this house who's got a well o' water springing 
up, and you can't have it without paying a dollar 
a year /' 

The landlord blushed redly, and the preacher 
was troubled in his feelings; but after this ex- 
plosion the excited woman sat down, and the serv- 
ices proceeded. 

There is not a greater doctor of divinity in this 
city than the excellent man of whom we are about 
to relate the following incident. It is only the 
repetition of an ancient jest, and as it happened 
very nearly the first of April last, he is inclined to 



856 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



think that there was mischief more than accident 
in the adventure of which he was the victim. He 
was walking down Twenty-third Street very lei- 
surely — for being very obese, he has to walk slowly 
and surely, taking heed to his steps — when he was 
accosted by a very respectful servant-girl, who 
said, 

"Please, Sir, my mistress wishes you to walk 
in." 

The Doctor was surprised at the request, but 
presuming that he was wanted in the discharge of 
some professional duty, he entered the door to which 
the servant conducted him, and when the lady of 
the house entered the parlor, she instantly recog- 
nized him, and said she must beg ten thousand par- 
dons, but the stupid girl had made the stupidest of 
all possible blunders, and she must tell the. whole 
story. 

" I am in the habit of overseeing my own do- 
mestic affairs, and I told her to call in the soap-fat 
man to carry off the matters of that sort which 
have gathered in the kitchen department: I sup- 
pose I said the fat man, and, Sir, I am mortified 
to death to think that she should have taken you 
for the man whose services I called for." 

Now the Doctor, like other fat people generally, 
is a good-natured sort of man, and assuring the 
lady that the mistake Avas natural, and very amus- 
ing withal, bowed himself out, and now tells the 
story with much gusto, though it is plain to see 
he would be willing to spare some of his flesh, and 
perhaps become a spare man, rather than be called 
in every day on a similar errand. 



From time to time we have found in the Drawer, 
and have given to our readers, remarkable speci- 
mens of pulpit extravagance, the reading of which 
must excite a smile. We are not without our fears 
that such exhibitions are calculated to excite in 
weak minds a contempt for the pulpit, and such a 
result we should deeply deplore. Preaching is a 
mighty business, and solemn too. It does not 
concern the matter of a million or two of dollars, 
more or less ; it does not consider such little ques- 
tions as war or peace between the two greatest na- 
tions on earth ; it does not canvass the probabili- 
ties that this system of worlds in which we live 
may one of these days be wrecked and whelmed 
on the sea of space. It has higher, deeper, wider, 
further ranges than these calculations. It con- 
cerns the duty of man to his Maker, and treats of 
the destiny of the immortal soul : a soul that will 
live when the heavens are rolled together as a 
scroll : when 

" The stars shall fade away : the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years. 1 ' 

Often have we pondered, and never yet have we 
been able to grasp the full import of that question, 
" What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole 
world, and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man 
give in exchange for his soul?" We believe in 
these things ; in every nerve and fibre of our be- 
ing we believe in them ; and, therefore, if there is 
one man on this wide earth that we may despise, 
it is the man who professes to be a preacher of 
such truths, and then uses his pulpit to show him- 
self or amuse his hearers, or who plays the Miss 
Nancy, and takes upon him such airs as are shown 
in some pulpits in this immediate vicinity. Wit- 
ness the following from a Baptist paper, which 
copies it from a Presbyterian paper, which takes 
it from the New York Churchman ; 



" To the Editor of the Churchman : 
" Dear Sir : 

1 When I can read my title clea-ah 
To mansions in the skies, 
I'll bid farewell to etery fe-ah, 
And wipe my weeping eyes.' 

"The above is the style of elocution in which 
the first lines of Dr. Watts's celebrated hymn were 
very recently delivered from the deeply-recessed 
chancel of that beautiful church, the rector of 
which, some time since, so solemnly announced 
that the ' sufferings of the poo-ah increase with 
the approach of whit-ah] and who, from the pul- 
pit, is in the habit of extolling the wondrous effi- 
cacy of the Gos-pill for the cu-ah of all the ills of 
suffering humanity. 

" The same accomplished minister, upon the same 
day on which he delighted, from the chancel, his 
ravished hearers with the above poetic gem, elec- 
trified them by the following burst, from the pul- 
pit, of eloquent and classic declamation : 
'"Oh! sin-nah! 

The judgment is ne-ah ! 
Life is but a va-pah Z 1 

" Are these the la-bahs of love to which one who 
has taken upon himself the office of a public teach- 
ah feels himself called ? Or is it to be tolerated 
that, year after year, the devotions of a congrega- 
tion are to be disturbed, the beautiful Services of 
the Church desecrated, and the momentous truths 
of Revelation degraded, by their unnecessary and 
censurable association with these and similar vul- 
gar and irreverent exhibitions ?" 

To such a rebuke, and to such an exposure of 
the disgusting affectations of the pulpit, by the re- 
ligious presses of the city, what words need we 
add? Our correspondents, from widely distant 
parts of the country, send us specimens of pulpit 
eloquence which we sometimes print with the same 
good intentions that prompt our brethren of the 
religious newspapers. 



Doctor Mundie says that when he was in 
France he heard the following anecdote, which has 
never been told in America : 

When Napoleon was marching through Ger- 
many in 1812, the French were much surprised at 
the handsome appearance of the country, and fre- 
quently expressed their admiration of the finely 
cultivated fields and pretty villages they saw on 
all sides. One of the numerous Poles in Napo- 
leon's service was prompted by patriotism to say 
that Germany was nothing compared to his fa- 
therland, and the French would have something 
to admire when they came to see Poland. 

At last the frontiers of that unhappy country 
were passed, but the French, disappointed in the 
discoveries they made, could see nothing but mis- 
erable huts, and muddy roads, all the worse for 
recent rains that rendered them almost impassable. 
On the second day the French became impatient, 
and an old mustached grenadier, taking up a hand- 
ful of mud from the road, held it under the nose of 
the boasting Pole, and said, in great contempt, 
" Such stuff you call father land !" 



Once more we hear from the Hard Shell Bap- 
tists. And this time an attentive and always wel- 
come correspondent in Georgia writes to us the 
following as something that his ears heard, and 
therefore he knows whereof he affirms : 

"During the summer I attended an association 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



857 



of the Hard Shell Baptists in a western county of 
Georgia. At the appointed time on Sabbath morn- 
ing a plain preacher rose and conducted the usual 
introductory services without exciting any special 
attention. After reading the chapter in the Gos- 
pel of St. John, where the blessed Saviour demands 
of Peter three times 'Lovest thou me?' he chose 
these words as his text, and then solicited the 
prayers of the people in the following quaint ad- 
dress : 

" Old Coles is in a tight place — has deep and 
muddy water to wade through — and now, dear 
brethering, he wants you to help him out by your 
prayers." 

The brethren manifested their acquiescence by 
audible groans. The preacher then went on to de- 
scribe the object of the Saviour's mission to the 
earth ; gave his own opinion of the nature and 
extent of the work he performed ; his belief as to 
the proper subjects and the mode of baptism ; the 
final perseverance of the saints ; and nearly every 
doctrine in and around the Gospel, till we had at 
least all the theology that Preacher Coles had ever 
found in the Bible; then he came down to the 
abomination of building handsome churches and 
paying ministers for preaching in them ; the folly 
of fashion and the sin of wearing silks and feath- 
ers,' and all that sort of thing ; till at last he hap- 
pened in his excursions to stumble on his text, and 
suddenly wound up his discourse in such words as 
these : 

" Now, my dearly beloved brethering, Old Coles 
don't exactly agree with some of the Presbyterians, 
Methodists, and the softer Baptists, as to our Lord's 
meaning when he axed the question, ' Simon, lov- 
est thou me more than these ?' Some of them high- 
larnt, thousand-dollar preachers contend that he 
meant, ' is your love for me greater than for these 
fellow-disciples ?' Another set of the broadcloth 
and satin-vest preachers contend that he meant, 
' is your love to me stronger than the love of the 
rest of my disciples?' Old Coles hain't got no 
eddication but what he picked up here and thar, 
while swinging to the plow-handles or swinging 
the ax — never got farther than the rule of three 
in rethmetic — knows nothing about jography and 
such tomfoolery, and don't care to ; but when it 
comes to Scripter, the old feller has a few wrinkles, 
and wouldn't swap places with any of them college 
chaps. Now, listen, dear brethering, and Old Coles 
will tell you in a few words what our Lord meant 
when he said, 'lovest thou me more than these V 
You know they had all just been eating dinner, 
and that dinner was made offish ; and consequent- 
ly, therefore, on this ere account I conclude and 
reckon, that he meant to ask Simon, 'lovest thou 
me more than thou lovest jishV I wonder, dear 
brethering, if Peter would have made the same an- 
swer if the question had been put to him before din- 
ner! Brethering, I reckon not!" 

This was pronounced with an air of self-satisfied 
assurance, and with a few " preliminary" remarks, 
the discourse was ended. 



The life of Curran, the great Irish orator and 
wit, revives some stories of that illustrious man 
which we had quite forgotten, and furnishes sev- 
eral that have not been told of him before. 

He was one evening sitting in a box at the 
French Opera, between an Irish noblewoman, 
whom he had accompanied there, and a very 
young French lady. The ladies soon manifested 



a strong desire to converse, but neither of them 
knew a word of the other's language. Curran, of 
course, volunteered to interpret, or, in his own 
words, " to be the carrier of the'r thoughts, and 
accountable for their safe deliveiv." They went 
at it at once, with all the ardor and zest of the 
Irish and French nature combined, but their in- 
terpreter took the liberty of substituting his own 
thoughts for theirs, and instead of remarks upon 
the dresses and the play, he introduced so many 
finely-turned compliments that the two ladies soon 
became completely fascinated with each other. At 
last their enthusiasm becoming sufficiently great, 
the wily interpreter, in conveying some very inno- 
cent questions from his countrywoman, asked the 
French lady "if she would favor her with a kiss." 
Instantly springing across the orator, she imprinted 
a kiss on each cheek of the Irish lady, who was 
amazed at her sudden attack, and often afterward 
asked Mr. Curran, " What in the world could that 
French girl have meant by such conduct in such a 
place ?" He never let out the secret, and the Irish 
lady always thought French girls were very ardent 
and sudden in their attachments. 



Lawyer L. was complaining that some rascal 
had got into his garden and carried off his canta- 
loupes. 

" It is too bad," said L., " that a man's property 
should be so depredated upon. If I only had a 
rope round the rascal's neck, I would — I would — " 

"Yes," put in Lawyer B., "you would say, you 
rascal ! you cant-e-lope !" 

Lawyer B., above named, was concerned for the 
defendant in the action of ejectment of Barley v. 
Stiflier. The land in dispute was a tract of ex- 
cellent land adjoining Barley's land, and had been 
farmed for fifty years by Stiffler, who lived upon a 
contiguous tract, but although he had taken out a 
warrant for it he had never had -his survey re- 
turned. This neglect, Barley supposed, would be 
fatal to Stirffer's title, and he got out another war- 
rant, had his survey made and regularly returned. 
The sympathy of the court, bar, and audience was 
with honest old Stiffler, and B. made one of his 
best speeches to the jury. In the course of his re- 
marks, he described Barley standing in his own 
door, viewing and coveting the land. 

" He saw, gentlemen of the jury," said B., " that 
it was good for rye, good for corn, good for wheat, 
and he thought that it would be good for barley 
too." The right chord was struck, and a burst of 
applause followed which the court did not appear 
very anxious to restrain. A verdict was rendered 
for Stiffler, and his heirs hold the land "even unto 
this day." 

A gallant officer in the United States Navy 
communicates to the Drawer an admirable inci- 
dent to show the power of an American training, 
even upon the rawest of British-boi*n subjects who 
enlist under the stripes and stars : 

" In 1848 the frigate United States was lying in 
the Bay of Gibraltar, and the usual civilities were 
passing between the officers of the ship and those 
of the garrison. At one of the dinner parties con- 
versation turned upon the various small-arms in 
use, and Commodore Read spoke of the American 
carbine in terms of high praise. Few of the Brit- 
ish officers present had ever seen the weapon, and 
a general request was made that an opportunity 



858 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



might be afforded of witnessing its efficiency. The 
Commodore readily complied, and an appointment 
for the next morning was made. 

" Orderly Sergeant Shaw was instructed to se- 
lect a man and a weapon for the trial, and he di- 
rected Private Lynch to be on the ground. They 
found quite a party of British officers in waiting, 
who examined the weapon, and made numerous 
inquiries respecting it of Lynch, whom they soon 
discovered to be a son of the Emerald Isle. The 
trial began. A small china cup was placed on a 
post at a distance of thirty yai'ds. Lynch loaded 
his carbine, brought it deliberately to his shoulder, 
fired, and the cup was in atoms. A second, third, 
and fourth experiment had the same result. The 
English officers expressed their gratification and 
astonishment by loud cheers, and one of them ask- 
ed Lynch if he was not an Irishman ? 

" ' I am by birth, Sir,' was his reply. 

"'How long have you been in the American 
service?' 

" 'About six months, Sir,' said Lynch. 

" The officer gave him a sovereign ; and, turn- 
ing to his brothers, said : ' Here is an Irishman 
who has been in the American Navy but six 
months, and I'll wager a hundred pounds he can 
do what not one of his countrymen in the British 
service can. The officers expressed their thanks 
to Sergeant Shaw for his attention, and proffered 
him five pounds as a slight expression of their sat- 
isfaction. The Sergeant drew himself up to his 
full height, and said : 

" ' I thank you, gentlemen, but a non-commis- 
sioned officer of the American Navy never receives 
presents on duty.' 

" ' I'll wager another hundred pounds,' said the 
British officer again, ' there is not a sergeant in the 
English army or navy would have done that.' 

"The officers of the garrison were much grati- 
fied; and it would be difficult to decide whether 
the gallant Commodore was more pleased with the 
skill of Private Lynch or the nice sense of honor 
displayed by Sergeant Shaw. 

" A few days afterward, Captain de Lacy, of the 
garrison, inquired of passed midshipman Brook, 
' How they Americanized Irishmen so rapidly ?' 

'"No trouble at all,' said Brook; 'there is an 
atmosphere breathed under the American flag that 
makes every man an American who served under- 
neath it.' 

" ' I believe you,' said Captain de Lacy. ' Honor 
to the American flag, and to the gallant tars that 
defend it !' " 



The war of epigrams, recorded in a late Num- 
ber, has revived the memory of one that is hardly 
excelled by any of those already published. It 
must be introduced with a few lines of history, to 
make its wit and fitness more apparent. 

In Manchester, England, the Free Grammar- 
School, a semi-collegiate institution, derived its 
revenues from certain ancient grist-mills on the 
river Irk, at which all the inhabitants of the par- 
ish of Manchester were compelled to grind their 
grain. About the year 1730 a new lease of the 
Grammar-School Mill was granted by the trustees 
to two individuals bearing the euphonious names of 
" Bone" and " Skin." As the rents were somewhat 
advanced in amount upon this occasion, the lessees 
thought to keep their profits up to the old standard, 
and perhaps a little ahead of it, by increasing the 
charge to their customers for tolls. A deficient 



harvest, and consequent scarcity, pressed upon the 
community at the period in question, and placards 
were posted and meetings were held to promulgate 
and consider the grievance. Upon one occasion 
no little merriment was infused into the general 
lugubrious tone of public feeling by the appear- 
ance on the walls, one morning during the excite- 
ment, of the following jeu cFesprit: 

Bone and Skin, 

Two millers thin, 
To starve the town are banded ; 

But be it known 

To Skin and Bone, 
That flesh and blood won't stand it. 



" I have," writes EL H. R., an old correspond- 
ent of an esteemed contemporary of ours from a far- 
Western State, " a couple of neighbors, old Mr. and 
Mrs. Pimperton. Mrs. Pimperton had ' laid it to 
heart' for years that her door-yard fence should be 
whitewashed, and she fairly tormented the flesh 
from Mr. Pimperton, clattering about ' that door- 
yard fence.' 

" The old man said 'it had got so that he could 
dream of nothing else but door-yard fences and 
whitewash!' 

"Mrs. Pimperton at last found a receipt for 
whitewash, which she cut from the ' Federal Rock- 
et, and Political Torpedo,'' made up of lime, salt, and 
sugar — 'more permanent and lustrous,' according 
to the paper, than white-lead itself. 

" This ' added fuel to her fire,' and she followed 
Mr. Pimperton with that receipt until he was 
obliged, in self-defense, to prepare a dose of it, and 
baptize about twenty rods of his fence. 

"Well, it did look beautiful, in the setting sun, 
on the evening of its completion ; and the old man 
really began to think that old Mrs. Pimperton icas 
something of a woman after all ! 

"Mr. and Mrs. Pimperton retired that night 
happy. 

"'La, me!' exclaimed Mrs. Pimperton, as she 
was putting the finishing touches to the bow-knots 
of her nightcap-strings — ' La, me ! Mr. Pimperton, 
it didn't cost much, n'other ; and the old fence looks 
just as good as new, and shines a good deal bright- 
er than Squire Holmes's, with all his paint and ile. 
Don't say a woman don't know nothing again, Mr. 
Pimperton. Women do know something. Not a 
dollar out, and our fence will last us for ten years.' 

" Mr. Pimperton rolled over, grunted, and fell 
asleep. 

" During the night Mrs. Pimperton was aroused 
by strange noises. She shook Mr. Pimperton from 
his slumbers. It did seem as if the very heavens 
had ' broke loose,' as Mrs. Pimperton said. The 
herds of a thousand hills were evidently upon them. 

"Mr. Pimperton arose and threw open the win- 
dow. And there, gathered in the moonlight, 
marching and countermarching, and bellowing 
forth unearthly sounds, and goring each other, 
really tcere (so Mr. Pimperton thought) the ' herds 
of a thousand hills' storming around his newly- 
whitewashed fence. 

'"Great Josiah!' he exclaimed, as he stood in 
his undress, staring through the window; 'why, 
Mrs. Pimperton, as true as you are a live woman, 
the very cattle have come down to dance around 
my fence !' 

" Then out of bed bounded Mrs. Pimperton ; and 
there they were, sure enough, 'a ragin' around, 
their tails flying, their horns a-flarin',' as she de- 



EDITOR'S DRAWER. 



859 



clared, and they had the first really jolly laugh to- 
gether that they had had for years. 

" But the morning told the story. The herd 
had mostly dispersed. Two or three persevering 
animals still lingered, however, and were still 
standing ' reared upon their hind-legs, licking off 
the salt, sugar, and lime upon the top of the posts — 
the last touches of their last night's work !' 

" ' The fence,' said Mrs. Pimperton, in relating 
the circumstance,- ' was licked as clean as my wash- 
board!'" Moral: Don't wash your fences with 
the "cheap" paint of " salt, sugar, and lime." 



The following reminds us of a little anecdote 
which we think we will tell first, so as to be a lit- 
tle ahead of our friend who narrates it : 

A couple of friends, sportsmen, fond of shooting 
and fishing, were on a trouting excursion out in 
Sullivan County, whipping the east and west 
branches of the Calicoon and the Mongaup, in the 
month of Ma}', some four or five years ago. 

When they left the rude hotel in the morning, 
where they had passed the night, they agreed to 
separate in pursuing their day's sport ; and an 
agreement was made to rendezvous at the tavern 
at sunset, and compare the result of the day's labor, 
or " sport," as it is generally called. 

Well, about dusk one of the party arrived, and 
soon after the other, and they compared their 
strings offish. 

One greatly predominated ; it consisted of fifty- 
seven trout. 

" Did you catch all these yourself?" 

" Why, how do you s'pose I got 'em, if I didn't 
catch 'em?" 

" That ain't the question. Did you catch 'em ?" 

" Why, to be sure — I took every one of 'em my- 
self." 

Well, that seemed satisfactory; but, somehow 
or other, the discrepancy in the number of fish 
taken seemed to be rather peculiar ; so after sup- 
per the discomfited friend took a little boy one side, 
with whom his competitor had fallen in on his way 
back to the tavern, and putting a quarter of a dol- 
lar in his hand, said, 

" Did Mr. P . catch all those fish he brought 

back with his own hook and line ?" 

" Them he had on that crotched stick ? He had 
two o' them sticks." 

"Yes, yes — I know; but did he catch 'em all?" 

" Can't say ; all I can say, is, that he told me 
how, if any body asked me, I wasn't to say a word 
about them fish ; and I ain't a-goin' to do it !" 

The cat was out of the bag ! 

Now to the second story : 

" A gentleman who had carefully trained up his 
servant the way he should go, so that when his 
wife was present he might not depart from it, sent 
him with a box-ticket for the theatre to the house 
of a young lady. 

" The servant returned when the gentleman and 
his wife were at dinner. He had, of course, been 
told, in giving answers to certain kinds of messages, 
to substitute the masculine for the feminine pro- 
noun, in speaking of the lady. 

" ' Did you see him V said the gentleman, giving 
him the cue. 

" ' Yes, Sir,' replied the servant. ' He said he'd 
go with a great deal of pleasure ; and that he'd 
wait for you, Sir.' 

'"What was he doing?' asked the wife, care- 
lesslv. 



" ' He was putting on his bonnet,' was the reply. 
" It is said that there was 'fat in the fire' im- 
mediately. 

We have given, heretofore, ia the Drawer, sev- 
eral amusing mistakes which have been made, both 
by teachers and pupils, in " Common" and Sunday 
schools ; but no one of them, to our perception, is 
more " perfectly ridiculous" than the following. It 
"hails" from Ohio, in the neighborhood of that 
most beautiful of towns — Cleveland : 

"At a Sabbath-school, not many miles distant, 
only a few weeks ago, a reverend gentleman, after 
exhorting the school most piously and affectionate- 
ly for half an hour, by way of giving the pupils a 
chance to contribute their mite to the general glory 
of the occasion, requested them to sing '•Jordan.'' 

" He expected, of course, to hear the hymn com- 
mencing, 

" ' On Jordan's Btormy banks I stand, 
And cast a wistful eye 
O'er all the fair, the promis'd land, 
Where my possessions lie !' 

But the reader can judge of his surprise, when the 
scholars, ' with one accord,' struck up, 

" 'Jordan am a hard road to trabbel, I believe!'" 



The Astor Library is an institution of which any 
city or country might well be proud. Its vast 
size, its immense collection of volumes ; the im- 
posing appearance, internally and externally, of 
the edifice itself; the stillness that prevails within, 
illustrated only by the turning of leaves, or the sub- 
dued voice of a visitor explaining what he desires ; 
all these will strike the visitor most impressively. 

Stepping into a restaurant recently, to take " a 
half dozen roasted in the shell," we overheard a 
dialogue, touching the Astor Library, which made 
us laugh half the night, and yet we doubt whether 
the reader will appreciate it ; and j r et we are sure 
he would if he had heard it as we did. 

One of the speakers was from the country — a 
dry-goods' merchant: the other a metropolitan, 
who first spoke : 

" Been about much, since you've been in town ?" 

" Yes — considerable." 

" Where you been ?" 

" Well, I went to hear Burton — funny dog, he is ! 
— went to the Opery — didn't understand it — went 
to the Bowery — saw three men and one woman 
killed in five minutes, and saw 'em all, every one of 
'em, again, in the next piece, alive and kicking." 

" You used to be fond of reading. Been in to 
any of our libraries — the Society, Mercantile, or 
the Astor?" 

"Yes, all on 'em : but the Astor took me down. 
First place, it's a tremendous structer." 

" It is: it is one of the most chastest and beau- 
tiful buildings in our whole city." 

"Yes — that's so. And what a lot of books! 
Gosh!" 

" Did you examine any of 'em ?" 

"No — not much. Fact is, I was kind of'/raid 
— every thing was so still and solemn. Jest afore 
I come away, a young man — smart as a steel-trap — 
come up to me and asked, 

" ' Kin I help you to any book which you wish 
to consultuate ?' 

" He had a book in his hand at the time, with a 
boy a-hold of the other cend of it — full of picters. 
It was wrote by a man named Humboldt, Humbug, 
or some such French name. 



8G0 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



" I was dumbfounded. I didn't knew what I 
did want ; but I finally said, 

" ' Got the Life of General Tom Thumb ? a very 
leetle book, wrote by a man which his name was 
Sherman, who was Barnum's showman when he 
went all over Ew-rop !' 

" He spread out his big book fust, and then 
looked at me, very quizzical, and says he, 

" 'No, Sir, Ave have not got that book, but we 
have 'most every thing else.' 

" I told him I didn't want nothin' else at that 
time, and so I come away. 

"What it was that made 'em snicker, / don't 
know ; but one man, with a big horn-button screwed 
into his eye, dropped it by a string tied to his trow- 
sis, and laughed ; and an old bald-headed man, he 
grinned ; and a little dandy, who was sucking the 
end of a yeller stick, with yaller gloves, he squeaked 
out a laugh ; and all 'cause I asked for a little book 
in a big Library. 

" But / didn't care— what did / care ?" 



Bryant remarks of the following passage from 
a poem of Tennyson's, entitled " The Eagle," that 
perhaps no single line in our language conveys so 
forcible an idea of height as the words quoted be- 
low in italics : 

" He clasps the crag with hooked hands, 

Close to the sun, in lonely lands ; 

Ringed with the azure world he stands ; 

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls: 

He watches from his mountain walls, 

And like a thunder-bolt he falls I" 
It w a splendid line, certainly ; but to our con- 
ception, in describing the " Bird of Jove," Thomas 
Campbell has beaten Tennyson out and out, in his 
" Lines on an Eagle Seen at Oran." Is there any 
thing in the language, on the same theme, supe- 
rior to the following ? 

"Not such 

Was this proud bird : he clove the adverse storm, 

And cuff\l it with his wings. He stopp'd his flight 

As easily as the Arab reins his steed, 

And stood at pleasure 'neath heaven's zenith, like 

A lamp suspended from its azure dome: 

While underneath him the world's mountains lay 

Like mole-hills, and her streams like lucid threads: 

Then downward, faster than a falling star, 

He neared the earth, until his shape distinct, 

Was blackly shadowed on the sunny ground; 

And deeper terror hushed the wilderness, 

To hear his nearer whoop. Then up again 

He soar'd and whiiTd ! There was an air of scorn 

In all his movements, whether he threw round 

His crested head to look behind him : or 

Lay vertical, and sportively displayed 

The inside whiteness of his wing, declined 

In gyves and undulations full of grace, 

An object beautifying e'en heaven itself." 

Campbell has our suffrage ! The eagle, coming 
from the blue depths of air, falling like a falling star, 
darting downward with the sun's rays, until they 
begin to shadow his figure upon the sunny ground, 
is, to our thought, a sublime picture, "and which 
is more," a little better than Brother Tennyson's ; 
though he is u a good man, and honest as the skin 
atween his brows ;" but he must pay for his pension 
as poet-laureate, even if he has thrown a mild halo 
around battle and wholesale murder. 



It is impossible not to laugh at some of the long 
columns of Notices to Correspondents which appear 
in the popular weekly English and American news- 
papers. That they are all veritable can hardly be 



reasonably supposed. Some of them are not a lit- 
tle after the following manner : 

" Juris-Consult." — Not at all. In point of 
law, murder is where a man is murderously killed. 
It is the act of killing that -constitutes murder, in 
the eye of the law. Murder by poison is just as 
much murder as murder with a gun, provided the 
person be, by the act, murdered dead. Felo-de-se 
does not necessarily imply murder on ship-board. 
That question has long since been settled in all the 
best court-houses in the country. No man can 
commit felo-de-se upon another. Felo-de-se is in 
the class of suicides. See Kent § 8, 10, 14, 108. 

"Linguist." — You are right and your friend 
wrong. The popular national air of Yankee Doodle 
was written by an English clergyman at Bunker 
Hill, the day after the great battle now known by 
that name. It was originally a long-metre psalm 
ofliberty, but was changed into the heroic meas- 
ure at the request of General Washington. 



We are assuming, reader, that you have had 
children : that one day Death, the pale messenger, 
beckoned one of them away. If this be indeed so, 
then will " The Child's Prayer" from a recent En- 
glish journal, reach your "heart of hearts:" 

Into her chamber went 
A little girl one day ; 
And by a chair she knelt 

And thus began to pray : 
"Jesus! my eyes I close, 

Thy form I can not see ; 
If Thou art near me, Lord, 
I pray Thee speak to me." 
A still small voice 
She heard within her soul: 
"What is it, child ?— I hear; 
I hear thee — tell me all!" 

"I pray Thee, Lord," she said, 
" That Thou wilt condescend 
To tarry in my heart, 

And ever be my friend. 
The path of life is dark — 
I would not go astray: 
Oh, let me have thy hand, 
To lead me in the way!" 

" Fear not, I will not leave 
Thee, poor child ! alone." 
And then she thought she felt 
A soft hand press her own. 

" They tell me, Lord, that all 

The living pass away : 
The aged soon must die, 

And even children may. 
Oh ! let my parents live 
Till I a woman grow, 
For if they die, what can 
A little orphan do ?" 

" Fear not, my child ! 
Whatever ills may come, 
I'll not forsake thee e'er, 
Until I bring thee home !" 

Her little prayer was said, 

And from her chamber now 
She passed forth with the light 

Of Heaven upon her brow. 
" Mother, I've seen the Lord — 

His hand in mine I felt, 

And, oh ! I heard him say, 

As by my chair I knelt : 

' Fear not, my child ! 
Whatever ills may come, 
I'll not forsake thee e'er, 
Until I bring thee home !' " 

And she was received into His arms, who said. , 
" Suffer little children to come unto me !" 




Vol. XIL—No. 72.— 3 H* 



ft&jm for #&fy 



Furnished by Mr. G. Brodie, 51 Ca^aZ Street, New fork, and drawn by Yoigt 

from actual articles of Costume. 



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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



THE Mantillas and Talmas 
which Ave illustrate this month 
may be a little premature for our 
Northern, but they will be found 
to be in season for our Southern 
friends. The Talmas, Figures 1 
and 2, are very elegant. They 
are composed of taffeta with rich 
needle work and massy fringes, 
and are trimmed with moss velvet 
trimming. Figure 4 on the pre- 
ceding page is of figured velvet 
ribbon upon lace. Figure 5, op- 
posite, is of Chantilly, with a 
double flounce. 

The Bonnet Shapes, from the 
latest Parisian models, will give 
a clear idea of their forms, with- 
out the aid of verbal description. 
It will be noted, among other va- 
riations from former styles, that 
the crown slopes more forward. 
These shapes are finished in al- 
most every conceivable way, ac- 
cording to individual taste. The 
Bonnet which we illustrate be- 
low is of white taffeta, traversed 
by bands of green crape, with a 
straw and feather braid at the 
front and crown and upon the 
curtain. The ribbons are of No. 
G, green and white alternately. 
The strings are of No. 16, white 
taffeta. The ornaments are straw 
lilies of the valley and leaves, 
with blonde. 




Figure 5. — Mantilla. 





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Fig. G. — Bonnet Shape. 



Fig. 7. — Bonnet. 



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